Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effect of Fructooligosaccharide Containing Enteral Formulas on Subjective Tolerance Factors, Serum Chemistry Profiles, and Faecal Bifidobacteria in Healthy Adult Male Subjects

Fructooligosaccharides (FOS) are an ingredient which may be incorporated into enteral products. However, prior to the addition of FOS to such products, studies related to the identification of any negative side effects associated with their consumption must be conducted. This double-blind study was conducted to assess the effect of FOS-containing enteral formulas on subjective tolerance factors, serum chemistry profiles and faecal bifidobacteria in healthy male college students. Three dietary formulas were investigated including a low residue polymeric formula (A), A+5 g FOS/L (B), and A+10 g FOS/L (C). Twenty-seven students (nine subjects/treatment) were randomly assigned to one of the dietary treatments. Subjects consumed the specified formula as their sole source of nutrition for 14 d. The amount of formula consumed by each subject was recorded daily and caloric intakes were adjusted to maintain the subjects' initial body weight. Faecal and blood samples were collected at baseline (day 0) and day 14. Using a daily questionnaire, subjects were asked to report the frequency of the following gastrointestinal symptoms: nausea, cramping, diarrhoea, distention, flatus, vomiting and regurgitation. Daily consumptions of FOS (g ± SEM) were 0 ± 0, 15 ± 1·0, and 31 ± 2·6 for dietary treatments A, B, and C, respectively. Tolerance to all dietary treatments was good. Few complaints of nausea, cramping, diarrhoea, marked distention, vomiting or regurgitation were reported regardless of treatment. More complaints of flatus and slight distention were reported with the FOS-containing diets, particularly diet C, compared with A. These symptoms were mild and subsided as the study progressed. No clinically significant differences in serum chemistries were detected as a function of formula intake. Faecal microbiota changes, as a function of diet, were detected. Specifically, the ingestion of diets B and C resulted in greater ( P <0.001) bifidobacteria levels in faeces compared with A on day 14. Results indicate that fructooligosaccharides do not compromise serum chemistries, are well tolerated particularly at an intake of 15 g/d, and are a bifidogenic factor in low residue polymeric formulas. Keywords: fructooligosaccharide, enteral formula, bifidobacteria, tolerance.
Reply to Chen et al

from January 1992 through June 2004, issued October 2004. Am J Infect Control 2004; 32:470-485. 9. Chuang SC, Lee KT, Chang WT, et al. Risk factors for wound infection after cholecystectomy. / Formos Med Assoc 2004; 103:607-612. 10. Williams LF, Jr., Chapman WC, Bonau RA, McGee EC, Jr., Boyd RW, Jacobs JK. Comparison of laparoscopic cholecystectomy with open cholecystectomy in a single center. Am J Surg 1993; 165:459-465.
GPs' knowledge, use, and confidence in national physical activity and health guidelines and tools: a questionnaire-based survey of general practice in England.

BACKGROUND Physical activity (PA) brief advice in health care is effective at getting individuals active. It has been suggested that one in four people would be more active if advised by a GP or nurse, but as many as 72% of GPs do not discuss the benefits of physical activity with patients. AIM To assess the knowledge, use, and confidence in national PA and Chief Medical Officer (CMO) health guidelines and tools among GPs in England. DESIGN AND SETTING Online questionnaire-based survey of self-selecting GPs in England that took place over a 10-day period in March 2016. METHOD The questionnaire consisted of six multiple-choice questions and was available on the Doctors.net. uk (DNUK) homepage. Quotas were used to ensure good regional representation. RESULTS The final analysis included 1013 responses. Only 20% of responders were broadly or very familiar with the national PA guidelines. In all, 70% of GPs were aware of the General Practice Physical Activity Questionnaire (GPPAQ), but 26% were not familiar with any PA assessment tools, and 55% reported that they had not undertaken any training with respect to encouraging PA. CONCLUSION The majority of GPs in England (80%) are unfamiliar with the national PA guidelines. Awareness of the recommended tool for assessment, GPPAQ, is higher than use by GPs. This may be because it is used by other clinical staff, for example, as part of the NHS Health Check programme. Although brief advice in isolation by GPs on PA will only be a part of the behaviour change journey, it is an important prompt, especially if repeated as part of routine practice. This study highlights the need for significant improvement in knowledge, skills, and confidence to maximise the potential for PA advice in GP consultations.
A shift in the Th1/Th2 ratio accompanies the clinical remission of systemic lupus erythematosus in patients with end‐stage renal disease

BACKGROUND: Patients suffering from systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) with renal involvement often show remission of systemic clinical activity after progression to end-stage renal disease (ESRD). SLE is characterized by predominantly humoral, T-helper (Th)(2)-mediated autoimmune responses. Since ESRD induces a state of immunodeficiency that affects the balance of Th cell subsets, we hypothesized that a Th(1) shift induced by ESRD leads to clinical remission of SLE. METHODS: Using single-cell measurement of intracellular cytokines by flow cytometry after polyclonal stimulation with PMA/ionomycin, helper cell profiles were analysed in SLE patients with preserved renal function and in SLE patients with ESRD, from both isolated peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) and whole blood. RESULTS: Using the whole-blood assay, patients with SLE and preserved renal function showed a predominance of Th(2) cells compared to healthy controls (patients, Th(1)/Th(2) ratio 6.0+/-1.0 vs controls, 9.0+/-1.0; P<0.05). In contrast, SLE patients with ESRD have significantly more Th(1) cells (36.8+/-5.0%) than those without ESRD (23.4+/-3.6%; P<0.05). This results in an enhancement of the Th(1)/Th(2) ratio to 12.1+/-2.6, which is not significantly different from healthy controls. These data were confirmed using a PBMC-based assay. CONCLUSIONS: SLE patients with preserved renal function show a bias in the differentiation of Th cells towards Th(2). Once ESRD occurs, the Th(1)/Th(2) ratio normalizes. This may contribute to the remission of Th(2)-mediated autoimmune diseases such as SLE.
Analysis of 5-aminolevulinic acid-induced fluorescence in 55 different spinal tumors.

OBJECT Subtotal resection (STR) of spinal tumors can result in tumor recurrence. Currently, no clinically reliable marker is available for intraoperative visualization of spinal tumor tissue. Protoporphyrin IX (PpIX) fluorescence induced by 5-aminolevulinic acid (5-ALA) is capable of visualizing malignant gliomas. Fluorescence-guided resections of malignant cerebral gliomas using 5-ALA have resulted in an increased rate of complete tumor removal. Recently, the application of 5-ALA has also been described in the first cases of spinal tumors. Therefore, the aim of this observational study was to systematically investigate 5-ALA-induced fluorescence characteristics in different spinal tumor entities. METHODS Three hours before the induction of anesthesia, 5-ALA was administered to patients with different intra- and extradural spinal tumors. In all patients a neurosurgical resection or biopsy of the spinal tumor was performed under conventional white-light microscopy. During each surgery, the presence of PpIX fluorescence was additionally assessed using a modified neurosurgical microscope. At the end of an assumed gross-total resection (GTR) under white-light microscopy, a final inspection of the surgical cavity of fluorescing intramedullary tumors was performed to look for any remaining fluorescing foci. Histopathological tumor diagnosis was established according to the current WHO classification. RESULTS Fifty-two patients with 55 spinal tumors were included in this study. Resection was performed in 50 of 55 cases, whereas 5 of 55 cases underwent biopsy. Gross-total resection was achieved in 37 cases, STR in 5, and partial resection in 8 cases. Protoporphyrin IX fluorescence was visible in 30 (55%) of 55 cases, but not in 25 (45%) of 55 cases. Positive PpIX fluorescence was mainly detected in ependymomas (12 of 12), meningiomas (12 of 12), hemangiopericytomas (3 of 3), and in drop metastases of primary CNS tumors (2 of 2). In contrast, none of the neurinomas (8 of 8), carcinoma metastases (5 of 5), and primary spinal gliomas (3 of 3; 1 pilocytic astrocytoma, 1 WHO Grade II astrocytoma, 1 WHO Grade III anaplastic oligoastrocytoma) revealed PpIX fluorescence. It is notable that residual fluorescing tumor foci were detected and subsequently resected in 4 of 8 intramedullary ependymomas despite assumed GTR under white-light microscopy. CONCLUSIONS In this study, 5-ALA-PpIX fluorescence was observed in spinal tumors, especially ependymomas, meningiomas, hemangiopericytomas, and drop metastases of primary CNS tumors. In cases of intramedullary tumors, 5-ALA-induced PpIX fluorescence is a useful tool for the detection of potential residual tumor foci.
Calcofluor White: A Review of its Uses and Applications in Clinical Mycology and Parasitology

Calcofluor white M2R is one of a group of compounds known as fluorescent brighteners or optical brighteners, or “whitening agents. ” Others include Phorwhite (Phorwite, Blankophor), Uvitex 2B, Tinopal UNPA-GX, Tinopal LPW, and Tinopal CBS-X. These compounds have extensive use in the paper, textile, and related industries as agents to whiten and to prevent “yellowing” of papers and fabrics. These compounds bind to beta 1-3 and beta 1-4 polysaccharides, such as found in cellulose and chitin, and when excited with ultraviolet or violet radiation, will fluoresce with an intense bluish/white color. The use of CFW in clinical mycology was first described by Hageage and Harrington,1,2 and has found extensive use in this area and in parasitology for the rapid detection of microorganisms. Although other fluorescent brighteners such as Uvitex 2B, Tinopal CBS-X, and Phorwite MBBH have been reported to fluoresce more intensely than CFW,3,4 they are not conveniently available and have not been widely used, especially in the United States. Therefore, this review concentrates on CFW. For more complete details of the many applications of this and the related stains, the cited references and others should be consulted.
Efficacy of the Multi-Kinase Inhibitor Enzastaurin Is Dependent on Cellular Signaling Context

The number of targeted small molecules being developed in oncology is increasing rapidly. Many of these are designed to inhibit multiple kinases, and thus the mechanisms of responsiveness and predictive biomarkers can be difficult to discern. In fact, with few exceptions, multi-kinase inhibitors are developed with limited mechanism-based patient selection. Enzastaurin is a multi-kinase inhibitor being studied in several malignancies that we hypothesized would be active in squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck, because it inhibits classic and novel protein kinase C isoforms. Indeed, enzastaurin reduced the growth of SQ-20B and CAL27 tumor xenografts, decreased proliferation in these cell lines, inhibited putative target phosphorylation, and induced cell cycle arrest. Gene expression arrays confirmed that expression of cell cycle genes, including cyclins D and E, were significantly altered by exposure to enzastaurin. However, testing a panel of squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck cell lines revealed variable sensitivity to enzastaurin, which correlated significantly with baseline cyclin D1 protein expression. Moreover, sensitivity and resistance could be reversed, respectively, by expression or depletion of cyclin D1. Furthermore, analysis of sensitive and resistant cell lines revealed distinct differences in cyclin D1 regulation. Enzastaurin modulated cyclin D1 synthesis through an Akt-regulated pathway in the former, whereas high-level CCND1 gene amplification was present in the latter. These results underscore the critical relevance of cellular signaling context in developing cancer therapies in general and suggest that enzastaurin in particular would be most effective in tumors where baseline cyclin D1 expression is low to moderate and physiologically regulated. Mol Cancer Ther; 9(10); 2814–24. ©2010 AACR.
Guideline Concordance of Testing for Hyperkalemia and Kidney Dysfunction During Initiation of Mineralocorticoid Receptor Antagonist Therapy in Patients With Heart Failure

Background— Mineralocorticoid receptor antagonists (MRA) reduce morbidity and mortality in heart failure with reduced ejection fraction but can cause hyperkalemia and acute kidney injury. Guidelines recommend measurement of serum potassium (K) and creatinine (Cr) before and serially after MRA initiation, but the extent to which this occurs is unknown. Methods and Results— Using electronic data from 3 health systems 2005 to 2008, we performed a retrospective review of laboratory monitoring among 490 patients hospitalized for heart failure with reduced ejection fraction who were subsequently initiated on MRA therapy. Median age at time of MRA initiation was 73 years, and 37.1% were women. Spironolactone accounted for 99.4% of MRA use. Initial ambulatory MRA dispensing occurred at hospital discharge in 70.0% of cases. In the 30 days before MRA initiation, 94.3% of patients had a K or Cr measurement. Preinitiation K was >5.0 mmol/L in 1.4% and Cr >2.5 mg/dL in 1.7%. In the 7 days after MRA initiation among patients who remained alive and out of the hospital, 46.5% had no evidence of K measurement; by 30 days, 13.6% remained untested. Patient factors explained a small portion of postinitiation K testing (c-statistic, 0.67). Conclusions— Although laboratory monitoring before MRA initiation for heart failure with reduced ejection fraction is common, laboratory monitoring after MRA initiation frequently does not meet guideline recommendations, even in patients at higher risk for complications. Quality improvement efforts that encourage the use of MRA should also include mechanisms to address recommended monitoring.
Contribution of Hand Motor Circuits to Counting

The finding that number processing activates a cortical network partly overlapping that recruited for hand movements has renewed interest in the relationship between number and finger representations. Further evidence about a possible link between fingers and numbers comes from developmental studies showing that finger movements play a crucial role in learning counting. However, increased activity in hand motor circuits during counting may unveil unspecific processes, such as shifting attention, reciting number names, or matching items with a number name. To address this issue, we used transcranial magnetic stimulation to measure changes in corticospinal (CS) excitability during a counting task performed silently and using either numbers or letters of the alphabet to enumerate items. We found an increased CS excitability of hand muscles during the counting task, irrespective of the use of numbers or letters, whereas it was unchanged in arm and foot muscles. Control tasks allowed us to rule out a possible influence of attention allocation or covert speech on CS excitability increase of hand muscles during counting. The present results support a specific involvement of hand motor circuits in counting because no CS changes were found in arm and foot muscles during the same task. However, the contribution of hand motor areas is not exclusively related to number processing because an increase in CS excitability was also found when letters were used to enumerate items. This finding suggests that hand motor circuits are involved whenever items have to be put in correspondence with the elements of any ordered series.
DRB1104 and DQ Alleles: Expression of 21-Hydroxylase Autoantibodies and Risk of Progression to Addison’s Disease1

Of 957 patients with type 1 diabetes without known Addison’s disease 1.6% (n = 15) were positive for 21-hydroxylase autoantibodies. Among DQ8/DQ2 heterozygous patients, the percentage expressing 21-hydroxylase autoantibodies was 5% (10 of 208) vs. less than 0.5% of patients with neither DQ8 nor DQ2. Three of the diabet-ic patients found to have 21-hydroxylase autoantibodies on screen-ing were subsequently diagnosed with Addison’s disease. Overall, the genotype DQ8/DQ2, consisting of DRB1*0404/DQ8 with DRB1*0301/DQ2, was present in 14 of 21 patients with Addison’s disease (8 of 12 with diabetes and 6 of 9 without diabetes or antiislet autoantibodies) vs. 0.7% of the general population (109 of 15,547; P < 10−6) and 11% of patients with DM without Addison’s disease (62 of 578; P < 10−6). Among patients with diabetes with DQ8, Addison’s disease was strongly associated with the specific DRB1 subtype, DRB1*0404 (8 of 9 patients from 8 families, in contrast to only 109 of 408 DQ8 DM patients with diabetes withou.
Treating obesity: A qualitative evaluation of a lifestyle intervention for weight reduction

Objective To identify which factors are considered important for eating habits and weight change in obese participants in a one-year weight reduction programme at a primary health care centre. Design A qualitative study of factors affecting participants' eating habits and weight change before, during and after the programme. Settiiig The primary health care centre where the programme was taking place. Method Fifteen participants were interviewed three times during the programme and once one year after the intervention programme had ended. Results Fourteen participants described how emotion and factors other than hunger, such as stress, need for affinity, depression, worry or tiredness affected their eating habits. The only participant to describe 'hunger' as the only reason for eating reached the greatest weight reduction after two years. Emotional eating continued to affect the eating habits and weight gain of all other participants. Conclusion If emotion and factors other than hunger that are associated with eating habits that lead to obesity are not addressed, the treatment needs are never met. Thus a motivational phase including an emotional evaluation of the problem behaviour and preparation for a change in lifestyle preceding the actual change of behaviour would be valuable. This would provide an opportunity to address emotional factors and reasons other than hunger associated with excessive eating, as well as emotional factors associated with behavioural change. Furthermore, a period of supported maintenance of achieved weight loss should be included in weight reduction programmes.
Exhaled breath temperature in adult cystic fibrosis

Cystic fibrosis (CF) is characterized by chronic airway infection and inflammation, which accounts for most morbidity and deaths. It has been suggested that inflamed airways may increase the exhaled breath temperature (EBT), however, patient with Cystic Fibrosis (CF) may have of the opposite effects. The aim of this study was to measure exhaled breath temperature in adults CF patients by comparison with healthy controls. Fifteen adults CF patients examined (8 female, mean age 28±7 years, VEF1% 44±21%) and 15 healthy persons (7 female, mean age 34±3 years) were recruited for the control group. The measurements of exhaled breath temperature (EBT) were performed with a second generation hand-held device (X-Halo, Delmedical Investments LTD Singapore) using an antibacterial filter (Clear Advantage, Creative Biomedics, Inc). Mean value of EBT in controls was 33.80±0.87°C and EBT mean value in adults CF patients was 33.53±0.73°C, the difference was not significant (p>0.05). We conclude that patients with CF had EBT similarly to healthy people, contrary to the asthmatics patients, possible due to chronic epithelial cell damage, increased mucosal barrier and the reduce of the vascularity.
Fast and deep deformation approximations

Character rigs are procedural systems that compute the shape of an animated character for a given pose. They can be highly complex and must account for bulges, wrinkles, and other aspects of a character's appearance. When comparing film-quality character rigs with those designed for real-time applications, there is typically a substantial and readily apparent difference in the quality of the mesh deformations. Real-time rigs are limited by a computational budget and often trade realism for performance. Rigs for film do not have this same limitation, and character riggers can make the rig as complicated as necessary to achieve realistic deformations. However, increasing the rig complexity slows rig evaluation, and the animators working with it can become less efficient and may experience frustration. In this paper, we present a method to reduce the time required to compute mesh deformations for film-quality rigs, allowing better interactivity during animation authoring and use in real-time games and applications. Our approach learns the deformations from an existing rig by splitting the mesh deformation into linear and nonlinear portions. The linear deformations are computed directly from the transformations of the rig's underlying skeleton. We use deep learning methods to approximate the remaining nonlinear portion. In the examples we show from production rigs used to animate lead characters, our approach reduces the computational time spent on evaluating deformations by a factor of 5X-10X. This significant savings allows us to run the complex, film-quality rigs in real-time even when using a CPU-only implementation on a mobile device.
RADIOLOGIC EVALUATION OF SPAVIN IN YOUNG TROTTERS

Tarsal radiographs of 134 trotters were made prior to training. Radiographs were evaluated for changes commonly associated with spavin. Spavin, if present, was graded as mild, moderate, or severe. Sone of the 134 horses were radiographed annually for one, two, or three years. Radiographs of the 134 horses were compared with radiographs of 141 additional horses in which spavin had been diagnosed clinically. Only 66 of the 134 trotters (50.4%) had normal tarsal radiographs at the time of initial examination; the other 65 had some radiographic evidence of spavin. The incidence and severity of radiographic changes identified in a group of horses in which spavin was diagnosed clinically. Thus, the present results suggest that tarsal radiography is of little value in establishing the diagnosis and prognosis of spavin in trotters.