Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Ex vivo equine medial tibial plateau contact pressure with an intact medial femoral condyle, with a medial femoral condylar defect, and after placement of a transcondylar screw through the condylar defect.

OBJECTIVE To determine ex vivo contact data on the equine medial tibial plateau loaded by an intact medial femoral condyle (MFC), by an MFC with an osteochondral defect, and with a screw inserted in lag fashion through the MFC defect. STUDY DESIGN Ex vivo experiment. ANIMALS Stifles (n = 6). Horses (n = 4). METHODS Stifle joints were axially loaded to 1800 N at 155°, 145°, and 130°, under 3 conditions: Intact, MFC with a 15 mm circular osteochondral defect, and with a transcondylar screw inserted in lag fashion through the defect. An electronic pressure sensor (Tekscan®) on the medial tibial plateau recorded contact area, force, peak pressure, and contact maps. Stress load (N/cm(2) ) was calculated for the entire medial plateau and in 3 sub-regions; cranial, caudal, and central. Significance was set at P ≤ . 05. RESULTS Flexion increased force, contact area, and stress load for all conditions. An MFC defect significantly reduced force at both flexion angles and contact area at 145°. The transcondylar screw returned force to intact values at 130° and reduced contact area in extension. Intact MFC contact maps revealed pressure peaks on the central cartilage at all angles and contact pressure and area expansion and caudal movement with flexion. Contact maps with an MFC defect amplified the caudal and abaxial pressure movement during flexion, and the screw did not further change them. CONCLUSIONS Stifle flexion increases force, contact area, and stress load on the medial tibial plateau and is most pronounced caudally. An MFC defect alters load on the medial tibial plateau, and a transcondylar screw may reverse some of those changes.
Pharmaceutical care of patients with heart failure.

AIM The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of a pharmacist-led pharmaceutical care programme, involving optimization of drug treatment and intensive education and self-monitoring of patients with heart failure (HF) within the United Arab Emirates (UAE), on a range of clinical and humanistic outcome measures. METHODS The study was a randomized, controlled, longitudinal, prospective clinical trial at Al-Ain Hospital, Al-Ain, UAE. Patients were recruited from the general medical wards and from cardiology and medical outpatient clinics. HF patients who fulfilled the entrance criteria, and had no exclusion criteria present, were identified for inclusion in the study. After recruitment, patients were randomly assigned to one of two groups: intervention group or control group. Intervention patients received a structured pharmaceutical care service while control patients received traditional services. Patient follow-up took place when patients attended scheduled outpatient clinics (every 3 months). A total of 104 patients in each group completed the trial (12 months). The patients were generally suffering from mild to moderate HF (NYHA Class 1, 29.5%; Class 2, 50.5%; Class 3, 16%; and Class 4, 4%). RESULTS Over the study period, intervention patients showed significant (P < 0.05) improvements in a range of summary outcome measures [AUC (95% confidence limits)] including exercise tolerance [2-min walk test: 1607.2 (1474.9, 1739.5) m.month in intervention patients vs. 1403.3 (1256.5, 1549.8) in control patients], forced vital capacity [31.6 (30.8, 32.4) l.month in the intervention patients vs. 27.8 (26.8, 28.9) in control patients], health-related quality of life, as measured by the Minnesota living with heart failure questionnaire [463.5 (433.2, 493.9) unit.month in intervention patients vs. 637.5 (597.2, 677.7) in control patients; a lower score in this measure indicates better health-related quality of life]. The number of individual patients who reported adherence to prescribed medications was higher (P < 0.05) in the intervention group (85 vs. 35), as was adherence to lifestyle advice (75 vs. 29) at the final assessment (12 months). There was a tendency to have a higher incidence of casualty department visits by intervention patients, but a lower rate of hospitalization. CONCLUSIONS The research provides clear evidence that the delivery of pharmaceutical care to patients with HF can lead to significant clinical and humanistic benefits.
Role of cadherins and matrixins in melanoma

Cancer is generally viewed as the result of disrupted intra-and intercellular homeostatic regulation. Once the homeostatic balance is lost and malignant transformation has occurred, microenvironmental factors such as degradation of matrix components and host-tumor interactions are essential for survival and growth of malignant cells. Within the previous year, cadherins and matrixins (matrix metalloproteinases) have emerged as key factors in these processes. The pathways involved are interconnected and detailed knowledge about the biologic significance of each member in a given pathway is essential for our understanding of oncogenesis. Restoration of E-cadherin-mediated control over melanoma cells and modulation of the involved regulation pathways are promising novel therapeutic strategies. Another approach is the rational design of inhibitors that perturb matrix metalloproteinases in a particular cell type and interrupt tumor-specific proteinase activation cascades. Advances in these fields will lead to the development of better tools for prevention, diagnosis, and therapy.
Capacity Constraints and Cost-Effectiveness: A Discrete Event Simulation for Drug-Eluting Stents

Background. Waiting times for access to care, for example, for diagnostic imaging or surgery, are a highly relevant issue in health care. Waiting or deferred treatment caused by limited resource capacities can affect treatment success, quality of life, and costs. However, when treatment alternatives are compared in economic models, often unrestricted availability of resources is assumed, and dynamic changes in waiting lines remain unconsidered. The objective of this study was to evaluate the impact of potential real-world capacity restrictions and implied waiting lines on cost-effectiveness results and additional model outcomes. Methods. A case study of drug-eluting and bare-metal stent treatment illustrates the effect of hypothetical capacity limitations of daily stenting procedures. Therefore, a decision-analytic model which allows for explicitly defined resource capacities and dynamic waiting lines was built using discrete event simulation. Cost-effectiveness, utilization, waiting time, and budgetary impact of alternative treatment scenarios are analyzed under the assumption of limited and unlimited resource capacities. Results. The compared treatment allocation scenarios in the case study demonstrate that the additional cost for waiting increases the average treatment cost per patient. The different scenarios have different impacts on waiting lines because of the number of repeated interventions. Additionally, this effect leads to changes in cost-effectiveness results for the hypothetical capacity limit. Explicitly modeled capacities allow for further analysis of capacity utilization, waiting lines, and budgetary impact. Conclusion. Our model shows that neglected limited capacities can cause wrong cost-effectiveness results. Therefore, capacities should be explicitly included in decision-analytic models if there is evidence of scarcity.
The ART of practical synchronization

The performance of transactional database systems is critically dependent on the efficient synchronization of in-memory data structures. The traditional approach, fine-grained locking, does not scale on modern hardware. Lock-free data structures, in contrast, scale very well but are extremely difficult to implement and often require additional indirections. In this work, we argue for a middle ground, i.e., synchronization protocols that use locking, but only sparingly. We synchronize the Adaptive Radix Tree (ART) using two such protocols, Optimistic Lock Coupling and Read-Optimized Write EXclusion (ROWEX). Both perform and scale very well while being much easier to implement than lock-free techniques.
GABAergic synapses in the goldfish retina: An autoradiographic study of 3H‐muscimol and 3H‐GABA binding

The localization of synaptic receptor sites for γ‐amino butyric acid (GABA) in the goldfish retina was studied by light microscopic (LM) and electron microscopic autoradiography (EM‐ARG) of 3H‐muscimol and 3H‐GABA binding. Sodium‐independent binding of both 3H‐muscimol and 3H‐GABA was localized to a uniform band throughout the inner plexiform layer (IPL) by LM‐ARG of cryostat sections incubated in these compounds. No binding was observed over the outer plexiform layer. This binding pattern differs from the uptake pattern of 3H‐GABA in the IPL, which shows very heavy labeling in the most proximal IPL and little labeling throughout the rest of the IPL. Statistical analysis of EM‐ARGs of 3H‐muscimol (i.e., make GABAergic synapses). Labeled amacrine‐to‐amacrine synapses are mostly concentrated in the 20–80% levels of the IPL, whereas amacrine‐to‐bipolar synapses are concentrated at about the 70–90% depth. Maximal 3H‐GABA uptake, however, occurs at the 90–100% depth. This difference in the location of GABAergic synaptic binding and GABAergic uptake leads to the conclusion that the density of uptake label provides little information about the density of synaptic contacts. Thus, in order to localize GABAergic interactions, synaptic binding rather than neuronal uptake appears to provide the more appropriate description.
Characterization of a New Pathogenic Acanthamoeba Species, A. byersi n. sp., Isolated from a Human with Fatal Amoebic Encephalitis

Acanthamoeba spp. are free‐living amoebae that are ubiquitous in natural environments. They can cause cutaneous, nasopharyngeal, and disseminated infection, leading to granulomatous amebic encephalitis (GAE) in immunocompromised individuals. In addition, they can cause amoebic keratitis in contact lens wearers. Acanthamoeba GAE is almost always fatal because of difficulty and delay in diagnosis and lack of optimal antimicrobial therapy. Here, we report the description of an unusual strain isolated from skin and brain of a GAE patient. The amoebae displayed large trophozoites and star‐shaped cysts, characteristics for acanthamoebas belonging to morphology Group 1. However, its unique morphology and growth characteristics differentiated this new strain from other Group 1 species. DNA sequence analysis, secondary structure prediction, and phylogenetic analysis of the 18S rRNA gene confirmed that this new strain belonged to Group 1, but that it was distinct from the other sequence types within that group. Thus, we hereby propose the establishment of a new species, Acanthamoeba byersi n. sp. as well as a new sequence type, T18, for this new strain. To our knowledge, this is the first report of a Group 1 Acanthamoeba that is indisputably pathogenic in humans.
Old/New Effect of Digital Memory Retrieval in Chinese Dyscalculia

This study reports the neurophysiological and behavioral correlates of digital memory retrieval features in Chinese individuals with and without dyscalculia. A total of 18 children with dyscalculia (ages 11.5–13.5) and 18 controls were tested, and their event-related potentials were digitally recorded simultaneously with behavior measurement. Behavioral data showed that the dyscalculia group had lower hit rates and higher false rates than the control group. The electroencephalography results showed that both groups had a significant old/new effect and that this effect was greater in the control group. In the 300 to 400 ms processing stages, both groups showed significant differences in digital memory retrieval in the frontal regions. In the 400 to 500 and 500 to 600 ms epochs, the old/new effect in the control group was significantly greater than it was in the dyscalculia group at the frontal, central, and parietal regions. In the 600 to 700 ms processing stages, both groups showed significant differences in digital memory retrieval in the frontal, central, parietal, and occipital regions. These results suggest that individuals with dyscalculia exhibit impaired digital memory retrieval. Extraction failure may be an important cause of calculation difficulties.
A molecular epidemiological study of the hepatitis B virus in Thailand after 22 years of universal immunization

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection affects an estimated two billion people worldwide. Since 1992, Thailand implemented universal HBV vaccination as part of the expanded program on immunization (EPI) for newborns. This study aims to compare genotypes and characterize HBV by assessing pre‐S/S and basic core promoter (BCP)/precore (PC) mutations in populations born before and after EPI implementation. A nationwide serosurvey conducted in 2014 assessed the impact of universal HBV vaccination in Thailand. Two cohort groups were established based on whether they were born before or after 1992. HBV DNA was amplified from HBsAg positive samples by PCR and sequenced. HBV genotypes, pre‐S/S regions, and BCP/PC mutations were characterized. From a total of 5,964 subjects, there were 2,805 (47.0%) and 3,159 (53.0%) individuals who were born before and after EPI implementation, respectively. The overall prevalence of HBsAg was 2.2%. The prevalence of HBsAg was significantly higher in the before EPI group (4.3%) than in the after EPI group (0.3%) (P < 0.001). HBV DNA was detected in 119 samples; 111 HBV‐positive samples (93%) were genotype C (subgenotype C1). The “a” determinant mutation was only detected in the “before EPI” group. Twenty‐two years after implementation of the EPI program, the HBV carrier rate is significantly reduced. The most prevalent genotype for the remaining HBV was C1. The “vaccine escape” mutant, especially the “a” determinant, was not detected after the launch of the EPI program, and the current HBV vaccine remains highly effective. J. Med. Virol. 88:664–673, 2016. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
A motion-incorporated reconstruction method for gated PET studies

Cardiac and respiratory motion artefacts in PET imaging have been traditionally resolved by acquiring the data in gated mode. However, gated PET images are usually characterized by high noise content due to their low photon statistics. In this paper, we present a novel 4D model for the PET imaging system, which can incorporate motion information to generate a motion-free image with all acquired data. A computer simulation and a phantom study were conducted to test the performance of this approach. The computer simulation was based on a digital phantom that was continuously scaled during data acquisition. The phantom study, on the other hand, used two spheres in a tank of water, all of which were filled with 18F water. One of the spheres was stationary while the other moved in a sinusoidal fashion to simulate tumour motion in the thorax. Data were acquired using both 4D CT and gated PET. Motion information was derived from the 4D CT images and then used in the 4D PET model. Both studies showed that this 4D PET model had a good motion-compensating capability. In the phantom study, this approach reduced quantification error of the radioactivity concentration by 95% when compared to a corresponding static acquisition, while signal-to-noise ratio was improved by 210% when compared to a corresponding gated image.
Transglutaminase Type II Is a Key Element in the Regulation of the Anti-Inflammatory Response Elicited by Apoptotic Cell Engulfment1

A key feature of the macrophage-dependent clearance of apoptotic cells is the down-regulation of proinflammatory cytokines. Deficiency in the phagocytosis of apoptotic cells is often associated with the development of inflammatory reactions, resulting in chronic inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. The molecular mechanisms that regulate the engulfment process and particularly the immunomodulatory factors involved are still largely unknown in mammals. We have previously reported that the ablation of transglutaminase type II (TG2) in mice results in the defective clearance of apoptotic cells associated with the development of splenomegaly, autoantibodies, and glomerulonephritis. In this study we have investigated the mechanisms at the basis of the development of inflammation/autoimmunity associated with the defective clearance of apoptotic cells characterizing TG2 knockout mice. To this aim we compared the macrophage response to apoptotic cell exposure in wild-type vs TG2-null mice. We demonstrated that the lack of TG2 results in an impaired capacity of macrophages to engulf, but not to bind, apoptotic cells, which is paralleled by an abnormal inflammatory response both in vivo and in vitro. We have identified a differential response in the release of several cytokines in TG2−/− vs wild-type mice. Particularly relevant is the finding that both TGF-β and IL-12 regulations were significantly altered in the absence of TG2. These results help explain the autoimmune phenotype developed by these mice and suggest that TG2 is a key regulatory element of the anti-inflammatory features of apoptosis.
THE MECHANISMS OF R&D AFFECTING TECHNICAL EFFICIENCY AND IT'S DIFFERENCES IN REGIONS——THE ANALYSIS BASED ON THE THREE DIFFERENT ECONOMIC REGIONS BY THE SFA METHOD

Using Stochastic Frontier Approach(SFA) of pannel data,the intrinsic relation between the RD and the technique efficiency of the Yangtze River economic region,the Pearl River economic region and the economic region around the Bohai Sea.By the empirical test of the three major economic circle in China,the article draws the conclusions: Firstly,RD investment has positive effect to the technology efficiency.Secondly,the capital investment on the RD is more effective than the labor investment to the technology efficiency.Thirdly,while the technical efficiency is improving with the time past,the gap of technology efficiency is enlarging due to the differences of RD investment in differences regions.
Exploiting the Stable Fixture Matching Game for Content Sharing in D2D-Based LTE-V2X Communications

The study item: "Feasibility Study on LTE-based V2X Services", approved at 3GPP TSG RAN #68, has aroused the interest in the study of LTE assisted vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to- infrastructure (V2I) communications in the networks of connected vehicles. By deploying the direct device-to-device (D2D) technology of traditional cellular networks into the V2X (including both V2V and V2I) communications, performance improvements can be expected, such as better reliability, lower latency, and more efficient content sharing. This paper investigates the content sharing problem in the D2D based V2X communication networks. With both vehicles and eNBs carrying multiple different classes of data, this work studies how to optimize the information exchanged within the network, and in the mean time to guarantee the system quality of service (QoS) requirements. By jointly considering the data diversity and link quality, the interactions between vehicles/eNBs, or in other words, the V2V and V2I link scheduling, is modeled as the stable fixture (SF) matching game. Different from traditional D2D communications, where each node is limited to one link, we allow multiple V2X connections for each vehicle to further optimize the content sharing. More specifically, the formations of such V2X links are independent from each other, thus more flexible than the conventional clustering formation in the Vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs). The SF game is solved by the proposed Irving's stable fixture (ISF) algorithm. Its advantages over some heuristics are demonstrated through simulation experiments.
Lactoferrin lowers serum interleukin 6 and tumor necrosis factor alpha levels in mice subjected to surgery.

Mice subjected to thymectomy or splenectomy in general anesthesia release interleukin 6 (IL-6) and tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-alpha) into circulation reaching high concentrations after 4 h following operation. In the case of thymectomy IL-6 can be detected only on the day of operation and TNF-alpha attains a maximal value on day 3 postoperation. Splenectomy, which is a more extensive surgical operation, results in a higher, and more prolonged existence of IL-6 in circulation accompanied by higher levels of TNF-alpha. Bovine lactoferrin (BLF; 10 mg/mouse), given intravenously (i.v.) 24 h before thymectomy, reduced, on average, the level of serum IL-6 by 70% as measured 4 h after operation. The inhibiting effect of BLF on TNF-alpha production was smaller with a mean 30% reduction. The effects of BLF (i.v.) administration on the cytokine levels following splenectomy were less inhibitory. BLF caused an approximate 35% fall in IL-6 levels and even weaker effects (20% inhibition) on TNF-alpha release. Application of much lower (1-0.2 mg) per os doses of BLF was even more effective in lowering IL-6 levels after thymectomy (up to 90%) after 5 BLF doses, and by 55% of TNF-alpha. The data suggest that lactoferrin may find therapeutical application for diminishing manifestations of shock caused by clinical insults.
Transfusion‐Associated Fatalities: Review of Bureau of Biologies Reports 1976–1978

Review of the 70 transfusion‐associated fatalities reported to the Bureau of Biologics (BOB) between 1976 and 1978 revealed 44 acute hemolytic reactions, two delayed hemolytic reactions, five fatalities associated with acute respiratory failure, two cases of bacterial contamination, one graft‐versus‐host reaction (GVHR), ten cases of hepatitis, and six fatalities not associated with transfusion. Thirty‐eight of 44 acute hemolytic reactions were due to ABO incompatibility. Clerical confusion was the cause of 33 of 37 cases in which error could be defined.
Rebiopsy of non–small cell lung cancer patients with acquired resistance to epidermal growth factor receptor‐tyrosine kinase inhibitor

The secondary epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutation Thr790Met (T790M) accounts for approximately half of acquired resistances to EGFR‐tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI). Recent reports have demonstrated that the emergence of T790M predicts a favorable prognosis and indolent progression. However, rebiopsy to confirm T790M status can be challenging due to limited tissue availability and procedural feasibility, and little is known regarding the differences among patients with or without T790M mutation.
Vitamin E derivative-based multifunctional nanoemulsions for overcoming multidrug resistance in cancer

Abstract The multidrug resistance (MDR), including intrinsic and acquired multidrug resistance, is a major problem in tumor chemotherapy. Here, we proposed a strategy for modulating intrinsic and/or acquired multidrug resistance by altering the levels of Bax and Bcl-2 expression and inhibiting the transport function of P-gp, increasing the intracellular concentration of its substrate anticancer drugs. Vitamin E derivative-based nanoemulsions containing paclitaxel (MNEs-PTX) were fabricated in this study, and in vitro anticancer efficacy of the nanoemulsion system was evaluated in the paclitaxel-resistant human ovarian carcinoma cell line A2780/Taxol. The MNEs-PTX exhibited a remarkably enhanced antiproliferation effect on A2780/Taxol cells than free paclitaxel (PTX) (p < 0.01). Compared with that in the Taxol group, MNEs-PTX further decreased mitochondrial potential. Vitamin E derivative-based multifunctional nanoemulsion (MNEs) obviously increased intracellular accumulation of rhodamine 123 (P-gp substrate). Overexpression of Bcl-2 is generally associated with tumor drug resistance, we found that MNEs could reduce Bcl-2 protein level and increase Bax protein level. Taken together, our findings suggest that anticancer drugs associated with MNEs could play a role in the development of MDR in cancers.