Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Pattern difference of dissociated hand muscle atrophy in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and variants

Introduction: Split hand is considered to be a specific feature of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Methods: We evaluated the pattern difference of intrinsic hand muscles of upper limb‐onset ALS (UL‐ALS), upper limb‐onset progressive muscular atrophy (UL‐PMA), brachial amyotrophic diplegia (BAD), and Hirayama disease (HD) by measuring objective electrophysiological markers. Results: The abductor digiti minimi (ADM)/abductor pollicis brevis (APB) compound muscle action potential (CMAP) amplitude ratio was significantly higher in UL‐ALS than other variants, but a considerable proportion of UL‐ALS cases had an amplitude ratio in the range of other variants. Absent APB CMAP and abnormally high ADM/APB CMAP amplitude ratio (≥4) occurred only with UL‐ALS. Conversely, an absent ADM CMAP was identified only in UL‐PMA and BAD. Conclusions: The absolute ADM/APB CMAP amplitude ratio was not specific for ALS; however, several findings from simple electrophysiological measurements may help predict prognosis in patients with motor neuron diseases and may be early diagnostic markers for ALS. Muscle Nerve 51: 333–337, 2015
Cloned auto-Ia-reactive T cells elicit lichen planus-like lesion in the skin of syngeneic mice.

To explore the physiologic or pathologic roles of autoreactive T cells, we examined immunological functions of several autoreactive mouse T cell clones in vitro and in vivo. All of the T cell clones were Lyt-2-, L3T4+ and showed self-I region-restricted proliferative responses (one clone was self-I-E restricted, the other clones were self-I-A restricted). One clone derived from C57BL/6 mouse and reactive to the self-I-Ab product (clone bb1-2) showed cross-reactivity to the I-Ak product. Among four such auto-Ia-reactive T cell clones examined, one clone produced fairly large amounts of interleukin 2 (IL 2) in response to syngeneic stimulator cells, and mediated help for the in vitro cytotoxic T cell (CTL) responses of syngeneic thymocytes, whereas this clone did not mediate in vitro antibody responses of syngeneic B cells. The other three clones were producers of small amounts of IL 2 and did not mediate the in vitro CTL responses. Among the three clones, clone bb1-2 showed strong regulatory function, and clone kk-1 (B10.BR origin and self-I-Ak reactive) showed weak regulatory function in vitro antibody responses of syngeneic B cells. The physiologic or pathologic roles of autoreactive T cells in vivo were explored by injecting subcutaneously clone kk-1 T cells or clone bb1-2 T cells into the footpads of the respective syngeneic mice. Clone kk-1 T cells injected into syngeneic mice elicited swelling of the footpad and marked accumulation of mononuclear cells in the dermis, leaving the epidermis intact, as in the delayed-type hypersensitivity reaction. As a notable finding, clone bb1-2 T cells injected into syngeneic mice elicited marked swelling of the footpad and lichen planus-like skin lesions, i.e., infiltration of lymphocytes in the epidermis and epidermal cell damage. The lymphocytes infiltrating in the epidermis were evaluated, as were the injected clone bb1-2 T cells expressing the Lyt-1.2 phenotype, by examination of the skin lesions elicited in C3H/He mice (H-2k, Lyt-1.1, 2.1) by the clone T cells. Clone bb1-2 T cells exerted in vitro cytotoxicity against H-2b and H-2k target cells, whereas clone kk-1 T cells did not show any cytotoxic activity, indicating a correlation between the cytotoxic activity of clone bb1-2 T cells and their ability to elicit lichen planus-like lesions. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
Role of differential neuroaxial blockade in the evaluation and management of pain in chronic pancreatitis

OBJECTIVES:Chronic pancreatic pain is difficult to treat. Surgical and medical therapies directed at reducing pain have met with little long-term success. In addition, there are no reliable predictors of response including pancreatic duct diameter. A differential neuroaxial blockade allows characterization of chronic abdominal pain into visceral and nonvisceral pain origins and may be useful as a guide to the treatment. Pain from an inflamed, and scarred pancreas should be visceral in origin. The purpose of our study was to determine the frequency with which patients with chronic pancreatitis have visceral pain and whether our modified differential neuroaxial blockade technique using thoracic epidural analgesia can accurately predict which patients will respond to medical or surgical therapy.METHODS:We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of patients with a firmly established diagnosis of chronic pancreatitis (Cambridge classification, calcifications) who had undergone a differential neuroaxial block for their chronic abdominal pain evaluation. Patient demographics and medical or surgical treatment for pancreatic pain was recorded. Response to therapy was defined by a 50% reduction in pain by verbal response score.RESULTS:A total of 23 patients were identified. Alcohol was the most common etiology for chronic pancreatitis (15 of 23, 55%). Surprisingly, the majority of chronic pancreatitis patients had nonvisceral pain (18 of 23, 78%) and only 22% (5 of 23) had visceral pain by differential neuroaxial block. Four of five patients (80%) with visceral pain responded to therapy, whereas only 5 of 17 (29%) of patients with nonvisceral pain responded.CONCLUSIONS:Surprisingly, patients with chronic pancreatitis commonly have nonvisceral pain. Differential neuroaxial blockade can predict which patients will respond to therapy.
A Cascade Random Forests Algorithm for Predicting Protein-Protein Interaction Sites

Protein-protein interactions exist ubiquitously and play important roles in the life cycles of living cells. The interaction sites (residues) are essential to understanding the underlying mechanisms of protein-protein interactions. Previous research has demonstrated that the accurate identification of protein-protein interaction sites (PPIs) is helpful for developing new therapeutic drugs because many drugs will interact directly with those residues. Because of its significant potential in biological research and drug development, the prediction of PPIs has become an important topic in computational biology. However, a severe data imbalance exists in the PPIs prediction problem, where the number of the majority class samples (non-interacting residues) is far larger than that of the minority class samples (interacting residues). Thus, we developed a novel cascade random forests algorithm (CRF) to address the serious data imbalance that exists in the PPIs prediction problem. The proposed CRF resolves the negative effect of data imbalance by connecting multiple random forests in a cascade-like manner, each of which is trained with a balanced training subset that includes all minority samples and a subset of majority samples using an effective ensemble protocol. Based on the proposed CRF, we implemented a new sequence-based PPIs predictor, called CRF-PPI, which takes the combined features of position-specific scoring matrices, averaged cumulative hydropathy, and predicted relative solvent accessibility as model inputs. Benchmark experiments on both the cross validation and independent validation datasets demonstrated that the proposed CRF-PPI outperformed the state-of-the-art sequence-based PPIs predictors. The source code for CRF-PPI and the benchmark datasets are available online at http://csbio.njust. edu.cn/bioinf/CRF-PPI for free academic use.
Caractérisation expérimentale du comportement hydromécanique des argilites de Meuse/Haute-Marne

Dans le cadre d'une etude de faisabilite d'un stockage de dechets radioactifs en profondeur la caracterisation experimentale du comportement couple de la couche hote est de premiere importance. Ce travail s'articule autour de caracterisation experimentale en laboratoire du comportement poroelastique des argilites qui constituent la couche hote du futur laboratoire souterrain de l'ANDRA situe a la limite Meuse/Haute-Marne. L'approche choisie est celle de la thermodynamique des milieux poreux proposee par Coussy [1991] qui a l'avantage de fournir une formulation des lois de comportement a l'aide de parametres en principe mesurables en laboratoire. Les difficultes ou encore la faisabilite des essais de caracterisation du comportement couple de ces roches sont liees a leur tres faible permeabilite qui necessite une adaptation des dispositifs experimentaux initialement utilises sur des roches plus permeables. Dans un premier temps une synthese sur l'etat de l'art des connaissances des parametres poroelastiques determines sur les argilites de Meuse/Haute-Marne suivie d'une premiere approche de l'utilisation des etudes de sensibilite comme outils d'aide a la decision sont proposees. En effet si les difficultes experimentales rencontrees par les divers experimentateurs s'illustrent par la diversite des choix experimentaux, par la duree des essais ou encore par la disparite des resultats, etant donne l'enjeu a la fois economique politique ou encore ecologique d'un tel projet de stockage les etudes de sensibilite pourraient le cas echeant permettre d'orienter les efforts experimentaux en apportant des indications sur les parametres preponderants dans le comportement couple d'un massif. Dans un second temps, apres la presentation des mesures de caracterisation physique des materiaux utilises, des essais de mesure de permeabilite par pulse test, de determination du coefficient de Biot en cellule oedometrique et de parametres poroelastiques sous chargement isotrope en condition drainee et non drainee sont decrits. Ces essais dont la complexite est notamment liee a l'atteinte des limites experimentales actuelles sont presentes dans le detail, du rappel theorique a la description detaillee des essais, en passant par un effort particulier mene sur le dimensionnement et une description de l'appareillage et des protocoles experimentaux.
Referral system in Nigeria: Study of a tertiary health facility

Background: The three levels of health care delivery in Nigeria should enjoy patronage from clients and a good referral system is the main link between these levels. The primary health centers are supposed to be the point of first contact of patients. Patients are then referred from here to other levels of health care. This survey examines referral system in Nigeria with a study on new patients seen in a tertiary health facility. Method: This cross-sectional survey was conducted with 1,416 new patients seen at University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital, Ilorin interviewed over a period of 4 weeks to examine the referral system in Nigeria. Result: A total Only 100 (7.1%) of them were referred to the hospital, the rest (92.9%) reported to the hospital directly without referral. The new patients (87.1%) were predominantly resident in Ilorin. The proportion of those referred is higher among patients from outside Ilorin than those from within. Most of the patients referred were from doctors from private clinics. Both the educated and non-educated bypass the primary and secondary levels of health care. Conclusions: A high proportion of patients seen in this tertiary health facility were not referred. The result of this is overcrowding of the tertiary health facilities with problems that can be managed at the lower levels. Highly skilled manpower and equipments are wasted on health problems requiring lesser resources to solve. Necessary steps to make clients utilize primary and secondary health facilities need to be put in place and create disincentives for patients bye-passing these levels Key Words: Referral, system, health facility Annals of African Medicine Vol.3(3) 2004: 130-133
Current nutritional approaches in managing autism spectrum disorder: A review

Summary: The link between nutrition and autism spectrum disorder (ASD), which is a complex developmental disorder manifesting itself in significant delays or deviation in interaction and communication, has provided a fresh point of view and signals that nutrition may have a role in the aetiology of ASD, as well as play an active role in treatment by alleviating symptoms. Objective: In this review study aimed at evaluating, with scientific and concrete proof, the current medical nutrition implementations on ASD, existing medical nutrition therapies have been addressed and their effects on ASD symptoms have been discussed in light of current research. Methods: We reviewed articles regarding the medical nutritional therapy of autism on current nutritional approaches selected from PubMed, Science Direct, EBSCO, and databases about autism and nutrition. Results: The research put forward that in individuals with ASD, while gluten-free/casein-free and ketogenic diets, camel milk, curcumin, probiotics, and fermentable foods can play a role in alleviating ASD symptoms, consumption of sugar, additives, pesticides, genetically modified organisms, inorganic processed foods, and hard-to-digest starches may aggravate symptoms. Discussion: Further prospective controlled trials with large sample sizes are needed before recommendations can be made regarding the ideal ASD diet. This review emphasizes the value of identifying current nutritional approaches specific to individuals with ASD and integrating their effects on symptoms to the conversation and presents suggestions for future research designed to identify medical nutrition therapies targeting this population to better understand the link between ASD and nutrition.
Use of a Bioprosthetic Mesh in Complex Hernia Repair

Background. Implantation of synthetic meshes for reinforcement of abdominal wall hernias can be complicated by mesh infection, which often requires mesh explantation. The risk of mesh infection is increased in a contaminated environment or in patients who have comorbidities such as diabetes or smoking. The use of biological prostheses has been advocated because of their ability to resist infection. Initial results, however, have shown high hernia recurrence rates and wound occurrences. The objective of the present study is to evaluate early and mid-term outcomes in the largest French series that included 43 consecutive complex abdominal hernias repaired with biological prostheses. Materials and methods. Retrospective observational study of a prospective collected data bank. Patient demographics, history of previous repairs, intraoperative findings and degree of contamination, associated procedures, postoperative prosthetic-related complications, and long-term results were retrospectively reviewed. Results. There were 25 (58%) incisional, 14 parastomal, and 4 midline hernia repairs. Hernias were considered “clean” (n = 5), “clean-contaminated” (n = 19), “contaminated” (n = 12), or “dirty” (n = 7). Wound-related morbidity occurred in 17 patients; 4 patients needed reoperation for cutaneous necrosis or abscess. Smoking was the only risk factor associated with wound complication (P = .022). No postoperative wound events required removal of the prosthesis. There were 4 hernia recurrences (9%). A previous attempt at repair (P = .018) and no complete fascia closure (P = .033) were associated with hernia recurrence. Conclusions. This study demonstrated that the use of bioprothesis in complex hernia repair allowed successful single-stage reconstruction. Wound-related complications were frequent. Cost-benefit analyses are important to establish the validity of these findings.
The Effects of Scrambling on Spanish and Korean Agrammatic Interpretation: Why Linear Models Fail and Structural Models Survive

Several models of comprehension deficits in agrammatic aphasia rely heavily on linear considerations in the assignment of thematic roles to structural positions (e.g., the Trace-Deletion Hypothesis, the Mapping Hypothesis, and the Argument-Linking Hypothesis). These accounts predict that constructions in languages with rules that affect syntactic structure but preserve relative linear order should be unimpaired. Other models [e.g., the Double-Dependency Hypothesis, (DDH)] do not resort to linearity but are purely structural in conception and therefore should be immune to word-order effects. We tested linear and nonlinear accounts with scrambling structures in Korean and topicalization structures in Spanish. The results are very clear. The (nonlinear) DDH is entirely compatible with the evidence, but the linear accounts are not.
Ignition of Propellants Through Nanostructured Materials

Abstract : This project was started with the intention of utilizing ignition properties of nanoparticles and nano-energetics for ignition of fuel spray. There are a number of properties that are desirable for an ignition system. Ideally an ignition system should be robust, efficient, reliable, simple, low cost, and flexible. Also, an ignition system should initiate combustion under a broad range of conditions in order to maximize the operational flexibility of energy and propulsion systems. We have studied the ignition of liquid fuel and simulated solid rocket fuels by the photo-ignition of single wall carbon nanotubes. The investigation includes the effect of solid additives such as aluminum nanoparticles and solid oxidizers such as ammonium perchlorate on the photo-ignition characteristics. We found that by mixing carbon nanotubes with other nanoparticles and powdered material, the ignition parameters such as; burn temperature and burn duration can be tailored to meet different ignition requirements such as ignition energy, ignition delay, pressure, temperature, and burn duration. We also studied photo-ignition of liquid fuel by graphene oxide. We believe our study of photo-ignition of a fuel spray and a solid fuel provides a suitable method for ignition of liquid rocket engines and solid rocket motors. Among the advantages of this approach are a compact, light-weight, and robust ignition method and it enables volumetric distributed ignition of fuel sprays.
Direct Identification of Major Pathogens of the Bubaline Subclinical Mastitis in Egypt using PCR

The present study aimed to evaluate the PCR assays (using Universal and specific primers) for detection of the major pathogens of bubaline subclinical mastitis directly from 160 buffaloes milk samples compared to bacterial examination. The bacteriological examinations showed incidence of 23.75%, 15.62%, 3.12% and 0.62% for E. coli, S. aureus, S. agalactiae and S. dysgalactiae respectively. PCR was better in sensitivity and specificity than the conventional culture as it detected more positive results in culturally negative milk samples. The level of sensitivity achieved in our experiments (5x10 1 CFU/ml of milk) is applicable to milk sample analysis without sample enrichment. The results suggest that PCR assay especially the one working with universal primers could be used as an alternative method in routine diagnosis for rapid, sensitive, and specific simultaneous detection of E. coli, S. aureus, S. agalactiae and S. dysgalactiae in milk samples. (Journal of American Science 2010; 6(10):652-660). (ISSN: 1545-1003).
Is Operative Conversion Necessary for Patients Diagnosed With Dense Adhesions During an Elective Laparoscopic Colectomy?

Laparoscopic colectomy is often complicated by adhesions. Studies examining the morbidity of laparoscopic lysis of adhesions (LOA) combined with colectomy are sparse. Objectives. The goal of this study was to prospectively evaluate the results of using the harmonic scalpel to lyse adhesions in patients undergoing laparoscopic colectomy. Methods. Laparoscopic colectomy was performed in 83 patients between November 2003 and April 2007. A total of 20 patients underwent laparoscopic colectomy with LOA and 53 patients underwent laparoscopic colectomy alone. Patients were prospectively followed to determine operative time (OT), blood loss, operative conversion, length of stay (LOS), and 30-day morbidity. Results. Operative conversion was 2%, mean estimated blood loss (EBL) was 95 ± 84 mL, and mean OT was 220 ± 64 minutes. There were no anastomotic leaks or perioperative mortalities. There were 9 major complications (11%). Patients undergoing laparoscopic colectomy with LOA (n = 20) compared with patients undergoing laparoscopic colectomy alone (n = 63) had similar conversion rates (5% vs 2%), EBL (115 ± 108 vs 88 ± 74 mL), and major complications (15% vs 10%), but prolonged minor complications (25% vs 6%) and LOS (6.0 ± 3.0 vs 4.6 ± 1.5 days). Conclusions. Laparoscopic LOA combined with colectomy leads to similar conversion rates and major morbidity compared to laparoscopic colectomy alone.
Perceived Hearing Handicap of Patients with Unilateral or Mild Hearing Loss

Using the Hearing Handicap Inventory for Adults (HHIA), we assessed self-perceived hearing handicap in a sample of 63 patients having either unilaterally normal hearing or a mild hearing loss (pure tone average ≤40 dB hearing level). Large intersubject variability in responses to the HHIA confirmed observations that reactions to minimal hearing impairment vary greatly among patients. The individual differences in responses highlight the importance of quantifying the perceived communication and psychosocial handicap, which cannot be determined from the audiogram alone. An item examination of responses to the HHIA revealed a number of emotional and social-situational problems encountered by patients with minimal hearing loss.
Plant communities partially refl ect environmental gradients in humanized landscapes: a case study in the Llobregat delta marshes

This study took place in a vegetation mosaic of the Llobregat delta (near Barcelona, Spain), which includes both natural and spontaneously restored coastal marshes. We used a dataset comprising vegetation relevés, soil parameters and water table conditions, and explored their correlation. More precisely, we classifi ed the relevés into three phytosociological alliances (namely Phragmition communis, Salicornion fruticosae and Juncion maritimi) combining the previous information available and the use of PCA ordinations. We studied whether these alliances refl ect the main operating environmental gradients (conductivity, sodium absorption rate and water table dynamics) using a GLMM (generalized linear mixed model). The PCA refl ected a fair distinctiveness of Salicornion and Phragmition, whereas Juncion was a more heterogeneous unit, related to the varying dominance of different plant species. The three alliances exhibited signifi cant differences in environmental variables and therefore the phytosociological ordination refl ected at least partially the main operating environmental gradients. However the assemblage of alliances over the gradients varied between locations, suggesting that the initial species pool or plant dispersal capacity to some extent shapes the dynamics of spontaneous restoration in these marshlands.
Context Sensitive Sentiment Analysis

Whether it automatically extracts it from annotated corpora, or it accesses it via subjectivity lexicons, sentiment analysis makes use of knowledge. Knowledge, however, is domain dependent, and validity of facts might change along with context switches. In spite of this, existing sentiment analysis systems are rather static, in that they are insensitive to context. We believe that opinion mining techniques could become much more effective, should they incorporate models of context. For this reason, we plan to investigate how sentiment analysis can be made context sensitive and to identify the added value of doing so. Our aim is to explore several dimensions of context (textual, social, temporal, spatial) and to figure out which ones can produce the highest boost in accuracy. To establish if our context aware models bring significant improvements, we plan to determine whether such augmented opinion mining techniques can prove beneficial for social network analysis and recommender systems.