Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Systematic Review of Anti-inflammatories for Mild to Moderate Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

The purpose of this study was to evaluate anti-inflammatory drugs in the medium- and long-term management of mild to moderate carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS). The authors conducted a systematic review of the literature on the effectiveness of steroidal and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs for mild and moderate cases of CTS. There were included only randomized, double-blind clinical trials. Six publications referring to five trials were included in the review. No study on nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs met our inclusion criteria. Although neurophysiological studies have not shown great differences resulting from the application of corticosteroids, the symptomatic benefit provided by such drugs is clear. In the short term, local infiltration provides better results than systemic administration of corticosteroids. Over a 1-year period, however, this difference does not persist. Further double-blind randomized trials evaluating therapeutic efficacy for a longer follow-up period are required to provide stronger evidence for both steroidal and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatories.
A 55 mm/sup 2/ 256 Mb NROM flash memory with embedded microcontroller using an NROM-based program file ROM

A 256 Mb flash memory based on 2 b/cell 0.17 /spl mu/m NROM technology supports 90 ns random read access, 66 MHz synchronous read, and 3 /spl mu/s/word programming. This 55 mm/sup 2/ device includes an 8 b embedded microcontroller for program and erase operations, power-up sequence, BIST, and more. The microcontroller executes its code from an NROM-based embedded ROM, performing 30 ns/word read access.
8 Service-Oriented Business Intelligence

The traditional way to manage Information Technologies (IT) in the companies is having a data center, and licensing monolithic applications based on the number of CPUs, allowed connections, etc. This also holds for Business Intelligence environments. Nevertheless, technologies have evolved and today other approaches are possible. Specifically, the service paradigm allows to outsource hardware as well as software in a pay-as-you-go model. In this work, we will introduce the concepts related to this paradigm and analyze how they affect Business Intelligence (BI). We will analyze the specificity of services and present specific techniques to engineering service systems (e.g., Cloud Computing, Service-Oriented Architectures -SOAand Business Process Modeling -BPM-). Then, we will also analyze to which extent it is possible to consider Business Intelligence just a service and use these same techniques on it. Finally, we store the other way round. Since service companies represent around 70% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the world, special attention must be paid to their characteristics and how to adapt BI techniques to enhance services.
A comparison of three rapid chlamydial tests in pregnant and nonpregnant women.

BACKGROUND The purpose of this investigation was to evaluate the performance characteristics of three rapid immunoassay tests to detect Chlamydia trachomatis cervicitis. METHODS Endocervical samples from 506 women were evaluated using the three rapid immunoassay tests and the results were compared with those obtained by an endocervical chlamydial culture. RESULTS The prevalence of C trachomatis cervicitis was 9.3%. Overall sensitivity and specificity of the Abbott TestPack Chlamydia test were 66.0% and 99.8%, respectively, of the Kodak Surecell Chlamydia test were 85.1% and 99.3%, respectively, and of the Unipath Clearview Chlamydia test were 85.1% and 98.5%, respectively. Pregnancy did not affect test specificity, but did influence sensitivity. The tests ranged from 5% to 22% less sensitive in nonpregnant women. CONCLUSIONS The results of the investigation establish that the Clearview and Surecell chlamydial immunoassay tests performed well, particularly for pregnant women.
Rapamycin for Refractory Acute Graft-Versus-Host Disease

Background. Rapamycin, an inhibitor of mammalian target of rapamycin kinase, is a potent immunosuppressive drug that also displays antineoplastic properties and expands regulatory T cells. Steroid-refractory acute graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) remains a significant cause of mortality after allogeneic stem-cell transplantation and therapeutic options are not codified. We retrospectively evaluated the role of rapamycin in this setting. Methods. In this retrospective single-center study, 22 patients were identified, from October 2004 to February 2008, as having received rapamycin for acute GVHD refractory to one or more lines of treatment. We analyzed the efficacy and tolerance of rapamycin and the outcome of these 22 patients in this setting. Results. Rapamycin resulted in a rapid and sustained complete remission of GVHD in 72% of heavily pretreated patients. Cytopenias were frequent but did not require treatment interruption. Thrombotic microangiopathy developed in 36% of patients when rapamycin was associated with calcineurin inhibitors and frequently resolved after interruption of one or both drugs. At a median follow-up of 13 months, overall survival was 41%. Previous treatment with high-dose steroid pulses was associated with a worse outcome (survival 12% vs. 69%). The major cause of death was infectious complications (77%). Conclusion. Despite a small and heterogeneous population of patients, these results are encouraging and provide a rationale for prospective studies that use rapamycin in steroid-refractory acute GVHD as a second- or third-line agent.
Named entity extraction from Portuguese web text

No contexto de Processamento de Linguagem Natural, a tarefa de Reconhecimento de Entidades Mencionadas (REM) foca-se na extracao e classificacao de entidades mencionadas de texto livre, como noticias, que geralmente tem uma estrutura de frases particular. A detecao de entidades suporta tarefas mais complexas, como Extracao de Relacoes ou Pesquisa Orientada a Entidades, como no motor de pesquisa do ANT.Ha algumas ferramentas de REM focadas na lingua portuguesa, tais como o Palavras ou o NERP-CRF, mas o seu F-measure ainda esta abaixo do obtido usando outras ferramentas disponiveis, por exemplo com base num corpus ingles anotado, treinado com o Stanford CoreNLP ou com o OpenNLP.O ANT e um motor de busca orientado a entidades da Universidade do Porto (UP). Este sistema de pesquisa indexa as informacao disponivel no SIGARRA, o sistema de informacao da UP. Atualmente usa seletores construidos manualmente para extrair entidades, baseados em XPath ou CSS, que sao dependentes da estrutura da pagina. Alem disso, nao funcionam em texto livre, especialmente nas noticias do SIGARRA. Um metodo baseado em aprendizagem computacional permite a automatizacao da tarefa de extracao, tornando-a escalavel, independente da estrutura, diminuindo o esforco de trabalho exigido e o tempo consumido.Nesta dissertacao, eu avaliei ferramentas de REM existentes para selecionar a melhor abordagem e configuracao a utilizar em relacao a lingua portuguesa, particularmente no dominio das noticias do SIGARRA. A avaliacao foi feita com base em dois conjuntos de dados, a colecao HAREM, e um subconjunto manualmente anotado de noticias do SIGARRA, que foram usados para calcular o desempenho das ferramentas usando precision, recall e F-measure. A expansao da base de conhecimento existente ajudara a indexar as paginas do SIGARRA proporcionando uma experiencia de pesquisa orientada a entidades mais rica e com nova informacao, bem como um melhor esquema de classificacao baseado no contexto adicional disponibilizado ao motor de busca. A comunidade cientifica tambem beneficia deste trabalho, com multiplos manuais detalhados resultantes da analise sistematica das ferramentas, em particular para a lingua Portuguesa.Primeiramente, eu analisei a performance base de algumas ferramentas selecionadas (Stanford CoreNLP, OpenNLP, spaCy e NLTK) com a colecao HAREM, obtendo os melhores resultados com o Stanford CoreNLP, seguido do OpenNLP. De seguida, efetuei um estudo aos hiperparametros, de modo a selecionar a melhor configuracao para cada ferramenta, conseguindo alcancar melhorias em cada ferramenta, principalmente no classificador de Entropia Maxima do NLTK, em que houve melhorias no F-measure de 1.11% para 35.24%. Finalmente, usando a melhor configuracao, eu repeti o treino com o dataset das noticias do SIGARRA, tendo obtido F-measures de 86.64%, para o Stanford CoreNLP. Para alem disso, dado que tambem foi o melhor na performance base, leva-me a conclusao que o Stanford CoreNLP e a melhor opcao para este contexto.
FHIT protein enhances paclitaxel‐induced apoptosis in lung cancer cells

The fragile histidine triad (FHIT) gene is a frequent target of deletions in lung cancer. Previous studies have shown that FHIT gene transfer into lung cancer cells lacking FHIT expression results in induction of apoptosis. However, the effect of FHIT expression on apoptosis induced by chemotherapeutic agents and its intracellular mechanism is poorly understood. This study was undertaken to elucidate the effect of FHIT expression and the role of Bcl‐2‐caspase signaling in paclitaxel‐induced apoptosis in lung cancer cells. NCI‐H358 lung cancer cells, which lack FHIT expression, were stably transfected with plasmid vector containing FLAG‐tagged wildtype FHIT. We investigated effects of paclitaxel on apoptosis, activation of caspase system and expression of Bcl‐2 family. We next evaluated whether these effects were reversed by blocking FHIT expression using siRNA. Paclitaxel enhanced apoptosis in FHIT‐expressing cells compared to that in control vector‐transfected cells, and this enhancement was suppressed by siRNA treatment. Activities of caspase‐3 and caspase‐7, but not of caspase‐8, were higher in FHIT‐expressing cells than in control vector‐transfected cells, and this was reduced by siRNA treatment. When caspase activation was blocked by a pan‐caspase inhibitor in FHIT‐expressing cells, paclitaxel‐induced apoptotic cell death was decreased similar to that in control vector‐transfected cells. Bcl‐2 and Bcl‐xL expressions were down‐regulated after paclitaxel treatment in FHIT‐expressing cells, whereas Bax and Bad expressions were up‐regulated. These were reversed by siRNA treatment. These results indicate that paclitaxel‐induced apoptosis enhanced by FHIT expression in lung cancer cells might be associated with modulation of Bcl‐2‐caspase signaling. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Primary Closure of Median Sternotomy: Techniques and Principles

Understanding the biomechanics of midline sternotomy repair is important to successful surgical outcome. High-risk patients, particularly those with immunosuppression, diabetes, and osteoporosis, should be identified. Details of technique should be monitored, and closure should incorporate lateral support of the sternum in patients at risk. Sternal dehiscence can occur under physiologic loads. Closure techniques and materials should insure stable repair, with avoidance of material migration through the bone.
Upregulation of FBXW7 Suppresses Renal Cancer Metastasis and Epithelial Mesenchymal Transition

Background and Objective FBXW7, known as a general tumor suppressor, is commonly lowly expressed in metastatic malignancies. We aim to investigate the potential influence of FBXW7 overexpression on renal cell carcinoma (RCC) metastasis. Methods We employed quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) and Western blotting (WB) to quantify the FBXW7 expression in RCC cell lines. Upregulation of FBXW7 was performed in vitro on RCC cells using the lentivirus covering coding region FBXW7 cDNA sequence, and functional tests were performed to verify FBXW7 overexpression on migration and invasion of RCC cells. Moreover, WB was employed to determine the expressions of MMP-2, MMP-9, and MMP-13, as well as EMT markers in the transfected RCC cells. Results FBXW7 was significantly downregulated in RCC cell lines, dominated by 786-O and ACHN, when compared to normal renal cell line HK-2. Moreover, upregulation of FBXW7 in 786-O and ACHN cell lines significantly inhibited cell migration and invasion, as well as EMT. Present study also showed that FBXW7 was involved in the migration and invasion of RCC cells via regulating the expressions of MMP-2, MMP-9, and MMP-13. Conclusion Our findings demonstrate that upregulation of FBXW7 inhibits RCC metastasis and EMT. FBXW7 is a potential therapeutic target for RCC patients.
Progressive 3q amplification consistently targets SOX2 in preinvasive squamous lung cancer.

RATIONALE Amplification of distal 3q is the most common genomic aberration in squamous lung cancer (SQC). SQC develops in a multistage progression from normal bronchial epithelium through dysplasia to invasive disease. Identifying the key driver events in the early pathogenesis of SQC will facilitate the search for predictive molecular biomarkers and the identification of novel molecular targets for chemoprevention and therapeutic strategies. For technical reasons, previous attempts to analyze 3q amplification in preinvasive lesions have focused on small numbers of predetermined candidate loci rather than an unbiased survey of copy-number variation. OBJECTIVES To perform a detailed analysis of the 3q amplicon in bronchial dysplasia of different histological grades. METHODS We use molecular copy-number counting (MCC) to analyze the structure of chromosome 3 in 19 preinvasive bronchial biopsy specimens from 15 patients and sequential biopsy specimens from 3 individuals. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS We demonstrate that no low-grade lesions, but all high-grade lesions, have 3q amplification. None of seven low-grade lesions progressed clinically, whereas 8 of 10 patients with high-grade disease progressed to cancer. We identify a minimum commonly amplified region on chromosome 3 consisting of 17 genes, including 2 known oncogenes, SOX2 and PIK3CA. We confirm that both genes are amplified in all high-grade dysplastic lesions tested. We further demonstrate, in three individuals, that the clinical progression of high-grade preinvasive disease is associated with incremental amplification of SOX2, suggesting this promotes malignant progression. CONCLUSIONS These findings demonstrate progressive 3q amplification in the evolution of preinvasive SQC and implicate SOX2 as a key target of this dynamic process.
Selected biochemical serum parameters in ewes during pregnancy, post-parturition, lactation and dry period

1993, Iriadam 2007]. Pregnancy and lactation are physiological statuses considered to modify metabolism in animals [Krajnicakova et al. 2003, Iriadam 2007]. Blood biochemical parameters including total protein, triglycerides, free fatty acids and urea are important indicators of the metabolic activity in lactating animals [Karapehlivan
Analysis of Project Failure Factors for Infrastructure Projects in Saudi Arabia : A Multivariate Approach

The rapidly changing face of the Saudi construction industry occasioned by the boost in oil revenue means that the best project management practices must be given priority to be able to confront the challenges associated with the management of infrastructure projects. The study develops a framework for identifying and classifying causes of project failures in the Saudi construction industry. A quantitative questionnaire survey was used to solicit responses from 67 respondents in the city of Jeddah, selected using an online questionnaire survey. Target respondents were mainly civil engineers, architects, quantity surveyors and building engineers who have years of experience in the management of infrastructure projects in Saudi Arabia. Findings reveal that poor risk management was rated the most critical failure factor for infrastructure projects, while budget overruns and poor communication by management followed closely at second and third, respectively. Additionally, eight components were extracted from the 24 items used for factor analysis. Among the extracted factors are project management deficiencies, risk challenges and government interference. Recommendations include, among others, that project risk management frameworks should be re-designed to guide clients and other stakeholders in an effort to reduce a project's unexpected exposure to risk.
The inelastic Cooper pair tunneling amplifier (ICTA)

Les amplificateurs parametriques Josephson (JPA) se sont reveles etre un outil indispensablepour l’etude experimentale de dispositifs quantiques dans le regime micro-onde ; car ilsrajoutent uniquement le minimum de bruit impose par la mecanique quantique[1]. Cependant,ces amplificateurs sont beaucoup plus difficiles a utiliser et optimiser que leurs homologuesclassiques. Recemment, plusieurs experiences realisees avec des circuits supraconducteurs,composes d’une jonction Josephson polarisee en tension en serie avec un resonateur microonde,ont montre qu’une paire de Cooper peut traverser la barriere de la jonction par effettunnel en emettant un ou plusieurs photons avec une energie totale de 2e fois la tensionappliquee. Dans cette these, nous montrerons qu’un tel circuit permet de mettre en place unamplificateur micro-onde preservant la phase que nous appelons « Amplificateur base sur letunneling inelastique de paires de Cooper » (ICTA). Il est alimente par une tension continueet peut fonctionner avec un bruit tres proche de la limite quantique.Nous commencerons en presentant le principe du fonctionnement de l’ICTA. Par analogieavec la theorie quantique des JPAs[2], nous avons etudie les performances de cet amplificateurcomme le gain, la bande passante et le bruit. Ensuite, nous presenterons la premierepreuve experimentale d’une amplification proche de la limite quantique sans utilisation d’unepompe micro-onde externe, mais simplement d’une tension continue dans une configurationextremement simple. Ces mesures ont ete faites sur des echantillons avec des jonctionsen aluminium, denommes ICTA de premiere generation. Selon nos resultats theoriques etexperimentaux, nous avons concu des circuits hyperfrequences ou l’impedance presenteea la jonction depend de frequences specifiques afin d’optimiser les performances de notreamplificateur. Ces echantillons, denommes ICTA de seconde generation, ont ete fabriquesavec du nitrure de niobium. Une amelioration significative du gain et du bruit a ete prouvee.Un tel amplificateur, alimente par une simple tension continue, pourrait rendre la mesurede signaux micro-ondes au niveau du photon unique beaucoup plus faciles et permettred’integrer plusieurs amplificateurs sur une seule puce. Il pourrait donc etre un elementimportant pour la lecture de qubit dans les processeurs quantiques a grande echelle.
VP7 Mediates the Interaction of Rotaviruses with Integrin αvβ3 through a Novel Integrin-Binding Site

ABSTRACT Rotavirus entry is a complex multistep process that depends on the trypsin cleavage of the virus spike protein VP4 into polypeptides VP5 and VP8 and on the interaction of these polypeptides and of VP7, the second viral surface protein, with several cell surface molecules, including integrin αvβ3. We characterized the effect of the trypsin cleavage of VP4 on the binding to MA104 cells of the sialic acid-dependent virus strain RRV and its sialic acid-independent variant, nar3. We found that, although the trypsin treatment did not affect the attachment of these viruses to the cell surface, their binding was qualitatively different. In contrast to the trypsin-treated viruses, which initially bound to the cell surface through VP4, the non-trypsin-treated variant nar3 bound to the cell through VP7. Amino acid sequence comparison of the surface proteins of rotavirus and hantavirus, both of which interact with integrin αvβ3 in an RGD-independent manner, identified a region shared by rotavirus VP7 and hantavirus G1G2 protein in which six of nine amino acids are identical. This region, which is highly conserved among the VP7 proteins of different rotavirus strains, mediates the binding of rotaviruses to integrin αvβ3 and probably represents a novel binding motif for this integrin.
Valve surgery in active endocarditis patients complicated by intracranial haemorrhage: the influence of the timing of surgery on neurological outcomes.

OBJECTIVES The risk of neurological deterioration during valve surgery using cardiopulmonary bypass under systemic heparinization in infective endocarditis (IE) patients with intracranial haemorrhage (ICH) is unknown. The objective of this retrospective study was to investigate the stratified risk related to the timing of valve surgery on neurological outcomes in patients with active IE and preoperative ICH. METHODS From 2004 to 2012, 246 patients underwent valve surgery for IE in hospitals enrolled in the Osaka Cardiovascular Research Group. Of these, a group of 30 patients had preoperative ICH, and they included 18 patients with cerebral haemorrhage, 8 with subarachnoid haemorrhage and 4 with haemorrhagic infarction. The preoperative characteristics, neurological statuses and postoperative results of these patients were retrospectively explored to analyse the effects of the timing of surgery on neurological outcomes. RESULTS Twenty-one patients had symptomatic ICH, and the median modified Rankin score was 1.5 (95% confidence interval [CI] 1.2-2.8). Eight patients were diagnosed with mycotic aneurysms, and 7 of these patients underwent aneurysm resection or clipping before valve surgery. All 30 patients underwent valve surgery, and the median interval between ICH onset and surgery was 22.5 (95% CI 15.5-39.4) days. Four patients died of multiple organ dysfunction or heart failure. The interval between ICH onset and valve surgery was within 7 days for 5 cases, between 8 and 14 days for 6, between 15 and 28 days for 9 and >29 days for 10. Postoperative neuroimaging showed that neither neurological deterioration nor exacerbation of haemorrhagic lesions had occurred among the 30 patients, regardless of the timing of surgery. However, 2 cases who underwent valve surgery 8 and 81 days after the onset of ICH developed new ectopic asymptomatic haemorrhages postoperatively. CONCLUSIONS The risk of postoperative neurological deterioration resulting from the exacerbation of haemorrhagic lesions seemed relatively low, even in IE patients who underwent valve surgery within 2 weeks of ICH onset. However, further evaluation of the sizes and aetiologies of haemorrhagic lesions is vital to establish a safe interval between the ICH onset and surgery.
Epithelial ovarian tumors of borderline malignancy: a study of 50 cases

Of 50 patients with borderline epithelial ovarian tumors, 32 (64%) had serous, 17 (34%) had mucinous and one (2%) had endometrioid tumor. All patients with mucinous tumor had stage I disease, whereas 4 patients with serous tumor had stage II–III disease. Five patients (10%) were pregnant at the time of diagnosis. Seventeen patients (34%) had initial surgery with ovarian conservation and 7 of them were not subjected to further surgery. Five patients (10%) received adjuvant chemotherapy. Five-year survival and 5-year disease-free survival rates were 100% and 96.4%, respectively. It is concluded that for patients with stage IA disease unilateral salpingo-oophorectomy seems to be adequate treatment and for those with more than stage IA disease, surgery should include total abdominal hysterectomy and bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy. Although the effectiveness of chemotherapy in these tumors is uncertain, adjuvant chemotherapy is advocated for patients in whom spread of the tumor beyond the ovaries has occurred.