Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The μ-opioid receptor and treatment response to naltrexone.

AIMS To evaluate the pharmacogenetic evidence relating to the use of opioid antagonists (in particular naltrexone) in treating patients with alcohol abuse problems. METHODS Narrative review of pre-clinical and clinical published research regarding genetic modulation of psychotropic effects produced by alcohol and the therapeutic effects of opioid antagonists. RESULTS Alcohol activates brain reward pathways, leading to positive reinforcement of alcohol seeking and consumption. Thus, the underlying biological mechanisms may be targets for treatment, particularly in the early stages of addiction development. Alcohol reward is in part mediated by endogenous opioids. A single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) within the OPRM1 gene, A118G, leading to an amino acid change (Asn40Asp) in the extracellular portion of the receptor, has been implicated in alcoholism as well as in drug addiction, pain sensitivity and stress response, and in animal and human studies relates to the alcohol-dependent phenotype as well as to the treatment response to the µ-opioid antagonist naltrexone. CONCLUSION The effect size reported in naltrexone clinical studies is often small, which may be due to heterogeneity among patients. Pharmacogenetic approaches may help guide us in the search for the appropriate treatment optimal for one patient's need.
Methionine-mediated lethality in yeast cells at elevated temperature

Saccharomyces cerevisiae cells grown at 30 degrees C in minimal medium containing methionine lose viability upon transfer to 45 degrees C, whereas cells grown in the absence of methionine survive. Cellular levels of two intermediates in the sulfate assimilation pathway, adenosine 5'-phosphosulfate (APS) and adenosine 5'-phosphosulfate 3'-phosphate, are increased by a posttranslational mechanism after sudden elevation of temperature in yeast cultures grown in the absence of methionine. Yeast cells unable to synthesize APS because of repression by methionine or mutation of the MET3 gene do not survive the temperature shift. Thus, methionine-mediated lethality at elevated temperature is linked to the inability to synthesize APS. The results demonstrate that APS plays an important role in thermotolerance.
Escherichia coli tRNase Z can shut down growth probably by removing amino acids from aminoacyl‐tRNAs

In most organisms, tRNase Z is considered to be essential for 3′ processing of tRNA molecules. The Escherichia coli tRNase Z gene, however, appears to be dispensable under normal growth conditions, and its existence remained an enigma. Here we intensively examined various (pre‐)tRNAs for good substrates of E. coli tRNase Z in vitro, and found that the enzyme can remove the 3′ terminal CCA residues from mature tRNAs regardless of their nucleotide modifications. Furthermore, we discovered that E. coli tRNase Z, when sufficiently expressed in the cell, can shut down growth probably by removing amino acids from aminoacyl‐tRNAs. We confirmed in vitro that E. coli tRNase Z exceptionally possesses the activity that cleaves off the 3′ terminal residues charging an amino acid from an aminoacyl‐tRNA molecule. The current data suggest that tRNase Z might help modulate a cell growth rate by repressing translation under some stressful conditions.
Breast cancer risk perception among women who have undergone prophylactic bilateral mastectomy.

BACKGROUND Prophylactic bilateral mastectomy is a preventive option for women who are at high risk of developing breast cancer. We compared the perceptions of breast cancer risk among women who had previously undergone prophylactic bilateral mastectomy with objective estimates of their breast cancer risk. METHODS We asked 75 women in the Canadian province of Ontario who had undergone prophylactic bilateral mastectomy between 1991 and 2000 to provide a complete family history of the cancers that had occurred by the time of their surgery and to indicate their BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene mutation status. This information was used to generate estimates of each woman's risk for breast cancer by using the Gail model, the Claus model, and the BRCAPRO model. Sixty of the women also provided their own estimates of their lifetime risks of developing breast cancer before and after they had prophylactic mastectomy. Risk estimates were compared using Wilcoxon's signed-rank test and Pearson's product-moment correlation analysis. All statistical tests were two-sided. RESULTS The women estimated that their lifetime risk of developing breast cancer before surgery was, on average, 76% (range = 20%-100%) and after surgery was 11.4% (range = 0%-60%). The mean estimated absolute risk reduction the women attributed to prophylactic mastectomy was 64.8%. The average computer-generated risk estimates were 59% for the 14 women who reported that they carried a BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene mutation and 17% for the other women (of whom 43 had a strong family history of breast cancer and 18 had a limited family history). Breast cancer risk was statistically significantly overestimated by all women except for the known BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene mutation carriers. CONCLUSION Women who undergo prophylactic bilateral mastectomy have an exaggerated perception of their breast cancer risk before surgery. Formal genetic counseling and genetic testing may result in more accurate risk perceptions to guide women in choosing other preventive options.
Factors associated with poor outcomes of continuous renal replacement therapy

Continuous renal replacement therapy (CRRT) is one of the dialysis modalities for critically ill patients. Despite intensive dialysis care, a high mortality rate is found in these patients. Our objective was to investigate the factors associated with poor outcomes in these patients. We conducted a retrospective cohort study using the National Health Insurance Research Database. Records of critically ill patients who received CRRT between 2007 and 2011 were retrieved, and the patients were categorized into two groups: those with acute kidney injury (AKI) and those with history of end-stage renal disease (ESRD). Our primary and secondary outcomes were in-hospital mortality and long-term survival and non-renal recovery (long-term dialysis dependence), respectively, in the AKI group. We enrolled 15,453 patients, with 13,204 and 2249 in the AKI and ESRD groups, respectively. Overall, 66.5% patients died during hospitalization. In-hospital mortality did not differ significantly between groups (adjusted odds ratio, 0.93; 95% CI, 0.84–1.02). Age, chronic liver disease, and cancer history were identified as independent risk factors for in-hospital mortality in both groups. Hypertension was associated with higher risk of in-hospital mortality in patients with AKI. Age, coronary artery disease, and admission to the medical intensive care unit (MICU) were risk factors for long-term dialysis dependence in patients with AKI. Patients with AKI and ESRD have similarly poor outcomes after CRRT. Older age and presence of chronic liver disease and cancer were associated with higher mortality. Older age, presence of coronary artery disease, and admission to MICU were associated with lower renal recovery rate in patients with AKI.
PDS Leadership Team as Community of Practice: Implications for Local School System and Higher Education Partnerships.

Professional development school (PDS) partnerships have existed in one local school system (LSS) with three different institutions of higher education (IHE) for over a decade. Commonalities and distinctive features were noted between the partnerships. In an attempt to establish standardized and equitable policies from the LSS level, representatives from each IHE were invited to a shared leadership meeting. From this first meeting, focused on PDS logistics and LSS policies, has grown quarterly collaborative meetings which have yielded professional development for mentor teachers and site coordinators, professional training for LSS and IHE faculty, and program level information sharing. Content analysis of meeting minutes suggests that a community of practice (CoP) was formed unintentionally and may have facilitated the development of the Nine Required Essentials for PDS in the Leadership Team PDS network. Strategies for the intentional planning of CoP in a PDS are provided. NAPDS Essentials Addressed: #1/A comprehensive mission that is broader in its outreach and scope than the mission of any partner and that furthers the education profession and its responsibility to advance equity within schools and, by potential extension, the broader community; #2/A school–university culture committed to the preparation of future educators that embraces their active engagement in the school community; #3/Ongoing and reciprocal professional development for all participants guided by need; #4/A shared commitment to innovative and reflective practice by all participants; #5/Engagement in and public sharing of the results of deliberate investigations of practice by respective participants; #6/An articulation agreement developed by the respective participants delineating the roles and responsibilities of all involved; #7/A structure that allows all participants a forum for ongoing governance, reflection, and collaboration; #8/Work by college/university faculty and P–12 faculty in formal roles across institutional settings; and #9/Dedicated and shared resources and formal rewards and recognition structures.
Lymphocytic Colitis: clinical features, treatment, and outcomes

OBJECTIVE:There are no reports of the clinical features or treatment outcomes in large series of patients with lymphocytic colitis, and it is not known whether treatments that appear to be beneficial in patients with collagenous colitis are also beneficial in lymphocytic colitis. We sought to analyze these issues in our patients with lymphocytic colitis.METHODS:All patients with biopsy-proven lymphocytic colitis evaluated at our institution between January 1, 1997, and December 31, 1999, were identified. Clinical features on presentation and treatment outcomes were abstracted from the medical records.RESULTS:A total of 170 patients with lymphocytic colitis were identified (median age 67 yr, 61% female). Diarrhea, bloating, rectal urgency, fecal incontinence, weight loss, concomitant autoimmune disorders, and aspirin or nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug use were common. Loperamide, diphenoxylate/atropine, and bismuth subsalicylate were effective therapies and were well tolerated. However, no therapy produced a complete response in more than 40% of patients.CONCLUSION:Lymphocytic colitis typically presents in elderly patients as chronic diarrhea. Nocturnal stools, urgency, and abdominal pain occur frequently, as do weight loss, fecal incontinence, and concomitant autoimmune disorders. Many empiric treatment options are used, but overall response rates are disappointing. Randomized controlled trials are needed to determine the optimum therapeutic approach to these patients.
Peer-Assisted History-Taking Groups: A Subjective Assessment of their Impact Upon Medical Students' Interview Skills

Background and Objectives: Among the clinical skills needed by all physicians, history taking is one of the most important. The teaching model for peer-assisted history-taking groups investigated in the present study consists of small-group courses in which students practice conducting medical interviews with real patients. The purpose of this pilot study was to investigate the expectations, experiences, and subjective learning progress of participants in peer-assisted history-taking groups. Methods: The 42 medical student participants completed a 4-month, peer-assisted, elective history-taking course, which both began and ended with a subjective assessment of their interview skills by way of a pseudonymized questionnaire. Measures comprised the students’ self-assessment of their interview skills, their expectations of, and their experiences with the course and especially with the peer tutors. Results: Medical students’ most important motivations in attending peer-assisted history-taking groups were becoming able to complete a structured medical interview, to mitigate difficult interviewing situations, and to address patients’ emotional demands appropriately. By the end of the course, students’ self-assessment of both their interview skills and management of emotional issues improved significantly. Students especially benefitted from individual feedback regarding interview style and relationship formation, as well as generally accepted and had their expectations met by peer tutors. Conclusions: To meet the important learning objectives of history-taking and management of emotional issues, as well as self-reflection and reflection of student–patient interactions, students in the field greatly appreciate practicing medical interviewing in small, peer-assisted groups with real patients. At the same time, peer tutors are experienced to be helpful and supportive and can help students to overcome inhibitions in making contact with patients.
Protective Immune Responses to the 42-Kilodalton (kDa) Region of Plasmodium yoelii Merozoite Surface Protein 1 Are Induced by the C-Terminal 19-kDa Region but Not by the Adjacent 33-kDa Region

ABSTRACT Vaccination of mice with the 42-kDa region of Plasmodium yoelii merozoite surface protein 1 (MSP142) or its 19-kDa C-terminal processing product (MSP119) can elicit protective antibody responses in mice. To investigate if the 33-kDa N-terminal fragment (MSP133) of MSP142 also induces protection, the gene segment encoding MSP133 was expressed as a glutathione S-transferase (GST) fusion protein. C57BL/6 and BALB/c mice were immunized with GST-MSP133 and subsequently challenged with the lethal P. yoelii YM blood stage parasite. GST-MSP133 failed to induce protection, and all mice developed patent parasitemia at a level similar to that in naive or control (GST-immunized) mice; mice immunized with GST-MSP119 were protected, as has been shown previously. Specific prechallenge immunoglobulin G (IgG) antibody responses to MSP1 were analyzed by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and immunofluorescence. Despite being unprotected, several mice immunized with MSP133 had antibody titers (of all IgG subclasses) that were comparable to or higher than those in mice that were protected following immunization with MSP119. The finding that P. yoelii MSP133 elicits strong but nonprotective antibody responses may have implications for the design of vaccines for humans based on Plasmodium falciparum or Plasmodium vivax MSP142.
Performance comparison of speaker recognition systems in presence of duration variability

Performance of speaker recognition system is highly dependent on the amount of speech data used in training and testing. In this paper, we compare the performance of two different speaker recognition systems in presence of utterance duration variability. The first system is based on state-of-the-art total variability (also known as i-vector system), whereas the other one is classical speaker recognition system based on Gaussian mixture model with universal background model (GMM-UBM). We have conducted extensive experiments for different cases of length mismatch on two NIST corpora: NIST SRE 2008 and NIST SRE 2010. Our study reveals that the relative improvement of total variability based system gradually drops with the reduction in test utterance length. We also observe that if the speakers are enrolled with sufficient amount of training data, GMM-UBM system outperforms i-vector system for very short test utterances.
Frequency Distribution of Human Pulse Spectra

Pulses were taken from 26 university students (22 male and 4 female) for spectral analysis. Spectral energy ratios SER (f) were derived from spectra at 5, 10, and 15 Hz. We find that the frequency distribution of SER(10) has a mean value of 512 and a standard deviation of 408. The SER (5) distribution is less normal and the SER(15) is quite irregular. Our previous work suggests an SER(10) as a measure of the health conditions. This work supports and amplifies that original suggestion.
The inter-rater and test-retest reliability of the Home Falls and Accidents Screening Tool.

BACKGROUND/AIM The Home Falls and Accidents Screening Tool was developed to assist health professionals to identify falls risk among community-dwelling older people arising from their home environment. The aim of this study was to evaluate the Home Falls and Accidents Screening Tool by examining its inter-rater and test-retest reliability. METHODS Community-dwelling older people, over the age of 65 (n = 31) were recruited from the caseload of nine occupational therapists across three area health services in Sydney and the Hunter region. A total of 31 home visits were conducted by the researcher and an occupational therapist to independently administer the Home Falls and Accidents Screening Tool. Follow-up visits were then conducted within a two-week period by one of the raters to re-administer the Home Falls and Accidents Screening Tool. Reliability was evaluated using percentage agreement, intra-class correlations and kappa coefficients. RESULTS The intra-class correlation coefficient for the Home Falls and Accidents Screening Tool overall score was 0.82 (95% CI, 0.66-0.91) for inter-rater reliability and 0.77 (95% CI, 0.57-0.88) for test-retest reliability, indicating a good level of reliability for the tool. 'Undefined stair edges' was the only item that demonstrated poor inter-rater reliability (kappa = 0.37). All items except 'loose mats' (kappa = 0.19) reached acceptable or excellent levels of test-retest reliability with kappa scores greater than 0.40. CONCLUSION The Home Falls and Accidents Screening Tool demonstrated consistency across raters and across different time periods. Further studies into the reliability of the Home Falls and Accidents Screening Tool would benefit from sampling raters from varying professional backgrounds and older people with higher levels of function.
Etiopathogenesis and prognosis of cerebral ischemia in young adults.

ABSTRACT Etiology and long‐term prognosis were prospectively investigated in 155 consecutive patients (96 men and 59 women), aged 16 to 45 years, referred to our Neurosurgical Unit with cerebral transient ischemic attacks or infarction during the period 1978‐1988. All patients underwent neurological and medical‐cardiological evaluation, cerebral computerized tomography scanning, electrocardiogram, and laboratory tests. Two‐dimensional echocardiography was performed in 123 cases (79%), cerebral angiography in 147 (95%). Atherosclerosis was the leading etiology occurring in 48 patients (31%). A cardioemboiic disorder was considered the probable cause of ischemia in 8 cases (5.1%). Further possible etiologies were contraceptive pill assumption (5.8% of the total, but 15.3% within the female group), spontaneous arterial dissection (4.5%), migraine (4%), puerperium (2.6%), cervical trauma (2.6%), and other, more uncommon conditions. Despite extensive evaluation, the cause of cerebral ischemia remained unknown in 40% of cases. All patients received antiplatelet medication and 16 underwent surgery. The long‐term outcome at a mean follow‐up of 5.8 years was favorable: 91% of subjects resumed their work on a full or part‐time basis.
The Investment Risk Tolerance of Same-Sex Couples

Although there are over one million same-sex couple households in the United States, there has not been much research on their investment attitudes and behavior. This study uses datasets from the combined 1992, 1995, 1998, and 2001 Surveys of Consumer Finance to compare same-sex couples to other household types in terms of risk tolerance and stock ownership. Same-sex couples are similar to married couples with a male respondent in terms of risk tolerance, and same-sex male couples are similar to married couples in terms of stock ownership. However, despite having higher risk tolerance, same-sex female couples are much less likely to own stock than predicted by their level of risk tolerance and objective characteristics. It is possible that financial advisors are underserving this market segment or giving inappropriate advice.
A global scavenging and circulation ocean model of thorium-230 and protactinium-231 with realistic particle dynamics (ProThorP 0.1)

Abstract. In this paper we set forth a 3-D ocean model of the radioactive trace isotopes 230Th and 231Pa. The interest arises from the fact that these isotopes are extensively used for investigating particle transport in the ocean and reconstructing past ocean circulation. The tracers are reversibly scavenged by biogenic and lithogenic particles. Our simulations of 230Th and 231Pa are based on the NEMO–PISCES ocean biogeochemistry general circulation model, which includes biogenic particles, namely small and big particulate organic carbon, calcium carbonate and biogenic silica. Small and big lithogenic particles from dust deposition are included in our model as well. Their distributions generally compare well with the small and big lithogenic particle concentrations from recent observations from the GEOTRACES programme, except for boundary nepheloid layers for which, as of today, there are no non-trivial prognostic models available on a global scale. Our simulations reproduce 230Th and 231Pa dissolved concentrations: they compare well with recent GEOTRACES observations in many parts of the ocean. Particulate 230Th and 231Pa concentrations are significantly improved compared to previous studies, but they are still too low because of missing particles from nepheloid layers. Our simulation reproduces the main characteristics of the 231Pa∕230Th ratio observed in the sediments and supports a moderate affinity of 231Pa to biogenic silica as suggested by recent observations relative to 230Th. Future model development may further improve understanding, especially when this will include a more complete representation of all particles, including different size classes, manganese hydroxides and nepheloid layers. This can be done based on our model as its source code is readily available.