Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Cognitive Evaluation of Four Online Search Engines for Answering Definitional Questions Posed by Physicians

The Internet is having a profound impact on physicians' medical decision making. One recent survey of 277 physicians showed that 72% of physicians regularly used the Internet to research medical information and 51% admitted that information from web sites influenced their clinical decisions. This paper describes the first cognitive evaluation of four state-of-the-art Internet search engines: Google (i.e., Google and Scholar.Google), MedQA, Onelook, and PubMed for answering definitional questions (i.e., questions with the format of "What is X? ") posed by physicians. Onelook is a portal for online definitions, and MedQA is a question answering system that automatically generates short texts to answer specific biomedical questions. Our evaluation criteria include quality of answer, ease of use, time spent, and number of actions taken. Our results show that MedQA outperforms Onelook and PubMed in most of the criteria, and that MedQA surpasses Google in time spent and number of actions, two important efficiency criteria. Our results show that Google is the best system for quality of answer and ease of use. We conclude that Google is an effective search engine for medical definitions, and that MedQA exceeds the other search engines in that it provides users direct answers to their questions; while the users of the other search engines have to visit several sites before finding all of the pertinent information.
Mobilization of hematopoietic stem and leukemia cells

HSC mobilization is an essential homeostatic process during inflammation and for the maintenance of hematopoietic progenitors. It has been exploited for the therapeutic application of HSC transplantation. Recent evidence suggests that leukemic cells share surface molecules in common with stem cells and may be mobilized under similar conditions. This effect could be used for therapeutic interventions. In this review, we will provide evidence showing that leukemia cells and stem cells traffic similarly and may share a common niche. Studies are discussed comparing and contrasting the mechanism of normal stem cells and leukemic cell mobilization through the CXCR4/CXCL12 axis and other key intermediaries.
Development of a 5 th Percentile Female Finite Element Model Using a MultiModality Image Set

To mitigate the societal impact of vehicle crash, researchers are using a variety of tools, including finite element models. As part of the Global Human Body Models Consortium project, comprehensive medical image and anthropometrical data of the 5 percentile female (F05) were acquired. Height, weight and 15 external anthropomorphic measurements were used to determine subject eligibility. A multi-modality image dataset consisting of CT, MRI and upright MRI medical images was developed to characterize the subject in the supine, seated and standing postures. Surface topography and 52 bony landmarks were also acquired for model assembly. The selected subject closely represented the F05 in terms of height and weight, deviating less than 2% in those measures. For all 15 anthropomorphic measurements, the average subject deviation across all measures was 4.1%. The multi-modality image set was used to develop and assemble skeletal and organ components of the model. Abdominal organ volumes and cortical bone thickness were compared to literature sources where data was available. The dataset used for the development of this model was acquired with the explicit purpose of developing a full-body finite element model of the F05 for the enhancement of injury prediction.
Advanced modeling ,control, and design of an electromechanical engine value drive system with a limited-angle actuator

This thesis addresses a specific variable valve actuation (VVA) system ---an electromechanical valvetrain ---in order to provide variable valve timing (VVT) in internal combustion (IC) engines. This electromechanical valve drive (EMV) system was proposed by Dr. Woo Sok Chang and his colleagues in the Laboratory for Electromagnetic and Electronic Systems (LEES), who also validated the feasibility of the design to provide VVT. The goal of this thesis is to bring the MIT EMV system to a more practical level by achieving a smaller package (to fit in the limited space over the engine head), a faster transition time (to accommodate faster engine speed), and a lower power consumption, while still offering satisfactory valve transitions with timing control. This thesis reports four major achievements. First, a more accurate system model, including dynamics, loss flow and distributions, and nonlinear friction, has been established for better guidance in system control and design via numerical simulations. Second, different control strategies and cam designs have been explored in order to determine the most appropriate control strategy and cam design to achieve a lower torque requirement, reduced power consumption and a faster transition time. Third, a limited-angle actuator was custom designed and built for the valve actuation application in order to reduce the actuator size while maintaining the necessary torque and power output. Fourth, with the limited-angle actuator in place, the EMV system was evaluated experimentally for intake valve actuation and numerically for exhaust valve actuation with gas force disturbance taken into consideration. Based on this system evaluation, we are able to project the system’s applicability to a real 4-cylinder 16-valve engine with independent valve control for each intake and exhaust valve.
Senna vs polyethylene glycol for mechanical preparation the evening before elective colonic or rectal resection: a multicenter controlled trial. French Association for Surgical Research.

HYPOTHESIS Senna is more efficient than polyethylene glycol as mechanical preparation before elective colorectal surgery. DESIGN Prospective, randomized, single-blind study. SETTING Multicenter study (18 centers). PATIENTS Five hundred twenty-three consecutive patients with colonic or rectal carcinoma or sigmoid diverticular disease, undergoing elective colonic or rectal resection followed by immediate anastomosis. INTERVENTION Two hundred sixty-two patients were randomly allotted to receive senna (1 package diluted in a glass of water) and 261 to receive polyethylene glycol (2 packages diluted in 2-3 L of water), administered the evening before surgery. All patients received 5% povidone iodine antiseptic enemas (2 L) the evening and the morning before surgery. Ceftriaxone sodium and metronidazole were given intravenously at anesthetic induction. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Degree of colonic and rectal cleanliness. RESULTS Colonic cleanliness was better (P=.006), fecal matter in the colonic lumen was less fluid (P=.001), and the risk for moderate or large intraoperative fecal soiling was lower (P=.11) with senna. Overall, clinical tolerance did not differ significantly between groups, but 20 patients receiving polyethylene glycol (vs 16 with senna) had to interrupt their preparation, and 15 patients (vs 8 with senna) complained of abdominal distension. Senna, however, was better tolerated (P = .03) in the presence of stenosis. There was no statistically significant difference found in the number of patients with postoperative infective complications (14.7% vs 17.7%) or anastomotic leakage (5.3% vs 5.7%) with senna and polyethylene glycol, respectively. CONCLUSION Mechanical preparation before colonic or rectal resection with senna is better and easier than with polyethylene glycol and should be proposed in patients undergoing colonic or rectal resection, especially patients with stenosis.
Brain Polyamine Stress Response: Recurrence After Repetitive Stressor and Inhibition by Lithium

Abstract: We recently demonstrated that, unlike in peripheral tissues, the increase in activity of polyamine synthesizing enzymes observed in the brain after acute stress can be prevented by long‐term, but not by short‐term, treatment with lithium. In the present study we sought to examine the effects of chronic intermittent stress on two key polyamine synthesizing enzymes, ornithine decarboxylase and S‐adenosylmethionine decarboxylase, and their modulation by lithium treatment. Adult male rats were subjected to 2 h of restraint stress once daily for 5 days and to an additional delayed stress episode 7 days later. Enzyme activities were assayed 6 h after the beginning of each stress episode. In contrast to the liver, where ornithine decarboxylase activity was increased (300% of the control) only after the first stress episode, the enzyme activity in the brain was increased after each stress episode (to ∼170% of the control). Unlike ornithine decarboxylase activity, S‐adenosylmethionine decarboxylase activity was slightly reduced after the first episode (86% of the control) but remained unchanged thereafter. After cessation of the intermittent stress period, an additional stress episode 7 days later led again to an increase in ornithine decarboxylase activity in the brain (225% of the control) but not in the liver, whereas S‐adenosylmethionine decarboxylase activity remained unchanged. The latter increase in ornithine decarboxylase activity was blocked by lithium treatment during the intervening 7‐day interval between stressors. The results warrant the following conclusions: (a) Repetitive application of stressors results in a recurrent increase in ornithine decarboxylase activity in the brain but to habituation of this response in the liver. (b) This brain polyamine stress response can be blocked by long‐term (days) lithium treatment. (c) The study implicates an overreactive polyamine response as a component of the adaptive, or maladaptive, brain response to stressful events and as a novel molecular target for lithium action.
Nucleocapsid proteins: roles beyond viral RNA packaging

Viral nucleocapsid proteins (NCs) enwrap the RNA genomes of viruses to form NC–RNA complexes, which act as a template and are essential for viral replication and transcription. Beyond packaging viral RNA, NCs also play important roles in virus replication, transcription, assembly, and budding by interacting with viral and host cellular proteins. Additionally, NCs can inhibit interferon signaling response and function in cell stress response, such as inducing apoptosis. Finally, NCs can be the target of vaccines, benefiting from their conserved gene sequences. Here, we summarize important findings regarding the additional functions of NCs as much more than structural RNA‐binding proteins, with specific emphasis on (1) their association with the viral life cycle, (2) their association with host cells, and (3) as ideal candidates for vaccine development. WIREs RNA 2016, 7:213–226. doi: 10.1002/wrna.1326
Identifying the role of individual user messages in an online discussion and its use in thread retrieval

Online discussion forums have become a popular medium for users to discuss with and seek information from other users having similar interests. A typical discussion thread consists of a sequence of posts posted by multiple users. Each post in a thread serves a different purpose providing different types of information and, thus, may not be equally useful for all applications. Identifying the purpose and nature of each post in a discussion thread is thus an interesting research problem as it can help in improving information extraction and intelligent assistance techniques. We study the problem of classifying a given post as per its purpose in the discussion thread and employ features based on the post's content, structure of the thread, behavior of the participating users, and sentiment analysis of the post's content. We evaluate our approach on two forum data sets belonging to different genres and achieve strong classification performance. We also analyze the relative importance of different features used for the post classification task. Next, as a use case, we describe how the post class information can help in thread retrieval by incorporating this information in a state‐of‐the‐art thread retrieval model.
Particle size distribution and composition in a mechanically ventilated school building during air pollution episodes.

UNLABELLED Particle count-based size distribution and PM(2.5) mass were monitored inside and outside an elementary school in Salt Lake City (UT, USA) during the winter atmospheric inversion season. The site is influenced by urban traffic and the airshed is subject to periods of high PM(2.5) concentration that is mainly submicron ammonium and nitrate. The school building has mechanical ventilation with filtration and variable-volume makeup air. Comparison of the indoor and outdoor particle size distribution on the five cleanest and five most polluted school days during the study showed that the ambient submicron particulate matter (PM) penetrated the building, but indoor concentrations were about one-eighth of outdoor levels. The indoor:outdoor PM(2.5) mass ratio averaged 0.12 and particle number ratio for sizes smaller than 1 microm averaged 0.13. The indoor submicron particle count and indoor PM(2.5) mass increased slightly during pollution episodes but remained well below outdoor levels. When the building was occupied the indoor coarse particle count was much higher than ambient levels. These results contribute to understanding the relationship between ambient monitoring station data and the actual human exposure inside institutional buildings. The study confirms that staying inside a mechanically ventilated building reduces exposure to outdoor submicron particles. PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS This study supports the premise that remaining inside buildings during particulate matter (PM) pollution episodes reduces exposure to submicron PM. New data on a mechanically ventilated institutional building supplements similar studies made in residences.
Abstract Convexity and Augmented Lagrangians

The ultimate goal of this paper is to demonstrate that abstract convexity provides a natural language and a suitable framework for the examination of zero duality gap properties and exact multipliers of augmented Lagrangians. We study augmented Lagrangians in a very general setting and formulate the main definitions and facts describing the augmented Lagrangian theory in terms of abstract convexity tools. We illustrate our duality scheme with an application to stochastic semi-infinite optimization.
[Malaria severity criteria and prognostic factors among children in Dakar].

INTRODUCTION Severity factors associated with malaria as well as prognostic factors for death were assessed at the Dakar Centre Hospitalier National d'Enfants Albert Royer de Fann (CHNEAR). PATIENTS AND METHODS A prospective study was carried out from January 1 to December 31, 2007 involving children from 0 to 15 years of age, admitted for plasmodium falciparum malaria with positive thick drop examination, meeting at least one of the WHO 2000 malaria severity criteria. Acidosis was not studied. OUTCOME The rate of severe malaria cases in our hospital was 6.4%. The sex ratio was 1.4 and the median age of patients at 91 months. A peak was observed during the 4th trimester (75.5%). Convulsions (52.5%) and obtundation (49.4%) were the most common signs of clinical severity while hyperparasitemia and severe anemia ranged at 27.2% and 21.6%, respectively. Lethality was 11.1% and the main death risk factors were young age (p = 0.025), coma (p = 0.007), respiratory distress (p = 0.04), or hypoglycemia (p = 0.001). CONCLUSION Reducing malaria hospital mortality in Senegal may be obtained by proper management of poor prognostic factors such as coma, respiratory distress, and hypoglycemia.
Binding of Salmonella-specific antibody facilitates specific T cell responses via augmentation of bacterial uptake and induction of apoptosis in macrophages.

BACKGROUND Most antigens from intracellular bacteria or vaccines induce both humoral and cell-mediated immune responses, but interactions between these responses are not fully understood. This study aims to resolve how specific antibodies participate in the activation of specific T cells in protecting hosts against Salmonella enterica serotype Typhimurium (S. typhimurium) infection. METHODS Mice were administered anti-Salmonella immunoglobulin G (IgG) 1 day before Salmonella infection, and survival rate was observed. For in vitro assay, Salmonella bacteria were treated with anti-Salmonella IgG or control IgG before infection of the RAW264.7 or HEp2 cells. After infection, cell-associated bacteria number, induction of apoptosis, and production of nitric oxide were examined. In addition, antigen presentation assays using Salmonella-primed T cells were performed. RESULTS Treatment of S. typhimurium with anti-Salmonella IgG enhanced the macrophages' uptake of bacteria and induced high-frequency apoptotic cell death. In vitro antigen presentation assay revealed that the extracellular vesicles isolated from apoptotic cells caused by infection with anti-Salmonella IgG-treated S. typhimurium facilitated the responses of Salmonella-specific T cells. CONCLUSION Our findings suggest that humoral immunity cooperates with cell-mediated immunity upon induction of apoptosis in host cells to establish protective immunity against Salmonella infection, even if it does not directly eliminate intracellular microorganisms.
About the application of the van Cittert-Zernike theorem in ultrasonic imaging

The specific circumstances under which the van Cittert-Zernike theorem applies in ultrasonic imaging systems are examined through analysis and computations. Expressions are obtained for the mutual coherence function of an incoherent source when the signals are discrete in time and space and have finite lengths. Expressions are also obtained for statistics and effective signal-to-noise ratios that describe the error in the assumption of an incoherent source with finite signal lengths. Images of a one-dimensional source are reconstructed for different signal lengths and different pulse windows. The results show that ultrasonic signals with a relatively long effective length are needed to satisfy the incoherence requirement for image reconstruction based on the van Cittert-Zernike theorem. Consequently, although the van Cittert-Zernike theorem may be used to estimate the coherence length of ultrasonic signals in the aperture of an imaging system, special data acquisition techniques are needed for satisfactory reconstruction of ultrasonic images when depth resolution like that in current b-scans is required. <<ETX>>
Glenoid labrum: MR imaging with histologic correlation.

PURPOSE To document the histopathologic basis of altered intralabral and sublabral signal intensity on magnetic resonance (MR) images. MATERIALS AND METHODS Ten fresh cadaveric shoulder specimens underwent transaxial MR imaging with T1-weighted, proton-density-weighted, and T2-weighted spin-echo; multiplanar gradient-recalled echo (MPGR); three-dimensional Fourier transform gradient-recalled echo (GRE); spoiled gradient-recalled echo (SPGR); and T1-weighted, fat-suppressed sequences before and after intraarticular injection of gadolinium. Shoulders were then frozen and transversely sectioned, and histologic analysis of the labrum was performed. RESULTS Altered intralabral signal intensity correlated with fibrovascular tissue, mucoid or eosinophilic degeneration, calcification, ossification, synovial tissue, or combinations of these findings. A sublabral transitional band of intermediate signal intensity correlated with a transitional zone of fibrocartilage. CONCLUSION There are several causes of altered intralabral signal intensity. A transitional fibrocartilaginous zone correlates with sublabral increased signal intensity. Intraarticular administration of gadolinium improves evaluation of the glenoid labrum.
Contribution of forest insects to food security and forest conservation : The example of caterpillars in Central Africa

W ild lif e Po lic y N um be r 3, J an ua ry 2 00 4 Policy Conclusions ! In areas such as the Congo Basin, insects contribute significantly to the food security and livelihoods of the poor, as sources of protein, carbohydrate and vitamins, and also traditional medicines. Being labour-intensive, insect harvesting is beneficial to the poor, especially women and children. Development planners and managers would gain from a greater awareness of the ways in which the value of insects in rural economies affects and is in turn affected by local natural resource management strategies, including farm and bush burning, pesticide use, and tree conservation decisions. Means need to be found to accommodate the growing demand for insects and products on the market in a context of declining habitats, as this is putting a heavy burden on the livelihoods of the poorest and most disadvantaged people. External interventions need to factor in their potential impacts on this aspect of the ecosystem and forest economy. The relationships between the bushmeat and insect commodity chains are little understood, though there may be mutual effects. This paper examines the food potential of edible insects, and the implications for development policy. It is based on a study undertaken by FAO in 2003, which drew on four case studies in the Congo Basin sub-region. The paper identifies research gaps and gives policy recommendations for forest managers, conservationists, nutritionists and rural development workers to help them incorporate forest-gathered insects in food security and forest conservation strategies. Number 3, January 2004
Pleiotropic Action of AP-1 in v-Src-Transformed Cells

ABSTRACT The activation of AP-1 is a hallmark of cell transformation by tyrosine kinases. In this study, we characterize the role of AP-1 proteins in the transformation of chicken embryo fibroblasts (CEF) by v-Src. In normal CEF, the expression of a dominant negative mutant of c-Jun (TAM67) induced senescence. In contrast, three distinct phenotypes were observed when TAM67 was expressed in v-Src-transformed CEF. While senescent cells were also present, the inhibition of AP-1 caused apoptosis in a fraction of the v-Src-transformed cells. In addition, cells containing lipid-rich vesicles accumulated, suggesting that a subpopulation of the v-Src-transformed cells underwent differentiation in response to the inhibition of AP-1. JunD and Fra-2 were the main components of this factor, while c-Jun accounted for a minor fraction of AP-1 in v-Src-transformed CEF. The downregulation of c-Jun expression by short hairpin RNA (shRNA) induced senescence in normal and v-Src-transformed cells. In contrast, a high incidence of apoptosis was caused by the downregulation of JunD, suggesting that it is required for the survival of v-Src-transformed CEF. Levels of the p53 tumor suppressor were elevated under conditions of JunD inhibition. Repression of p53 by shRNA enhanced the survival and anchorage-independent proliferation of v-Src-transformed CEF with JunD/AP-1 inhibition. The inhibition of Fra-2 had no visible phenotype in normal CEF but caused the appearance of lipid-rich vesicles in v-Src-transformed CEF. Therefore, AP-1 facilitated transformation by acting as a survival factor, by inhibiting premature entry into senescence, and by blocking the differentiation of v-Src-transformed CEF.