Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Arsenic in Australian Environment: An Overview

Abstract The most common source of elevated As concentrations in the Australian environment are attributable to anthropogenic activities. Mining activities have contributed to the contamination of soil and water primarily in Western Australia and Victoria. However, other anthropogenic activities such as agriculture, forestry and industry have also contaminated soil and water at a localized scale. Currently there are over 1000 As contaminated sites previously used as cattle dips for eradicating cattle ticks. Although As contamination of the environment may be severe enough to limit plant growth there appears to be few other reports identifying the impacts of the contaminants on other organisms, such as fish, mammals and humans. In Australia the impacts of metal/metalloid contamination of the environment are often unnoticed or ignored. However, the impacts of elements such as As may pass unnoticed by the public or regulators due to the perception of the minimal impact a contaminant has on the environment. This paper presents an overview of As in the Australian environment including the sources of As contamination, soil, water and plant As content, and the pathways of exposure.
Unique features of PTCH1 mutation spectrum in Chinese sporadic basal cell carcinoma

Background Alterations of the PTCH1 gene have been found to contribute to both familial and sporadic basal cell carcinoma (BCC), especially in Caucasian patients. Furthermore, the majority of PTCH1 gene mutations in sporadic BCCs in Caucasian patients carry ultraviolet (UV) signatures, suggesting the key role of UV light in BCC development. However, sporadic BCC in non‐Caucasian population has a lower incidence, and the pathogenesis remains largely unknown. To date, there has been no mutation analysis on PTCH1 gene in Chinese patients with sporadic BCCs.
Clinical Inertia during Postoperative Management of Diabetes Mellitus: Relationship between Hyperglycemia and Insulin Therapy Intensification

Objective: Our objective was to assess the application of insulin regimens in surgical postoperative patients with diabetes. Methods: A chart review was conducted of patients with diabetes who were hospitalized postoperatively between January 1 and April 30, 2011. Analysis was restricted to patients hospitalized for ≥3 days and excluded cases with an endocrinology consult. Insulin regimens were categorized as “basal plus short acting,” “short acting only,” or “none,” and the pattern of use was evaluated by hyperglycemia severity according to tertiles of both mean glucose and the number of glucose measurements >180 mg/dl. Results: Among cases selected for analysis (n = 119), examination of changes in insulin use based on tertiles of mean glucose showed that use of basal plus short-acting insulin increased from 10% in the lowest tertile (mean glucose, 120 mg/dl) to 18% in the highest tertile (mean glucose, 198 mg/dl; p < .01); however, 70% of patients in the highest tertile continued to receive short-acting insulin only, with 12% receiving no insulin. Intensification of insulin to a basal plus short-acting regimen was also seen when changes were evaluated by the number of measurements >180 mg/dl (p < .01), but 70% and 12% of patients in the highest tertile still remained only on short-acting insulin or received no insulin, respectively. Conclusions: Use of basal plus short-acting insulin therapy increased with worsening hyperglycemia, but many cases did not have therapy intensified to the recommended insulin regimen—evidence of clinical inertia. Strategies should be devised to overcome inpatient clinical inertia in the treatment of postoperative patients with diabetes.
Towards sensor position-invariant hand gesture recognition using a mechanomyographic interface

This paper presents a study on the feasibility of an interface based on a mechanomyographic signal (MMG). Existing state-of-the-art studies show attempts of utilisation of MMG signal for gesture recognition where the sensors' location is strictly defined with respect to muscle position. A test setup consisting of 5 IMU sensors arranged in a band form was used. The classifier for 5 gestures (fist, pronation, supination, flexion, extension) and idle state was implemented by using a feed-forward neural network with softmax output. The feature vector consists of 18 features: 5 representing muscle activity (RMS) and 13 parameters corresponding to relative sensor orientation, being indicators of local skin surface deformation evoked by muscle shortening. It was shown that taking relative sensor orientation into consideration, was a crucial factor for improvement of classification performance and position invariance. The interface was tested on three subjects, in three distinct orientations. The results showed that average performance represented by F1 score was 94±6%.
Diagnosis and Treatment of Leishmaniasis: Clinical Practice Guidelines by the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) and the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH)*

Naomi Aronson, Barbara L. Herwaldt, Michael Libman, Richard Pearson, Rogelio Lopez-Velez, Peter Weina, Edgar Carvalho, Moshe Ephros, Selma Jeronimo, and Alan Magill Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, MD; Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA; McGill University Health Centre, Montreal, Que, Canada; University of Virginia School of Medicine, Charlottesville, VA; University of Alcalá, Madrid, Spain; Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Silver Spring, MD; Universidade Federal da Bahia, Salvador, BA, Brazil; Carmel Medical Center, Haifa, Israel; Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, Natal, RN, Brazil; Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Seattle, WA
Norepinephrine Inhibition of Mesenchymal Stem Cell and Chondrogenic Progenitor Cell Chondrogenesis and Acceleration of Chondrogenic Hypertrophy

Mesenchymal progenitor cell chondrogenesis is the biologic platform for the generation or regeneration of cartilage, but the external influence of the sympathetic nervous system on this process is not yet known. Sympathetic nerve fibers are present in articular tissue, and the sympathetic nervous system influences the musculoskeletal system by, for example, increasing osteoclastogenesis. This study was initiated to explore the role of the sympathetic neurotransmitter norepinephrine (NE) in mesenchymal stem cell (MSC)–dependent and cartilage progenitor cell (CPC)–dependent chondrogenesis.
Why concurrent objects are recurrently complicated

letters BLOCKINto BLOCKINthe BLOCKINeditor N i r S h av i t ' S a r t i c l e " Data Structures in the Multi-core Age " (Mar. 2011) was a thrill to read; so, too, was the timely Viewpoint " Managing Time " by Peter J. Denning, the article " Understanding Scam Victims: Seven Principles for Systems Security " by Frank Stajano and Paul Wil-son, the Technical Perspective " VL2 " by Jennifer Rexford, and the article " VL2: A Scalable and Flexible Data Center Network " by Albert Greenberg et al. I was especially intrigued by Sha-vit's exposition on concurrent objects. I first encountered lock-free and wait-free protocols in a 1993 article by Mau-rice Herlihy, 1 using load-linked and store-conditional instructions. Thanks now to Shavit for explaining additional techniques, including exchangers and balancers. Also important is to point out that Shavit's pseudocode for the lock-free stack included an unstated restric-tion—that a node, once popped, never goes back on the stack—the ABA problem; see the related Communications blog page http://cacm.acm.
Using the Delphi technique in economic evaluation: time to revisit the oracle?

Background and objective: Although the Delphi technique has been commonly used as a data source in medical and health services research, its application in economic evaluation of medicines has been more limited. The aim of this study was to describe the methodology of the Delphi technique, to present a case for using the technique in economic evaluation, and to provide recommendations to improve such use.
A formal feasibility study of sublingual methadone for breakthrough cancer pain

We conducted a feasibility study of sublingual methadone for breakthrough cancer pain, to determine whether a larger, randomized trial was warranted, and to identify a study design that would be likely to succeed. From approximately 1930 patients in the initial pool, nine patients were enrolled. Five patients completed the study, generating data on 83 discrete episodes of breakthrough cancer pain at optimal dose. Mean pain intensity dropped by 1.7 points (on a 10 point numerical scale) within 10 min of sublingual methadone administration, and by 3.2 points after 15 min. No serious or severe toxicity was encountered. Based on the results of this feasibility study, a larger randomized clinical trial of sublingual methadone for breakthrough cancer pain using this trial model would not be successful. Extensive information obtained from small numbers of carefully studied patients provides proof of concept that sublingual methadone is effective, safe, and well tolerated.
A longitudinal study of genital human papillomavirus infection in a cohort of closely followed adolescent women.

BACKGROUND We performed a study to better characterize the natural history of genital human papillomavirus (HPV) infection in a cohort of closely followed adolescent women. METHODS A cohort of 60 adolescent women was followed over a 2.2-year period, on average. A median of 41.5 self-collected vaginal and clinician-obtained cervical swabs were obtained from each subject. RESULTS HPV was detected in 45.3% of all adequate specimens, by use of a polymerase chain reaction/reverse blot strip assay. Oncogenic--or high-risk (HR)--HPV types were detected in 38.6% of specimens, and nononcogenic--or low-risk (LR)--types were detected in 19.6% of specimens. During the entire study period, 49 of 60 subjects tested positive for HPV (cumulative prevalence, 81.7%). The most frequently detected HR types were HPV types 52, 16, and 59. Infections with multiple HPV types were common. The median duration of persistence of a specific HPV type was 168 days, and HR types were more persistent than LR types. Abnormal cervical cytological results occurred in 37% of the adolescent women and were significantly associated with HR HPV infection. CONCLUSIONS The cumulative prevalence of HPV infection in sexually active adolescent women is extremely high, involves numerous HPV types, and frequently results in cervical dysplasia.
Simulation of shallow‐water jets with a unified element‐based continuous/discontinuous Galerkin model with grid flexibility on the sphere

We test the behaviour of a unified continuous/discontinuous Galerkin (CG/DG) shallow‐water model in spherical geometry with curved elements on three different grids of ubiquitous use in atmospheric modelling: (i) the cubed‐sphere, (ii) the reduced latitude–longitude, and (iii) the icosahedral grid. Both conforming and non‐conforming grids are adopted including static and dynamically adaptive grids for a total of twelve mesh configurations. The behaviour of CG and DG on the different grids are compared for a nonlinear midlatitude perturbed jet and for a linear case that admits an analytic solution. Because the inviscid solution on certain grids shows a high sensitivity to the resolution, the viscous counterpart of the governing equations is also solved and the results compared. The logically unstructured element‐based CG/DG model described in this article is flexible with respect to arbitrary grids. However, we were unable to define a best grid configuration that could possibly minimize the error regardless of the characteristic geometry of the flow. This is especially true if the governing equations are not regularized by the addition of a sufficiently large, fully artificial, diffusion mechanism, as will be shown. The main novelty of this study lies in the unified implementation of two element‐based Galerkin methods that share the same numerical machinery and do not rely on any specific grid configuration to solve the shallow‐water equation on the sphere.
A comparison of methods for measuring efflux of labelled potassium from contracting rabbit atria

Methods for measuring the efflux of radioactive tracers from tissues are based on one of two principles. The first is that of measuring the activity of tracer-loaded tissue, while immersing it in flowing inactive saline (Keynes & Lewis, 1951; Creese, 1954; Rayner & Weatherall, 1957, 1959; Persoff, 1958, 1959). The second involves counting the activity of samples of the initially inactive saline in which the labelled tissue is immersed (Hodgkin & Keynes, 1955; Rayner & Weatherall, 1957; Creese, Hashish & Scholes, 1958; Klein & Holland, 1958; Persoff, 1959; Keynes & Swan, 1959). Studies on rat diaphragm by both methods (Creese, 1954; Creese et al. 1958) agree in giving efflux curves which do not deviate grossly from simple exponentials, and whose slopes appear to be similar. However, efflux of 42K from the spontaneously contracting right rabbit atrium shows marked deviation from simple exponential kinetics (Rayner & Weatherall, 1957; Persoff, 1958), even under steady state conditions (Rayner & Weatherall, 1959). This paper reports results of experiments in which direct and effluent methods were used simultaneously to measure 42K efflux from individual atria.
Translational implications of novel findings in cancer cachexia: the use of metabolomics and the potential of cardiac malfunction

Purpose of reviewCancer cachexia is a complex metabolic syndrome that manifests as a progressive wasting disorder. Recent findings have substantially improved our understanding of this unique entity shedding light on a potentially significant and overlooked morbidity in the form of cardiac functional changes that may occur in tandem with cachexia. Moreover, recent technological advances, such as with the application of metabolomic analysis, have yielded a better understanding of the metabolic changes that accompany this condition. Recent findingsRecent evidence from murine studies indicates that the skeletal muscle wasting in cancer cachexia may be accompanied by cardiac muscle wasting. This decreased heart weight is accompanied by functional cardiac changes, which are suggestive of congestive heart failure. In addition, metabolomic analysis of body fluids and tissues distinguishes cancer cachexia's unique metabolic fingerprint as a separate entity, different from healthy controls, tumor burden, caloric restriction, and aging. It also gives insight into the metabolic changes that occur in the affected tissues such as the Warburg effect that is not often described in muscle. SummaryTranslational investigations into potential cardiac malfunction in cancer patients and metabolomic analyses of patients’ sera and tissues are warranted to determine whether these changes are upheld in humans.
Testing Predictor Significance with Ultra High Dimensional Multivariate Responses

We consider here the problem of testing the effect of a subset of predictors for a regression model with predictor dimension fixed but ultra high dimensional responses. Because the response dimension is ultra high, the classical method of likelihood ratio test is no longer applicable. To solve the problem, we propose a novel solution, which decomposes the original problem into many testing problems with univariate responses. Subsequently, the usual residual sum of squares (RSS) type test statistics can be obtained. Those statistics are then integrated together across different responses to form an overall and powerful test statistic. Under the null hypothesis, the resulting test statistic is asymptotically standard normal after some appropriate standardization. Numerical studies are presented to demonstrate the finite sample performance of the test statistic and a real example about paid search advertising is analyzed for illustration purpose.
Electrophoresis of Muscle Proteins Is Not a Method for Diagnosis of Malignant Hyperthermia Susceptibility

The authors used denaturing polyacrylamide slab gel electrophoresis, employing 7.5–20% and 15–20% polyacrylamide gradients, to compare total skeletal muscle proteins of 12 normal and 19 malignant hyperthermia (MH)-susceptible individuals. The patients' MH status was determined by contracture testing. No consistent qualitative or quantitative differences could be detected. Because MH is believed to be triggered by a loss of control of sarcoplasmic [Ca2+], the authors compared: 1) the Ca2+-binding proteins of eight normal and ten MH muscles using Ca2+-dependent electrophoretic mobility shifts and a transblot/45CaCl2 overlay technique; and 2) the total protein composition of a heavy sarcoplasmic reticulum fraction isolated from five normal and nine MH muscles. Again, no differences were detected. Finally, a similar electrophoretic study was conducted to compare the total protein composition of five normal and six MH-susceptible, central core disease-affected human muscles. No significant differences could be observed. It appears, therefore, that simple electrophoretic techniques cannot be applied in the diagnosis of MH susceptibility.
‘Insignificant’ prostate cancer on prostatectomy and cystoprostatectomy: variation on a theme ‘low‐volume/ low‐grade’ prostate cancer?

Although ‘insignificant’ prostate cancer has been examined separately in radical prostatectomy (RP) and radical cystoprostatectomy (RCP) studies, it is not entirely clear whether cancers designated as ‘insignificant’ on RP and RCP represent the same, similar or different forms of prostate cancer. Insignificant prostate cancer has been traditionally defined based on the pathological findings in the whole prostate gland. In addition to the pathological determinants of ‘insignificant’ prostate cancer, it is also important to account for the biological and the clinical context of the disease, as well as patient age and health status to designate a prostate cancer ‘insignificant’. This review examines and compares prostate cancers described as ‘insignificant’ on RP and RCP. We conclude that in most cases these low‐volume/low‐grade prostate cancers represent an early stage and clinically ‘silent’ disease, which are only detected in different clinical settings.
Searching for Answers to Clinical Questions Using Google Versus Evidence-Based Summary Resources: A Randomized Controlled Crossover Study

Purpose To compare the speed and accuracy of answering clinical questions using Google versus summary resources. Method In 2011 and 2012, 48 internal medicine interns from two classes at Rutgers University Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, who had been trained to use three evidence-based summary resources, performed four-minute computer searches to answer 10 clinical questions. Half were randomized to initiate searches for answers to questions 1 to 5 using Google; the other half initiated searches using a summary resource. They then crossed over and used the other resource for questions 6 to 10. They documented the time spent searching and the resource where the answer was found. Time to correct response and percentage of correct responses were compared between groups using t test and general estimating equations. Results Of 480 questions administered, interns found answers for 393 (82%). Interns initiating searches in Google used a wider variety of resources than those starting with summary resources. No significant difference was found in mean time to correct response (138.5 seconds for Google versus 136.1 seconds for summary resource; P = .72). Mean correct response rate was 58.4% for Google versus 61.5% for summary resource (mean difference −3.1%; 95% CI −10.3% to 4.2%; P = .40). Conclusions The authors found no significant differences in speed or accuracy between searches initiated using Google versus summary resources. Although summary resources are considered to provide the highest quality of evidence, improvements to allow for better speed and accuracy are needed.
Embedded Image Coding Using Zerotrees of Wavelet Coefficients for Visible Human Dataset

A lossless to lossy medical color image compression algorithm based on three-dimensional wavelet transform and zerotree coding (EZW) is presented. The algorithm (3D-CEZW) efficiently encodes color image volume by exploiting the dependencies in all three dimensions, decorrelating the original RGB color space to YCC color space, while enabling lossy and near lossless compression from the same bit stream and maintaining the fully embeddedness required by color image encoder. An application to visible human datasets shows that the 3D algorithm produces 3-5 dB higher PSNR than 2D algorithm. Compared to adaptive arithmetic coding, 3D-CEZW is superior in lossless compression which is desired for many medical applications
Perceived Parental Rearing Styles of Agoraphobic and Socially Phobic In-patients

The perceived parental rearing practices and attitudes of agoraphobics, social phobics and non-patient normal controls were investigated, employing the EMBU, an inventory for assessing memories of upbringing. Findings obtained previously with out-patients were replicated with in-patients as subjects. Compared with the controls, agoraphobics rated both their parents as having been less emotionally warm but only their mothers as having been rejective. Socially phobic in-patients rated both their parents as having been rejective, as having lacked emotional warmth, and as having been over-protective. Comparisons between agoraphobics and social phobics showed differences in certain aspects of parental rearing, with the socially phobic in-patients assigning ratings more negatively than the agoraphobic group.
Hepatitis B e Antigen-Negative Chronic Hepatitis B: Natural History and Treatment

Hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg)-negative chronic hepatitis B evolves in the natural history of chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection linked with selection of nonproducing HBeAg but replication-competent HBV mutants, and may have a potentially severe and progressive course. Effective suppression of HBV replication is the main therapeutic target. Sustained off-therapy responses are rare with treatment of finite duration, except perhaps for interferon-based therapies, which induce such responses in a sizeable, yet small proportion of patients. Eventually, the majority of patients will be treated with long-term oral antiviral therapy, which improves patients' outcome but is associated with progressively increasing rates of viral resistance. The long-term resistance profile of adefovir is significantly better than that of lamivudine (LMV), whereas data for entecavir currently are limited to 2 years, with resistance developing in LMV-resistant but not in treatment-naïve patients. Combination therapy with adefovir added to LMV in LMV-resistant patients is extremely effective; cases of adefovir-resistance have not been reported to date.