Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Schistosoma mansoni Hemozoin Modulates Alternative Activation of Macrophages via Specific Suppression of Retnla Expression and Secretion

ABSTRACT The trematode Schistosoma mansoni is one of the etiological agents of schistosomiasis, a key neglected tropical disease responsible for an estimated annual loss of 70 million disability-adjusted life years. Hematophagy represents the primary nutrient acquisition pathway of this parasite, but digestion of hemoglobin also liberates toxic heme. Schistosomes detoxify heme via crystallization into hemozoin, which is subsequently regurgitated into the host's circulation. Here we demonstrate that during experimental schistosomiasis, hemozoin accumulating in the mouse liver is taken up by phagocytes at a time coincident with the development of the egg-induced T-helper 2 (Th2) granulomatous immune response. Furthermore, the uptake of hemozoin also coincides with the hepatic expression of markers of alternative macrophage activation. Alternatively activated macrophages are a key effector cell population associated with protection against schistosomiasis, making hemozoin well placed to play an important immunomodulatory role in this disease. To systematically explore this hypothesis, S. mansoni hemozoin was purified and added to in vitro bone marrow-derived macrophage cultures concurrently exposed to cytokines chosen to reflect the shifting state of macrophage activation in vivo. Macrophages undergoing interleukin-4 (IL-4)-induced alternative activation in the presence of hemozoin developed a phenotype specifically lacking in Retnla, a characteristic alternatively activated macrophage product associated with regulation of Th2 inflammatory responses. As such, in addition to its important detoxification role during hematophagy, we propose that schistosome hemozoin also provides a potent immunomodulatory function in the coevolved network of host-parasite relationships during schistosomiasis.
Adult Sertoli Cells Are Not Terminally Differentiated in the Djungarian Hamster: Effect of FSH on Proliferation and Junction Protein Organization1

Abstract Sertoli cell number is considered to be stable and unmodifiable by hormones after puberty in mammals, although recent data using the seasonal breeding adult Djungarian hamster (Phodopus sungorus) model challenged this assertion by demonstrating a decrease in Sertoli cell number after gonadotropin depletion and a return to control levels following 7 days of FSH replacement. The present study aimed to determine whether adult Sertoli cells are terminally differentiated using known characteristics of cellular differentiation, including proliferation, junction protein localization, and expression of particular maturational markers, in the Djungarian hamster model. Adult long-day (LD) photoperiod (16L:8D) hamsters were exposed to short-day (SD) photoperiod (8L:16D) for 11 wk to suppress gonadotropins and then received exogenous FSH for up to 10 days. Sertoli cell proliferation was assessed by immunofluorescence by the colocalization of GATA4 and proliferating cell nuclear antigen and quantified by stereology. Markers of Sertoli cell maturation (immature, cytokeratin 18 [KRT18]; mature, GATA1) and junction proteins (actin, espin, claudin 11 [CLDN11], and tight junction protein 1 [TJP1, also known as ZO-1]) also were localized using confocal immunofluorescence. In response to FSH treatment, proliferation was upregulated within 2 days compared with SD controls (90% vs. 0.2%, P < 0.001) and declined gradually thereafter. In LD hamsters, junction proteins colocalized at the basal aspect of Sertoli cells, consistent with inter-Sertoli cell junctions, and were disordered within the Sertoli cell cytoplasm in SD animals. Exogenous FSH treatment promptly restored localization of these junction markers to the LD phenotype. Protein markers of maturity remain consistent with those of adult Sertoli cells. It is concluded that adult Sertoli cells are not terminally differentiated in the Djungarian hamster and that FSH plays an important role in governing the differentiation process. It is proposed that Sertoli cells can enter a transitional state, exhibiting features common to both undifferentiated and differentiated Sertoli cells.
QUANTIFYING PERIODIC, STOCHASTIC, AND CATASTROPHIC ENVIRONMENTAL VARIATION

Environmental variation plays a central role in regulating processes at all levels of ecological organization. Environmental data (e.g., temperature, rainfall, stream discharge, water chemistry) are typically easy to collect in large quantity, a requirement for many data-hungry time series tools. Unfortunately, these data are very rarely used effectively in ecology. Here we address this problem by outlining a suite of tools that can be used to quantify periodic, stochastic, and catastrophic variation in environmental conditions. We illustrate the application of these tools using long-term records of average daily discharge in 105 streams and rivers maintained by the U.S. Geological Survey on the NWIS (National Water Information System) web site. Specifically, we apply Fourier analysis to estimate the periodic (seasonal) and stochastic (interannual) components of variation in discharge. We then estimate the temporal autocorrelation structure of stochastic variation (i.e., noise color) in daily flows for ea.
FREE AMINO ACIDS OF CORD PLASMA AS COMPARED WITH MATERNAL PLASMA DURING PREGNANCY.

The free amino acids of cord blood as compared with maternal blood taken within a few minutes were studied by the use of ion-exchange column chromatography. Twenty-two paired plasma samples from immature, premature, and full-term caesarean sections and vaginal deliveries were studied. The material also included three cases of advanced maternal diabetes. In addition bloods from four healthy women after parturition were also analyzed to compare with blood obtained at the end of pregnancy. The results indicate that (a) all the ratios of free amino acids of cord to maternal blood are above 1 and mostly about 2, (b) the discrepancy is brought about by decreased maternal and increased fetal values, (c) the ratios obtained from blood taken at the second trimester of pregnancy are somewhat higher than those of full-term, (d) an active transport mechanism responsible for the transfer of amino acids against a concentration gradient is in operation probably during the entire pregnancy, (e) essential and nonessential amino acids are transported across the placental barrier indiscriminately, and (f) maternal diabetes and the route of delivery do not affect the concentrations of free amino acids on both the fetal and maternal side.
Efficacy of Various Spatial Visualization Implementation Approaches in a First-year Engineering Projects Course

Spatial visualization (SV) skills are both learnable and linked to student success in engineering. Our work was motivated by previous research revealing a gender gap in SV skills that favors male engineering students. A multi-modal SV workshop intervention was incorporated into a first-year engineering projects course with the goal of fostering SV skills for all students. An analysis of SV skills, as measured by the Purdue Spatial Visualization Test (PSVT), preceding and following workshop participation is presented. SV workshop results were studied for five undergraduate engineering student demographic subsets: 1) gender, 2) first-generation status, 3) nationality, 4) socioeconomic status, and 5) underrepresented minority status. Both female and international students were found to arrive at engineering college with less-developed SV skills. Since both populations are rapidly growing in the nation’s engineering colleges, closing the SV performance gap is compelling. The multi-modal SV workshop provided substantial support to all students, with a median 23% performance gain. And, workshop attendees improved their PSVT passing rate (achieving a 20-point threshold) from 0% to 92%. Results demonstrate that this replicable multi-modal SV workshop can close SV skills performance gaps among all engineering students. Keywords—student retention; gender gap; hands-on; spatial visualization; first-year engineering
Acceleration patterns of the head and pelvis when walking are associated with risk of falling in community-dwelling older people.

BACKGROUND A large proportion of falls in older people occur when walking, however the mechanisms underlying impaired balance during gait are poorly understood. This study evaluated acceleration patterns of the head and pelvis when walking on a level and an unpredictably irregular surface to determine whether older people at risk of falling demonstrate an impaired ability to stabilize the body under challenging conditions. METHODS One hundred community-dwelling older people aged between 75 and 93 years were evaluated for their risk of falling using a range of physiological tests previously found to be accurate predictors of falling in prospective studies. Temporo-spatial gait parameters and acceleration patterns at the head and pelvis were then measured in three orthogonal planes while subjects walked on a flat corridor and an unpredictably irregular walkway. Harmonic ratios of head and pelvis accelerations in each plane were calculated to provide an indicator of stability. RESULTS Subjects with a high risk of falling exhibited reduced temporo-spatial gait parameters and increased step timing variability. Harmonic ratios of acceleration patterns were reduced at the head and pelvis in the vertical and antero-posterior directions. These differences were particularly evident when walking on the irregular surface. CONCLUSION Older people at risk of falling adopt a more conservative basic walking pattern, but this does not ensure that the movements of the head and pelvis are stable. The irregular pelvis and head accelerations evident in the high risk group suggests that these subjects may have difficulty controlling trunk motion and maintaining a stable visual field when walking, particularly on irregular terrain.
Edible mushroom-related poisoning

Background: The American Association of Poison Control Center (AAPCC) shows that in 2012 there were 0.3% of human exposures involving mushrooms. Only 17% of 6600 cases were then identified by the species. The present retrospective study was designed to identify the epidemiology of mushroom poisoning in adults admitted to Krakow’s Department of Clinical Toxicology (DCT) from 2002 to 2009. Materials and Methods: This study was conducted retrospectively after examining the files of 457 adult patients with wild mushroom poisoning. Mycological analysis was made and the species of the poisoning-inducing mushroom was determined. Furthermore, the circumstances related to the mushroom gathering, transport, storage, preparation, and consumption have been analyzed. Results: The analysis revealed that in 400 (87.53%) out of 457 cases, the clinical symptoms were caused by ingestion of identified edible mushroom species. The main reason for edible mushroom poisoning is associated with their incorrect processing after harvest. The analysis of the circumstances of mushroom collection, transport, and storage shows that the largest percentage of poisoning was connected with long-term storage of mushroom dishes, collecting, and storing them in plastic bags, and long storage of mushrooms. Conclusion: Based on spore analysis of the gastric content, edible mushrooms were responsible for the great majority of mushroom poisoning cases admitted to the DCT. The toxicity of edible mushroom is associated with proceeding with them during collection, transport, and storage. The medical history should be supplemented by questions concerning these circumstances. The identification of the mushroom by a mycologist is highly desirable.
A Generic Probabilistic Graphical Model for Region-based Scene Interpretation

The task of semantic scene interpretation is to label the regions of an image and their relations into meaningful classes. Such task is a key ingredient to many computer vision applications, including object recognition, 3D reconstruction and robotic perception. The images of man-made scenes exhibit strong contextual dependencies in the form of the spatial and hierarchical structures. Modeling these structures is central for such interpretation task. Graphical models provide a consistent framework for the statistical modeling. Bayesian networks and random fields are two popular types of the graphical models, which are frequently used for capturing such contextual information. Our key contribution is the development of a generic statistical graphical model for scene interpretation, which seamlessly integrates different types of the image features, and the spatial structural information and the hierarchical structural information defined over the multi-scale image segmentation. It unifies the ideas of existing approaches, e. g. conditional random field and Bayesian network, which has a clear statistical interpretation as the MAP estimate of a multi-class labeling problem. We demonstrate experimentally the application of the proposed graphical model on the task of multi-class classification of building facade image regions.
Not of woman born: representations of Caesarean birth in medieval and Renaissance culture

"Fertility control has always been a culturally dependent category. Accordingly it is impossible to write 'the' history of the patterning of fertility, since the experience of each society has been unique" (p. 5). McLaren offers little on medical aspects of birth control such as the technology and pharmacology of abortion, or the medical havoc of bungled and septic abortions as a factor in its own right, which women might have taken into consideration in fertility decisions. He also pays little attention to the quantitative findings of the historical demographers, whose ignorance of the cultural matrix of childbearing McLaren deplores. Yet he might have displayed a bit more interest in such work, for in the end McLaren does not satisfactorily account for the gulf between the average family size of six in traditional society and that of one and a half in our own days. In view of such a vast gap, arguments pertaining to technological innovation or the diffusion of information might be of some relevance after all, in addition to the "societal views" with which McLaren clearly feels more comfortable. Some readers may find jarring McLaren's obsequious attentiveness to current dogma about women's oppression and his self-righteous flagellation of males for the beastliness of their gender. This book is presented as a cultural history of Caesarean section, based on a wide range of source materials encompassing not only medical, religious and historical texts but also, most importantly, the early iconography of the operation. However, in the course of this study, Caesarean birth comes to be seen as a test case for "the history of gender roles", permitting us to detect changes in the roles of women both as patients and as healers. Caesarean section is discussed in medical texts only after the early fourteenth century, when it was normally performed after the death of the mother in labour. By the late sixteenth century there was some debate concerning the possibility of both mother and child surviving such an operation. Children whose life came, literally, out of death were, in a sense, "unborn" and thus anomalous. By a process of "creative etymology", largely based on Latin words for "cut" and "thick hair", Julius Caesar came to be associated with such a birth, but so was a world leader yet to come: the Antichrist. The strongest chapters of this book are those in which the author carries out detailed studies of …
Growing up with DNA repair and joining the EMS

I recount some personal history, as I rode the crest of the wave of discovery and excitement in the DNA repair field from the early 1960s and eventually came to appreciate that the Environmental Mutagen Society is the appropriate professional “home” for researchers in this field: it places them in the context of the broader genetic, societal, and regulatory issues raised from their studies. In return, the wisdom provided from basic research on cellular processing of damaged DNA is essential to mechanism‐based decisions in the domain of genetic toxicology. Environ. Mol. Mutagen. , 2010. Published 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Current evidence for the use of C-MAC videolaryngoscope in adult airway management: a review of the literature

The C-MAC videolaryngoscope is the first Macintosh-typed videolaryngoscope. Since the advent of its original version video Macintosh system in 1999, this device has been modified several times. A unique feature of C-MAC device is its ability to provide the 2 options of direct and video laryngoscopy with the same device. The available evidence shows that in patients with normal airways, C-MAC videolaryngoscope compared with direct laryngoscopy can provide comparable or better laryngeal views and exerts less force on maxillary incisors, but does not offer conclusive benefits with regard to intubation time, intubation success, number of intubation attempts, the use of adjuncts, and hemodynamic responses to intubation. In patients with predicted or known difficult airways, C-MAC videolaryngoscope can achieve a better laryngeal view, a higher intubation success rate and a shorter intubation time than direct laryngoscopy. Furthermore, the option to perform direct and video laryngoscopy with the same device makes C-MAC videolaryngoscope exceptionally useful for emergency intubation. In addition, the C-MAC videolaryngoscope is a very good tool for tracheal intubation teaching. However, tracheal intubation with C-MAC videolaryngoscope may occasionally fail and introduction of C-MAC videolaryngoscope in clinical practice must be accompanied by formal training programs in normal and difficult airway managements.
Comparison of Advanced Analog Controllers for a DC-DC Boost Converter

Boost converter (BC) accompanied with non-minimum phase behaviour for right-half plane (RHP) zero availability. This incident put a cap on the control loop attainable bandwidth of the converter-controller system. Absence of modelled dynamics and disturbances in different formats (external/internal) make this objective quite challenging in practical scenario. In this work, three advanced analog control archetypes [PWM based Sliding Mode Controller (SMC), Type III and best possible 2&3-DOF Internal Model Controller (IMC)] have been discussed & implemented for boost converter. Converter’s responses with these control structures have been compared under conditions like supply voltage variations, reference tracking and parametric imbalance. SMC is faster than IMC, Type III based output but with a steady-state error. Both IMCs (2&3-DOF) have better perturbation rejection capability than Type III controller.
The glucose effect and regulation of alpha-amylase synthesis in the hyperthermophilic archaeon Sulfolobus solfataricus

An alpha-amylase was purified from culture supernatants of Sulfolobus solfataricus 98/2 during growth on starch as the sole carbon and energy source. The enzyme is a homodimer with a subunit mass of 120 kDa. It catalyzes the hydrolysis of starch, dextrin, and alpha-cyclodextrin with similar efficiencies. Addition of exogenous glucose represses production of alpha-amylase, demonstrating that a classical glucose effect is operative in this organism. Synthesis of [35S]-alpha-amylase protein is also subject to the glucose effect. alpha-Amylase is constitutively produced at low levels but can be induced further by starch addition. The absolute levels of alpha-amylase detected in culture supernatants varied greatly with the type of sole carbon source used to support growth. Aspartate was identified as the most repressing sole carbon source for alpha-amylase production, while glutamate was the most derepressing. The pattern of regulation of alpha-amylase production seen in this organism indicates that a catabolite repression-like system is present in a member of the archaea.
Fetal Central Nervous System and Thymic Alterations Following Cyclophosphamide Treatment of Pregnant Mice

This study is focused to establish neurological and immunological embryopathic effects from gross to biochemical levels induced by cycloposphamide (CP) administration during pregnancy in mice so that it can be applied clinically for more effective and safe therapeutic use during the gestational period in human beings. No complete study incorporating all the aforementioned details have been reported till date in literature.
Is There a Possibility of a Cure in Patients With Colorectal Peritoneal Carcinomatosis Amenable to Complete Cytoreductive Surgery and Intraperitoneal Chemotherapy?

Background:Although a randomized trial demonstrated a survival benefit of cytoreductive surgery (CRS) and intraperitoneal chemotherapy (IPC) over systemic chemotherapy alone, the treatment of peritoneal carcinomatosis from colorectal cancer (CRPC) is still a matter of debate. The aims of this study were to evaluate long-term outcome after CRS and IPC and to identify the prognostic factors associated with a cure. Methods:Patients were considered cured if the disease-free survival interval lasted at least 5 years after the treatment of CRPC or its last recurrence. Patients who had died postoperatively, or from non–cancer-related deaths, or patients with a follow-up of less than 5 years since the last curative treatment were excluded from the analysis. Results:From 1995 to 2006, 107 patients (median age, 48 years; range, 19–67 years) underwent complete CRS, followed by IPC. Postoperative complications occurred in 50 patients (53%), including 4 postoperative deaths. After a median follow-up of 77 months (range, 60–144 months), 5-year and 10-year overall survival rates were 35% and 15%, respectively. Seventeen patients (16%) were considered cured after a disease-free interval of at least 5 years, of whom 14 never developed a recurrence. Cured patients had a significantly lower median peritoneal cancer index than noncured patients, respectively 4 (3–16) and 12 (2–36) (P = 0.0002). In multivariate analysis, a peritoneal cancer index of 10 or less was the only independent factor predicting cure. Conclusions:The cure rate (16%) after complete CRS of colorectal peritoneal carcinomatosis, followed by IPC, in selected patients is close to that obtained after resection of colorectal liver metastases.
Rethinking the participatory web: A history of HotWired’s “new publishing paradigm,” 1994–1997

This article critically interrogates key assumptions in popular web discourse by revisiting an early example of web “participation. ” Against the claim that Web 2.0 technologies ushered in a new paradigm of participatory media, I turn to the history of HotWired, Wired magazine’s ambitious web-only publication launched in 1994. The case shows how debates about the value of amateur participation vis-à-vis editorial control have long been fundamental to the imagination of the web’s difference from existing media. It also demonstrates how participation may be conceptualized and designed in ways that extend (rather than oppose) “old media” values like branding and a distinctive editorial voice. In this way, HotWired’s history challenges the technology-centric change narrative underlying Web 2.0 in two ways: first, by revealing historical continuity in place of rupture and, second, by showing that “participation” is not a uniform effect of technology, but rather something constructed within specific social, cultural, and economic contexts.