Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Indoor allergen exposure and asthma outcomes

Purpose of review The aim of the present review is to discuss updates on research regarding the relationship between indoor allergen exposure and childhood asthma with a focus on clinical effects, locations of exposure, and novel treatments. Recent findings Recent data continue to demonstrate that early life sensitization to indoor allergens is a predictor of asthma development later in life. Furthermore, avoidance of exposure to these allergens continues to be important especially given that the vast majority of children with asthma are sensitized to at least one indoor allergen. New research suggests that mouse allergen, more so than cockroach allergen, may be the most relevant urban allergen. Recent evidence reminds us that children are exposed to clinically important levels of indoor allergens in locations away from their home, such as schools and daycare centers. Exposure to increased levels of indoor mold in childhood has been associated with asthma development and exacerbation of current asthma; however, emerging evidence suggests that early exposure to higher fungal diversity may actually be protective for asthma development. Novel treatments have been developed that target TH2 pathways thus decreasing asthmatic responses to allergens. These therapies show promise for the treatment of severe allergic asthma refractory to avoidance strategies and standard therapies. Summary Understanding the relationship between indoor allergens and asthma outcomes is a constantly evolving study of timing, location, and amount of exposure.
Metabolism of immunoglobulin A in lactating mice: origins of immunoglobulin A in milk

The metabolism of albumin and IgA was studied in normal and lactating mice. Lactation resulted in significant changes in the metabolism of these proteins. The serum albumin concentration was lowered from 47 mg/ml in normals to 24 mg/ml in lactating mice. However, only a slight decrease in the serum concentration of IgA was observed during lactation. The proportion of polymeric and monomeric IgA in serum and milk was evaluated by gel exclusion chromatography. The onset of lactation led to a rise in the proportion of polymeric IgA (P‐IgA) in serum from 37% to 51%. The proportion of P‐IgA in milk was 65% and remained constant throughout lactation. P‐IgA and albumin were shown to be efficiently transferred from the serum of lactating mice into their milk. Serum decay studies were performed to evaluate the turnover of the serum pools during lactation. The rates of disappearance from the serum of isotopically labeled albumin and P‐IgA were observed to increase dramatically during lactation, suggesting that both of these two milk proteins might be derived at least in part from the serum. The sites of synthesis of milk IgA (local vs. extra‐mammary gland) were evaluated by determining the extent of dilution of isotopically labeled serum IgA during transport through the mammary gland into the milk. Early in lactation, the majority of the IgA in mouse milk appeared to be derived from distant sites and transferred via the blood to the mammary gland. However, by day 8 of lactation, the isotopically labeled P‐IgA in milk was significantly.diluted by the IgA synthesized in the mammary gland. Albumin and IgG were not diluted by local synthesis indicating that these proteins were exclusively serum‐derived.
Radiologic features of injuries from the Boston Marathon bombing at three hospitals.

OBJECTIVE The aim of this study is to describe the radiologic imaging findings of primary, secondary, tertiary, and quaternary blast injuries in patients injured in the Boston Marathon bombing on April 15, 2013. MATERIALS AND METHODS A total of 43 patients presenting to three acute care hospitals and undergoing radiologic investigation within 7 hours of the time of the bombing on April 15, 2013, were included in this study. The radiographic and CT features of these patients were evaluated for imaging findings consistent with primary, secondary, tertiary, and quaternary blast injury. RESULTS There were no pulmonary or gastrointestinal manifestations of the primary blast wave on imaging. Secondary blast injuries identified on imaging included a total of 189 shrapnel fragments identified in 32 of the 43 patients. The shrapnel was identified most often in the soft tissues of the leg (36.5%), thigh (31.2%), and pelvis (13.2%). Imaging identified 125 ball bearings, 10 nails, one screw, 44 metal fragments, and nine other (gravel, glass, etc.) foreign bodies. CONCLUSION Injuries from the Boston Marathon bombing were predominantly from the secondary blast wave and resulted in traumatic injuries predominantly of the lower extremities. The most common shrapnel found on radiologic evaluation was the ball bearing.
Coregulation in Salivary Cortisol During Maternal Holding of Premature Infants

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine coregulation between mothers and preterm infants in hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) system activity, as indicated by salivary cortisol levels, while mothers held their infants. The research questions were (a) does mother—infant coregulation in HPA activity occur during holding? and (b) if mother— infant coregulation in HPA activity exists during holding, do type of holding, antenatal steroids, sound level, and maternal touch influence this coregulation? Sample: The sample consisted of 20 mother— infant dyads with infants at a mean postconceptional age of 34.7 weeks (+0.7) and average postnatal age of 15 days (+9) at the time of cortisol sampling. Design: The design was exploratory using convenience sampling. Maternal and infant cortisol levels were obtained at Time 1 (baseline) and Time 2 (end of holding); at each time, the absolute differences in levels between mother and infant were determined. Coregulation was operationalized as less difference between maternal-infant cortisol levels immediately after holding (Time 2) as compared to before holding (Time 1). Results: The two variables with the highest correlation with the Time 1/Time 2 difference score included antenatal steroids and ambient sound level, which were entered into a linear regression equation as predictor variables. A coregulatory relationship in cortisol levels existed between mothers and infants during holding, which was moderated by sound levels. Nurses in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) can facilitate the mother—infant relationship, as reflected in coregulatory measures, by promoting a quiet environment, particularly around mothers who are holding their infants.
All-Digital Galvanically-Coupled BCC Receiver Resilient to Frequency Misalignment

It is promising for wearable devices to go to a miniature size to alleviate the load of human body. One way to miniaturize the communication nodes on human body is to remove the bulky components such as antenna and crystal. Galvanically-coupled body channel communication (GC-BCC) has a great advantage over conventional wireless communications in reducing the size of wearable devices because it reuses the monitoring electrodes for signal transmission in place of antennas. To remove the crystal as well, the receiver must be immune to different types of frequency misalignments. This paper presents a GC-BCC receiver based on low power all-digital Gaussian frequency shift keying (GFSK) demodulation and clock-data recovery (CDR). A carrier tracking technique is proposed to detect and automatically adapt to the misalignment of carrier frequency. In addition, we also propose a circle-index CDR circuit to deal with the inaccuracy or drift of the clock frequency. The proposed circuit is implemented with 0.18 <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mu$</tex-math></inline-formula>m CMOS technology, and it operates at 200 kHz with a BFSK/GFSK modulation index of 1.0. Measured results show that the chip consumes 0.53 mA at a data rate of 100 kb/s. At a 10 cm body channel length, the GC-BCC receiver can tolerate a carrier misalignment up to <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\pm \text{12.5}\%$</tex-math></inline-formula> and a clock error up to <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\pm \text{1.9}\%$</tex-math></inline-formula>, while keeping the bit error rate (BER) below 0.1%.
Comparison of risk factors for hepatitis B and C in patients visiting a gastroenterology clinic.

OBJECTIVE To find out and compare the risk factors for hepatitis B and C infections in patients visiting a gastroenterology clinic. DESIGN A case-control study. PLACE AND DURATION OF STUDY The Liver Stomach Clinic, Karachi, from July 2004 to September 2004. PATIENTS AND METHODS Patients of hepatitis B and C visiting the clinic were interviewed and data were noted on a prescribed form. Patients with dyspeptic symptoms who were negative for both hepatitis B and C were taken as controls. Statistical analysis was done using SPSS package. RESULTS Total numbers of patients interviewed were 148; 63 with hepatitis C, 41 with hepatitis B and 44 in the control group. These patients hailed from various parts of Pakistan with diverse ethnicity. Comparing hepatitis C with the control group, important risk factors identified were lower level of education, the occupational exposure to the blood and syringes, history of blood transfusions, taking therapeutic injections and intravenous drips, and habit of getting shaved by barbers. Patients of hepatitis B were younger as compared to the control group. Their knowledge about spread of infection was poor. These patients had not received hepatitis B vaccine during childhood. Less number of risk factors could be identified in this group, Shaving from the barber s shop was also found to be a risk factor just like in hepatitis C. CONCLUSION There is a need to educate general population about the possible risk factors associated with the spread of hepatitis C and B. Proper screening of blood products and universal precautions against the spread of infections are recommended. Treatment by 1/V drips and getting shaved by barbers should be discouraged. Vaccination against hepatitis B is recommended.
Strength characteristics and failure modes of locking-loop and three-loop pulley suture patterns in equine tendons.

Size 3-0 polydioxanone was used as a single strand, single braid (3 strands), or double braid (6 strands) to create six suture material-pattern combinations for equine tenorrhaphy: single-strand locking loop, single-braid locking loop, double-braid locking loop, single-strand three-loop pulley, single-braid three-loop pulley, and double-braid three-loop pulley. Maximum load to failure for the single-strand locking loop (46.1 +/- 2.9 newtons [N]) was less than for all other sutures (range, 103-155 N). The load required to form a 2 mm gap between tendon ends was greater for the single-braid three-loop pulley (66.7 +/- 6.9 N) and double-braid three-loop pulley (85.4 +/- 17.7 N) than any other sutures. The load required to produce a 10 mm gap was least for the single-strand locking loop (34.3 +/- 3.9 N) and greatest for the double-braid three-loop pulley (131.5 +/- 27.5 N). Gap between tendon ends at maximum load was greater for the single-braid (18.1 +/- 0.9 mm) and double-braid (19.2 +/- 2.2 mm) locking loops than for any other sutures. Suture material broke in 53% of the locking-loop tests but in only 17% of the three-loop pulley tests. Tendon matrix disruption accounted for 43% of the locking-loop failures and 77% of the three-loop pulley failures. The three-loop pulley pattern provided more support, less tendon distraction, and less tendon matrix constriction and distortion than the locking-loop pattern. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Mapping a Message for Faith Leaders: Encouraging Community Health Promotion With Local Health Data

This study reports the use of a community-based health survey to share local health information with faith leaders. Geographical information systems software identified survey respondents within 2 km (1.25 miles) of places of worship. Results were tabulated for the community surrounding each place of worship and were compared with city- and county-level data. Faith leaders were presented with community-specific reports describing the health attributes of residents who lived in the surrounding area, in order to assist with the identification issues of concern and opportunities to develop health ministries to address these issues. Faith leaders were encouraged to share this information with members of their faith community and develop means of obtaining additional information on the people of interest. We believe that engaging faith leaders with neighborhood-specific health information will be critical in providing an understanding of the importance of their voice in improving health outcomes of their faith community, the surrounding neighborhood, and the community at large. Our goal is to empower faith leaders to understand personal and community health issues and to act as a conduit for health-related information and health promotion at a local level. Church health teams developed an HIV and sexually transmitted infection prevention program for African American adolescents and young adults.
A Stochastic Two Settlement Equilibrium Model for Electricity Markets With Wind Generation

Incentives to encourage the uptake of renewable energy generation have fostered wind energy in many power systems. These incentives usually take the form of market instruments (e.g., feed-in tariff or premium) that are not directly amenable to optimization representations of the market. In this paper, we propose an equilibrium model of the short-term market to address the impact of wind operation under different structural assumptions. The model is formulated for several price taking, risk averse firms in competition. It accounts for wind generation uncertainty and embeds a representation of the day ahead and balancing mechanisms. The consumer is modeled by a linear inverse demand function. We focus on feed-in premium as the incentive to wind as this is the instrument most favored today in European discussions. The model is formulated as a stochastic equilibrium problem where the Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (KKT) conditions from the optimization problem of each firm are simultaneously solved together with market clearing conditions on energy, capacity for reserve and energy for reserve. The problem for each firm consists of a two-stage stochastic optimization problem with a recourse function based on the conditional value at risk ( CVaRθ) as a risk measure. Due to price taking assumptions the model is a single stage complementarity problem; it is implemented and solved using the software GAMS. An example based on a stylized simplification of the Spanish power market and motivated by the impact of wind penetration on the revenue of conventional plants is used to illustrate the proposed approach.
Coordinate expression of vesicular acetylcholine transporter and choline acetyltransferase in sympathetic superior cervical neurones

&NA; The neurotransmitter acetylcholine is synthesized by choline acetyltransferase (ChAT) and transported into synaptic vesicles by the vesicular acetylcholine transporter (VAChT). Recently it has been reported that the entire coding region of VAChT mRNA is located in the first intron of the ChAT gene. In this study, ChAT and VAChT mRNAs were analysed in cultured sympathetic neurones. Cholinergic differentiation factor/leukaemia inhibitory factor and ciliary neurotrophic factor induced strong expression of ChAT and VAChT mRNAs in parallel. RT‐PCR analysis of ChAT mRNAs revealed that five types of ChAT transcripts which differed in the 5′ non coding regions were increased. RT‐PCR analysis of VAChT mRNA indicated that the cytokines induced only VAChT mRNA species which did not contain the R‐exon, and not those containing the R‐exon. The results indicate that ChAT and VAChT expressions are coordinately but differentially regulated in cultured sympathetic neurones.
Delayed Detection of Esophageal Intubation in Anesthesia Malpractice Claims: Brief Report of a Case Series

This retrospective case series analyzed 45 malpractice claims for delayed detection of esophageal intubation from the Anesthesia Closed Claims Project. Inclusion criteria were cases from 1995 to 2013, after adoption of identification of CO2 in expired gas to verify correct endotracheal tube position as a monitoring standard by the American Society of Anesthesiologists. Forty-nine percent (95% confidence interval 34%–64%) occurred in the operating room or other anesthesia location where CO2 detection equipment should have been available. The most common factors contributing to delayed detection were not using, ignoring, or misinterpreting CO2 readings. Misdiagnosis, as with bronchospasm, occurred in 33% (95% confidence interval 20%)
A comparison of endotracheal intubation and use of the laryngeal mask airway for ambulatory oral surgery patients.

PURPOSE This study compared current experience with the laryngeal mask airway (LMA) to previous experience with endotracheal intubation for ambulatory patients receiving general anesthesia. PATIENTS AND METHODS A retrospective comparison of 157 patients (50 endotracheal intubation [ET] and 107 LMA cases) was conducted. The subjects were American Association of Anesthesiologist (ASA) Class I and II patients who underwent outpatient general anesthesia for dentoalveolar surgery. Procedure time, recovery time, and cost of techniques were compared. RESULTS The patients undergoing a variety of outpatient dentoalveolar surgical procedures under general anesthesia in the LMA group had a shorter procedure time than the ET group (40 vs 44 minutes) and had a significantly shorter recovery time (54 vs 67 minutes). In addition, compared with the cost of delivering care with ET, the LMA provided slightly lower cost per case ($20 to $30 per case compared with $35 to $80 per case), depending on the anesthetic technique used. Comparing the 2 techniques for removal of 4 impacted third molars (25 patients ET and 68 patients LMA) revealed a similar procedure time of 39 minutes for both groups, but a shorter recovery time for the LMA group (54 vs 68 minutes). CONCLUSIONS Use of the LMA has advantages over endotracheal intubation for outpatients receiving general anesthesia for dentoalveolar surgery.
Endogenous Public and Private Leadership with Diverging Social and Private Marginal Costs

We investigate endogenous timing in a mixed duopoly with price competition and different social versus private marginal costs. We find that any equilibrium timing patterns—Bertrand, Stackelberg with private leadership, Stackelberg with public leadership, and multiple Stackelberg equilibria—emerge. When the foreign ownership share in a private firm is less than 50%, public leadership is more likely to emerge than private leadership. Conversely, private leadership can emerge in a unique equilibrium when the foreign ownership share in a private firm is large. These results may explain recent policy changes in public financial institutions in Japan. We also find there is a nonmonotonic relationship between the welfare advantage of public and private leadership and the difference between social and private marginal costs for a private firm. A nonmonotonic relationship does not emerge in profit ranking. Similar results are obtained under quantity competition, although some properties are different.
Control of Lipid Accumulation in the Yeast Yarrowia lipolytica

ABSTRACT A genomic comparison of Yarrowia lipolytica and Saccharomyces cerevisiae indicates that the metabolism of Y. lipolytica is oriented toward the glycerol pathway. To redirect carbon flux toward lipid synthesis, the GUT2 gene, which codes for the glycerol-3-phosphate dehydrogenase isomer, was deleted in Y. lipolytica in this study. This Δgut2 mutant strain demonstrated a threefold increase in lipid accumulation compared to the wild-type strain. However, mobilization of lipid reserves occurred after the exit from the exponential phase due to β-oxidation. Y. lipolytica contains six acyl-coenzyme A oxidases (Aox), encoded by the POX1 to POX6 genes, that catalyze the limiting step of peroxisomal β-oxidation. Additional deletion of the POX1 to POX6 genes in the Δgut2 strain led to a fourfold increase in lipid content. The lipid composition of all of the strains tested demonstrated high proportions of FFA. The size and number of the lipid bodies in these strains were shown to be dependent on the lipid composition and accumulation ratio.
Developing Live Attenuated Avian Influenza Virus In Ovo Vaccines for Poultry

Abstract Live attenuated vaccines can mimic natural infection and induce humoral and cellular immune response. However, the possibility of reassortment between vaccine viruses and field isolates and of mutations from low-pathogenic to highly pathogenic viruses has prevented the use of live attenuated strains as poultry vaccines. In ovo vaccination using live attenuated strains that can undergo limited replication cycles would be a better option, because these strains can be used for mass vaccination without spreading or reassorting with other viruses. Our previous study demonstrated that two influenza nonstructural (NS) variant viruses are highly attenuated and immunogenic in chickens, making them potential live vaccine candidates. In this study, we tested whether NS variants could be used as in ovo vaccines alone or in combination with temperature-sensitive (ts) mutations. In addition, we also tested the effect of different hemagglutinin (HA) subtypes on in ovo vaccination of NS variants. Our results demonstrated that NS variants alone or in combination with ts mutations were not attenuated enough to be used for in ovo vaccination. We also observed variable effects of different HA subtypes in the same NS deletion variant backbone on hatchability. However, even with substitution of HA subtypes, NS variant–inoculated eggs still had lower hatchability compared to the mock control group, indicating that the high virulence of NS variant backbone strain in eggs might have affected the results.