Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Distribution of Cajal like cells and innervation in intrinsic ureteropelvic junction obstruction.

OBJECTIVES C-kit positive interstitial cells of Cajal (ICC)-like cells are defined as pacemaker cells in the ureter, which produce and coordinate peristaltic motility. To investigate the changes in ICC-like cells and innervation in segments of intrinsic uretero-pelvic junction (UPJ) obstruction. MATERIAL AND METHODS Full thickness specimens obtained from UPJ segments (n = 77) were divided into 3 groups. Group I included 32 intrinsic UPJ obstruction segments, separated into 3 subgroups: Group Ia (proximal), Group Ib (obstruction, intermediate) and Group Ic (distal segments). Group II included 30 normal UPJ segments derived from the nephrectomy specimens. In Group III, 15 UPJ segments of chronic obstruction were analyzed. Formalin fixed, paraffin embedded specimens from UPJs were analyzed immunohistochemically for CD117, S100 and synaptophysin protein expression in nerve plexus and ganglionic cells in the neuromuscular junction. RESULTS Group Ib showed significantly decreased (p < 0.05) positive staning with c-kit protooncogene protein (CD117), S100 and synaptophysin proteins compared with Group Ia and Group Ic. ICC-like cells were observed in increased number (p < 0.05) in Group Ia compared to Groups II and III. Group Ib had lower synaptophysin positivity compared to Group II. CONCLUSIONS The findings support the hypothesis of decreased innervation in the etiopathogenesis of intrinsic UPJ obstruction. Increased number of ICC-like cells in Group Ia suggests that peristaltic activity is higher in pelvicalyceal region.
Customer engagement behaviour in online social networks - the Facebook perspective

Online social networking has become an essential part of our daily life. It also has changed the way consumers receive and exchange company or brand-specific information. Accordingly, online social networking platforms have turned into an essential hub for companies to reach (potential) customers. Though, little is known about the features of customer engagement behaviour in online social media. Applying an extended model based on the theory of planned behaviour and social practice, this study contributes to an improved understanding of both antecedents and moderators of consumers' interactions with companies and brands on Facebook. Structural equation modelling is applied to analyse the data that were collected by means of an online questionnaire (N = 358). Results confirm the suggested model and show that consumer's self-brand relationship and interactions with friends affect customer engagement behaviour. Furthermore, moderating effects of trust, information privacy concerns, age and gender are confirmed.
Red cell transfusion decreases hemoglobin A1c in patients with diabetes.

To the Editor: Hemoglobin A1c (Hb A1c)1 is a mainstay of diabetes diagnosis and management that allows clinicians to estimate the recent mean blood glucose concentration of a patient. Glycation of hemoglobin is an irreversible, nonenzymatic process that depends on the glucose concentration in red blood cells (RBCs), and Hb A1c represents the integrated glucose concentration in RBCs over their life span. RBC transfusion can complicate the interpretation of Hb A1c values in diabetic patients because it introduces hemoglobin molecules exposed to glucose concentrations that may have been different from the glucose concentrations in the diabetic transfusion recipient. The potential effect of transfusion on Hb A1c has been recognized for some time, but opinions on the direction of the effect are contradictory. Data from the older literature (1–3) suggest that the high concentration of glucose in RBC storage medium promotes glycation and causes Hb A1c values to increase over time, which would predict that Hb A1c might increase in transfused patients. This concept has been stated in a recent review article (4) and on consumer Web sites, such as Lab Tests Online (http://labtestsonline.org/understanding/analytes/a1c/test.html); however, a recent case in which a pathology resident was contacted to explain a patient's Hb A1c value decreasing from 7.4% to 5.4% in 3 days after the patient …
Reduced suppressive effect of CD4+CD25high regulatory T cells on the T cell immune response against myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein in patients with multiple sclerosis

Immunoregulatory T cells of CD4+CD25+ phenotype suppress T cell function and protect rodents from organ‐specific autoimmune disease. The human counterpart of this subset of T cells expresses high levels of CD25 and its role in human autoimmune disorders is currently under intense investigation. In multiple sclerosis (MS), a chronic inflammatory disease of the central nervous system (CNS), the activation of circulating self‐reactive T cells with specificity for myelin components is considered to be an important disease initiating event. Here, we investigated whether MS is associated with an altered ability of CD4+CD25high regulatory T cells (Treg) to confer suppression of myelin‐specific immune responses. Whereas Treg frequencies were equally distributed in blood and cerebrospinal fluid of MS patients and did not differ compared to healthy controls, the suppressive potency of patient‐derived CD4+CD25high T lymphocytes was impaired. Their inhibitory effect on antigen‐specific T cell proliferation induced by human recombinant myelin oligodendrocyte protein as well as on immune responses elicited by polyclonal and allogeneic stimuli was significantly reduced compared to healthy individuals. The effect was persistent and not due to responder cell resistance or altered survival of Treg, suggesting that a defective immunoregulation of peripheral T cells mediated by CD4+CD25high T lymphocytes promotes CNS autoimmunity in MS.
Characterization of TCTP, the Translationally Controlled Tumor Protein, from Arabidopsis thaliana[C][W][OA]

The translationally controlled tumor protein (TCTP) is an important component of the TOR (target of rapamycin) signaling pathway, the major regulator of cell growth in animals and fungi. TCTP acts as the guanine nucleotide exchange factor of the Ras GTPase Rheb that controls TOR activity in Drosophila melanogaster. We therefore examined the role of Arabidopsis thaliana TCTP in planta. Plant TCTPs exhibit distinct sequence differences from nonplant homologs but share the key GTPase binding surface. Green fluorescent protein reporter lines show that Arabidopsis TCTP is expressed throughout plant tissues and developmental stages with increased expression in meristematic and expanding cells. Knockout of TCTP leads to a male gametophytic phenotype with normal pollen formation and germination but impaired pollen tube growth. Silencing of TCTP by RNA interference slows vegetative growth; leaf expansion is reduced because of smaller cell size, lateral root formation is reduced, and root hair development is impaired. Furthermore, these lines show decreased sensitivity to an exogenously applied auxin analog and have elevated levels of endogenous auxin. These results identify TCTP as an important regulator of growth in plants and imply a function of plant TCTP as a mediator of TOR activity similar to that known in nonplant systems.
Conformational changes induced by binding of bivalent cations to oncomodulin, a paravalbumin-like tumour protein.

When Mg2+ was added to rat oncomodulin, a paravalbumin-like tumour protein, changes in the c.d. spectrum and tyrosine fluorescence intensity were observed. The addition of Ca2+ resulted in even greater changes in these spectra. The fluorescence excitation spectra of apo- and Mg-oncomodulin were superimposable, whereas that of Ca-oncomodulin was markedly different. The u.v. -absorption spectrum of the Ca2+ form also showed major differences from those of the other two forms. These observations indicate that Ca2+ induced a significant and specific conformational change in the protein that was not observed on binding Mg2+. In contrast, the conformational change induced by either Mg2+ or Ca2+ was identical in the homologous rat parvalbumin. This Ca2+-specific conformational change may be the basis for oncomodulin's Ca2+-dependent protein/protein interaction.
Volume adaptation in chronic liver disease: on the static and dynamic location of water, salt, protein and red cells in cirrhosis

Adequate size and distribution of the circulating medium are important for cardiovascular function, tissue oxygenation and fluid homoeostasis. Patients with cirrhosis have an abnormal distribution of increased blood volume, increased total vascular compliance and increased arterial compliance. The pattern and temporal relations of plasma and blood volume expansion are important for pathophysiological, diagnostic and therapeutic purposes and depend highly on the type of load (water, saline, oncotic material, red blood cells). In some aspects patients with cirrhosis respond differently from healthy subjects. Thus the reaction during volume expansion may be somewhat blunted, and in advanced cirrhosis, the non‐central parts of the circulation in particular, including the splanchnic blood volume, are expanded by a volume load. The use of vasoactive drugs has provided important information on the changes in haemodynamic and homoeostatic mechanisms in patients with cirrhosis. Infusion of oncotic material (preferably albumin) may prevent circulatory dysfunction during certain types of stress. Volume expansion in advanced cirrhosis is qualitatively and quantitively different from that of healthy subjects and those with early cirrhosis. Timely volume handling is essential, but difficult as it is a balance between hypovolaemia and excess extravascular volume loading with further circulatory dysfunction in these patients with a hyperdynamic, but hyporeactive circulation.
Postoperative radiotherapy in intermediate and high-risk Stage I endometrial cancer: analysis of prognostic factors and survival.

PURPOSE Patients with Stage IA Grade (G) III, Stage IB GII-III and Stage IC GI-II-III endometrial cancer who received postoperative adjuvant radiotherapy were evaluated in terms of local control, disease-free and overall survival rates and prognostic factors. MATERIALS AND METHODS Four hundred and three patients with Stage I endometrial cancer treated with radiotherapy from January 1990 to December 2003 at Ege University Faculty of Medicine Department of Radiation Oncology were reviewed retrospectively. According to our radiotherapy protocol patients with Stage IB G2 disease (149 patients) received only external radiotherapy and the remaining (254 patients) received both external radiotherapy and intracavitary brachytherapy. RESULTS Median age of the patients was 58 (range: 37-83). Nine patients (2.2%) had Stage IA, 196 (48.6%) had Stage IB and 198 (49.1%) had Stage IC disease. Histologic grade was 1 in 52 (12.9%) patients, 2 in 268 (66.5%) patients and 3 in 83 (20.6%) patients. Seventy-one (17.7%) patients had lymphovascular space invasion. Five-year locoregional relapse-free, distant-free, disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) were 98.2%, 92.8%, 91.8% and 87.7%, respectively. In multivariate analysis, myometrial invasion and lymphovascular invasion were predictive factors for DFS and for OS prognostic factors were histologic type, myometrial invasion, and histologic grade. During radiotherapy 47.9% of the patients developed acute morbidity and 26.3% developed late morbidity, vaginal stenosis being the most frequent late morbidity. CONCLUSION Postoperative adjuvant radiotherapy provides high locoregional control rates with acceptable toxicity in selected patients with Stage I endometrial carcinoma.
Redefining epithelial progenitor potential in the developing thymus

Cortical and medullary epithelium represent specialised cell types that play key roles in thymocyte development, including positive and negative selection of the T cell repertoire. While recent evidence shows that these epithelial lineages share a common embryonic origin, the phenotype and possible persistence of such progenitor cells in the thymus at later stages of development remain controversial. Through use of a panel of reagents including the putative progenitor marker Mts24, we set out to redefine the stages in the development of thymic epithelium. In the early embryonic day (E)12 thymus anlagen we find that almost all epithelial cells are uniformly positive for Mts24 expression. In addition, while the thymus at later stages of development was found to contain distinct Mts24+ and Mts24– epithelial subsets, thymus grafting experiments show that both Mts24+ and Mts24– epithelial subsets share the ability to form organised cortical and medullary thymic microenvironments that support T cell development, a function shown previously to be lost in the Mts24– cells by E15 when lower cell doses were used. Our data help to clarify stages in thymic epithelial development and provide important information in relation to currently used markers of epithelial progenitors.
Improvement of Ultrasound-Based Localization System Using Sine Wave Detector and CAN Network

This paper presents an improved indoor localization system based on radio frequency (RF) and ultrasonic signals, which we named the SNSH system. This system is composed of a transmitter mounted in a mobile target and a series of receiver nodes that are managed by a coordinator. By measuring the Time Delay of Arrival (TDoA) of RF and ultrasonic signals from the transmitter, the distance from the target to each receiver node is calculated and sent to the coordinator through the CAN network, then all the information is gathered in a PC to estimate the 3D position of the target. A sine wave detector and dynamic threshold filter are applied to provide excellent accuracy in measuring the range from the TDoA results before multilateration algorithms are realized to optimize the accuracy of coordinate determination. Specifically, Linear Least Square (LLS) and Nonlinear Least Square (NLS) techniques are implemented to contrast their performances in target coordinate estimation. RF signal encoding/decoding time, time delay in CAN network and math calculation time are carefully considered to ensure optimal system performance and prepare for field application. Experiments show that the sine wave detector algorithm has greatly improved the accuracy of range measurement, with a mean error of 2.2 mm and maximum error of 6.7 mm for distances below 5 m. In addition, 3D position accuracy is greatly enhanced by multilateration methods, with the mean error in position remaining under 15 mm. Furthermore, there are 90% confidence error values of 23 mm for LLS and 20 mm for NLS. The update in the overall system has been verified in real system operations, with a maximum rate of 25 ms, which is a better result than many other existing studies.
Significant frequency deviation of the class I polymorphism HLA-A10 in schizophrenic patients

The central nervous system (CNS) and the immune system communicate bidirectionally.1,2 Immune cell subpopulations produce neurotrophins like neurotrophin-3 (NT-3), brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), and dopamine.3,4 Such subpopulations are vulnerable to infection and may impair feedback loops to neuronal cells as chronically infected carriers. Successful elimination of infection depends mainly on successful presentation of microbial antigens by HLA molecules, that is, on inherited HLA alleles. The recognition of a major contribution of genetic factors to the aetiology of schizophrenia marks one of the highlights in the research into schizophrenia. Foster parents of schizophrenics do not induce the disease in adopted children from healthy parents and healthy foster parents cannot prevent the development of schizophrenia in children from schizophrenic parents.5 Different chromosomes have been pinpointed as harbouring genes involved in the pathogenesis of schizophrenia.6,7 Several researchers have found evidence for schizophrenia vulnerability genes on chromosome 6p close to the HLA genetic region by linkage analysis.8–11 The HLA region spans 4000 kb and contains more than 100 genes. The peculiarity of this region is the high degree of polymorphism of most loci, that is, these loci encode a multitude of alleles which have evolved to fight a multitude of microbial factors. We analysed frequency deviations of HLA polymorphisms in two panels of patients with schizophrenia, collected at different times. HLA-A and HLA-C antigens were defined serologically in the patient and in random controls . HLA-C alleles were identified in addition by sequence based typing (SBT) using previously designed primers in the random controls and in patient panel 2.12 Genetic typing of HLA-C was indicated because of a generally poor expression of HLA-C antigens and therefore difficult serological assessment. Furthermore, higher resolution of HLA-C by sequencing did not show any stronger association with …
Urgent Need for Empirical Research into Whaling and Whale Watching

Recent International Whaling Commission (IWC) debate on the interaction of whale watching and whaling provides fertile ground for empirical research (International Whaling Commission 2005). Commentary to date on the relationship between whale watching and whaling has been largely anecdotal, rendering the potential effect whaling might have on whale watching largely uninformed. From this situation emerges the need for empirical research into the relationship between two conflicting and probably mutually exclusive interests related to whaling and whale watching. Tourism typically develops following a predictable pattern (Butler 1980). After a period of slow growth, visitor numbers often undergo a phase transition of rapid development to reach an equilibrium (Duffus & Dearden 1990). Tour operators try to achieve sustainability by maintaining visitor numbers close to the carrying capacity of the whale-watching fleet. The likelihood that sustainability will be achieved is related to many extrinsic and intrinsic factors such as economic viability, competition, and sustainability of the resources on which the system relies. Whale watching relies on whales as the primary attraction for visitors. Activities, such as fishing and whaling, and pollution can affect the number of whales present at a tourism site. These activities can result in fewer tourist visits to a site either as a direct consequence of a decrease in the whale population or because of incompatibilities between competing activities and the values of whale watchers.
Intestinal metaplasia and histogenesis of carcinoma in human stomach. Light and electron microscopic study

Mucosal changes and carcinoma cells from 60 cancerous and 86 benign stomachs were studied by light and electron microscopes. In addition to the fully developed metaplastic glands, lesser degrees of metaplasia and cells with mixed characteristics of normal foveolar and metaplastic cells in a single gland were observed, indicating a similar cellular origin. Similar lines of differentiation were also noted in cases showing anaplasia and malignancy involving both metaplastic and non‐metaplastic cells. Most tumor cells, however, showed increased numbers of well‐developed microvilli and large pale mucin granules seen in benign metaplasia.
Effects of alcohol on social anxiety in women: cognitive versus physiological processes.

Thirty-two female social drinkers were randomly assigned to four conditions in a 2 X 2 factorial design that controls for drink content and expectations. Subjects were administered either an alcoholic or a nonalcoholic beverage and were led to believe that their drinks contained or did not contain alcohol. After finishing their drinks, subjects participated in a study of social anxiety in which they were requested to interact with a male confederate of the experimenter. Multiple measures, including heart rate, skin conductance, and overt behavioral and self-report responses, were recorded. Subjects who expected alcohol showed significant elevations in physiological arousal and were rated as more anxious on observational measures of social behavior. Self-report measures failed to yield any differences among groups. Implications for the tension reduction theory of alcohol use and the importance of multiple response measures are discussed.
Capsular serotype, toxA gene, and antimicrobial susceptibility profiles of Pasteurella multocida isolated from pigs with pneumonia in Korea

a 145 kD toxin encoded by the chromosomal toxA gene are most often associated with atrophic rhinitis, whereas type A strains exempt of toxA are commonly associated with pneumonia, pleuritis or abscessation (Chanter and Rutter 1989). Although toxigenic strains have also been isolated from pneumonic lungs, the prevalence is low (Pijoan and others 1984, Iwamatsu and Sawada 1988). Antimicrobial therapy is used to reduce both the morbidity and mortality associated with swine respiratory disease (Wilson and others 1986). In Korea, antibiotics are commonly administered in the field to control pneumonic pasteurellosis. Early and adequate antibiotic therapy is critical in reducing morbidity and preventing the spread of pneumonic pasteurellosis. However, differences have been detected when comparing the minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) data ofvarious antimicrobial agents from one country with those from another (Gutierrez Martin and Rodriguez Ferri 1993, Salmon and others 1995, Stephens and others 1995). Therefore, for the treatment to be effective, it is important to know the antimicrobial susceptibility ofP multocida that is isolated in each country. The aims of this study were first to determine the prevalence ofP multocida capsular serotype and toxA genotype, and secondly, to determine the antimicrobial susceptibility of P multocida as determined by the new standard procedures of the National Committee for Clinical Laboratory Standards (NCCLS) for antimicrobial susceptibility testing of animal pathogens (NCCLS 1997). Between 1995 and 1998, 230 isolates ofP multocida were isolated from 250 growing and finishing pigs showing severe respiratory symptoms from several different parts of Korea, which were submitted to the Department of Veterinary Pathology at the Seoul National University. All pigs were submitted live, and immediately upon receipt were euthanased for postmortem examination, whereupon specimens of lung tis-
LeuO, a dormant sentinel for SPI‐1?

A new mechanism for the turning‐off of gene expression in Salmonella Pathogenicity Island 1 (SPI‐1) is proposed by Espinosa and Casadesús, which involves the action of the LeuO quiescent regulator, by two different pathways. A major one through the activation of the hilE gene, where the HilE protein would in turn inactivate HilD, a major positive transcriptional regulator of SPI‐1; and a minor HilE‐HilD‐independent pathway. This could constitute a back‐up or an aid for the turn‐off of SPI‐1 genes mediated by the nucleoid protein H‐NS.