Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Comparative trial of four antibiotic combinations for perforated appendicitis in children.

OBJECTIVE To compare the therapeutic efficacy of four antibiotic regimens: penicillin, tobramycin, and clindamycin; penicillin, tobramycin, and ornidazole; piperacillin alone; and ceftriaxone and ornidazole in the treatment of children operated on for perforated appendicitis. DESIGN Prospective randomised study. SETTING Teaching hospital, Turkey. SUBJECTS 200 patients aged between 1 and 16 years treated from December 1991 to December 1995 who were randomly assigned to one of four groups each consisting of 50 patients. INTERVENTIONS Preoperative antibiotics given intravenously, peritoneal drainage by Penrose drains without irrigation, appendicectomy with the inversion of the stump by a purse string, taking peritoneal swabs, and primary skin closure. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Comparability of the groups, duration of fever, leucocytosis, antibiotic treatment, stay in hospital, nasogastric intubation, and drainage, as well as results of cultures and complications. RESULTS There were no significant differences between the groups for any variable studied. The predominant bacterial species were Escherichia coli, Klebsiella spp, Pseudomonas spp, Fusobacteria, and Peptostreptococci which were appropriately covered by all the antibiotic regimens. Fourteen patients had complications including wound infections (n = 10), prolonged ileus (n = 2) and intra-abdominal abscess (n = 2) all of which were treated conservatively. There was no mortality and no major complications. All regimens had the same clinical and bacteriological efficacy. CONCLUSION There is no gold standard for antimicrobial chemotherapy in perforated appendicitis. Different antibiotic combinations or a single broad spectrum antibiotic, which include both aerobic and anaerobic coverage, can safely be used in children with perforated appendicitis.
Of Minds and Embryos: Left-Right Asymmetry and the Serotonergic Controls of Pre-Neural Morphogenesis

Serotonin is a clinically important neurotransmitter regulating diverse aspects of cognitive function, sleep, mood, and appetite. Increasingly, it is becoming appreciated that serotonin signaling among non-neuronal cells is a novel patterning mechanism existing throughout diverse phyla. Here, we review the evidence implicating serotonergic signaling in embryonic morphogenesis, including gastrulation, craniofacial and bone patterning, and the generation of left-right asymmetry. We propose two models suggesting movement of neurotransmitter molecules as a novel mechanism for how bioelectrical events may couple to downstream signaling cascades and gene activation networks. The discovery of serotonin-dependent patterning events occurring long before the development of the nervous system opens exciting new avenues for future research in evolutionary, developmental, and clinical biology.
Use of site-directed mutagenesis to probe structure-function relationships of alpha-toxin from Clostridium perfringens

The NH2-terminal domain of the alpha-toxin of Clostridium perfringens is highly homologous to the complete phospholipase C from Bacillus cereus (PC-PLC), for which a high-resolution crystal structure is available. This structural information was used as the basis of a site-directed mutagenesis strategy in which critical amino acid residues of alpha-toxin involved in zinc binding, interaction with substrate, or catalysis were replaced. Biochemical studies with the corresponding toxin variants indicate that there is probably a single active site endowed with lecithinase, sphingomyelinase, and hemolytic activities. By using a highly purified variant in which the catalytic aspartate residue at position 56 was replaced by asparagine, it was shown that phospholipase activity was essential for lethality in vivo and for mediating platelet aggregation in vitro.
Pilot spacing in orthogonal frequency division multiplexing systems on practical channels

Performances of two different channel interpolation methods to be used with Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (FDM) systems are investigated. The considered scheme uses constant pilot frequencies for channel response estimation. The interpolation techniques are piecewise-constant and piecewise-linear methods which due to their inherent simplicity are straightforward to implement. The results are given as error probability vs. pilot separation for a channel with exponential type power-delay profile and M-ary quadrature amplitude submodulation with M=4, 16 and 64.
The incidence and prevalence of orphanhood associated with parental HIV infection: a population-based study in Rakai, Uganda

Background:There are limited empirical data on the prevalence and incidence of orphanhood due to parental HIV infection. Objective:To assess the prevalence and incidence of orphanhood, and the population attributable fraction (PAF) of incident orphanhood associated with parental HIV infection, in a rural population with a 14.8% adult HIV prevalence. Methods:The data are derived from a community cohort in Rakai District, Uganda. Census data were collected on all resident members in 10 657 households, including survival of parents of resident children in 1996/1997. Consenting adults were interviewed, provided blood for HIV testing, and were followed up 10 months later to determine parental death and incident orphanhood. The incidence rate ratio (IRR) of orphanhood associated with parental HIV-infection was estimated by Poisson multivariate regression. Results:A total of 22 712 children aged 0–14 years were enumerated in 1996/1997. The overall prevalence of orphanhood was higher among children of HIV-infected parents (22.7%) compared with children of uninfected parents, 7.9%. The annual incidence of orphanhood was 8.2% if at least one parent was HIV positive, and 0.5% if both parents were HIV negative (adjusted IRR = 18.93). Older age of children, and older maternal age were significantly associated with an increased risk of orphanhood. The PAF of incident orphanhood due to parental HIV infection was 37.3%, and was highest among younger children (adjusted PAF = 50.6% for 0–4 year olds), and children with younger mothers aged < 25 years (adjusted PAF = 75.7%). Conclusions:Parental HIV infection markedly increased the incidence of orphanhood, especially among younger children and the children of younger mothers.
News and newsworthiness: A commentary

Abstract This commentary argues that the concept of news is a primitive term, one whose existence is not questioned, and that assumptions about the news need to be identified and questioned. One common assumption is that news is composed of things that are newsworthy, i. e. , that news and newsworthiness are essentially the same, and that the prominence with which an event is covered in the news is an indicator of newsworthiness. Shoemaker's recent research with Akiba Cohen shows that news and newsworthiness are in fact not the same. News is a social construct, a thing, a commodity, whereas newsworthiness is a cognitive construct, a mental judgment. Newsworthiness is not a good predictor of which events get into the newspaper and how they are covered. Newsworthiness is only one of a vast array of factors that influence what becomes the news and how prominently events are covered.
Climatic Change in Tasmania Inferred from a 1089-Year Tree-Ring Chronology of Huon Pine

A climatically sensitive huon pine tree-ring chronology from western Tasmania allows inferences about Austral summer temperature change since A.D. 900. Since 1965, huon pine growth has been unusually rapid for trees that are in many cases over 700 years old. This growth increase correlates well with recent anomalous warming in Tasmania on the basis of instrumental records and supports claims that a climatic change, perhaps influenced by greenhouse gases, is in progress. Although this temperature increase exceeds any that are inferred to have occurred during the past 1089 years at this location, it has not yet clearly emerged from the natural background variability of climate in this part of the Southern Hemisphere.
Trace maps of general substitutional sequences.

It is shown that for arbitrary {ital n}, there exists a trace map for any {ital n}-letter substitutional sequence. Trace maps are explicitly obtained for the well-known circle and Rudin-Shapiro sequences which can be defined by means of substitution rules on three and four letters, respectively. The properties of the two trace maps and their consequences for various spectral properties are briefly discussed.
Learning String Alignments for Entity Aliases

Entity resolution systems often rely on string similarity between entity mention spellings. These string similarity models are potentially more effective when they are learned for a particular domain. For example, “John A. Smith” is more similar to “John Austin Smith” than “John B. Smith” for Western names and “ABC” is more similar to “ABC Co.” than “CBC” for business names. However, an unweighted edit distance model would make wrong predictions in both of these cases. In this paper, we train neural network models of string similarity to predict how likely two mentions are to refer to the same entity based solely on the spelling of the mentions. Our approach uses recurrent neural network models to learn embedded representations of the characters of a string, and a learned model to score the alignment of the embedded representations of a pair of strings. We describe an approach using convolutional neural networks to score the alignment of the embedded representation. We compare our approach and several baseline approaches on large datasets and find that the convolutional alignment model significantly outperforms the next best baseline.
A comparison of rate control and rhythm control in patients with atrial fibrillation.

BACKGROUND There are two approaches to the treatment of atrial fibrillation: one is cardioversion and treatment with antiarrhythmic drugs to maintain sinus rhythm, and the other is the use of rate-controlling drugs, allowing atrial fibrillation to persist. In both approaches, the use of anticoagulant drugs is recommended. METHODS We conducted a randomized, multicenter comparison of these two treatment strategies in patients with atrial fibrillation and a high risk of stroke or death. The primary end point was overall mortality. RESULTS A total of 4060 patients (mean [+/-SD] age, 69.7+/-9.0 years) were enrolled in the study; 70.8 percent had a history of hypertension, and 38.2 percent had coronary artery disease. Of the 3311 patients with echocardiograms, the left atrium was enlarged in 64.7 percent and left ventricular function was depressed in 26.0 percent. There were 356 deaths among the patients assigned to rhythm-control therapy and 310 deaths among those assigned to rate-control therapy (mortality at five years, 23.8 percent and 21.3 percent, respectively; hazard ratio, 1.15 [95 percent confidence interval, 0.99 to 1.34]; P=0.08). More patients in the rhythm-control group than in the rate-control group were hospitalized, and there were more adverse drug effects in the rhythm-control group as well. In both groups, the majority of strokes occurred after warfarin had been stopped or when the international normalized ratio was subtherapeutic. CONCLUSIONS Management of atrial fibrillation with the rhythm-control strategy offers no survival advantage over the rate-control strategy, and there are potential advantages, such as a lower risk of adverse drug effects, with the rate-control strategy. Anticoagulation should be continued in this group of high-risk patients.
The effect of combined thrombolysis with rtPA and tirofiban on ischemic brain lesions

To determine the effect of systemic thrombolysis with low-dose recombinant tissue plasminogen activator (rtPA) and the body-weight adjusted platelet GPIIb/IIIa receptor antagonist tirofiban, the authors performed lesion volumetry on magnetic resonance perfusion and diffusion images recorded before thrombolysis and on T2-weighted magnetic resonance images on day 8. Treatment with rtPA and tirofiban (n = 13) resulted in a 50% lesion reduction (p < 0.03), while lesion reduction was less in rtPA treatment (n = 16) and absent in nontreated patients (n = 18).
Microbial Transglutaminase Modifies Gel Properties of Porcine Collagen

We studied the gel properties of porcine collagen with microbial transglutaminase (MTGase) as a catalyst. A creep meter was used to measure the mechanical properties of gel. The results showed samples with high concentration of MTGase gelled faster than those with a low concentration of MTGase. The gel strength increased with incubation time and the peaks of breaking strength for 0.1, 0.2 and 0.5% MTGase were obtained at 40, 20 and 10 min incubation time, respectively. According to SDS-PAGE, the MTGase was successfully created a collagen polymer with an increase in molecular weight, whereas no change in formation was shown without MTGase. The sample with 0.5% MTGase began to polymerize after 10 or 20 min incubation at 50°C, and complete polymerization occurred after 40-60 min incubation. Scanning electron microscopic analysis revealed that the gel of porcine collagen in the presence of MTGase produced an extremely well cross-linked network. The differential scanning calorimetric analysis showed the peak thermal transition of porcine collagen gel was at 36°C, and that with MTGase no peak was detected during heating from 20 to 120°C. The melting point of porcine collagen gel could be controlled by MTGase concentration, incubation temperature and protein concentration. Knowledge of the structural and physicochemical properties of porcine collagen gel catalyzed with MTGase could facilitate their use in food products. (Asian-Aust. J. Anim. Sci. 2003. Vol 16, No. 2 : 269-276)
Ultra-high-strength Bainitic Steels

The authors acknowledge financial support from the Spanish Ministerio de Educacion y Ciencia for the financial support in the form of Ramon y Cajal contracts (RyC 2002 and 2004 respectively). Some of this work was carried out under the auspices of an EPSRC/MOD sponsored project on bainitic steels at the University of Cambridge; we are extremely grateful for this support over a period of three years. The authors are extremely grateful to Prof. H. K. D.
Energy-Preserving Methods and Torque Computation From Energy Balance in Electrical Machine Simulations

The finite-element analysis for the simulation of magnetic fields in electrical machines leads to an index-1 differential-algebraic equation (DAE) (as opposed to a conventional ordinary differential equation), because the electrical conductivity can be zero in certain regions. First, we construct a DAE-compatible time integration scheme which is energy-balanced, meaning that in a linear system, the input stored and lost powers sum exactly to zero. Second, we use a method based on the energy balance to compute torque. We show that the energy balance method approaches the virtual work principle applied at remeshing layer, as the time step is refined. A similar result also holds if the rotation of the rotor is implemented by Nitsche's method, which is an instance of the so-called mortar methods.
Expression of the poly(A)-binding protein during development of Xenopus laevis

We have isolated and sequenced cDNA clones encoding the poly(A)-binding protein of Xenopus laevis oocytes. Polyclonal antiserum was raised against a fusion protein encoding 185 amino acids of the Xenopus poly(A)-binding protein. This antiserum localizes the poly(A)-binding protein to subcellular sites associated with protein synthesis; in the retina, immunoreactive protein is detected in the synthetically active inner segment of the photoreceptor but not in the transductive outer segment. Transcripts encoding the poly(A)-binding protein are present in oocytes, although no protein is detected on protein blots. In contrast, the levels of both transcripts and protein increase in development, which correlates with the observed increase in total poly(A) during Xenopus embryogenesis (N. Sagata, K. Shiokawa, and K. Yamana, Dev. Biol. 77:431-448, 1980).
Leveraging Tacit Organizational Knowledge

Although tacit knowledge constitutes the major part of what we know, it is difficult for organizations to fully benefit from this valuable asset. This is because tacit knowledge is inherently elusive, and in order to capture, store, and disseminate it, it is argued that it first has to be made explicit. However, such a process is difficult, and often fails due to three reasons: (1) we are not necessarily aware of our tacit knowledge, (2) on a personal level, we do not need to make it explicit in order to use it, and (3) we may not want to give up a valuable competitive advantage. During an empirical study of recommender system usage, it was noticed how such technology could be used to circumvent these problems, and make tacit knowledge, in the form of our professional interests, available to the organization as a whole. Using Polanyi's theories, it will be shown how intranet documents can be used to make tacit knowledge tangible without becoming explicit, suggesting that tacitly expressed entities are not necessarily beyond the reach of information technology.
Matching the Implant to the Breast: A Systematic Review of Implant Size Selection Systems for Breast Augmentation

Background: For primary breast augmentation, several implant selection systems have been described to guide the surgeon with choosing from a variety of manufactured implant dimensions and properties. Controversy exists regarding the most efficacious method of selecting an appropriate implant size that best matches the patient’s breast. Methods: The goal of this systematic review was to provide a comprehensive list of documented implant size selection systems, and to critically evaluate them. Implant size selection systems were grouped into categories based on selection principles. Articles were evaluated based on reported outcome measures and methodologic quality. Results: Thirty-three implant size selection systems were included in the final analysis. Only 12 percent of articles (four of 33) reported clinical outcomes that could be compared to accepted literature values or industry standards. Articles that described tissue-based planning systems, which use clinical guidelines to determine the optimal patient-specific implant dimensions, were of highest methodologic quality using the Methodological Index for Non-Randomised Studies scale, when compared to systems that used breast “dimensional” analyses that stress tissues to the desire of the patient and/or surgeon, and compared to systems that did not use breast measurement (means ± SD, 6.0 ± 1.4, 1.4 ± 2.3, and 0.0 ± 0.0, respectively). Conclusions: There is some evidence to support tissue-based planning as a superior approach to implant size selection planning; studies that used tissue-based planning reported lower reoperation rates compared with industry standards and accepted literature values. The authors offer several suggestions on how to improve the methodologic quality of future studies describing new implant selection systems.
Factors predicting intraocular pressure control after phacoemulsification in angle-closure glaucoma.

OBJECTIVES To investigate whether the presence of glaucomatous optic neuropathy affects the reduction of intraocular pressure (IOP) after phacoemulsification in postiridotomy eyes with primary narrow angles, and to evaluate the preoperative factors associated with postoperative IOP control in primary angle-closure glaucoma (PACG). METHODS Patients with PACG undergoing phacoemulsification were prospectively enrolled and received a complete ophthalmic examination. Diurnal IOP was measured 1 day before and 3 months after surgery. For comparison, patients with primary angle closure or angle closure suspect (PAC/S) undergoing phacoemulsification were also enrolled. RESULTS Postoperative reduction of IOP was significant in the PACG group (n = 29; P = .001) and in the PAC/S group (n = 28; P<.001), with no significant difference between the groups. The number of glaucoma medications used decreased in both groups (both, P<.001). Multiple regression analysis for the PACG group showed that there was a positive correlation between postoperative IOP and preoperative factors of mean IOP (P = .001) and the anterior chamber depth (P = .03). CONCLUSIONS The reduction of IOP 3 months after phacoemulsification is significant and is similar in extent in postiridotomy eyes with and without glaucomatous optic neuropathy. A higher postoperative IOP in PACG is associated with a higher preoperative IOP and with a deeper preoperative anterior chamber depth.
An overview of the association between allergy and cancer

Numerous epidemiological studies have evaluated some aspect of the association between a history of allergy and cancer occurrence. In this article, an overview of the epidemiological evidence is presented with a discussion of a number of methodological issues important in this area of study. Literature searches were conducted using the MEDLINE database from 1966 through to August 2005 to identify articles that explored a personal history of allergic disorders as a risk factor for cancer. Although it is difficult to draw conclusions between allergy and cancer at many sites because of insufficient evidence or a lack of consistency both within and among studies completed to date, strong inverse associations have been reported for pancreatic cancer and glioma, whereas lung cancer was positively associated with asthma. Additional studies are needed to confirm these finding and to address the limitations of previous studies, including the validity and reliability of exposure measures and control for confounding. Further, large prospective studies using cancer incidence would be particularly useful, including studies using biological markers of allergic status to reduce potential misclassification and to confirm the results of previous studies based on self‐report. There is also a need for further basic research to clarify a potential mechanism, should an association exist. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
The impact of polyadenylation signals on plasmid nuclease‐resistance and transgene expression

Efficient delivery and expression of plasmids (pDNA) is a major concern in gene therapy and DNA vaccination using non‐viral vectors. Besides the use of adjuvants, the pDNA vector itself can be designed to maximize survival in nuclease‐rich environments. Homopurine‐rich tracts in polyadenylation sequences have been previously shown to be especially important in pDNA resistance.
Simulation of Metasurfaces in Finite Difference Techniques

We introduce a rigorous and simple method for analyzing metasurfaces, modeled as zero-thickness electromagnetic sheets, in finite difference (FD) techniques. The method consists in describing the spatial discontinuity induced by the metasurface as a virtual structure, located between nodal rows of the Yee grid, using an FD version of generalized sheet transition conditions. In contrast to previously reported approaches, the proposed method can handle sheets exhibiting both electric and magnetic discontinuities, and represents therefore a fundamental contribution to computational electromagnetics. It is presented here in the framework of the FD frequency domain method, but also applies to the FD time domain scheme. The theory is supported by five illustrative examples.