Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Brain thiamine, its phosphate esters, and its metabolizing enzymes in alzheimer's disease

Clinical data suggest that high‐dose thiamine (vitamin B,) may have a mild beneficial effect in some patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD). Since this action could be related to a brain thiamine deficiency, we measured directly levels of free (nonphosphorylated) thiamine and its phosphate esters, thiamine monophosphate and thiamine diphosphate (TDP), and activities of three TDP‐metabolizing enzymes (thiamine pyrophosphokinase, thiamine diphosphatase, and thiamine triphosphatase) in autopsied cerebral cortex of 18 patients with AD and 20 matched controls. In the AD group, mean levels of free thiamine and its monophosphate ester were normal, whereas levels of TDP were significantly reduced by 18 to 21% in all three cortical brain areas examined. Activities of the TDP‐metabolizing enzymes were normal in the AD group, suggesting that decreased TDP is not due to altered levels of these enzymes. The TDP decrease could be explained by a cerebral cortical deficiency in AD of ATP, which is needed for TDP synthesis. Although the magnitude of the TDP reduction is slight, a chronic subclinical TDP deficiency could contribute to impaired brain function in AD and might provide the basis for the modest improvement by thiamine in cognitive status of some patients with AD.
Pooled HIV-1 RNA Viral Load Testing for Detection of Antiretroviral Treatment Failure in Kenyan Children

Background:Pooled viral load (VL) testing with 2 different testing strategies was evaluated as a potential cost saving method to monitor antiretroviral therapy (ART) in HIV-infected children receiving ART in a resource-limited setting. Methods:Archived samples collected from 250 HIV-1–infected children on first-line ART at various time points post-ART initiation were evaluated for pooled VL testing using a minipool + algorithm strategy. Additionally, samples collected in real time from 125 children on ART were assessed for virologic failure using a minipool strategy for pooled VL testing. Virologic failure was determined as HIV-1 RNA VLs >1500 copies/mL. Results:Minipool + algorithm strategy for pooled VL testing of archived samples had estimated viral failure of 13.6%, with a relative efficiency (RE) of 23.6% (95% CI: 18.5 to 29.4), and negative predictive value of 88%. This testing strategy would have resulted in 24% fewer assays needed for a cost savings of $1180 per 100 samples. The minipool strategy for pooled VL testing of samples obtained in real time yielded an estimated 23.2% of samples with viral failure and a RE of 8.0% (95% CI: 3.9 to 14.2); however, had a minipool + algorithm pooling strategy been used, the RE would have increased to 20%. Conclusions:The minipool + algorithm strategy for pooled VL testing to detect virologic failure in HIV-1–infected children on ART was determined to be relatively efficient in detecting virologic failure, have high negative predictive value, with substantial cost savings. Pooling strategies may be important components of cost-effect strategies to reduce rates of viral failure and resistance, thus, improving clinical outcomes.
Exploring the Impacts of Cultural Globalization on Cultural Awareness/ Values and English Writing in Chinese Context

This article explores the impacts of cultural globalization on the cultural awareness and orientation of cultural values among educated Chinese young people and on English writing of Chinese college students. It demonstrates that, while making fast achievements in its economy in the process of globalization, China has also gone through great changes in its national culture in the areas of traditional cultural values, multicultural awareness, and English education since the historical reform of 1978. One noticeable impact of cultural globalization on Chinese society is the phenomenon that many Chinese educated youths have become more orientated toward individualism and that Chinese college students have gained stronger intercultural awareness, thanks to university teaching practices that focus on this awareness. Finally, the author argues that the practice of teaching English as the dominant foreign language in Chinese universities and high schools during this period of cultural globalization has contributed to the findings that Chinese college students have learned a variety of rhetorical patterns from both Chinese and English rhetoric, in particular, that they seem to prefer a deductive organizational pattern in their English writing.
Psychomotor control in stammering and normal subjects: an experimental study.

Voluntary control of the regularity of a motor performance (finger-tapping) which does not involve speech or the speech mechanism was investigated in fifteen stammering and fifteen non-stammering subjects. The results indicate: (i) that in right-hand finger tapping the stammerers are markedly inferior to normal controls in their ability to maintain voluntarily the rhythm or regularity of the performance; (ii) that this group of ostensibly right-handed stammerers showed a marked inferiority in right-handed, as against left-handed, performance; (iii) that the disorganization of psychomotor performance is not confined to the speech-function, and may appear in situations where communication by speech is not involved, and in which the influence of personal-social factors is reduced to a minimum.
Favism: Association with Erythrocyte Acid Phosphatase Phenotype

The frequency of carriers of the Paand Pc alleles of the gene for acid phosphatase in the erythrocyte is significantly higher in male subjects deficient in glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase and having hemolytic clinical favism than it is in the general population. This observation seems to indicate that alleles (Pa and Pc) of a gene polymorphic in all human populations affect the fitness of the involved phenotypes in special genotypic and nongenotypic conditions.
Enrichment strategies in glycomics‐based lung cancer biomarker development

There is a need to identify better glycan biomarkers for diagnosis, early detection, and treatment monitoring in lung cancer using biofluids such as blood. Biofluids are complex mixtures of proteins dominated by a few high abundance proteins that may not have specificity for lung cancer. Therefore, two methods for protein enrichment were evaluated; affinity capturing of IgG and enrichment of medium abundance proteins, thus allowing us to determine which method yields the best candidate glycan biomarkers for lung cancer.
Leukocyte recruitment into human skin transplanted onto severe combined immunodeficient mice induced by TNF-alpha is dependent on E-selectin.

In order to study the in vivo role of E-selectin in human inflammation, we have developed a model in which human skin is transplanted onto severe combined immunodeficient (SCID) mice. The grafted skin closely resembles normal skin and retains its human vasculature. After intradermal injection of rTNF-alpha, human E-selectin was rapidly up-regulated on dermal microvessels, with significant expression (determined immunohistochemically) at 1 h postinjection and maximum expression at 2 h postinjection. To study the functional role of E-selectin, a murine Ab against human E-selectin (mAb HEL 3/2) was developed that inhibited the in vitro adhesion of both human U937 cells and murine 32D cells to TNF-alpha-stimulated human endothelial cells. After intradermal injection of TNF-alpha, large numbers of murine leukocytes migrated into the grafts within 2 h. Intravenous injection of the antihuman E-selectin mAb 3/2 completely inhibited murine white blood cell (WBC) transmigration into the skin grafts, but an isotype-matched control Ab that also bound to human endothelium had no effect. Antihuman E-selectin mAb 3/2 was also able to inhibit the migration of i.v. 51Cr-labeled human neutrophils. These findings demonstrate that E-selectin is important in early white blood cell adhesion events and is required for TNF-alpha-induced white blood cell transmigration in the human/SCID mouse chimeric model.
The role of neurotrophins in allergic bronchial asthma

Neurotrophins are known as target-derived factors regulating the development, survival and function of distinct neuronal subsets. This family of structurally related growth factors includes nerve growth factor (NGF), brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), neurotrophin-3 (NT-3) and NT-4. Beyond their originally described effects on neurones, neurotrophins are involved in many other biological processes including immune regulation, smooth muscle differentiation and neuroendocrine functions. The pathogenesis of allergic bronchial asthma is characterized by a complex interaction between inflammatory, epithelial, smooth muscle cells and neurones. This results in the development of airway inflammation, airway obstruction, airway hyperresponsiveness and airway remodelling. The altered neuronal control of airway smooth muscle tone is a hallmark in bronchial asthma. Growing evidence suggests that T cells, B cells, macrophages and mast cells produce high quantities of neurotrophic factors during allergic inflammation. Therefore, they are likely candidates as mediators between allergic inflammation and airway hyperresponsiveness. Neurotrophins increase excitability and neurotransmitter synthesis in sensory neurones and can also affect motor neurones. They enhance local neuropeptide release and augment central reflexes. Additionally, neurotrophins can affect immune functions and smooth muscle physiology. Therefore, neurotrophins are involved in the cellular communication between different compartments of the asthmatic lung. Delineating the mechanisms of this cross-talk will give new insights into the pathogenesis of asthma.
Is India’s Employment Guarantee Program Successfully Challenging Her Historical Inequalities?

By providing 100 days of guaranteed employment to every rural household, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) can challenge the hegemony of the landed elite as major employers in the Indian countryside and raise market wages which have long been depressed. This paper shows that the impact of NREGA is conditioned and complicated by historical inequalities in agricultural landownership which have persisted since the colonial period. I find that in the lean season of agriculture, the program is highly successful in raising wages and generating more public employment in districts that were not characterized by historically high levels of socio-economic inequality. In these districts, the increase in public employment crowds-out labor primarily from domestic work, reflected in increased women’s participation in the program. However, high inequality in landownership adversely impacts the bargaining power of workers and the enforcement of their entitlements under NREGA. This is most evident when I examine the impact of NREGA on rural wages. I find that in districts where land is concentrated in the hands of relatively few large landowners, private agricultural wages declined despite NREGA, whereas they remain largely unchanged in districts that have more equitable land distribution. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that NREGA has not become a credible alternative to private employment in regions with high land inequality.
Adult hospitalizations for laboratory-positive influenza during the 2005-2006 through 2007-2008 seasons in the United States.

BACKGROUND Rates of influenza-associated hospitalizations in the United States have been estimated using modeling techniques with data from pneumonia and influenza hospitalization discharge diagnoses, but they have not been directly estimated from laboratory-positive cases. METHODS We calculated overall, age-specific, and site-specific rates of laboratory-positive, influenza-associated hospitalization among adults and compared demographic and clinical characteristics and outcomes of hospitalized cases by season with use of data collected by the Emerging Infections Program Network during the 2005-2006 through 2007-2008 influenza seasons. RESULTS Overall rates of adult influenza-associated hospitalization per 100,000 persons were 9.9 during the 2005-2006 season, 4.8 during the 2006-2007 season, and 18.7 during the 2007-2008 season. Rates of hospitalization varied by Emerging Infections Program site and increased with increasing age. Higher overall and age-specific rates of hospitalization were observed during influenza A (H3) predominant seasons and during periods of increased circulation of influenza B. More than 80% of hospitalized persons each season had > or =1 underlying medical condition, including chronic cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. CONCLUSIONS Rates varied by season, age, geographic location, and type/subtype of circulating influenza viruses. Influenza-associated hospitalization surveillance is essential for assessing the relative severity of influenza seasons over time and the burden of influenza-associated complications.
Methods for energy price prediction in the Smart Grid

This paper compares different strategies for the prediction of energy prices. This feature is very important to support the Energy Management System for the computation of optimal power flows in a smart grid framework, e.g., in a Virtual Power Plant. The paper compares simple strategies like the typical one based on the assumption that the prices of the following day will remain the same of the current day, with more complicated approaches, like the Kalman Filter and empirical strategies that also include the information of the current day of the week. The performance of the different algorithms are thoroughly discussed and compared on real data taken from the Italian energy market.
Utility optimal scheduling in energy-harvesting networks

In this paper, we show how to achieve close-to-optimal utility performance in energy-harvesting networks with only finite capacity energy storage devices. In these networks, nodes are capable of harvesting energy from the environment. The amount of energy that can be harvested is time-varying and evolves according to some probability law.We develop an online algorithm, called the Energy-limited Scheduling Algorithm (ESA), which jointly manages the energy and makes power allocation decisions for packet transmissions. ESA only has to keep track of the amount of energy left at the network nodes and does not require any knowledge of the harvestable energy process. We show that ESA achieves a utility that is within O(ε) of the optimal, for any ε > O, while ensuring that the network congestion and the required capacity of the energy storage devices are deterministically upper-bounded by bounds of size O (1/ε). We then also develop the Modified-ESA (MESA) algorithm to achieve the same O(ε) close-to-utility performance, with the average network congestion and the required capacity of the energy storage devices being only O([log(1/ε)]2), which is close to the theoretical lower bound O(log(1/ε)).
Adsorption of Hg0 from Coal Combustion Flue Gases by Novel Iodine-Modified Bentonite/Chitosan Sorbents

Adsorption experiments of vapor-phase elemental mercury (Hg 0 ) were carried out by using modified bentonite/chitosan in a laboratory-scale fixed-bed reactor. VM3000 online mercury analyzer was applied to detect the inlet and outlet mercury concentrations. The characterizations of the sorbents were analyzed using the method of nitrogen (N 2 ) adsorption-desorption, Thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). It is observed that porosity and specific surface area decreases after modifying. The TGA analysis demonstrates these sorbents will operate stably at flue-gas temperatures below 140°C, which can meet the temperature requirement of mercury removal after the electrostatic precipitator. The XRD analysis indicates that the iodine and chitosan is found in the inlayer of bentonite, and the chemical reactions of iodine and sulfuric acid with the amide of chitosan occurr. Fixed-bed adsorber tests show that iodine-modified bentonite-chitosan sorbents exhibit better mercury capture than that of iodine-modified chitosan. For the iodine-modified chitosan-supported bentonite sorbents, mercury removal capacity could be significantly promoted when an appropriate content of H 2 SO 4 was added. The mercury capacities of modified chitosan sorbents increase with increasing temperature. The increase in mercury removal efficiency with an increase in temperature is a typical of a chemisorption mechanism.
Double-blind, dose-range-finding study of fleroxacin (RO 23-6240; AM-833) for treatment of complicated urinary tract infections

In a double-blind randomized trial, we evaluated the efficacy and safety of three oral dosage regimens of fleroxacin, a new fluoroquinolone, once daily in 62 patients for the treatment of complicated urinary tract infections. The regimens compared were 200 mg for 10 days (n = 20), 400 mg for 10 days (n = 21), and 600 mg for 10 days (n = 21). Forty-five patients were evaluable for efficacy. A clinical cure was reached in 78% of the patients. Overall, a favorable bacteriological response (negative culture or reinfection at 4 to 6 weeks) was obtained in 36 of 45 (80%) patients. No significant difference could be found among the three dosage groups. During therapy, one Klebsiella ozaenae strain became resistant and one Pseudomonas aeruginosa strain became less susceptible to fleroxacin. In 13 patients, therapy had to be discontinued due to major adverse events (oliguria [n = 1], psychosis [n = 1], photosensitivity [n = 1], insomnia [n = 1], and nausea [n = 9]). Minor side effects were seen in 13 other patients. Increased dosage correlated significantly (P less than 0.01) with total number of adverse events.
One of these greebles is not like the others: Semi-supervised models for similarity structures

When studying human concepts, artificial categories are often used that are very simple, with a chosen set of discrete features. Images such as “greebles”, animal-like three-dimensional figures, are a more realistic and interesting alternative artificial stimulus set for categorization experiments. However, especially for more complex stimuli, it is not obvious that participants’ perceived similarity structure will be as simple as the structure used to construct the stimuli. Therefore, it is safest to first empirically obtain a measure of the stimuli’s structure. We demonstrate the use of an odd one out task in order to model people’s mental representations of a set of greebles, an example set of moderately complex stimuli. We show that, although the greebles were constructed such that they can be classified into two sets of categories, these categories have a considerable amount of additional latent structure that can be extracted by similarity modeling.
123I-5-IA-85380 SPECT Imaging of Nicotinic Receptors in Alzheimer Disease and Mild Cognitive Impairment

Postmortem binding studies have established that the concentration of α4β2-nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (α4β2-nAChR) is reduced in advanced Alzheimer disease (AD). However, the status of this receptor in mild or prodromal AD has remained the subject of controversy. Methods: We compared α4β2-nAChR availability in 8 brain regions of living human subjects who had AD and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) with that in age-matched healthy control subjects by using the ligand 123I-5-IA-85380 (123I-5-IA) and SPECT. All subjects (n = 32) were nonsmokers; they were administered 123I-5-IA as a bolus plus a constant infusion and imaged 6–8 h later under equilibrium conditions. The effect of diagnosis on regional α4β2-nAChR availability (regional brain activity/total parent concentration in plasma, proportional to the binding potential) was analyzed using multivariate analysis of covariance, controlling for the effects of age and sex. Results: Despite a significant overall effect of diagnostic group on mean α4β2-nAChR availability, univariate analyses revealed no group differences for any brain region analyzed. An exploratory analysis of the relationship between regional α4β2-nAChR availability and neuropsychologic variables yielded several plausible correlations. However, after Bonferroni adjustment, only the correlation between the anterior cingulate and the Trail Making Test, Part B, in the healthy control subjects remained significant. Conclusion: These results are consistent with several postmortem and in vivo studies suggesting the preservation of nAChRs during the prodromal and early stages of AD. They support the interpretation that nAChR and other cholinergic reductions in AD are late-stage phenomena.
Well-being in older Mexican American spouses.

PURPOSE There is a strong connection between marriage and well-being, with evidence suggesting that the well-being of one spouse is closely correlated with that of the other. However, among older Mexican Americans, there is little information about this phenomenon. To address this, we explore two research questions: Does one spouse's well-being predict the other spouse's well-being? Are there gender differences in these effects? DESIGN AND METHODS We assess information from 553 couples who participated in Wave 1 (1993-1994) of the Hispanic Established Populations for the Epidemiologic Studies of the Elderly. Using structural equation models, we examined three aspects of well-being among older Mexican American couples: depressive symptoms, life satisfaction, and self-rated health. RESULTS The findings revealed evidence of an association between the well-being of one spouse and that of the other. Specifically, the self-rated health of husbands and wives predicts that of their partners. However, there is evidence that husbands' depressive symptoms and life satisfaction influence wives' well-being, but not the reverse. IMPLICATIONS The findings from this study are important because they add to the literature on the connection of well-being among spouses, point to important gender differences, focus on an understudied minority group with unique cultural characteristics, and have implications for the examination of well-being within a marriage framework.
A Non‐Randomized Comparative Study of Visual laser Ablation and Transurethral Resection of the Prostate in Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia

Background: Transurethral resection of the prustate (TURP) haz been the ‐preferred surgical treatment for benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) for the past 50 years. Alternative methods for treating BPH such as visual laser ablation (VLAP) have been established during the past decade. In order to assess the safety and efficacy of VLAP, this alternative method was performed using a Urolase fiber and neodymium: yttrium‐aluminum‐garnet laser and compared to results obtained in patients treated with TURP for BPH Methods: In this non‐randomized comparative study, 100 BPH patients were equally split between treatment with VLAP or TURP, and their cases compared. The efficacy was assessed using an International Prostate Symptom Score, urinary flow rates, post‐void residual urinary volume and an estimated prostate volume.