Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
AIDS: a syndrome of immune dysregulation, dysfunction, and deficiency

Acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) is a disease caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in which cellular immune functions are severely impaired. Acute infection and subsequent destruction of helper T cells, although occurring readily in cell cultures, do not appear to be the only mechanisms mediating helper T cell loss. Other mechanisms that may account for the loss of helper T cells include: T cell syncytia formation, decreased T cell production, and autoimmune‐related destruction of helper T cells. Immune abnormalities seen early in the course of HIV infection include immune hyperactivation and autoimmune phenomena suggestive of immune dysregulation rather than immune deficiency. Many changes in immune function are, in fact, seen in HIV‐seropositive patients who possess a normal number of helper T cells. Mechanisms (other than the loss of helper T cells) that may contribute to the immune abnormalities seen in these patients include noninfectious effects of HIV and HIV proteins, effects of HIV on non‐T cells, autoimmune‐related manifestations of HIV infection, and HIV‐induced activation of normal immunosuppressive circuits. — Edelman, A. S. ; Zolla‐Pazner, S. AIDS: a syndrome of immune dysregulation, dysfunction, and deficiency. FASEB J. 3: 22‐30; 1989.
Use of polyethylene glycol in functional constipation and fecal impaction.

OBJECTIVE The objective of this study was to evaluate in an analytical and descriptive manner the evidence published so far on the use of polyethylene glycol (PEG), with or without electrolytes, in the management of functional constipation and the treatment of fecal impaction. METHODOLOGY Search on MEDLINE, EMBASE and Cochrane databases until May 2016 of all publications adjusted to the following terms: constipation AND/OR fecal impaction AND (PEG OR polyethylene glycol OR macrogol OR movicol OR idralax OR miralax OR transipeg OR forlax OR golytely OR isocolan OR mulytely) NOT colonoscopy. Critical reading of selected articles (English or Spanish), sorting their description according to group age (adult/pediatric age) and within those, in accordance with study features (efficacy evaluation versus placebo, doses query, safety, comparison with other laxatives, observational studies and monographic review articles of polyethylene glycol or meta-analysis). RESULTS Fifty-eight publications have been chosen for descriptive analysis; of them, 41 are clinical trials, eight are observational studies and nine are systematic reviews or meta-analysis. Twelve clinical trials evaluate PEG efficacy versus placebo, eight versus lactulose, six are dose studies, five compare polyethylene glycol with and without electrolytes, two compare its efficacy with respect to milk of magnesia, and the rest of the trials evaluate polyethylene glycol with enemas (two), psyllium (one), tegaserod (one), prucalopride (one), paraffin oil (one), fiber combinations (one) and Descurainia sophia (one). CONCLUSIONS Polyethylene glycol with or without electrolytes is more efficacious than placebo for the treatment of functional constipation, either in adults or in pediatric patients, with great safety and tolerability. These preparations constitute the most efficacious osmotic laxatives (more than lactulose) and are the first-line treatment for functional constipation in the short and long-term. They are as efficacious as enemas in fecal impaction, avoid the need for hospital admission and are well tolerated by patients (mainly when administered without electrolytes).
Remodelling of adipose tissue during experimental omental adhesion formation

Peritoneal adhesions are fibrous bands of tissue connecting normally separated organs and frequently involve the fat‐laden greater omentum. Remodelling of fibrin‐rich exudate under reduced fibrinolytic conditions is thought to initiate adhesion formation following surgery. It is unclear whether adhesions that involve the omentum develop in a similar manner. To improve understanding of omental adhesion formation, adipose tissue distribution, cell proliferation and procollagen type I gene expression were investigated in a murine surgical model and in established omental adhesions from patients undergoing abdominal surgery.
Action potential initiation in the peripheral terminals of cold‐sensitive neurones innervating the guinea‐pig cornea

The site at which action potentials initiate within the terminal region of unmyelinated sensory axons has not been resolved. Combining recordings of nerve terminal impulses (NTIs) and collision analysis, the site of action potential initiation in guinea‐pig corneal cold receptors was determined. For most receptors (77%), initiation mapped to a point in the time domain that was closer to the nerve terminal than to the site of electrical stimulation at the back of the eye. Guinea‐pig corneal cold receptors are Aδ‐neurones that lose their myelin sheath at the point where they enter the cornea, and therefore their axons conduct more slowly within the cornea. Allowing for this inhomogeneity in conduction speed, the resulting spatial estimates of action potential initiation sites correlated with changes in NTI shape predicted by simulation of action potentials initiating within a nerve terminal. In some receptors, more than one NTI shape was observed. Simulations of NTI shape suggest that the origin of differing NTI shapes result from action potentials initiating at different, spatially discrete, locations within the nerve terminal. Importantly, the relative incidence of NTI shapes resulting from action potential initiation close to the nerve termination increased during warming when nerve activity decreased, indicating that the favoured site of action potential initiation shifts toward the nerve terminal when it hyperpolarizes. This finding can be explained by a hyperpolarization‐induced relief of Na+ channel inactivation in the nerve terminal. The results provide direct evidence that the molecular entities responsible for stimulus transduction and action potential initiation reside in parallel with one another in the unmyelinated nerve terminals of cold receptors.
Use of a flow-mediated vasodilation technique to assess endothelial function in dogs.

OBJECTIVE To develop and assess the reproducibility of a protocol to noninvasively test endothelial function in dogs on the basis of the flow-mediated vasodilation (FMD) procedure used in humans. ANIMALS 5 healthy spayed female dogs. PROCEDURES Luminal arterial diameter and blood flow velocity in the brachial and femoral arteries were measured with ultrasonography. The within-dog reproducibility of these ultrasonographic measurements was tested. An occlusion period of 1, 3, or 5 minutes with an inflatable cuff was used to create the FMD response. Measurements made at 15, 30, and 60 seconds following release of the occlusion were compared with measurements made immediately prior to each occlusion to assess the FMD response. RESULTS Within-dog reproducibility of measurements revealed moderate to high correlations. Change from baseline in luminal arterial diameter was most substantial when measured at 30 seconds following release of occlusion, whereas blood flow velocity changes were maximal when measured at 15 seconds following release. The brachial imaging site provided a larger number of significant FMD responses than the femoral site. The 3-minute occlusion period provided equal or better responses than the 5-minute occlusion period. CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE Ultrasonographic measurement of the FMD responses was a feasible and reproducible technique and significant changes from baseline were detected. The FMD responses in dogs were most substantial when performed at the brachial artery with blood flow velocity and luminal arterial diameter changes from baseline measured at 15 and 30 seconds, respectively, following release of a 3-minute occlusion period.
Awareness and practices regarding breast and cervical cancer among Turkish women in Gazientep.

BACKGROUND Cancer is a major public health problem both in our country and worldwide due to its disease burden, fatality and tendency for increased incidence. In Turkey, breast cancer ranks first with an incidence of 41.6% and cervical cancer is the tenth most common cancer with an incidence of 4.4%. OBJECTIVES AND DESIGN This descriptive, cross-sectional study was conducted with 240 women aged from 15 to 65 years admitted to a gynecology-obstetrics outpatient clinic of a private hospital in Gaziantep. Study data were collected by the investigators through a 36-item questionnaire form which was generated using information gathered from similar surveys in the literature. RESULTS It was determined that 34.6% of women were high-school graduates, and 64.2% had a medium income level. The majority (79.2%) stated that they never performed BSE and 49.5% of them said that they did not know how to do it. Some 79.2% did not know what a Pap smear was and 73.3% had not experienced a smear test ever. CONCLUSIONS In this study, we found that most of the women had insufficient knowledge of breast and cervical cancer, while knowledge and practices increased with the education level. Based on these findings, we suggest that there is a need for planning, implementation and assessment of health policies and healthcare services at the national and regional level and we believe that nurses working in the field of protective health services should develop educational programmes for women with a primary focus on cancer in order to increase awareness among the female population in Turkey.
The adsorption features between insecticidal crystal protein and nano-Mg(OH)2

Nano-Mg(OH)2, with low biological toxicity, is an ideal nano-carrier for insecticidal protein to improve the bioactivity. In this work, the adsorption features of insecticidal protein by nano-Mg(OH)2 have been studied. The adsorption capacity could reach as high as 136 mg g−1, and the adsorption isotherm had been fitted with Langmuir and Freundlich models. Moreover, the adsorption kinetics followed a pseudo-first or -second order rate model, and the adsorption was spontaneous and an exothermic process. However, high temperatures are not suitable for adsorption, which implies that the temperature would be a critical factor during the adsorption process. In addition, FT-IR confirmed that the protein was adsorbed on the nano-Mg(OH)2, zeta potential analysis suggested that insecticidal protein was loaded onto the nano-Mg(OH)2 not by electrostatic adsorption but maybe by intermolecular forces, and circular dichroism spectroscopy of Cry11Aa protein before and after loading with nano-Mg(OH)2 was changed. The study applied the adsorption information between Cry11Aa and nano-Mg(OH)2, which would be useful in the practical application of nano-Mg(OH)2 as a nano-carrier.
Elastic properties of binary crystals in neutron stars and white dwarfs

Elastic properties play an important role in neutron stars and white dwarfs. They are crucial for modeling stellar oscillations and different processes in magnetars and in degenerate stars which enter compact binary systems. Using electrostatic energy of deformed lattices, we calculate elastic moduli of ordered binary body-centered cubic (sc2) and face-centered cubic (fc2) lattices. We use two methods to determine the effective shear modulus $\mu_{\rm eff}$. We show that $\mu_{\rm eff}$ calculated as an average of the shear stiffness over all possible wavevectors (for polarization vectors perpendicular to the wave vector) agrees with the results obtained from the linear mixing rule. For the sc2 lattice, our calculations are also consistent with the results of numerical simulations of disordered binary body-centered cubic lattice.
Synthetic enhancement of a TFIIB defect by a mutation in SSU72, an essential yeast gene encoding a novel protein that affects transcription start site selection in vivo

An ssu72 mutant of Saccharomyces cerevisiae was identified as an enhancer of a TFIIB defect (sua7-1) that confers both a cold-sensitive growth defect and a downstream shift in transcription start site selection. The ssu72-1 allele did not affect cold sensitivity but, in combination with sua7-1, created a heat-sensitive phenotype. Moreover, start site selection at the ADH1 gene was dramatically shifted further downstream of the normal sites. Both of these effects could be rescued by either SUA7 or SSU72, thereby defining a functional relationship between the two genes. SSU72 is a single-copy, essential gene encoding a novel protein of 206 amino acids. The ssu72-1 allele is the result of a 30-bp duplication creating a sequence encoding a Cys-X2-Cys-X6-Cys-X2-Cys zinc binding motif near the N terminus of Ssu72p. Mutational analysis demonstrated that the N terminus of Ssu72p is essential for function and that cysteine residues in both the normal and mutant proteins are critical. We discuss the possibility that the potential zinc binding motif of Ssu72 facilitates assembly of the transcription preinitiation complex and that this effect is important for accurate start site selection in vivo.
Transient Tardive Dystonia: Overview and Case Presentation

Dystonia is a syndrome of involuntary, repetitive (or sustained) muscle contractions of opposing muscles, which may result in torsions and abnormal postures. Tardive dystonia is a form of the disorder that starts after longer term use of dopamine antagonists. It occurs in approximately 3% of patients receiving ongoing antipsychotic treatment and is often difficult to reverse. Dystonia can also be induced by compounds other than antipsychotics, such as antidepressants, levodopa, carbamazepine, dextroamphetamine, and diphenylhydantoin. In these cases, it is transient, generally disappearing after the dose is reduced or the causative drug is stopped. Dystonia induced by injury can also be transient. We report a case of transient oromandibular dystonia following a dental filling in a woman receiving quetiapine, a second-generation antipsychotic. The timing, localization, and transience of the dystonia suggested that the dental procedure may have played a triggering role. The dystonia symptoms responded within 8 weeks to benztropine and a dose reduction of quetiapine, and they did not return when benztropine was discontinued. This case benefited from prompt attention and has led to practical recommendations for psychiatric clinicians.
Placental Abruption

Placental abruption complicates approximately 1% to 2% of all pregnancies and remains a significant cause of both maternal and fetal morbidity. Proposed pathophysiology of both acute placental abruption and the more common partial placental separation are discussed. The contribution of placental abruption to both preterm labor and preterm premature rupture of membranes is discussed. Recent evidence supporting maternal hypertensive disorders, maternal tobacco and cocaine use, age and parity, multiple gestations, maternal thrombophilias, and an unexplained elevated maternal serum alphafetoprotein as risk factors for abruption is reviewed. Emergency management of acute abruption is outlined. Finally, particular emphasis is given to the management of partial placental separation, including both immediate and delayed delivery and the use of tocolysis. Target Audience: Obstetricians and Gynecologists, Family Physicians Learning Objectives: After completion of this article, the reader will be able to define the condition of placental abruption, list the conditions associated with abruption, and outline potential management options for patients with placental abruption.
Controlled trial of lamotrigine (Lamictal®) for treatment‐resistant partial seizures

The antiepileptic effect of lamotrigine (Lamictal®) was assessed in a double‐blind, placebo‐controlled, crossover trial in 56 adult patients with refractory partial seizures. Lamotrigine or placebo was added to the patients' existing antiepileptic drugs (AEDs). The dose of lamotrigine varied from 75 to 400 mg daily. Thirty‐eight patients completed the trial and 7 withdrew because of adverse experiences. There was a statistically significant reduction in seizure counts on lamotrigine compared with placebo for total seizures (30.3% reduction, 95% CI 8.4%, 47.0%), complex partial seizures (29.2.% reduction, 95% CI 3.8%, 47.9%) and secondary generalised seizures (37.9%, CI 18.9%, 52.4%). The analysis of total seizure days showed a similar significant reduction during lamotrigine treatment for the same seizure categories. There was no statistically significant difference in reporting of adverse events between lamotrigine and placebo except for dizziness which was reported more frequently on lamotrigine than on placebo. There were no differences in abnormal haematological or biochemical findings between lamotrigine and placebo, and lamotrigine had no effect on plasma concentrations of concomitant AEDs.
Evaluating Option Pricing Model Performance Using Model Uncertainty

The objective of this paper is to evaluate option pricing performance on the cross sectional level. For this purpose, we propose a statistical framework, in which we in particular account for the uncertainty associated with the reported pricing performance. Instead of a single figure, we determine an entire probability distribution function for the loss function that is used to measure option pricing performance. This methodology enables us to visualize the effect of parameter uncertainty on the reported pricing performance. Using a data driven approach, we confirm previous evidence that standard volatility models with clustering and leverage effects are sufficient for the option pricing purpose. In addition, we demonstrate that there is short-term persistence but long-term heterogeneity in crosssectional option pricing information. This finding has two important implications. First, it justifies the practitioner’s routine to refrain from time series approaches, and instead estimate option pricing models on a cross-section by cross-section basis. Second, the long term heterogeneity in option prices pinpoints the importance of measuring, comparing and testing option pricing model for each cross-section separately. To our knowledge no statistical testing framework has been applied to a single cross-section of option prices before. We propose a methodology that addresses this need. The proposed framework can be applied to a broad set of models and data. In the empirical part of the paper, we show by means of example, an application that uses a discrete time volatility model on S&P 500 European options.
Measuring Financial Contagion Using Time-Aligned Data: The Importance of the Speed of Transmission of Shocks

This paper presents a new empirical approach to address the problem of trading time differences between markets in studies of financial contagion. In contrast to end‐of‐business‐day data common to most contagion studies, we employ price observations, which are exactly aligned in time to correct for time‐zone and end‐of‐business‐day differences between markets. Additionally, we allow for time lags between price observations in order to test the assumption that the shock is not immediately transmitted from one market to the other. Our analysis of the financial turmoil surrounding the Asian crisis reveals that such corrections have an important bearing on the evidence for contagion, independent of the methodology employed. Using a correlation‐based test, we find more contagion the faster we assume the shock to be transmitted.
Osmotic control of vasopressin with chronically altered volume states in anephric dogs.

Continuous peritoneal dialysis has been used to maintain anephric dogs at chronically sustained low, normal, and high volume states in order to study the long-term interaction of volume and osmotic stimuli in the control of plasma vasopressin (PAVP). Bilaterally nephrectomized dogs were maintained for 1-3 mo with normal plasma sodium and potassium levels and blood urea nitrogen of 70.1 +/- 10.8 mg/dl. During the first month, the dogs were dialysized to each of the three volume states. After each volume state had been maintained for 7 days, an osmotic forcing with intravenous distilled H2O and hypertonic NaCl was performed in the conscious state to quantitate the relationship between plasma osmolality (Posm) and PAVP. During the osmotic forcings left atrial pressure (LAP) averaged -2.4 +/- 0.5, 2.6 +/- 0.8, and 11.9 +/- 1.1 cmH2O; mean arterial pressure averaged 113 +/- 11, 125 +/- 10, and 148 +/- 8 mmHg, both respective for the low, normal, and high volume states. The slope of the normovolemic Posm-PAVP relationship was determined to be 0.047 pg X ml-1 X mosmol-1 X kg-1, and neither the hypovolemic or hypervolemic relationships were significantly different. The results demonstrate two additional points that must be considered in the control of PAVP. First, the severely depressed sensitivity of osmotic PAVP control suggests that either the dialysis procedures or the absence of the kidneys suppressed or eliminated some factor normally important to the secretion of vasopressin. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Internet Education of African American Consumers on Quality of Care

This article describes a study using the Internet to teach African American consumers about quality of health care. By reading information on quality of care, consumers can learn ways to assess the care they are receiving, develop strategies needed to participate effectively in communicating with their health care providers, and make informed decisions in their own best interests. We developed an educational intervention using 5 Internet documents on quality of care and evaluated its effectiveness on learning, value of the information, and satisfaction with the instruction between consumers who read the information alone and those who read the information and interacted with a nurse. Participants indicated they learned a great deal from the information at the Web sites and reported that it would be helpful in assessing their own health care. They more frequently described quality care in terms of health outcomes, self care behaviors, and patient education after the Internet instruction, reflecting important concepts contained in the documents.
Looking at Agricultural Innovation Platforms through an Innovation Champion Lens

The concept of an innovation platform is increasingly used in interventions inspired by agricultural innovation systems thinking, as a way of bringing stakeholders from a sector together to enable transformative change. An essential role on such innovation platforms is thought to be that of the ‘innovation champion’, but this role has so far not been unravelled. In this paper, by applying insights from management science to analyse three innovation platforms in West Africa from the Convergence of Sciences – Strengthening Innovation Systems programme (CoS–SIS), different types of innovation champions are mapped. The authors conclude that making a distinction among different types of innovation champions can be useful in identifying members for innovation platforms, but that the specifics of agricultural innovation appear not to be adequately captured by roles attributed to existing categories of innovation champions. Further research is needed to ascertain whether other categories exist, and how different innovation champions interact over time on agricultural innovation platforms.