Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Use of Mental Health Telemetry to Enhance Identification and Predictive Value of Early Changes During Augmentation Treatment of Major Depression

Abstract Standard clinical trial methodology in depression does not allow for careful examination of early changes in symptom intensity. The purpose of this study was to use daily “Mental Health Telemetry” (MHT) to prospectively record change in depressive and anxiety symptoms for depressed patients receiving augmentation treatment, and determine the extent and predictive capacity of early changes. We report results of a 6-week, open-label study of the addition of quetiapine XR (range, 50–300 mg) for adult patients (n = 26) with major depressive disorder who were nonresponsive to antidepressant treatment. In addition to regular study visits, all participants completed daily, wirelessly transmitted self-report ratings of symptoms on a Smartphone. Daily and 3-day moving average mean scores were calculated, and associations between early symptom change and eventual response to treatment were determined. Improvement in depressive and anxiety symptoms was identified as early as day 1 of treatment. Of the total decline in depression severity over 6 weeks, 9% was present at day 1, 28% at day 2, 39% at days 3 and 4, 65% at day 7, and 80% at day 10. Self-report rating of early improvement (≥20%) in depressive symptoms at day 7 significantly predicted responder status at week 6 (P = 0.03). Clinician-rated depressive and anxiety symptoms only became significantly associated with responder status at day 14. In conclusion, very early changes in depressive symptoms were identified using MHT, early changes accounted for most of total change, and MHT-recorded improvement as early as day 7 significantly predicted response to treatment at study end point.
Experiences of Purpose in Life When Becoming and Being a Very Old Woman

The aim of the study was to illuminate how very old women describe their experiences of purpose in life (PIL) in narratives about becoming and being very old. The participants comprised 30 women selected from 120 women who had answered the PIL test and had been interviewed about their experiences of being very old. The interviews were analyzed with qualitative content analysis, which revealed four themes: having a positive view of life, living in relation to God, having meaningful activities, and simply existing. Our findings show that very old women experience purpose in life both in their daily activities and in their contact with a spiritual world. It seems to be facilitated by a positive view of life. Although the results were dominated by a positive view of life, some of the participants saw their lives in terms of simply existing, and did not experience purpose in life.
Land cover and land use characterization with geobia in the Pitangui River Basin area, Parana-Brazil

GEOBIA - Geographic Object-Based Image Analysis - is considered to be a technique that takes advantage of several Remote Sensing dimensions – like spectral, spacial, morphologic and contextual information – together with functionalities of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) as well. GEOBIA unit of analysis is an image object that obtains complete information. It includes texture, shape and spatial relations to neighboring objects and ancillary spatial data to different resolutions. In this study, it was sought to identify – in the spatial, spectral and texture descriptor group generated with GEOBIA – those that most represent the study unity. The technique was applied in part of the scene 221/77 of Landsat 5 TM satellite from year 2010 in color composition R5G4B3. This area belongs to the Pitangui river basin located at the center-east portion of the State of Parana - Brazil, between coordinates 600.987m E and 7.240. 620m N to 614.973m E and 7.231. 568m N and zone 22S. Segmentation tests were done adjusting scale and merging levels according to the proposed objective (analysis of land use). Using a group of 35 descriptors with spatial, spectral and texture characteristics, Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and clustering were respectively applied with the aim of decreasing dimensionality of descriptors and grouping similar ones according to the shortest euclidean distance. From 14 resulting descriptors analyzed in the dendrogram generated in the clustering procedure, only compactness and solidity were grouped in the shortest euclidean distance. In the descriptors graph, maximum and minimum values for compactness and solidity have presented linear increase enabling the previous analysis.
A novel regulatory system required for pathogenicity of Xanthomonas campestris is mediated by a small diffusible signal molecule

Mutations in the seven clustered rpf genes cause downregulated synthesis of extracellular enzymes and reduced virulence of Xanthomonas campestris pathovar campestris (Xcc). The phenotype of mutants in one of the genes, rpfF, can be restored by a diffusible extracellular factor (DSF) produced by all Xcc strains tested, apart from rpfF and rpfB mutants. DSF accumulates in early stationary phase (when synthesis of enzymes is maximal), but levels decline subsequently. Addition of DSF to exponentially‐growing wild‐type bacteria does not cause precocious enzyme synthesis. rpfB and rpfF are expressed throughout growth, but the rate increases in early stationary phase. RpfB is predicted to be a long‐chain fatty acyl CoA ligase, and RpfF shows some relatedness to enoyl CoA hydratases. The properties of DSF suggest that it may be a fatty‐acid derivative, and certain lipid preparations possess DSF activity at higher concentrations. These include lipid extracts and acid‐hydrolysed lipopolysaccharide and lipid A from Xcc, and purified dodecanoic and hydroxydodecanoic acid. DSF production is confined to certain xanthomonads. We propose a model for the DSF system, which represents a novel mechanism for regulating virulence factor synthesis in response to physiological or environmental changes.
Prediction of axillary lymph node status in breast cancer patients by use of prognostic indicators.

BACKGROUND If axillary lymph node status of breast cancer patients could be accurately predicted from basic clinical information and from characteristics of their primary tumors, then many patients could be spared axillary lymph node dissection. Tumor size alone does not allow the identification of groups with very low or high risk of being axillary node positive. PURPOSE Our goal was to investigate the possibility of using prognostic indicators to predict axillary node status of patients with primary breast cancer. METHODS Data from 26,683 patients from the National Breast Cancer Tissue Resource were used in this study. Patients in this dataset were randomly assigned to a training set (patient information used to construct predictive models) or a validation set (patient information used to prospectively evaluate predictive models). The records of a total of 11,964 case patients that had complete prognostic factors and pathologic data were analyzed: 5963 patients in the training set and 6001 patients in the validation set. All of the patients studied had tumors 5 cm or less in size and at least 15 axillary lymph nodes that had been examined. Data used for construction of the predictive models were available for all patients and included tumor size, number of nodes positive, patient age, quantitative estrogen receptor levels, quantitative progesterone receptor (PgR) levels, DNA flow cytometry-derived ploidy, and S-phase fraction. Logistic regression models were used to predict nodal status. RESULTS Multivariate predictive models were produced that used tumor size, patient age, S phase, and PgR as independent predictors. These models allowed identification of patient risks of being node positive ranging from 6%-79% and as having 10 or more positive nodes ranging from less than 1% to slightly more than 30%. CONCLUSION Addition of prognostic indicator information to tumor size can refine estimates of whether a patient is likely to be node positive. However, no patient subsets could be identified as having greater than 95% chance of being node negative or node positive. IMPLICATIONS These predictive models cannot alleviate the necessity of axillary node dissection for staging of breast cancer patients in situations in which nodal status would affect therapeutic decisions. Subsets of patients could be identified who had a less than 5% chance of having 10 or more positive nodes. Thus, some patients could be spared axillary dissection if it was being performed solely to identify patients with this high-risk feature.
Differences in fertility associated with caffeinated beverage consumption.

OBJECTIVES The effect of caffeine consumption on fertility was examined prospectively in 210 women. METHODS Women reported on caffeinated beverage consumption and pregnancy status monthly. Odds ratios for becoming pregnant were calculated for both high and moderate vs low consumption. RESULTS No significant association was found for any of the caffeinated beverages except tea. Drinking one-half cup or more of tea daily approximately doubled the odds of conception per cycle. CONCLUSIONS These data suggest that caffeine may not be the responsible agent for variation in fertility associated with consumption of the beverages examined.
High levels of resistance to second-line anti-tuberculosis drugs among prisoners with pulmonary tuberculosis in Georgia.

SETTING Penitentiary system of Georgia. OBJECTIVE To determine the prevalence of resistance to second-line drugs among prisoners with pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB). DESIGN Retrospective evaluation of resistance to second-line drugs in tuberculosis (TB) patients treated from 2001 to 2003. RESULTS The overall observed prevalence of multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) was 14.4% (39/270). The lowest resistance was found for ofloxacin (OFX), which was 2.2% (6/270) overall and 5.1% (2/39) among MDR patients. Isolates from four non-MDR patients who had never received anti-tuberculosis treatment were found to be resistant to OFX. Resistance to kanamycin and capreomycin occurred simultaneously only among MDR patients and was observed in 17/39 cases (43.6%). High rates of resistance to > or =2 second-line drugs (18/39, 46.2%) and > or =3 second-line drugs (10/39, 25.6%) were observed among all MDR-TB patients, reaching respectively 59.3% and 29.6% among previously treated MDR-TB cases. Only one patient was found to be resistant to four second-line drugs. No extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB) according to the latest definition was detected. CONCLUSION Our findings reveal a serious threat to the TB control efforts in the study population.
Neuro-QOL

Objective: To address the need for brief, reliable, valid, and standardized quality of life (QOL) assessment applicable across neurologic conditions. Methods: Drawing from larger calibrated item banks, we developed short measures (8–9 items each) of 13 different QOL domains across physical, mental, and social health and evaluated their validity and reliability. Three samples were utilized during short form development: general population (Internet-based, n = 2,113); clinical panel (Internet-based, n = 553); and clinical outpatient (clinic-based, n = 581). All short forms are expressed as T scores with a mean of 50 and SD of 10. Results: Internal consistency (Cronbach α) of the 13 short forms ranged from 0.85 to 0.97. Correlations between short form and full-length item bank scores ranged from 0.88 to 0.99 (0.82–0.96 after removing common items from banks). Online respondents were asked whether they had any of 19 different chronic health conditions, and whether or not those reported conditions interfered with ability to function normally. All short forms, across physical, mental, and social health, were able to separate people who reported no health condition from those who reported 1–2 or 3 or more. In addition, scores on all 13 domains were worse for people who acknowledged being limited by the health conditions they reported, compared to those who reported conditions but were not limited by them. Conclusion: These 13 brief measures of self-reported QOL are reliable and show preliminary evidence of concurrent validity inasmuch as they differentiate people based upon number of reported health conditions and whether those reported conditions impede normal function.
DNA packaging in dsDNA bacteriophages.

1) Energetics and mechanism of ATP-driven DNA translocation into the prohead; 2) Structure of packaged phage DNA; 3) Terminase and headful cutting of DNA in packaging; 4) Interactions ofd DNA packaging with other DNA processes in vivo; 5) DNA structural requirements for packaging; 6) In vitro packaging in recombinant DNA
Surgical Correction of Spinal Deformity in Patients With Cerebral Palsy Using Pedicle Screw Instrumentation

Study Design: Retrospective review of a prospectively collected single surgeon’s series. Objective: To investigate the efficacy of pedicle screw instrumentation in correcting spinal deformity in patients with quadriplegic cerebral palsy. In addition to assess quality-of-life and functional improvement after deformity correction as perceived by the parents of our patients. Summary of Background Data: All pedicle screw constructs have been commonly used to correct adolescent idiopathic scoliosis. There is limited information on their effectiveness in treating patients with cerebral palsy and neuromuscular scoliosis. Methods: We reviewed the medical records and serial radiographs of 45 consecutive patients with quadriplegia who underwent spinal arthrodesis using pedicle screw/rod instrumentation and a standardized surgical technique. All patients were wheelchair bound with collapsing thoracolumbar scoliosis and pelvic obliquity. Twenty-eight patients had associated sagittal deformities. A telephone survey was performed by an independent investigator to assess parents’ perception on surgical outcome. Results: Thirty-eight patients underwent posterior-only and 7 staged anteroposterior spinal arthrodesis. Mean age at surgery was 13.4 years (range: 9 to 18.3 y) and mean postoperative follow-up was 3.5 years (range: 2.8 to 5 y). Pedicle screw instrumentation extended from T2/T3 to L5 with bilateral pelvic fixation using iliac bolts. Scoliosis was corrected from mean 82.5 to 21.4 degree (74.1%). Pelvic obliquity was corrected from mean 24 to 4 degree (83.3%). In posterior-only procedures, average blood loss was 0.8 blood volumes, intensive care unit stay 3.5 days, and hospital stay 17.6 days. In anteroposterior procedures, average blood loss was 0.9 blood volumes, intensive care unit stay 8.9 days, and hospital stay 27.4 days. Major complications included 1 deep infection and 1 reoperation to remove prominent implants but no deaths, no neurological deficit, and no detected pseudarthrosis. Parents’ survey showed 100% satisfaction rate. Conclusions: Pedicle screw instrumentation can achieve excellent correction of spinal deformity in quadriplegic cerebral palsy with low complication and re-operation rates and high parent satisfaction.
Clinical Presentation, Response to Therapy, and Outcome of Gastroparesis in Children

Objectives: The aims of the present study was to define the clinical features, response to therapy, and outcome of pediatric gastroparesis. Methods: Retrospective review of 230 children with gastroparesis. Demographics, gastric emptying times, symptoms, response to medications, and outcome were determined for each of 3 groups (infants, children, and adolescents). Results: Mean age was 9 years, with boys predominating among infants and girls among adolescents. Postviral gastroparesis occurred in 18% and mitochondrial dysfunction (MD) in 8%. Symptoms varied with age, with children experiencing more vomiting and adolescents reporting more nausea and abdominal pain. The addition of promotility drugs was an effective therapy. Overall rates of symptom resolution were 22% at 6 months, 53% at 18 months, and 61% at 36 months, with median time to resolution of 14 months. Factors associated with symptom resolution included younger age, male sex, postviral gastroparesis, shorter duration of symptoms, response to addition of promotility therapy, and absence of MD. In multivariate analysis, longer duration of symptoms and MD both predicted lower rates of resolution, whereas younger age and response to addition of promotility therapy predicted a higher rate. Conclusions: Pediatric gastroparesis is a complex condition with variable symptomatology and outcome depending on multiple parameters. Understanding the clinical features and response to therapy will improve our diagnosis and treatment of this disorder.
Vascular permeability factor (Vascular endothelial growth factor) expression and angiogenesis in patients with ductal carcinoma in situ of the breast

Prior studies have indicated that ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) lesions are capable of inducing a vascular stroma. However, the mechanisms responsible for angiogenesis in DCIS currently are not defined. The goal of this study was to determine the relationship between the expression of the angiogenic cytokine vascular permeability factor (VPF), also known as vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), and angiogenesis in patients with DCIS.
Differential effects of calcium removal upon vascular smooth muscle contraction induced by norepinephrine, histamine and potassium.

The manner in which norepinephrine, histamine and potassium depend upon calcium ion to elicit contractile responses in aortic strips has been investigated using mammalian Ringer9s solutions containing 1.5 mM Ca (normal Ringer9s), no added Ca and no added Ca with 0.1 mM ethylenediamine tetraacetate (EDTA). In Ringer9s solution with no added Ca the tension induced by potassium (25 mM), histamine (1 µg/ml) and norepinephrine (0.1 µg/ml) is, respectively, 22, 60 and 78% of that obtained in normal Ringer9s. Exposure to Ringer9s solution with no added Ca but with EDTA further reduces responses to potassium (to 4% of control value), to histamine (to 5%) and to norepinephrine (to 28%). The response to norepinephrine but not that to potassium is inhibited by procaine. The rate of efflux of Ca 45 into Ringer9s solution with no added Ca but with EDTA is decreased by addition of norepinephrine, and this effect is also antagonized by procaine. It appears that both norepinephrine and procaine are able to affect firmly bound calcium stores which are not acted upon by potassium or by histamine. In aortic strips, the mechanisms by which potassium, histamine and norepinephrine interact with calcium to induce contraction are different.
Impairment of preoperative language mapping by lesion location: a functional magnetic resonance imaging, navigated transcranial magnetic stimulation, and direct cortical stimulation study.

OBJECT Language mapping by repetitive navigated transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) is increasingly used and has already replaced functional MRI (fMRI) in some institutions for preoperative mapping of neurosurgical patients. Yet some factors affect the concordance of both methods with direct cortical stimulation (DCS), most likely by lesions affecting cortical oxygenation levels. Therefore, the impairment of the accuracy of rTMS and fMRI was analyzed and compared with DCS during awake surgery in patients with intraparenchymal lesions. METHODS Language mapping was performed by DCS, rTMS, and fMRI using an object-naming task in 27 patients with left-sided perisylvian lesions, and the induced language errors of each method were assigned to the cortical parcellation system. Subsequently, the receiver operating characteristics were calculated for rTMS and fMRI and compared with DCS as ground truth for regions with (w/) and without (w/o) the lesion in the mapped regions. RESULTS The w/ subgroup revealed a sensitivity of 100% (w/o 100%), a specificity of 8% (w/o 5%), a positive predictive value of 34% (w/o: 53%), and a negative predictive value (NPV) of 100% (w/o: 100%) for the comparison of rTMS versus DCS. Findings for the comparison of fMRI versus DCS within the w/ subgroup revealed a sensitivity of 32% (w/o: 62%), a specificity of 88% (w/o: 60%), a positive predictive value of 56% (w/o: 62%), and a NPV of 73% (w/o: 60%). CONCLUSIONS Although strengths and weaknesses exist for both rTMS and fMRI, the results show that rTMS is less affected by a brain lesion than fMRI, especially when performing mapping of language-negative cortical regions based on sensitivity and NPV.
Methanogenic archaea and CO2-dependent methanogenesis on washed rice roots.

Washed excised roots of rice (Oryza sativa) immediately started to produce CH4 when they were incubated in phosphate buffer under anoxic conditions (N2 atmosphere), with initial rates varying between 2 and 70nmolh(-1)g(-1) dry weight of root material (mean +/- SE: 20.3 +/- 5.9 nmol h(-1) g(-1) dry weight; n = 18). Production of CH4 continued for at least 500 h, with rates usually decreasing slowly. CH4 production was not significantly affected by methyl fluoride, an inhibitor of acetoclastic methanogenesis. Less than 0.5% of added [2-14C]-acetate was converted to 14CH4, and conversion of 14CO2 to 14CH4 indicated that CH4 was almost exclusively produced from CO2. Occasionally, however, especially when the roots were incubated without additional buffer, CH4 production started to accelerate after about 200h reaching rates of > 100 nmol h(-1) g(-1) dry weight. Methyl fluoride inhibited methanogenesis by more than 20% only in these cases, and the conversion of 14CO2 to 14CH4 decreased. These results indicate that CO2-dependent rather than acetoclastic methanogenesis was primarily responsible for CH4 production in anoxically incubated rice roots. Determination of most probable numbers of methanogens on washed roots showed highest numbers (10(6)g(-1) dry roots) on H2 and ethanol, i.e. substrates that support CH4 production from CO2. Numbers on acetate (10(5) g(-1) dry roots) and methanol (10(4)g(-1) dry roots) were lower. Methanogenic consortia enriched on H2 and ethanol were characterized phylogenetically by comparative sequence analysis of archaeal small-subunit (SSU) ribosomal RNA-encoding genes (rDNA). These sequences showed a high similarity to SSU rDNA clones that had been obtained previously by direct extraction of total DNA from washed rice roots. The SSU rDNA sequences recovered from the H2/CO2-using consortium either belonged to a novel lineage of methanogens that grouped within the phylogenetic radiation of the Methanosarcinales and Methanomicrobiales or were affiliated with Methanobacterium bryantii. SSU rDNA sequences retrieved from the ethanol-using consortium either grouped within the genus Methanosarcina or belonged to another novel lineage within the phylogenetic radiation of the Methanosarcinales and Methanomicrobiales. Cultured organisms belonging to either of the two novel lineages have not been reported yet.