Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Role of different negative pressure values in the process of infected wounds treated by vacuum‐assisted closure: an experimental study

Vacuum‐assisted closure (VAC) device is widely used to treat infected wounds in clinical work. Although the effect of VAC with different negative pressure values is well established, whether different negative pressures could result in varying modulation of wound relative cytokines was not clear. We hypothesise that instead of the highest negative pressure value the suitable value for VAC is the one which is the most effective on regulating wound relative cytokines. Infected wounds created on pigs' back were used to investigate the effects of varying negative pressure values of VAC devices. Wounds were treated with VAC of different negative pressure values or moist gauze, which was set as control. The VAC foam, semiocclusive dresses and moist gauze were changed on days 3, 5, 7 and 9 after wounds were created. When changing dressings, tissues from wounds were harvested for bacteria count and histology examination including Masson's trichrome stain and immunohistochemistry for microvessels. Western blot was carried out to test the expression of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF). Results showed that on days 3 and 5 the number of bacteria in wounds treated by VAC with 75, 150, 225 and 300 mmHg was significantly decreased compared with that in wounds treated by gauze and 0 mmHg pressure value. However, there was no difference in wounds treated with negative pressure values of 75 , 150, 225 and 300 mmHg at any time spot. Immunohistochemistry showed that more microvessels were generated in wounds treated by VAC using 75 and 150 mmHg negative pressure comparing with that using 225 and 300 mmHg on days 3 and 5. However this difference vanished on days 7 and 9. Morphological evaluation by Masson's trichrome staining showed increased collagen deposition in VAC of 75 and 150 mmHg compared with that in VAC of 225 and 300 mmHg. Western blot showed that the expression of VEGF and bFGF significantly increased when the wounds treated with 75 and 150 mmHg negative pressure values compared with the wounds treated with 225 and 300 mmHg on day 5. Treatment using VAC with different negative pressure values more than 75 mmHg has similar efficiency on reducing bacteria in the infected wound. VAC with negative pressure values of 75 and 150 mmHg promote wound healing more quickly than other pressure values. Moreover, comparing with vigorous negative pressure, relatively moderate pressures contribute to wound healing via accelerated granulation growth, increased angiogenic factor production and improved collagen fibre deposition. Further study of this model may show other molecular mechanisms.
Xenogeneic thymokidney and thymic tissue transplantation in a pig-to-baboon model: I. evidence for pig-specific T-cell unresponsiveness1

Background. The potential of xenotransplantation for clinical application will require overcoming barriers of humoral and cellular rejection, through strategies using immune suppression or tolerance induction. This laboratory has previously reported the induction of tolerance in the discordant xenogeneic model of pig-to-rodent thymic transplantation. We also have described a miniature swine model of fully mismatched allogeneic composite vascularized thymokidney transplantation that induced transplantation tolerance. We tested a combination of these approaches in a clinically relevant pig-to-primate model of xenotransplantation. Methods. Composite thymokidney grafts were prepared 40 to 80 days before transplantation by the autologous implantation of thymic tissue under the renal capsule of human decay-accelerating factor transgenic swine. Baboons received xenotransplants of both human decay-accelerating factor composite thymokidneys and omental implants of thymic tissue. Recipients were treated with an immunosuppressive-conditioning regimen including thymectomy or thymic irradiation, extracorporeal immunoadsorption of anti-&agr;Gal antibodies and T-cell depletion. Recipients were followed for indicators of xenograft rejection, T-cell depletion and reconstitution, anti-&agr;Gal antibody levels, and mixed lymphocyte responses. Immunologic responses were studied in those animals that survived for more than 3 weeks. Results. Thymokidney xenografts survived for up to 30 days, with evidence of viable thymic epithelium and Hassall’s corpuscles under the renal capsule and in the omental implants, and with evidence of few host lymphocytes. Three animals demonstrated donor-specific unresponsiveness, while maintaining normal alloresponses, in mixed–lymphocyte-response assays performed after immunosuppression had been stopped. Rejected grafts demonstrated humoral damage without evidence of cellular infiltrates. After graftectomy, one animal maintained donor-specific cellular unresponsiveness and stable anti-&agr;Gal antibody levels for more than 2 months. Conclusions. We concluded that composite thymokidney and thymic-tissue xenotransplantation from swine to baboons can induce donor-specific cellular unresponsiveness and stable anti-&agr;Gal antibody levels, suggesting avoidance of sensitization after xenotransplantation. The presence of viable donor-swine thymic epithelium could have a role in the development of donor-specific T-cell tolerance. Further strategies to address humoral rejection could prolong graft survival and result in long-term tolerance to xenografts.
Prevalence of the genes for shigella enterotoxins 1 and 2 among clinical isolates of shigella in Israel

Two enterotoxins, shigella enterotoxin 1 (SHET1) and shigella enterotoxin 2 (SHET2) have been recently characterized and are believed to play a role in the clinical manifestation of shigellosis. One hundred and twenty-one isolates of Shigella spp. of 13 different serotypes and variants and 10 isolates of enteroinvasive Escherichia coli (EIEC) isolated in Israel, were examined by polymerase chain reaction for the presence of SHET1 and SHET2 genes. SHET1 was only prevalent among isolates of S. flexneri 2a while SHET2 was found in all the serotypes that were tested except for several isolates of S. flexneri 1b that lost their virulence plasmid during storage. In addition, we found that the S. flexneri 2a vaccine strain T-32 Istrati contains the gene encoding for SHET1 but not that encoding for SHET2, suggesting that the latter is located within a large deletion occurring in the 140 Mda plasmid of this S. flexneri 2a non-invasive vaccine strain.
nth-order fractional Brownian motion and fractional Gaussian noises

A generalization of fractional Brownian motion (fBm) of parameter H in ]0, 1[ is proposed. More precisely, this work leads to nth-order fBm (n-fBm) of H parameter in ]n-1, n[, where n is any strictly positive integer. They include fBm for the special case n=1. Properties of these new processes are investigated. Their covariance function are given, and it is shown that they are self similar. In addition, their spectral shape is assessed as 1/f/sup /spl alpha// with /spl alpha/ belonging to ]1; +/spl infin/[, providing a larger framework than classical fBm. Special interest is given to their nth-order stationary increments, which extend fractional Gaussian noises. The covariance function and power spectral densities are calculated. The properties and signal processing tasks such as a Cholesky-type synthesis technique and a maximum likelihood estimation method of the H parameter are presented. The results show that the estimator is efficient (unbiased and reaches the Cramer-Rao lower bound) for a large majority of tested values.
Dynamic geometry of the left ventricle during ventricular pacing: correlation with cardiac pumping action.

In five anesthetized open chest dogs, contraction patterns of the left ventricle induced by ventricular pacing were analyzed using cineangiocardiography. Left ventriculography was performed with dogs in the right anterior oblique position. The right atrial appendage (RA) and two ventricular sites (RVO: outflow tract of the right ventricle and LVA: apex of the left ventricle) were stimulated electrically at a rate of 150 per min. Contraction patterns and cardiodynamics in response to ventricular pacing were compared with those to RA pacing, which represents a normal sequence and extent of ventricular contraction. RVO pacing resulted in asyneresis of anterior wall and normal contraction of posterior wall, while LVA pacing produced a systolic expansion of the apex associated with enhanced contraction of the posterior wall. Ventricular pacing uniformly caused decreases in left ventricular end-diastolic volume (LVEDV), stroke volume (SV) and ejection fraction (EF), with relatively constant left ventricular end-systolic volume (LVESV). Blood pressure was significantly decreased with ventricular pacing. There were only minor differences of these parameters between RVO and LVA pacing. It was considered that a diminution of SV and EF during ventricular pacing resulted from the asynchronous contraction of the ventricle which was not related to decreased myocardial contractility.
Impulsive Control of Discrete Systems With Time Delay

This note deals with impulsive control of discrete systems with time delay. It's the first time that an impulsive controller was introduced for discrete systems with time delay. Firstly, some stability criteria for delay discrete systems with impulse effects are obtained by using Lyapunov functionals and Razumikhin technique. These stability criteria show that if the impulses satisfy some conditions, then the original stable systems can keep their stability property even with impulse effects. Then by using Lyapunov functionals or Lyapunov functions together with Razumikhin technique, two stability criteria for the discrete systems with time delay under impulsive control are given. These two results show that unstable systems can be stable under impulsive control. Some examples are also presented to illustrate the efficiency of the obtained results.
Defining an Adequate Education for English Learners

This article explores the components of an adequate education for linguistic minority students in California and attempts to distinguish these from the components of an adequate education for low-income students who are native English speakers. About 1.6 million students were classified as English learners (ELs) in California in 2006. We argue that in order to determine the costs of educating these students, it is necessary to specify the goals of instruction. Four possible goals are: (1) reclassification to fluent English proficient (FEP) only; (2) reclassification to FEP and maintenance of academic proficiency; (3) reclassification with biliteracy; and (4) reclassification and closing of achievement gaps. Each goal implies different resource needs. We conclude that most additional resources needed by EL students are similar to those for other low-income children; some specific areas of need that differ are English language development (ELD) materials and additional skills for teachers. Biliteracy can be achieved with modest additional investment.
Obsessive-compulsive characteristics in patients with writer's cramp

Writer's cramp is characterised by a muscular spasm in the hand of the writing arm, and is often provoked during specific tasks such as writing. Because of its highly task specific nature, some neurologists believed that writer's cramp was of psychogenic origin. However, recent electrophysiological and neuroimaging studies unanimously confirmed basal ganglia dysfunction in patients with writer's cramp. As a consequence, writer's cramp is currently regarded as a form of focal dystonia with neurophysiological pathogenetic mechanisms.1 On the other hand, in the classic psychiatric literature, clinicians sporadically pointed out obsessive-compulsive personalities in patients with writer's cramp. Bindman and Tibbetts described 10 patients with writer's cramp, nine of whom had obsessional personalities.2 These findings have never been confirmed using reliable psychometric measures. However, because of the above mentioned evidence of basal ganglia pathophysiology in writer's cramp, together with the growing evidence of basal ganglia involvement in obsessive-compulsive disorder, it is of great interest to elucidate the relation between writer's cramp and obsessive-compulsive symptoms. In the present study, we evaluated obsessive-compulsive symptoms in patients with writer's cramp. Obsessive-compulsive symptoms may simply be a psychological reaction to the writing impairment. To rule out this possibility, patients with writing impairment due to peripheral …
utations analysis of C 1 inhibitor coding sequence gene among Portuguese atients with hereditary angioedema

Mutations that modify the amino acid sequence of C1-INH (except Val458Met) are associated with HAE. More than 200 different mutations scattering the entire C1-INH gene have been reported. The main objective of this study was to report the mutational findings in a HAE cohort of 138 Portuguese patients followed in specialized consultation all over the country. DNA was extracted from peripheral blood with QiaSymphony BioRobot (QIAGEN Portugal). The sequence reactions were performed by using a DNA sequencing kit (Big Dye terminator cycle sequencing v1.1/v3.1 from Applied Biosystems) and sequencing products were immediately submitted to direct sequencing on an Applied Biosystem 3130 DNA Analyser. DNA sequences were analyzed at four different stages. Raw data and sequence alignments of all 8 exons and intron–exon boundaries were performed for each patient individually with SeqScape software and using SERPING1 gene NG 009625 of 24,300 bp (12-March-2011) as reference sequence. Sequence comparisons among patients and controls were performed with software CodonCode Aligner v.3. 7 from CodonCode Corp and with Geneious 4.5 from Biomatters Lda. A total of 94 point mutations were observed among patients, and 67% of them were located on exon 8. In addition, we noticed one not described stop codon at position c.1459 C>T in three different patients. Translation termination was also found on exon 3 and 7, as a result of mutations at positions c.481A>7, c.1174C>T. In this population, the prevalence of the missense mutation p.Arg444Cys was 39 out of 42. Mutational analysis revealed 22 different pathogenic mutations, of which 64% were not described on HAE database. Although identification of disease causing mutations is not necessary to establish HAE diagnosis, studies on gene expression and characterization of rearrangements in SERPING1 gene are suggested in order to get new insights on function and genetic tests of C1 inhibitor.
SLC39A14, a LZT protein, is induced in adipogenesis and transports zinc

During adipocyte differentiation, there is an underlying complex series of gene expressions. We have previously isolated many genes whose expression levels are quickly elevated by the addition of inducers to mouse 3T3‐L1 preadipocyte cells. Here we report the isolation and characterization of SLC39A14, a member of the LZT proteins, one of the subfamilies of ZIP transporters. The expression of the SLC39A14 gene was strongly and rapidly induced at the early stages of differentiation. Moreover, it was highly restricted to the potential differentiation state of 3T3‐L1 cells and the expression level was quite low in the nonadipogenic NIH‐3T3 cells, indicating a dominant expression in adipocyte differentiation. The zinc uptake assay revealed that SLC39A14 functions as a zinc transporter. Taken together, these results suggest that SLC39A14 plays a role as a zinc transporter during the early stages of adipogenesis.
On cOmpetency OrientatiOn in prOblem-baSeD learning The Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-based Learning Introduction

Convinced of the power of PBL to promote students’ critical thinking as demonstrated by its application across disciplines, we designed a series of problems for students in a second-year writing course. We collected samples of their writing before and after implementation of the problems. We were concerned about whether PBL pedagogy would negatively influence second-year students’ writing. However, our preliminary findings suggest that students’ critical thinking about writing improved with the use of PBL pedagogy.
How the number of options and perceived variety influence choice satisfaction: An experiment with prescription drug plans

This study measures the perceived costs, perceived benefits, choice outcome satisfaction, and choice process satisfaction from consumers making hypothetical choices amongst prescription drug plans. I juxtapose the number of options the consumer is choosing between and his/her perceived variety of the choice set to understand which contributes more to explaining these outcomes. I find that once perceived variety is included in the model, the number of options (i) has no effect on perceived benefits and choice outcome satisfaction, (ii) increases perceived costs, and (iii) decreases choice process satisfaction. Furthermore, the concave relationship that has been shown to occur when the number of options increases is a function of the subjective perception of variety. Overall, these results contribute to our understanding of how assortment structure and the number of options affect choice outcome and process satisfaction. Additionally, this study provides some evidence that can inform U.S. national heath insurance policy and the current debate on choice in health care in the United States and other countries.
PERFIL EPIDEMIOLÓGICO DA SÍFILIS GESTACIONAL: CLÍNICA E EVOLUÇÃO DE 2012 A 2017

Este estudo teve por objetivo identificar aspectos clínicos e evolutivos da sífilis gestacional (SG) em Sobral-CE, a partir da análise do perfil epidemiológico no período de 2012 a 2017. Realizou-se coleta de dados no Sistema Nacional de Agravos de Notificação (Sinan). Cinco características epidemiológicas foram avaliadas: escolaridade; cor da pele; idade da paciente; zona de residência; e classificação clínica da doença. Um total de 452 casos da doença foi notificado no período de estudo, evidenciando aumento de notificações no município em comparação com a década passada. Constatou-se que 217 mulheres (48%) tinham Ensino Fundamental incompleto, 403 (89,1%) eram pardas ou negras, 336 (74,4%) tinham entre 20 e 39 anos de idade, 377 (83,4%) moravam na zona urbana do município e 341 dos casos (75,4%) foram classificados como sífilis terciária. Concluiu-se que ações voltadas à prevenção, ao diagnóstico e ao tratamento da doença são importantes para reduzir o número de casos de SG em Sobral. Ademais, mostra-se necessário direcionar políticas sociais aos grupos vulneráveis, visando a diminuir os agravos dessa infecção.
Conformations of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+) in various environments

Enzymes bind NAD+ in extended conformations and yet NAD+ exists in aqueous solution as a compact, folded molecule. Thus, NAD+ conformation is environment dependent. In an attempt to investigate the effects of environmental changes on the conformation of NAD+, a series of molecular dynamics simulations in different solvents was performed. The solvents investigated (water, DMSO, methanol and chloroform) represented changes in relative permittivity and hydrophobic character. The simulations predicted folded conformations of NAD+ to be more stable in water, DMSO and methanol. In contrast, extended conformations of NAD+ were observed to be more stable in chloroform. Furthermore, the extended conformations observed in chloroform were similar to conformations of NAD+ bound to enzymes. In particular, a large separation between the aromatic rings and a strong interaction between the pyrophosphate and nicotinamide groups were observed. The implications of these observations for the recognition of NAD+ by enzymes is discussed. It is argued that a hydrophobic environment is important for stabilizing unfolded conformations of NAD+. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Melanoma recognition framework based on expert definition of ABCD for dermoscopic images

Melanoma Recognition based on clinical ABCD rule is widely used for clinical diagnosis of pigmented skin lesions in dermoscopy images. However, the current computer‐aided diagnostic (CAD) systems for classification between malignant and nevus lesions using the ABCD criteria are imperfect due to use of ineffective computerized techniques.
Soluble Adhesion Molecules and Oral Antigen Feeding in Infants

Oral administration of foreign proteins, e.g. cow's milk (CM) proteins, stimulates the immune system and induces humoral and cellular immune response against these antigens in infants. Up-regulation of adhesion molecules is known to be associated with activation of the immune system. The purpose of the study was to examine whether orally administered CM proteins induce elevation in soluble adhesion molecules, i.e. intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1) and L-selectin, in infants. In a double-blind trial, 10 infants received CM-based formula and 10 infants casein hydrolysate formula until the age of 9 mo. The infants of mothers with insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM) were recruited into a pilot study of a trial for primary prevention of IDDM by elimination of CM proteins from the diet during early infancy. A cord blood sample and peripheral blood samples were taken at the ages of 3, 6, 9, and 12 mo of age. The levels of soluble ICAM-1 and L-selectin were measured by ELISA. The levels of soluble ICAM-1 were higher at the ages of 3, 6, 9, and 12 mo in infants who received CM-based formula than in infants who received hydrolyzed formula (p = 0.05). Instead, no difference was found in the the levels of soluble L-selectin. The levels of soluble ICAM-1 and L-selectin were higher in all infants when compared with the levels reported in adults or to the levels seen in cord blood. Orally fed CM proteins induce an elevation in soluble ICAM-1 in infants. This may reflect the generation of an immune response against these proteins, because ICAM-1 has an important costimulatory role in lymphocyte activation.
Interconnection and damping assignment passivity-based control: towards a constructive procedure - Part II

For pt.I see ibid., p.3412-17 (2004). IDA-PBC is a procedure that allows one to design a static state feedback that stabilizes the equilibria of nonlinear systems. In Part I of this paper, we presented the fundamentals of the theory of IDA-PBC (interconnection and damping assignment passivity-based control). In this part, we discuss the main new results and the practical applications of this control design approach as well as the current open problems and future directions.