Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
New records of parasites in free-ranging Andean bears from Peru

Abstract I analyzed 28 fecal samples from Andean bears (Tremarctos ornatus) collected between 2003 and 2007 from the Laquipampa Wildlife Refuge and Yanachaga Chemillén National Park, Peru. I used the direct faeces test and spontaneous sedimentation tube technique to detect cysts, ova, and larvae. To detect intestinal coccidia, I applied acid stain using the Ziehl–Neelsen modified method. I detected parasites in 16 scats (57.1%), identifying 3 protozoa for the first time in the Andean bear: Blastocystis sp. , Cryptosporidium sp. , and Giardia sp. ; as well as 3 nematodes: Strongyloides sp. , an undetermined species of Ascarididae, and Ancylostomatidae. The greatest prevalence of parasites were of the family Strongyloididae (25.0%), followed by Ascarididae (21.4%), and Cryptosporidiidae (14.3%). Parasites were found in a greater percentage of scats collected during the dry season (87.5%) compared with the rainy season (16.7%). Overall, 8 species of endoparasites and 1 species of ectoparasite have been identified in Andean bears.
New Bowel Preparations for Colonoscopy

Despite advances in endoscopic imaging such as high-definition technology, wide-angle objectives and narrow-band imaging, the ability to visualise abnormalities on the bowel wall may be limited by the quality of bowel preparation. Approximately 25% of bowel preparations performed for colonoscopy are inadequate,1,2 which results in a reduction in the detection of colorectal neoplasms, a prolonging of procedure times, a decrease in caecal intubation rates and an increase in the total number of colonoscopies and the costs of colorectal cancer screening. Recently, new bowel cleansing regimens have been introduced that are highly effective, safe and well tolerated by patients. Improvements in bowel preparation for colonoscopy will improve patient compliance with colorectal cancer screening guidelines and the efficiency and outcome of colonoscopy.
A newly proposed ATSC DTV system for transmitting a robust bit-stream along with the standard bit-stream

This paper describes the proposed improvements to the ATSC DTV standard. The proposal provides a mechanism for embedding a new robust bit-stream in the standard bitstream in a backward compatible manner. The robust stream has a higher threshold of visibility (TOV) compared to the standard stream and can be transmitted either in the pseudo 2-VSB mode or in the E-VSB mode. A prototype transceiver system, based on the proposed system, has been developed and is being tested in the field.
The basolateral amygdala complex is involved with, but is not necessary for, rapid acquisition of Pavlovian ‘fear conditioning’

A major hypothesis about lateral/basolateral amygdala complex (BLC) function in memory proposes that the BLC is the site where conditioned stimulus–unconditioned stimulus (CS–US) associations are formed and permanently stored during Pavlovian ‘fear conditioning. ’ Thus, according to this hypothesis, the BLC is necessary for the acquisition and expression of both discrete‐cue and contextual Pavlovian fear conditioning. This hypothesis clearly requires that animals with complete lesions of the BLC be completely unable to acquire Pavlovian fear conditioning. In this experiment, distribution of training and testing trials over three sessions revealed that rats with complete BLC lesions rapidly acquired a contextual CS–US association (as assessed with freezing behaviour), although their performance, as expected, did not equal that of sham operated controls. Irrespective of the nature of the freezing deficit relative to controls, the learning in the BLC‐lesioned rats strongly indicates that Pavlovian fear conditioning CS–US associations can be rapidly acquired in the absence of the BLC, and that the BLC cannot therefore be necessary for their acquisition.
Unexpected intrauterine death following resolution of hydrops fetalis after betamethasone treatment in a fetus with a large cystic adenomatoid malformation of the lung

Without intervention, the development of hydrops fetalis secondary to cystic adenomatoid malformation of the lung (CAML) implies a 100% mortality rate. Conversely, four CAML cases with in‐utero resolution of hydrops fetalis after prenatal betamethasone therapy with good clinical outcome have been reported in the literature. The mechanism is speculated to be the effect of corticosteroid in improving lung maturation. Here we present another CAML case with resolution of hydrops fetalis after prenatal betamethasone therapy but which was followed by later intrauterine death. We speculate that the resolution of the CAML lesion itself may be more important in determining the clinical outcome than the resolution of hydrops. The association between prenatal betamethasone therapy and resolution of hydrops may be related to a different mechanism other than improvement of lung maturation. Copyright © 2005 ISUOG. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
[Root canal preparation techniques using nickel-titanium rotary instruments].

INTRODUCTION The main purpose of endodontic treatment is to clean the root canal system, eliminate the infected and toxic contents, and shape it in order to get a tridimensional obturation. The aim of this paper is to inform dental practitioners about crown-down technques for root canal preparation using nickel-titanium rotary instruments. ROOT CANAL PREPARATION Today most endodontists believe that root canal preparation is more efficious, cleaning and shaping are better, if pre-enlargement of coronal two thirds is performed first, and shaping of the apical part later. Machine driven rotary instruments provide much quicker and better root canal preparation. CONCLUSION Contemporary endodontic rotary files vary in regard to their taper, cutting blades, guiding tip and material they are made of. The usage of rotary nickel-titanium files adds a new quality to root canal preparation.
The Calcium Channel β4a Subunit: A Scaffolding Protein Between Voltage-Gated Calcium Channel and Presynaptic Vesicle-Release Machinery?

2.x channels. Their five domains(A–E), include hypervariable A, C, and Edomains linked to the highly conservedSrc homology 3 (SH3) (B) and GK (D)domains.Thecrystalstructureofthecoredomains (B–D) of several subunits wasrecently elucidated (Chen et al., 2004;Opatowsky et al., 2004; Van Petegem etal., 2004), but less is known about thestructureoftheAandEdomains.Arecentreport published in
Two plasmids other than the nodulation plasmid are necessary for formation of nitrogen‐fixing nodules by Rhizobium leguminosarum

A system which allows direct selection for curing of plasmids in Gram‐negative bacteria was used to generate derivatives of Rhizobium leguminosarum VF39 cured of each of six plasmids present in this strain. Phenotypes could be correlated with the absence of five of the six plasmids. The smallest plasmid, pRIeVF39a, carries genes for the production of a melanin‐like pigment as has been previously reported. Plasmid pRIeVF39d carries nodulation and nitrogen fixation genes. Curing of the plasmids pRleVF39c and pRleVF39e gave rise to strains which formed Fix− nodules on peas, lentils, and faba beans. The nodules formed by the strains cured of pRIeVF39c contained few, if any, bacteria. Analysis of washed cells by SDS‐PAGE showed that this strain is defective in lipopolysaccharide (LPS) production; the defect could be complemented by introducing plasmids from several other R. leguminosarum strains, and by the R. leguminosarum biovar phaseoli LPS gene clones pCos126 and pDel27. The nodules formed by the strain cured of pRleVF39e had a reduced symbiotic zone, an enlarged senescence zone, and an abundance of starch granules. This strain grew at a much slower rate than the wild type, was unable to grow on minimal medium, and no longer produced melanin. These defects could be complemented by at least one other Rhizobium plasmid, pRle336e, a plasmid of strain 336 which is distinct from the nodulation plasmid (pRle336c) and the plasmid (pRle336d) which could complement the LPS defect associated with the loss of pRleVF39c. This demonstrates that genes necessary for symbiosis can be carried on at least three different plasmids in R. leguminosarum.
Glucose lowering efficacy of Ficus racemosa bark extract in normal and alloxan diabetic rats

The glucose‐lowering efficacy of a methanol extract of the stem bark of Ficus racemosa Linn. (MEBFR) (Family Moraceae) was evaluated both in normal and alloxan‐induced diabetic rats. The MEBFR at the doses examined (200 and 400 mg/kg p.o.) exhibited significant hypoglycaemic activity in both experimental animal models when compared with the control group. The activity was also comparable to that of the effect produced by a standard antidiabetic agent, glibenclamide 10 mg/kg. The present investigation established pharmacological evidence to support the folklore claim that it is an antidiabetic agent. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Dynamics of Biochemical Markers in Patients Suffering from Heart Failure under the Influence of Cell Therapy

This article provides information about the nature of changes in biochemical markers on the background of stem cell therapy in patients suffering from coronary artery disease (CAD) and chronic heart failure (CHF). Methods: The study included 60 patients (54 men and 6 women) suffering from chronic heart failure and coronary artery disease. The age of patients ranged from 42 to 75 years. All patients have received medical therapy according to current clinical protocols. Patients from the 1 st group, in addition to drug therapy, have received intravenous cell therapy (culture of autologous bone marrow stromal stem cells with cellularity 50 million). The changes in hemodynamic parameters have been studied according to echocardiography and dynamics of indicators of biochemical markers of heart failure, brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) and serum lactate. Evaluating of performance has been carried out initially and at 12 and 24 weeks of observation. Results: Performance evaluation of hemodynamic parameters have shown an increase in ejection fraction to 38.6 ± 2.3% by the end of 12 weeks of observation, by the end of 24 weeks of observation also there have been registered
Clinical significance of cell-free and concentrated ascites re-infusion therapy for advanced and recurrent gynecological cancer.

BACKGROUND The management of malignant ascites is critical for the treatment of patients with advanced gynecological cancer. The purpose of this study was to assess the clinical significance of cell-free and concentrated ascites re-infusion therapy (CART). PATIENTS AND METHODS Adverse events, alterations in Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status, serum albumin, body weight and abdominal circumference, and overall survival were examined in 22 patients with advanced gynecological cancer which were treated with CART. RESULTS Most of the adverse events were grade 1 or 2 fever. CART treatment had little effect on ECOG performance status and on levels of serum albumin. There was a significant decrease in body weight and in abdominal circumference post-treatment with CART, relative to pre-treatment (p<0.01). The overall survival rate was significantly prolonged in 14 patients after CART plus chemotherapy, as compared with eight patients after CART alone (p<0.01). CONCLUSION CART may contribute to the improvement of quality of life and of survival in patients with advanced gynecological cancer.
Expression of cytosolic retinoid‐binding protein genes in human skin biopsies and cultured keratinocytes and fibroblasts

Using reverse transcription coupled to polymerase chain reaction we have studied the mRNA expression of serum retinol‐binding protein and cytosolic receptors for retinol and retinoic acid in skin biopsies, and in cultured epidermal keratinocytes and dermal fibroblasts. Transcripts for cellular retinol‐binding protein (CRBP) I and cellular retinoic‐acid‐binding protein (CRABP) I were found in normal skin, keratinocytes, and fibroblasts. CRABP II transcripts were detected in skin and keratinocytes. A decreased mRNA expression of CRABP I and an increased mRNA expression of CRABP II were found in lesional psoriatic skin compared with uninvolved skin, mRNA transcripts for serum retinol‐binding protein (s‐RBP) were detected in all tissues and cells. The biological importance of s‐RBP expression in keratinocytes and fibroblasts is not known, but hypothetically this protein may be involved in the intracellular shuttling of retinol and retinoic acid, or in the retransportation of cellular retinoids into the extracellular space.
N YSTRÖM SAMPLING DEPENDS ON THE EIGENSPEC-TRUM SHAPE OF THE DATA

Spectral clustering has shown a superior performance in analyzing the cluster structure. However, its computational complexity limits its application in analyzing large-scale data. To address this problem, many low-rank matrix approximating algorithms are proposed, including the Nyström method – an approach with proven approximate error bounds. There are several algorithms that provide recipes to construct Nyström approximations with variable accuracies and computing times. This paper proposes a scalable Nyström-based clustering algorithm with a new sampling procedure, Centroid Minimum Sum of Squared Similarities (CMS3), and a heuristic on when to use it. Our heuristic depends on the eigenspectrum shape of the dataset, and yields competitive low-rank approximations in test datasets compared to the other state-of-the-art methods.
Recent LCA Developments In Waste Management

SUMMARY: Based on 10 years of experience we briefly present key issues which should receive special attention when waste LCA is performed. Attention is paid to the importance of good data on waste composition, the contribution of environmental impacts from capital goods, assessing the value of recovered materials, nutrients and energy, the representativity of external life cycle inventory data bases, how we address uncertainty and important factors in defining future scenarios.
Lightweight Classification of IoT Malware Based on Image Recognition

The Internet of Things (IoT) is an extension of the traditional Internet, which allows a very large number of smart devices, such as home appliances, network cameras, sensors and controllers to connect to one another to share information and improve user experiences. IoT devices are micro-computers for domain-specific computations rather than traditional functionspecific embedded devices. This opens the possibility of seeing many kinds of existing attacks, traditionally targeted at the Internet, also directed at IoT devices. As shown by recent events, such as the Mirai and Brickerbot botnets, DDoS attacks have become very common in IoT environments as these lack basic security monitoring and protection mechanisms. In this paper, we propose a novel light-weight approach for detecting DDos malware in IoT environments. We extract the malware images (i.e., a one-channel gray-scale image converted from a malware binary) and utilize a light-weight convolutional neural network for classifying their families. The experimental results show that the proposed system can achieve 94:0% accuracy for the classification of goodware and DDoS malware, and 81:8% accuracy for the classification of goodware and two main malware families.
Branched‐chain α‐keto acid dehydrogenase kinase content in rat skeletal muscle is decreased by endurance training

The activity state of branched‐chain α‐keto acid dehydrogenase complex in skeletal muscle was elevated by running exercise in trained and untrained rats, but level of this elevation was significantly greater in the former than in the latter. To elucidate the mechanism of the training effect on the exercise‐induced activation of the complex, a protein amount of branched‐chain α‐keto acid dehydrogenase kinase, which is responsible for inactivation of the complex by phosphorylation, in the muscle was measured by the Western blot analysis. Endurance training decreased the content of the kinase protein in the muscle by ∼30%, suggesting that this decrease is involved in the mechanisms for greater activation of the complex by exercise in trained rats.
Impact of clinical pharmacy services in a hematology/oncology inpatient setting.

BACKGROUND/AIM Clinical pharmacists are contributing to safe medication use by providing comprehensive management to patients and medical staff. However, little is known regarding their impact in oncology. The aim of this study was to document and evaluate the role of clinical pharmacy services in a hematology/oncology department. PATIENTS AND METHODS A prospective, descriptive, observational study was carried out from May 2012 to May 2013. Medication reviews concerning hospitalized adult cancer patients were performed twice a week. Medication problems, pharmaceutical interventions and acceptance rate by the oncologists were recorded by a clinical pharmacist. RESULTS A total of 4,393 prescriptions (including chemotherapy and support) of 489 adult cancer patients (mean age=63 years) were analyzed. The pharmacist identified 552 drug-related problems (12.6% of the prescriptions) primarily related to anti-infective agents (59.5%). Medication problems included inappropriate medications (20.6%), untreated indications (14.8%), inappropriate administrations (14.1%), underdosing (11.7%), drug-drug interactions (14.3%), lack of monitoring (9.6%), overdosing (8.9%), administration omissions (3.5%) and side-effects (2.5%). Interventions (n=552) led to treatment discontinuation (26.2%), drug dosing adjustments (21.5%), drug additions (16.9%), alternate routes of administration (11.7%), replacement of a drug by another one (10.7%), therapeutic drug monitoring (10.3%) and optimizing administration (2.6%). Most (96%) of the interventions were accepted and implemented by the medical staff. CONCLUSION The integration of clinical pharmacy services resulted in drug-specific interventions in 12.6 % of the prescriptions of hospitalized adult patients with cancer. Medication problems mostly concerned anti-infective agents. The intervention acceptance rate by oncologists was high. The outcome of care in the hematology/oncology inpatient setting remains to be measured.
Association study of polymorphisms in the glutamate transporter genes SLC1A1, SLC1A3, and SLC1A6 with schizophrenia

Based on the glutamatergic dysfunction hypothesis for schizophrenia pathogenesis, we have been performing systematic association studies of schizophrenia with the glutamate receptor and transporter genes. We report here association studies of schizophrenia with three glutamate transporter genes SLC1A1, SLC1A3, and SLC1A6 encoding the glutamate transporters EAAT3, EAAT1, and EAAT4, respectively. We initially performed the screening of the total 25 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) distributed in the three gene regions using 100 out of 400 Japanese cases and 100 out of 420 Japanese controls. After controlling the false discovery rate (FDR) at level 0.05, we observed significant associations of schizophrenia with a genotype of SNP4 (rs2097837, P = 0.007) and with haplotypes of SNP2‐SNP5 (P = 7.5 × 10−5) and SNP3‐SNP5 (P = 9.0 × 10−4) in the SLC1A6 region. The haplotype of SNP2‐SNP5 of SLC1A6 even showed marginally significant association with the disease in the full‐size sample (400 cases and 420 controls, P = 0.031). We concluded that at least one susceptibility locus for schizophrenia may be located within or nearby SLC1A6, whereas SLC1A1 and SLC1A3 are unlikely to be major susceptibility genes for schizophrenia in the Japanese population. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Plaque imaging of the internal carotid artery - correlation of B-flow imaging with histopathology.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE The noninvasive identification of plaque types prone to cause symptomatic disease is of great interest to improve the effectiveness of surgical or interventional management. The purpose of the present prospective pilot study was to evaluate the association between the results of imaging-the novel sonography technique B-flow imaging (BFI), B-mode, and color Doppler imaging (CDI)-and histopathologic examination in the characterization of internal carotid artery (ICA) plaques. METHODS Twenty-eight consecutive patients with high-grade internal carotid artery stenosis scheduled for carotid endarterectomy were included. BFI, B-mode, and CDI images were used to classify the plaques applying the standardized scores of Beletsky et al and the American Heart Association (AHA), to calculate the gray-scale median (GSM) and to detect potential ulcerations; histopathologic examination results of explanted plaques served as the "gold standard. " RESULTS Based on the classification of Beletsky et al, BFI and histopathologic examination results agreed in 21 (75%, kappa = 0.61, P < .001) patients, and the corresponding results for B-mode were 19 (68%, kappa = 0.52, P < .001) patients, respectively. Corresponding results for the AHA classification revealed inferior agreements for BFI (19 patients/68%, kappa = 0.38, P = .003) and B-mode (17 patients/61%, kappa = 0.25, P = .045). The median GSM for BFI and B-mode correlated significantly (r = 0.95, P < .001). The sensitivity of BFI for the detection of ulcerated plaques was 100% and the specificity was 95.8%; corresponding values for CDI were 100% and 92.7%, respectively. CONCLUSION BFI and the combination of B-mode and CDI exhibit comparable results in the assessment of ICA plaque components and plaque ulceration as well as in the determination of GSM levels.
STUDIES ON CROSS-TRANSMISSION AND PATHOGENICITY OF Haemonchus contortus IN WHITE-TAILED DEER, DOMESTIC CATTLE AND SHEEP 1

Experiments were conducted to compare the relative pathogenicity and infectivity of deer- and cattle-derived Haemonchus contortus for three hosts, viz., white-tailed deer, cattle and domestic sheep. Parameters evaluated for all animals were: general physical condition, basic hematologic values, fecal egg counts and parasite infectivity rates. Clinical signs attributable to H. contortus infections were not observed in any of the experimental animals. Deer harboring H. contortus burdens > 70 worms/kg body weight had decreased packed cell volume, hemoglobin and total serum protein values. Statistical analyses indicated there was not a significant difference (P>.05) in infectivity of deer-derived H. contortus in these hosts. No significant difference (P>.05) in infectivity for deer was noted between deer-derived H. contortus and cattle-derived H. contortus. Morphometric comparisons of helminths recovered indicated that parasites of deer and cattle origin were both compatible with the description for H. contortus. Results suggest that cross-transmission of H. contortus occurs between deer and domestic livestock.