Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effect of pentoxifylline on fracture healing: an experimental study.

OBJECTIVES This study aims to investigate the effect of pentoxifylline on fracture healing in an experimental animal model. MATERIALS AND METHODS Sixty-one male, Wistar-Albino rats were divided randomly into two groups as the pentoxifylline and control groups. Standard, closed femoral shaft fractures were established in all rats using a three-point bending device under general anesthesia. The rats were administered either pentoxifylline or isotonic NaCl injections everyday, beginning after production of fracture until they were sacrificed. Ten rats (11 rats in the pentoxifylline group on the 14(th) day) in each group were sacrificed on the 7(th), 14(th) and the 21(st) days and clinical, radiological, and histological examinations were performed to evaluate bony union. RESULTS Radiological evaluation of callus did not reveal any significant difference between the control and the pentoxifylline groups in the first, second and the third weeks. However histological callus formation was significantly superior in pentoxifylline group compared to the control group at the end of the first week and callus formation was better in the control group in the third week. CONCLUSION Pentoxifylline can be used to accelerate fracture union in early phases. Because of its hematological effects pentoxifylline accelerates the hematoma stage of fracture healing. But it inhibits fracture union in the later stages, presumably due to its anti-inflammatory effect. This should be taken into consideration during the clinical use of this drug.
Genocide and mass destruction: doing harm to others as a missing dimension in psychopathology.

Psychology and psychiatry lose much of their common-sense credibility so long as they offer no way of defining execution of and participation in mass murder and genocide as pathological. This paper proposes an expansion of the standard classification system in psychopathology to include abuses and destruction of other people, so that persons who terminate the lives of others are defined as "disturbed. "
Nanostructured thermoelectric thin films obtained by wet chemical synthesis

Nanostructured pristine lead sulfide and copper iodide semiconductor films as well as copper doped lead sulfide and iodine-enriched copper iodide layers were obtained on solid and flexible substrates via Chemical Bath Deposition (CBD) and Successive Ionic Layer Adsorption and Reaction (SILAR) methods. Crystal structures, optical, electric and thermoelectric properties of the layers have been studied. It was shown that the obtained films deposited on glass and mica substrates are smooth and continuous, have polycrystalline structures of the corresponding bulk semiconductors with grain sizes of several tens of nanometers. Investigations of the optical properties revealed, that their band gaps are characteristic for the corresponding bulk materials. All obtained semiconductor layers are p-type of conductivity. The resistivity of the lead sulphide films were reduced noticeably by means of their doping with copper. Iodination of the copper iodide films convert them into degenerate semiconductors. Investigations of the temperature dependent resistivity, the Seebeck coefficients and power factors confirmed that the obtained materials are promising for their use in thin-film solar thermoelectric generators with the aim of solar heat transforming into electricity.
Cardiovascular indices of physiological arousal in boys with fragile X syndrome.

In this study, the relationship between physiological arousal, as indexed by heart rate variability, was examined in boys with fragile X syndrome (FXS) and typically developing boys matched on chronological age. In addition, the relationship of heart activity to clinical and molecular factors in the group of boys with FXS was examined. Results suggest that boys with FXS have higher levels of heart activity during the passive phases, as reflected in shorter heart periods. This high level of heart activity appears to be due to increased sympathetic activity and reduced parasympathetic activity. Boys with FXS did not display the expected patterns of heart activity in response to phases of increasing challenge, and sympathetic and parasympathetic systems did not appear coordinated in these boys with FXS. Clinical factors may be related to neural regulation of heart activity while molecular factors do not appear to be.
Efficacy of weight loss drugs on obesity and cardiovascular risk factors in obese adolescents: a meta‐analysis of randomized controlled trials

Weight loss drugs have been developed to reduce the comorbidities associated with excess weight. We conducted a meta‐analysis of the efficacy of orlistat and sibutramine on weight, body mass index, waist circumference and cardiovascular risk factors in overweight adolescents. MEDLINE and the Cochrane Library were searched for relevant articles using MESH terms and keywords. Studies were included if they had reported quantitative estimates and standard deviations of the association between each weight loss drug and weight, with information on at least one cardiovascular risk factor. A total of eight trials (three orlistat and five sibutramine) with information on 1391 individuals was included in the present analysis. The mean decrease in weight between the intervention and control groups was 5.25 kg (95% confidence interval: 3.03–7.48) after a minimum follow‐up of 6 months. There was evidence of statistical heterogeneity between the studies (I2 = 76%) that was no longer apparent after exclusion of trials of orlistat (mean weight decrease = 5.32 kg; I2 = 38%). There was little evidence that treatment was associated with adverse effects on cardiovascular risk factors but this requires verification from future large trials with longer study follow‐up.
Outcome after Anesthesia and Orthopedic Surgery in PatientsNonagenarians and Centenarians

Background: As life expectancy increases, the number of geriatric patients coming for surgery and anesthesia will make up an increasing portion of our practice. Nonagenarians and centenarians are a rapidly growing segment of the population. A hip fracture is a significant injury for anyone, but for older people it can be catastrophic. No previous study has used a national database to compare outcomes in these patients to those of other groups undergoing femur surgical procedures. Methods: Between January 2012 and December 2013 inclusive, 47 patients (13 men and 34 women) aged 90 years and older (range, 90-107 years) with hip fracture were prospectively analyzed. Information on the preoperative condition of these patients, mode of anesthesia, drugs used, intra-operatively measured variables (e.g. hemodynamics, blood loss) and immediate post-operative variables measured in the post-anesthesia care unit (PACU), and first day of postoperative was obtained from the study protocol. Results: Prior to injury, all of the patients were living at home. The average hospital stay until the day of surgery was 6.04 ± 2.77 days. The mean fasting time was 2:56 ± 0:38 hours. All patients were submitted to spinal anesthesia. The dose ranged from 6 to 15 mg, with a mean of 10 ± 2:43 mg isobaric bupivacaine. The duration of the spinal block was 2:56 ± 0:45 hours, the time for the use of dextrinomaltose was 2:14 ± 1:07 hours, the time in the PACU was 2:01 ± 0:43 hours and the time to reintroduce normal meals were 6:33 ± 1:03 hours. Arterial hypotension occurred in 3 patients and delirium in 5 patients. There were no deaths directly related to anesthesia or surgery. Conclusion: Our prospective analysis shows that the nonagenarians and centenarians tolerated anesthesia and surgery, and can fully participate in projects accelerated postoperative recovery.
Treatment of ankylosing spondylitis with disease modifying antirheumatic drugs.

Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) is a common (prevalence 0.2-0.9%) chronic inflammatory disease that mainly affects young males and is characterised by inflammatory back pain with sacroiliitis and often arthritis of the peripheral joints. The disease can lead to deformities of the vertebral column, joints and extra-spinal structures, e.g. the eye (uveitis). Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and physical therapy seem to improve the long-term outcome of AS. However, the effect of disease modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs) is less impressive compared with other rheumatic diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA). In placebo controlled trials, sulfasalazine showed some improvement of disease activity, especially in spondyloarthropathy patients with peripheral arthritis. Altogether the number of therapeutic options for AS is limited and other drugs, such as leflunomide or thalidomide, should be explored further in placebo-controlled trials.
Produce consumption in the United States: an analysis of consumption frequencies, serving sizes, processing forms, and high-consuming population subgroups for microbial risk assessments.

A great variety of fruits and vegetables are available in the United States. These items are produced in various geographic regions by a diverse industry. Produce has been increasingly identified as a vehicle for disease outbreaks. Changes in consumption may explain this increase, but analyses of produce consumption are limited. Comprehensive assessments of the public health risks associated with produce depend on quantitative consumption data, including the population fractions and subgroups of consumers, the quantities consumed by these individuals, and the processing that occurs before consumption. Here, we provide an analysis of nationally representative consumption estimates by estimating consumption frequencies, serving sizes, and processing forms for a variety of produce commodities based on 1999 through 2006 data from "What We Eat in America," the dietary interview component of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey performed by the National Center for Health Statistics. Consumption patterns for fresh and heat-treated produce were assessed, compared with U.S. food availability estimates from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service (ERS), and combined with ERS data on temporal trends in food availability and nondomestic produce origins. To identify high-consuming population subgroups, we explored consumer habits and demographic predictors of fresh produce consumption (data available at www.foodrisk.org). Our analysis of common outbreak vehicles revealed limited temporal changes in food availability but frequent consumption as fresh commodities. In addition to providing quantitative consumption estimates for risk assessments, our data clearly show that produce consumption differs among fruits and vegetables, fresh and heat-treated foods, and demographic subgroups. These results are valuable for risk assessments and outbreak investigations and allow targeting of risk communication or interventions to those individuals at greatest risk.
Improving organic aerosol treatments in CESM/CAM5: Development, application, and evaluation

New treatments for organic aerosol (OA) formation have been added to a modified version of the CESM/CAM5 model (CESM‐NCSU). These treatments include a volatility basis set treatment for the simulation of primary and secondary organic aerosols (SOAs), a simplified treatment for organic aerosol (OA) formation from glyoxal, and a parameterization representing the impact of new particle formation (NPF) of organic gases and sulfuric acid. With the inclusion of these new treatments, the concentration of oxygenated organic aerosol increases by 0.33 µg m−3 and that of primary organic aerosol (POA) decreases by 0.22 µg m−3 on global average. The decrease in POA leads to a reduction in the OA direct effect, while the increased OOA increases the OA indirect effects. Simulations with the new OA treatments show considerable improvement in simulated SOA, oxygenated organic aerosol (OOA), organic carbon (OC), total carbon (TC), and total organic aerosol (TOA), but degradation in the performance of HOA. In simulations of the current climate period, despite some deviations from observations, CESM‐NCSU with the new OA treatments significantly improves the magnitude, spatial pattern, seasonal pattern of OC and TC, as well as, the speciation of TOA between POA and OOA. Sensitivity analysis reveals that the inclusion of the organic NPF treatment impacts the OA indirect effects by enhancing cloud properties. The simulated OA level and its impact on the climate system are most sensitive to choices in the enthalpy of vaporization and wet deposition of SVOCs, indicating that accurate representations of these parameters are critical for accurate OA‐climate simulations.
Long-term Shigella-carrier state.

ALTHOUGH long-term asymptomatic carrier state and excretion of salmonellae1 , 2 and Vibrio cholerae 3 , 4 are well documented, little is known of long-term excretion of shigella organisms. This report describes two patients, an institutionalized mentally retarded child and a prison inmate,* who were true long-term carriers of Shigella sonnei and S. flexneri 2a, respectively, after clinical infection. Case Reports Case 1. A 17-year-old boy with psychomotor retardation who had been institutionalized since 1960 at Rosewood State Hospital was ambulatory but incapable of intelligible speech. In December, 1967, he had dysentery due to Group B shigella. Antibiotics gave a swift clinical response, and stool .
The influence of spiritual growth on adolescents' initiative and responsibility for self-care.

This study investigated the relationships among health-promoting self-care behaviors, self-care self-efficacy, and self-care agency in an adolescent population. The purpose of this study was to identify the relationships among these concepts as well as the specific influence of spiritual growth, a component of health-promoting self-care behaviors, on self-care agency. The instruments used in this study included the Health-Promoting Lifestyle Profile II (HPLPII) scale, the Self-Rated Abilities for Health Practices (SRAHP) scale, and the Exercise of Self-Care Agency (ESCA) scale. A canonical correlation identified a significant variate having a correlation of . 95 (p < .000) accounting for 90% of the variance explained. The loading variables included the HPLPII subscale of spiritual growth and the ESCA subscale of initiative and responsibility. The study results indicate that spiritual growth is significantly related to an adolescent's initiative and responsibility for self-care.
Skeletal Muscle Kallikrein: Potential Role in Metabolic Regulation

Skeletal muscle glucose metabolism appears to be regulated by locally derived factors as well as by systemically circulating hormones. Local factors may be particularly important during exercise, when substrate demand can increase rapidly. Numerous studies in perfused limbs suggest that the kallikrein-kinin system may participate in the regulation of substrate delivery and utilization by skeletal muscle. Evidence also suggests that kinins mediate the increase in insulin sensitivity after administration of converting enzyme inhibitors. Tissue kallikrein has been isolated and purified from rat skeletal muscles, and its level is highest in muscle with high oxidative activity. In other tissues, kallikrein synthesis is under the influence of insulin. It has not been possible to demonstrate effects of kallikrein or kinins on glucose metabolism in isolated skeletal muscle or cardiocytes. Therefore modulation of glucose metabolism by kallikrein or kinins may only be observed in intact perfused tissues or organs.
Phenotypic heterogeneity can enhance rare‐cell survival in ‘stress‐sensitive’ yeast populations

Individual cells within isogenic microbial cultures exhibit phenotypic heterogeneity, an issue that is attracting intense interest. Heterogeneity could confer benefits, in generating variant subpopulations that may be better equipped to persist during perturbation. We tested this hypothesis by comparing the survival of wild‐type Saccharomyces cerevisiae with that of mutants which are considered stress‐sensitive but which, we demonstrate, also have increased heterogeneity. The mutants (e.g. vma3, ctr1, sod1) exhibited the anticipated sensitivities to intermediate doses of nickel, copper, alkaline pH, menadione or paraquat. However, enhanced heterogeneity meant that the resistances of individual mutant cells spanned a broad range, and at high stress occasional‐cell survival in most of these populations overtook that of the wild type. Green fluorescent protein (GFP) reporter studies showed that this heterogeneity‐dependent advantage was not related to perturbation of buffered gene expression. Deletion strain screens combined with other approaches revealed that vacuolar alkalinization resulting from loss of Vma‐dependent vacuolar H+‐ATPase activity was not the cause of vma mutants' net stress sensitivities. An alternative Vma‐dependent resistance mechanism was found to suppress an influence of variable vacuolar pH on the metal resistances of individual wild‐type cells. In addition to revealing new mechanisms of heterogeneity generation, the results demonstrate experimentally a benefit under adverse conditions that arises specifically from heterogeneity, and in populations conventionally considered to be disadvantaged.
The Effect of Using Online Discussion Forums on Students' Learning.

This study was conducted to investigate the effect of using online discussion forums (ODFs) on students’ learning, particularly on their achievement. In order to achieve this, a quasi-experimental design was implemented during one academic semester at one of the leading universities in Saudi Arabia. The sample of this study involved undergraduate students (N = 138) divided into two groups: the experimental group involved 67 students and the control group involved 71 students. The findings indicate that using ODFs is likely to lead students to gain a better achievement. In addition, statistical analyses reveal significant and positive relationships between student participation in ODFs and their final course mark, but no significant relationships between their participation in ODFs and grade point average. The social interaction and the collaborative nature in ODFs environments as well as the active learning in blended learning courses were likely to be the possible reasons for the increased achievement when students utilise ODFs to enhance traditional learning. However, contextual dimensions need to be given a great deal of attention in order to find satisfactory results.
All-Digital Time-Mode Direct-Form All-Pole Biquadratic Filter Realization

In this brief, the design of time-mode signal processing (TMSP) circuits having an all-digital advantage is introduced and experimental data covering all necessary aspects of operation such as frequency response are presented. TMSP building blocks were used to design two second-order filter prototypes having Butterworth and Chebychev I responses demonstrating peak signal-to-noise-plus-distortion values of 47 dB and 37 dB, respectively, making it a good candidate for data conversion applications.
The influence of food and temperature on population density of wild boar Sus scrofa in the Thurgau (Switzerland)

During the last two decades, populations of the wild boar Sus scrofa in Europe have increased considerably and the species has spread into new areas over the entire continent. Because of the animals' impact on agriculture, livestock and biodiversity, and the resulting necessity of realistic management practices, we were interested in the key environmental factors responsible for this remarkable development. The study was based on data from the canton Thurgau, a region in north-eastern Switzerland. We used data on damage and hunting success to calculate a population density index and related it to eight variables describing ecological conditions, demography and hunting pressure (measured by the number of hunters) over a 25-year period. The analysis shows that the population increase correlates with higher than average winter and spring temperatures and improved food supply through more mast years and an increase in the area of maize cultivation. While favourable temperature conditions mainly reduce juvenile mortality, enhanced food availability is likely to boost reproductive success through younger age at first reproduction, larger litter size and earlier onset of oestrus within a season. Given this link between food and reproduction, supplemental feeding, a management practice recommended and very common all over Europe, should be reconsidered.
The anti‐tumor effect of recombinant interferon alpha or gamma is influenced by tumor location

The in vivo anti‐tumor effects of a recombinant human hybrid interferon alpha, rHulFN‐αA/D, and recombinant murine interferon gamma (rMulFN‐γ) were evaluated against experimental hepatic metastases and s.c. tumor growth of the murine reticulum cell sarcoma M5076. The 2 interferons were equally active in preventing experimental hepatic metastases. However, the interferons differed in their relative ability to influence the growth of the same tumor when treatment was initiated following injection of tumor cells. Greater efficacy was obtained in the treatment of metastatic foci in the liver with rHulFN‐αA/D, while rMulFN‐γ was more active in the therapy of an s.c. growing M5076 tumor. These results demonstrate that the same tumor growing at different sites can have different relative sensitivities to IFN‐α and IFN‐γ.
Detection of schistosomiasis in an area directly affected by the São Francisco River large-scale water transposition project in the Northeast of Brazil.

INTRODUCTION The development of the São Francisco River Integration Project [Projeto de Integração do Rio São Francisco (PISF)] in the State of Ceará, Brazil, has resulted in environmental and socioeconomic changes with potential risks to public health. We aimed to determine the presence of Schistosoma mansoni infections in schoolchildren (aged 7-14 years) and workers from the construction site in an area under the direct influence of the PISF in the municipality of Brejo Santo-CE, to aid in the prevention and control of schistosomiasis. METHODS We conducted a cross-sectional study using two S. mansoni-detection methods: detection of S. mansoni eggs by the Kato-Katz parasitological method in stool samples (assessed in triplicate for each sample) and S. mansoni circulating cathodic antigen by the point-of-care immunochromatographic rapid test (POC-CCA) in urine. RESULTS In general, the positivity rates for S. mansoni detection were 1.9% (2/106) among schoolchildren and 2.9% (4/138) among workers. No child had evidence of S. mansoni eggs in their stools; 1.9% tested positive by the POC-CCA method. Among workers, two (1.4%) tested positive by the Kato-Katz test and three (2.2%) by the POC-CCA test. If the POC-CCA test results that were scored as traces were considered negative, then the positivity rates dropped to 0.9% and 0.7% for schoolchildren and workers, respectively. CONCLUSIONS The active transmission of schistosomiasis in a region covered by the PISF was recognized, reinforcing the necessity to consolidate surveillance and control actions, as well as structural sanitation measures to reverse the social determinants of the disease.