Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Older drivers and physicians.

The article by Dr Levy and colleagues in this issue ofThe Journal 1 addresses the important issue of driver's license renewal for elderly individuals. Whether the reduction in crash mortality found by Levy et al is related to visual testing specifically or to a requirement for retesting in general, maximizing safety for older drivers is crucial as the number of drivers aged 70 years or older on the road increases from 13 million today to a projected 30 million by 2020. 2 Driving is an important mobility issue for older Americans, with 88% relying on private automobiles for most of their transportation needs. 3 A critical challenge is to balance public and individual safety with individual mobility needs. Older drivers are unfairly cast as a menace to other road users: older drivers account for the least number of miles driven, the least number of crashes, and the lowest crash
Mathematical Modeling of Artificial Mitral Heart Valve

The research shows the mathematical model, describing the dynamics of the artificial aortic heart valve and the model of blood thrombus moving in large vessels, as well as the method of numerical calculation of these models. There are represented numerical modelling results of the tricuspid valve operation and the blood thrombus moving in large vessels.
Endoscopic Lung Volume Reduction with Endobronchial Valves in Patients with Severe Emphysema and Established Pulmonary Hypertension

Background: One of the most common forms of pulmonary hypertension (PH) is that associated with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). So far, patients with severe emphysema and established PH have been excluded from endoscopic lung volume reduction (ELVR) therapy due to the risk of right heart decompensation. Objective: The aim of this pilot study was to evaluate the feasibility and efficacy of ELVR using one-way endobronchial valves (EBV) in this specific group of patients. Methods: We prospectively included 6 patients with COPD, severe heterogeneous emphysema, and established PH who underwent right heart catheterization and clinical assessments before and 90 days after ELVR with unilateral EBV placement. Results: This study was not powered to measure any statistical differences in endpoints. Ninety days after ELVR, the symptoms, lung function, and hemodynamics improved in 5 out of 6 patients (1 patient normalized and 1 slightly worsened). The mean hemodynamics improved from baseline to 90 days after ELVR as follows: mean pulmonary artery pressure, -2.5 ± 3.5 mm Hg; pulmonary arterial wedge pressure, -4.3 ± 8.3 mm Hg; cardiac index, +0.3 ± 0.6 l/min/m2, and 6-min walk distance, +59 ± 99 m. ELVR was performed without PH-related complications in all patients. Conclusion: To our knowledge, this is the first prospective, single-center pilot study to evaluate the feasibility and efficacy of ELVR in patients with established PH. ELVR was feasible and resulted in an improvement of clinical and hemodynamic parameters in 5 out of 6 patients. These results have to be further confirmed in larger-scale controlled studies.
Increased perioculomotor urocortin 1 immunoreactivity in genetically selected alcohol preferring rats.

INTRODUCTION Urocortin 1 (Ucn 1) is an endogenous peptide related to the corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF). Ucn 1 is mainly expressed in the perioculomotor area (pIII), and its involvement in alcohol self-administration is well confirmed in mice. In other species, the relationship between the perioculomotor Ucn 1-containing population of neurons (pIIIu) and alcohol consumption needs further investigation. The pIII also has a significant subpopulation of dopaminergic neurons. Because of dopamine's (DA) role in addiction, it is important to evaluate whether this subpopulation of neurons contributes to addiction-related phenotypes. Furthermore, the effects of gender on the relationship between Ucn 1 and tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) in pIII and alcohol preference in rats have not been previously assessed. METHODS To address these issues, we compared 2 Sardinian alcohol-preferring sublines of rats, a population maintained at the Scripps Research Institute (Scr:sP) and a population maintained at University of Camerino-Marchigian Sardinian preferring rats (msP), to corresponding nonselectively bred Wistar rats of both sexes. Ucn 1- and TH-positive cells were detected on coronal midbrain sections from 6- to 8-week-old alcohol-naïve animals using brightfield and fluorescent immunohistochemistry. Ucn 1- and TH-positive cells in pIII were counted in the perioculomotor area, averaged across 2 to 3 sets, and binned into 3 bregma levels. RESULTS Results demonstrated increased average counts of Ucn 1-positive cells in the middle bregma level in preferring male rats compared to Wistar controls and no difference in TH-positive cell counts in pIII. In addition, fluorescent double labeling revealed no colocalization of Ucn 1-positive and TH-positive neurons. Ucn 1 but not TH distribution was influenced by gender with female animals expressing more Ucn 1-positive cells than male animals in the peak bregma level. CONCLUSIONS These findings extend previous reports of increased Ucn 1-positive cell distribution in preferring lines of animals. They indicate that Ucn1 contributes to increased alcohol consumption across different species and that this contribution could be gender specific. The results also suggest that Ucn1 regulates positive reinforcing rather than aversive properties of alcohol and that these effects could be mediated by CRF(2) receptors, independent of direct actions of DA.
Mood state and brain electric activity in Ecstasy users

Resting EEG during open and closed eyes and subsequent mood ratings were obtained from 15 Ecstasy users and 14 Ecstasy-naive controls. Absolute spectral power on the scalp, and the three-dimensional, intracerebral distribution of neuroelectric activity using low resolution brain electromagnetic tomography (LORETA) were computed. LORETA revealed global increases of theta, alpha 1 and beta2/3 power during eyes open in Ecstasy users, and spectral analyses revealed a right-posterior increase of alpha2 power (confirmed by LORETA) and increased beta band activity during open eyes. Ecstasy users had higher levels of state depressiveness, emotional excitability and a trend-level increase in state anxiety. The observed differences may be related to regular exposure to Ecstasy or other illicit drugs, or may be pre-existing.
Crowd Foraging: A QoS-Oriented Self-Organized Mobile Crowdsourcing Framework Over Opportunistic Networks

Recent years have witnessed the proliferation of mobile crowdsourcing that brings a new opportunity to leverage human intelligence and movement behaviors to wider application areas. In parallel with the development of online centralized platforms, we look into the realization of self-organized mobile crowdsourcing drawing on opportunistic networks, and propose the Crowd Foraging framework, in which a mobile task requester can proactively recruit a massive crowd of opportunistic encountered mobile workers in real time for quick and high-quality results. We present a comprehensive framework model that fully integrates human behavior factors for modeling task profile, worker arrival, and work ability, and then introduce a service quality concept to indicate the expected service gain that a requester can enjoy when she recruits an arrival worker by jointly considering the work ability of workers as well as timeliness and reward of tasks. Furthermore, we formulate a sequential worker recruitment problem as an online multiple stopping problem to maximize the expected sum of service quality, and accordingly derive an optimal worker recruitment policy through the dynamic programming principle, which exhibits a nice threshold-based structure. We provide data-driven case studies to validate the assumptions used in the policy design, and conduct extensive trace-driven numerical evaluations, which demonstrate that our policy can achieve superior performance (e.g., improve more than 30% performance over classic policies). Besides, our Android prototype shows that the Crowd Foraging framework is cost-efficient, such as requiring less than 7 s and 6 J in terms of time and energy consumption for the optimal threshold calculation in our policy in most cases.
Clinical correlates of quality of life in Tourette syndrome

Tourette syndrome (TS) is a neurodevelopmental disorder involving tics, which is frequently accompanied by comorbid obsessive compulsive (OCD) or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Individuals with TS often report poor quality of life (QoL) in comparison with the general population. This study investigated the clinical correlates of QoL in young people with TS using a self‐report multidimensional QoL measure, and a range of clinical scales used to assess tic severity and the symptoms of anxiety, depression, OCD, ADHD and other emotional and behavioral symptoms. Symptoms of depression, OCD, and ADHD appeared to have a widespread negative impact on QoL, but poorer QoL was not associated with increased tic severity. Greater emotional and behavioral difficulties, including symptoms of OCD, were among the best predictors of poor QoL in young people with TS. © 2010 Movement Disorder Society
Removal of proteoglycans increases efficiency of retroviral gene transfer.

We have previously shown that medium conditioned by virus producer cells inhibits retrovirus transduction, and that a portion of the inhibitory activity is sensitive to chondroitinase ABC. In this study, we have quantitatively evaluated the fraction of the inhibitory activity that is due to chondroitinase ABC-sensitive material and partially characterized the inhibitors. The kinetics of chondroitinase ABC digestion of glycosaminoglycans and virus inhibitory activity in cell culture medium were measured, and the results used to estimate the amount of the chondroitinase ABC-sensitive virus inhibitory activity that was initially in the medium. We found that up to 76% of the inhibitory activity of medium conditioned by packaging cells derived from NIH 3T3 cells is sensitive to chondroitinase ABC. The remainder of the inhibitory activity is not sensitive to other glycosaminoglycan lyases (heparitinase I or heparinase I), which suggests that substances other than glycosaminoglycans or proteoglycans are present in virus stocks and inhibit transduction. To further characterize the inhibitors, proteoglycans from conditioned medium were purified by batch anion exchange and size exclusion chromatography. Two major size groups (100 kDa and 950 kDa) of proteoglycans were isolated. Transduction was inhibited 50% by 0.6 microg/mL of the high-molecular-weight proteoglycan or by 1.7 microg/mL of the low-molecular-weight proteoglycan. Significantly, the proteoglycans, because of their large size and poor sieving properties, coconcentrated with virus particles concentrated by ultrafiltration and prevented any significant increases in transduction efficiency. Transduction efficiencies of virus stocks were increased more than tenfold by ultrafiltration, but only when the concentrated virus was treated with chondroitinase ABC.
MOLECULAR PATHOGENESIS OF GENETIC AND INHERITED DISEASES Inducible Knockout of Twist 1 in Young and Adult Mice Prolongs Hair Growth Cycle and Has Mild Effects on General Health , Supporting Twist 1 as a Preferential Cancer Target

From the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology,* Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas; the Breast Disease Center,y Southwest Hospital, Third Military Medical University, Chongqing, China; the Institute of Biosciences and Technology,z Texas A&M Health Science Center, Houston, Texas; the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry,x Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, Columbus, Ohio; and the Institute for Cancer Medicine,{ Luzhou Medical College, Sichuan, China
Evaluation of the effect of fluconazole and ketoconazole on the pharmacokinetics of tofacitinib in healthy adult subjects

Tofacitinib is a novel, oral JAK inhibitor that is being investigated as a targeted immunomodulator. Tofacitinib is predominantly metabolized by cytochrome P450 (CYP) 3A4 and to a lesser extent by CYP2C19. Two Phase 1, randomized, open‐label, single sequence studies in 24 healthy subjects (12 per study) characterized the effects of fluconazole (moderate CYP3A4/potent CYP2C19 inhibitor) and ketoconazole (potent CYP3A4 inhibitor) on tofacitinib pharmacokinetics. In the fluconazole study, subjects received a single tofacitinib 30 mg dose. After 72 hours, subjects received fluconazole 400 mg, followed by 200 mg once daily (QD; days 2–7) plus tofacitinib 30 mg on day 5. In the ketoconazole study, a single tofacitinib 10 mg dose was administered. After 24 hours, subjects received ketoconazole (400 mg QD; days 1–3) plus tofacitinib 10 mg on day 3. Treatment comparisons were made using mixed‐effect models. Tofacitinib area under the curve and maximal plasma concentration increased by 79% and 27%, respectively, with fluconazole co‐administration and by 103% and 16%, respectively, with ketoconazole co‐administration. Tofacitinib half‐life increased by approximately 1 hour during co‐administration with fluconazole or ketoconazole. Co‐administration of moderate to potent CYP3A4 inhibitors is likely to increase the systemic exposure of tofacitinib and thus may warrant dosage adjustments or restrictions.
Purification, Identification and quantification of an Egg-weight-depressing factor (vicine) in fababeans (Vicia faba L.).

An egg-weight-depressing factor in fababeans was isolated in pure form from a white precipitate which had been shown in a previous study, to contain a concentrated form of this factor. The analytically pure compound was obtained in colourless, needle crystals. Its melting point was 242-244°C, it contained 17.4% nitrogen but did not react with ninhydrin. The spectra had adsorption maxima at 274, 276 and 269 nm in acidic, neutral, and alkaline solutions, respectively. These and other properties were identical to those of vicine [2,6-diamino-4,5-dihydroxy pyrimidine,5-(β-D-glucopyrano-side)] a compound known to be present in fababeans. Vicine and convicine [2,4,5-trihydroxy, 6-aminopyrimidine,5-(β-D-glucopyranoside)]; compounds having similar chemical and probably physiological activity, were resolved on a cation-exchange column and were detected by monitoring at 280 nm. Quantitative results obtained with the procedure was shown to be similar to those obtained with two other procedures. This method, however, was superior to other methods as it gave individual values for both vicine and convicine rather than a composite value; sample preparation was simple and the method could readily be adapted to automatic analysis.
Self-assembly Modeling of Biological Membranes by Dissipative Particle Dynamics Method

In this study, binary fluids consisting of ‘‘solvent’’ and ‘‘surfactant’’ molecules are studied as simplified model systems. Solutions of lipids in water are characterized by a wide range of length scales. Molecular Dynamics (MD) technique is used to study equilibrium and transport properties of biological membranes. However, classical molecular dynamics can deal with hundreds of thousands of atoms over a timescale of the order of 100 ns. For larger time and length scales the MD simulation becomes extremely expensive or even impossible. Recently, Dissipative Particle Dynamics (DPD) has been introduced as a mesoscopic simulation method that enables us to apply length and time scales that are significantly larger (several order of magnitude) than the one used in conventional MD simulations. The aim of this study is to simulate the self-assembly of the surfactant molecules into bilayer membranes by the DPD method. Our simulations verify that by using a periodic boundary condition and a fixed number of surfactants per area, a bilayer is formed which has a specific value of surface tension. Moreover, the surfactant consists of a hydrophilic head group and a hydrophobic tail group which was modeled by chains of particles interconnected by a harmonic bond potential. In this study the bending stiffness of these chains were incorporated. We were able to give to our surfactants a specific chemical structure and therefore, our membrane simulation result is closer to the physics. This makes our work quite distinct from most of previous studies. Eventually the effect of changes in the chain length and stiffness of the surfactants on the properties of the modeled membranes were studied. We observed that depending on the location of stiffness applied, the stiffness of chains have significant effect on the surfactant properties.
USMLE Performances in a Predominantly Asian and Pacific Islander Population of Medical Students in a Problem‐based Learning Curriculum

Purpose To compare the USMLE performances of students of various ethnicities, predominantly Pacific Islander and Asian, at one medical school and to examine the predictive validity of MCAT scores for USMLE performance. Method A total of 258 students in the graduating classes of 1996–2000 at the University of Hawai'i School of Medicine were classified by ethnicity. Demographic and performance characteristics of the groups were examined, and MCAT scores with and without undergraduate science GPA were used to predict USMLE performance. Under- and over-prediction rates were computed for each ethnic group. Results Ethnic groups did not differ significantly by gender or undergraduate GPA. Chinese, Caucasian, and Other Asian students tended to have higher MCAT scores than Hawaiian/other Pacific Islander, and Filipino students. Ethnic groups did not differ significantly in prediction of USMLE Step 1 performance. For Step 2, MCAT scores significantly over-predicted performance of Filipino students and tended to under-predict performance of Caucasian students. Conclusion Although MCAT scores and science GPA were good predictors of USMLE performance, ethnic differences were found in the degrees of their predictive validity. These findings both replicate and extend results of earlier studies, and again point to the importance of exploring additional predictor variables. The authors encourage future research on the effects of the following factors on success in medical school: reading and test-taking skills, socio-cultural and environmental influences on learning, communication styles, primary language use, family support, and family responsibilities.
Math-Abused Students: Are We Prepared to Teach Them?.

Math anxiety does not appear to have a single cause. It results from parents’ and teachers’ attitudes toward mathematics, poor selfconcept, the inability to handle frustration, and emphasis on mathematics through drill without understanding (Norwood 1994). Tobias and Weissbrod (1980) defined math anxiety as “the panic, helplessness, paralysis, and mental disorganization that arises among some people when they are required to solve a mathematical problem. ” Math anxiety has been called an illness that is an emotional as well as a cognitive dread of mathematics (Hodges 1983; Tobias 1978). Studies have shown that parents who have math anxiety can pass it on to their children and that teachers who have math anxiety can pass it on to their students (Lazarus 1974). The ranks of the mathematically anxious also include some mathematics teachers, especially at the elementary level (Williams 1988). A high percent of elementary school teachers say that they avoid mathematics and have been found to be math anxious. Most math anxiety has its roots in the teachers and the teaching of mathematics (Williams 1988). A bad experience with a mathematics teacher can cause math anxiety (Tobias 1978). Evidence suggests that math anxiety results more from the way the subject matter is presented than from the subject matter itself (Greenwood 1984). This article deals with students whose math anxiety resulted from past verbal or physical abuse, in particular, abuse by a teacher or parent while doing mathematics. Let us define math abuse as any negative experience related to an individual’s doing mathematics. It could be verbal, for example, such a statement as “You’re stupid if you can’t solve this problem”; or it can be physical, for example, striking a student who gives the wrong answer to a problem. In this article I discuss two examples of math abuse, the resulting math anxiety, and how I dealt with both.
Intracellular calcium, DNase activity and myocyte apoptosis in aging Fischer 344 rats.

Myocyte apoptosis increases with age in Fischer 344 rats, but the multiple molecular events implicated in this phenomenon remain to be identified. Several defects involving Ca2+ homeostasis, pH, and the expression of p53 and genes of the Bcl-2 protein family may contribute to the activation of myocyte death. Therefore, changes in intracellular pH, cytosolic Ca2+, DNase I and DNase II were measured in myocytes isolated by enzymatic digestion from rats of different ages. Moreover, the expression of p53, Bcl-2 and Bax in these cells was determined. Measurements of intracellular pH by BCECF fluorescence at 3, 12 and 24 months showed that this parameter did not change with age: 3 months, 7.20+/-0.05; 12 months, 7.21+/-0.07; 24 months, 7.18+/-0.09. In contrast, diastolic Ca2+ determined by the Fura 2-AM method increased progressively from 99.8+/-1.9 nm at 3 months to 136.3+/-9.6 nm at 24 months (P<0.001). Concurrently, DNase I activity evaluated by plasmid digestion assay in myocytes increased 3.2-fold from 3 to 24 months (P<0.02). Conversely, pH-dependent-DNase II remained essentially constant with age. Western blotting performed on ventricular myocytes did not detect significant changes in p53, Bax and Bcl-2 proteins with age. Similarly, immunocytochemically, the fraction of myocytes labeled by p53, Bax and Bcl-2 did not change from 3 to 24 months. In conclusion, myocyte aging is characterized by an increase in diastolic calcium which may activate DNase I triggering apoptosis, independently from the expression of p53, Bax and Bcl-2 in the cells.
Infection of Human Airway Epithelia with H1N1, H2N2, and H3N2 Influenza A Virus Strains

Abstract Three subtypes of influenza A virus cause human disease: H1N1, H2N2, and H3N2. Although all result in respiratory illness, little is known about how these subtypes infect differentiated airway epithelia. Therefore, we assayed A/PR/8/34 (H1N1), A/Japan/305/57 (H2N2), and X31 (H3N2) influenza virus strains for binding and infection on fully differentiated primary cultures of airway epithelia isolated from human bronchus, grown on semiporous filters at an air–liquid interface. In this model system, viral infectivity was highest when virus was applied to the apical versus the basolateral surface; Japan was most infectious, followed by PR8. The X31 strain showed very low levels of infectivity. Confocal microscopy and fluorescence-resonance energy transfer studies indicated that Japan virus could enter and fuse with cellular membranes, while infection with X31 virions was greatly inhibited. Japan virus could also productively infect human trachea explant tissues. These data show that influenza viruses with SAα2,3Gal binding specificity, like Japan, productively infect differentiated human airway epithelia from the apical surface. These data are important to consider in the development of pseudotyped recombinant viral vectors for gene transfer to human airway epithelia for gene therapy.