Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Antiplatelet Antibodies in Chronic Adult Immune Thrombocytopenic Purpura: Assays and Epitopes

Chronic immune thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP) is an autoimmune disorder characterized by thrombocytopenia due to autoantibody-induced platelet destruction. The majority of these autoantibodies are directed to epitopes on either glycoprotein (GP) IIb-IIIa or GPIb-IX. The newer antigen-specific autoantibody assays are capable of detecting both platelet-associated and plasma autoantibodies and have a definite role in the diagnosis of immune thrombocytopenia. A positive assay provides strong evidence for the presence of immune thrombocytopenia both in chronic ITP and in other diseases where immune thrombocytopenia may occur, such as collagen vascular disease and lymphoproliferative disorders. However, a negative assay does not rule out the presence of ITP. Somewhat concerning is the large number of patients who have negative assays. Several possible explanations for these observations are discussed. Recent studies have localized some ITP autoepitopes to specific regions of GPIIb-IIIa and GPIb-IX. Most autoepitopes on GPIIb-IIIa are conformational, in view of their dependence on divalent cations, and are localized to the N-terminal portion of GPIIb, while the GPIb-IX autoepitopes that have been identified are localized to GPIb amino acids 333–341.
FVB/N Mice Spontaneously Heal Ulcerative Lesions Induced by Mycobacterium ulcerans and Switch M. ulcerans into a Low Mycolactone Producer

Buruli ulcer, a debilitating disease, is caused by Mycobacterium ulcerans. The incidence of this neglected tropical disease is steadily increasing. As a rule, without treatment, skin ulcers occur and a lengthy healing process may be observed associated with severe functional disabilities. Mouse models are already available to study establishment of lesions or evaluation of therapy but a lack of a suitable animal model, mimicking all clinical stages, in particular the healing process, remains an obstacle to understand the pathophysiology of M. ulcerans infection. M. ulcerans was s.c. inoculated in three consanguine mouse strains, that is, BALB/c and C57BL/6, classically used to study mycobacterial infection, and FVB/N. Strikingly, FVB/N mice, although as sensitive as all other mouse strains with respect to M. ulcerans infection, presented a spontaneous healing after the ulcerative phase despite stable bacterial load, and mycolactone toxin was not detected in the healed tissues. The spontaneous healing process was accompanied by an activation of the innate immune system. The adaptive response initiated by FVB/N mice was not involved in the healing process and did not confer protection against M. ulcerans. Our work highlights the importance of innate immune responses to control M. ulcerans infection. This in vivo model of M. ulcerans infection now paves the way for new avenues of research toward the elucidation of critical stages of this disease, such as the characterization of the regulation of mycolactone production, a better understanding of the pathophysiology of M. ulcerans infection, and the development of new therapeutic strategies.
Dyspnea, Eosinopenia, Consolidation, Acidemia and Atrial Fibrillation Score and BAP-65 Score, Tools for Prediction of Mortality in Acute Exacerbations of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: A Comparative Pilot Study

Introduction: Acute exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (AECOPD) being common and often fatal, prognostic tools in AECOPD are lacking. Materials and Methods: A prospective, observational study was carried out in fifty patients of AECOPD admitted in A and E department. Dyspnea, Eosinopenia, Consolidation, Acidemia and atrial Fibrillation (DECAF) score and elevated blood urea nitrogen, altered mental status, pulse >109, age >65 (BAP-65) score were calculated. Dyspnea was scored using extended Medical Research Council Dyspnoea score. Data were collected and analyzed using SPSS 17.0 software. Results: Forty-one patients were discharged and 9 (18%) died during treatment. Patients who were discharged and patients who died during hospital stay were compared. There was no significant difference in terms of sociodemographic variables, presence of comorbidities, and other markers of disease severity. A significant difference was found in blood counts, blood urea, serum creatinine, acidotic respiratory failure, and atrial fibrillation. A higher value of DECAF score and BAP-65 score was found more commonly in patients who died. Sensitivity for prediction of mortality for DECAF score and BAP-65 score was 100% and specificity was 34.1% and 63.4%, respectively. Sensitivity for prediction of need for invasive ventilation for DECAF score and BAP-65 score was 80% and 100%, respectively, and specificity was 80% and 60%, respectively. Conclusion: Both DECAF and BAP-65 scores were found to be good predictors of mortality and need for ventilation in this pilot study.
Visual undersampling in raster sampled images

When a periodic signal is sampled at a rate below the Nyquist limit, it is considered undersampled because it is impossible to recover the original signal from the samples without some additional signal information. The authors have studied the visual effects of raster sampling upon the discriminability of simple monochrome test targets (edges and sinusoidal gratings) and found out that observers have good perceptual tolerance to the sinusoidal test gratings the low sampling rates produce illusory visual effects that disturb the recognition of the waveform. The occurrence of these illusions in sampled images points out two different sources of sampling noise in images: genuine spectral noise and purely visual spatial noise. The findings suggest that scenes containing abundant edge information tolerate low sampling rates better than scenes in which low and medium spatial frequencies are dominant.
Activation of the HLA-DRA gene in primary human T lymphocytes: novel usage of TATA and the X and Y promoter elements

Human T lymphocytes express human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-DR-alpha (DRA) upon mitogenic or antigenic stimulation. DR+ T cells are also found in a number of inflammatory and autoimmune diseases and have a proposed role in these diseases. The molecular mechanism of DR regulation in untransformed blood T lymphocytes was studied here by transient transfection of DRA-chloramphenicol acetyltransferase reporter gene constructs. Several novel features of this regulation were observed. During the early stages of T-cell activation by mitogens or antigens, strong promoter induction was exhibited with the proximal 43 bp of the DRA promoter which contains a TATTA motif. Addition of upstream X and Y DNA elements augmented the response. This contrasts with data from transformed cell lines in which the proximal 43 bp produced no detectable promoter function, and the inclusion of X and Y elements is essential for basal level expression. Mutation of the TATTA motif or substitution with a functional but different TATA element produced errant initiation and greatly reduced gene expression. Interestingly, T lymphocytes from a normal donor were DR+ prior to in vitro stimulation, and again, strong promoter activity was observed with 43 bp of proximal sequence. Unexpectedly, the presence of the X and Y elements correlated with a suppression of class II promoter function and surface antigen expression. This study of nontransformed lymphocytes reveals several novel features of DRA gene regulation and underscores the value and necessity of such studies.
Predictors of Disease Recurrence Following Neoadjuvant Chemoradiotherapy and Liver Transplantation for Unresectable Perihilar Cholangiocarcinoma

Background. Sixty-five patients with unresectable hilar cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) have undergone orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT) after neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy per a clinical care protocol developed in 1993. We reviewed our experience with the aim to identify clinicopathological predictors of disease recurrence. Methods. All patients with CCA that underwent OLT at our institution between 1993 and January 1, 2006 were treated in accord with our published protocol. We analyzed multiple clinical and explant pathologic factors using Cox regression analysis. Results. Sixty-five patients with CCA underwent OLT. Four patients died within six months due to postoperative complications. At last follow-up, 11 patients (17%) had developed recurrence seven to 64 months after OLT. Mean time to recurrence was 29 months, and eight patients had died from recurrent disease. Patient and disease-free survival were 76% and 60% five years after OLT. Predictors of recurrence were older age, pretransplant cancer antigen (CA) 19-9 >100 U/ml, prior cholecystectomy, mass on cross-sectional imaging, residual tumor in explant >2 cm, tumor grade and perineural invasion in explant. Underlying primary sclerosing cholangitis, percutaneous biliary intubation, gender, and other time points for CA 19-9 were not associated with recurrence. Prolonged staging-to-OLT intervals for patients transplanted after implementation of model for end-stage liver disease (MELD) showed a trend toward increased recurrence. Conclusions. Older patients and those with high CA-19.9 levels, and larger tumors are more likely to develop recurrent disease. Prolonged waiting time may emerge as a significant risk factor with longer follow-up. These findings may guide patient selection, applicability of live donor transplantation and MELD score exceptions for this aggressive protocol.
Description of the song of the bush-cricket Saga rammei Kaltenbach, 1965 (Orthoptera: Tettigoniidae)

A detailed description of the spectrographic and oscillographic features of the male calling song of Saga rammei is presented for the first time. The study is based on Macedonian specimens. The song of S. rammei is a mainly amplitude-modulated signal having wide-band frequency spectrum containing well detectable frequency components between 15 kHz and 80 kHz (intensity maximum between 20–30 kHz). The male song is a sequence of echemes, which are composed of evenly and quickly repeated diplo-hemisyllabic syllables. Echemes begin with a gradually crescending initial part that leads to the main part of the echeme, where the peak amplitude of the syllables is nearly constant. This structure is similar to those described in other European Saga species (S. hellenica, S. campbelli, S. natoliae). However, the results suggest that amongst the European Saga species S. rammei produces the shortest echemes composed of the lowest number of syllables repeated with the highest syllable repetition rate and that the species sings with the shortest echeme repetition period. Those quantitative features make the song of S. rammei distinct and easily recognisable, and therefore could be used by females or males for species recognition.
Investigation of the supplementary effect of GaAs laser therapy on the rehabilitation of human digital flexor tendons.

OBJECTIVE To investigate the effect of laser photostimulation in rehabilitation of human digital flexor tendons with a placebo-controlled double-blind prospective study model. BACKGROUND DATA Low-energy laser therapy has been applied in several rheumatoid and soft tissue disorders with a varying rate of success and it has also been shown to have a positive effect on tendon healing in animal experiments, but no clinical study on laser photostimulation in the treatment of human tendons has been reported to date. MATERIALS AND METHODS This study was performed in a total of 25 patients with 41 digital flexor tendon injuries in five anatomical zones. In Group I (21 digits in 13 patients), whirlpool and infrared GaAs diode laser with a frequency of 100 Hz. was applied between the 8th and 21st days postoperatively and all patients were given the Washington rehabilitation program until the end of the 12th week. In Group II (20 digits in 12 patients), the same treatment protocol was given but the laser instrument was switched off during applications. RESULTS The results of the study showed a significant improvement in the laser-treated group only for the parameter of edema reduction (p < 0.01) but the difference between the two groups was non-significant for pain reduction, hand grip strength, and functional evaluation performed according to Strickland and Buck-Gramcko systems using total active motion and fingertip-to distal palmar crease distance parameters (p > 0.05). CONCLUSIONS Significant improvement obtained in edema reduction both immediately and 12 weeks after supplementary GaAs laser application in our study has been interpreted as an important contribution to the rehabilitation of human flexor tendon injuries because edema is known to have a detrimental effect on functional recovery during both early and late stages of tendon healing. However, our study has failed to show a significant positive effect of supplementary GaAs laser application on the other functional recovery parameters of human flexor tendon injury rehabilitation and we suggest further clinical study in this topic be done using different laser types and dosages in order to delineate the role of this promising treatment modality.
Metagenomic profiling of the microbial freshwater communities in two Bulgarian reservoirs

Microorganisms inhabiting freshwater environments are an integral part of the aquatic ecosystems. Very few data are available regarding the profiles of the microbial communities in the reservoirs in Bulgaria, despite their key role in the biogeochemical processes. In the present study, we provide the first comprehensive metagenomic analysis on the planktonic bacterial diversity of two large and economically important Bulgarian reservoirs (Batak and Tsankov Kamak) using next‐generation sequencing of 16S ribosomal RNA gene (16S rRNA). Analysis of the metagenomic amplicon datasets, including quality filtering, clustering of Operational Taxonomic Units and taxonomy assignment revealed that 78.45% of the microbial communities between the two reservoirs were overlapping. The diversity (H) and Pielou's evenness (J) indices declined along the longitudinal axis of both reservoirs. The estimated values for the Shannon diversity index are typically observed in oligotrophic lakes. The microbial communities of both reservoirs were dominated by Proteobacteria, followed by Actinobacteria and Bacteroidetes all comprised over 95% of the relative abundance, regardless of the reservoir's large hydrogeological differences. The bacterioplankton was characterized by high phylogenetic heterogeneity in the taxonomic structure, being distributed among 211 genera. The genera Limnohabitans and Rhodoferax held the absolute predominance, implying their significance in the aquatic food webs. The obtained data can contribute to the better systematic understanding of the microbial diversity of freshwater environments.
Chocs de prix, vulnérabilité climatique et sécurité alimentaire dans les pays en développement

Sur la periode 2006-2008, les prix de la plupart des produits agricoles ont connu une hausse spectaculaire. Un des facteurs explicatifs de cette flambee des prix est le changement climatique. En effet, l’instabilite pluviometrique et les temperatures extremes affectent negativement les recoltes agricoles et entrainent une baisse de l’offre alimentaire sur les marches internationaux qui contribue a la hausse des prix agricoles. La flambee des prix agricoles et le changement climatique soulevent de serieuses preoccupations en ce qui concerne l’inflation et le bien etre des populations dans le monde et surtout dans les pays pauvres dependants des marches internationaux. Dans un premier chapitre, nous montrons a partir de modeles econometriques sur series temporelles que la hausse du prix du petrole et les fluctuations du dollar americain sont les principaux facteurs de la hausse des prix internationaux agricoles. Dans un deuxieme chapitre, a l’aide d’un modele de cointegration non lineaire, nous mettons en evidence le fait que les hausses du prix du riz sur le marche international se transmettent plus rapidement aux marches interieurs du Burkina Faso que les baisses. Dans un troisieme chapitre, nous montrons que la hausse du prix international du riz a un effet negatif sur la pauvrete et les inegalites de revenu au Burkina Faso. Le quatrieme chapitre met en evidence l’effet negatif et significatif de la variabilite climatique sur la securite alimentaire dans les pays en developpement. Cet effet apparait plus eleve dans les pays africains. Il ressort de cette these que les pays en developpement et plus particulierement les pays africains sont fortement vulnerables aux chocs de prix alimentaires et au changement climatique. Cette vulnerabilite s’explique par le fait que ces pays dependent des importations alimentaires et ont un secteur agricole sensible au climat. Des initiatives de protection sociale des populations pauvres sont necessaires compte tenu de l’acces limite a la nourriture engendre par la flambee des prix alimentaires. Des investissements viables pour une croissance agricole soutenue sont aussi necessaires. Il peut s’agir d’investissements pour l’amelioration des infrastructures rurales et des services agricoles ainsi que pour la recherche de nouvelles pratiques agricoles moins sensibles aux aleas climatiques.
Mild carbon monoxide exposure diminishes selectively the integrity of the cochlea of the developing rat

Rat pups were chronically exposed to carbon monoxide (CO) concentrations (12 or 25 ppm) in air starting at day 8, through 22 days of age, to examine the changes in the peripheral auditory system. Gastrostomy‐reared rat pups, with or without CO exposure, were used and compared with mother‐reared pups. The organ of Corti and the neurons of the spiral ganglion were analyzed for their morphology by using immunochemical and histological techniques. The inner and outer hair cells in the organ of Corti of animals exposed to 12 and 25 ppm CO were not different from the controls. However, at 25 ppm CO exposure, the nerve terminals innervating the inner hair cells were swollen. The somata of neurons in the spiral ganglion showed mild changes in the cytoplasm, and signs of mild vacuolization were observed in myelin covering their central processes. Synaptophysin, a marker for synaptic vesicles, and choline acetyltransferase, a marker for cholinergic terminals, showed no difference in immunoreactivity in CO exposed animals at 12 and at 25 ppm when compared with their age‐matched controls. Also, Na+K+ ATPase immunoreactivity patterns were normal compared with controls. Three enzymes were significantly reduced at the 25 ppm CO exposure: Cytochrome oxidase, NADH‐TR, and calcium ATPase were decreased in both the organ of Corti and the neurons of the spiral ganglion, and decreased immunostaining for the neurofilament and myelin basic proteins was found. We conclude that components of the cochlea are selectively affected by mild chronic CO exposure during development. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
‘Men give in to chips and beer too easily’: How working-class men make sense of gender differences in health

This article, based on qualitative research with working-class men, explores men’s perceptions and experiences regarding gender differences in health. It demonstrates how men put forward a range of behavioural/cultural, materialist/structural and psychosocial factors, which were believed to differently impact men’s health compared to women. A common theme underpinning their explanations was the ways in which men and women were located within two distinct gender categories. These characterisations were used to explain why health-damaging beliefs and behaviours were more prevalent among men and also why men were better suited for certain kinds of jobs, albeit with potential costs to their health. Men also believed that women were protected from the damaging physical and emotional impact of manual employment because of their primary role within the home and because they were less emotionally robust, which required men to shield women from the stresses they experienced. However, men’s emotional withdrawal can also be viewed as another example of how men use whatever resources are available to achieve and maintain dominance over women. Finally, the article demonstrates how a gender- and class-based approach can capture the impact of men’s health-related practices alongside the broader cultural and structural influences on men’s health.
The influence of femoral cementing on perioperative blood loss in total knee arthroplasty: a prospective randomized study.

BACKGROUND Total knee arthroplasty can involve substantial blood loss. We prospectively studied a consecutive series of patients undergoing primary total knee arthroplasty to assess the influence of femoral cementing on perioperative blood loss. We hypothesized that an uncemented femoral component is a risk factor for bleeding. METHODS A semiconstrained posterior stabilized prosthesis was used in all patients. Preoperatively, 130 patients were randomly assigned to either the cement group (Group 1) or the hybrid group (Group 2). We selected all patients who underwent a knee replacement through a medial parapatellar approach (n = 107). Group 1 consisted of forty-two women and twelve men ranging in age from fifty-six to eighty-five years. Group 2 consisted of thirty-seven women and sixteen men ranging in age from fifty-six to eighty-five years. The hemoglobin and hematocrit levels were recorded preoperatively and five days postoperatively for each patient. The volumes of postoperative suction drainage and the rate of blood transfusion were recorded. RESULTS No differences between the two groups were identified with regard to hemoglobin and hematocrit levels, total measured blood loss, postoperative drainage amounts, or transfusion rates. The total measured blood loss was 1758.9 mL for Group 1 and 1759 mL for Group 2. CONCLUSIONS Cementing the femoral component during a total knee arthroplasty does not appear to influence the amount of perioperative blood loss or the need for postoperative blood transfusion.
Predictors of mammography participation among rural Korean women age 40 and over.

PURPOSE The study was conducted to identify predictors of mammography screening for rural Korean women according to 'Stage of Change' from the Transtheoretical Model which, along with the Health Belief Model, formed the theoretical basis for this study. METHODS A cross-sectional descriptive design was utilized. Through convenience sampling 432 women were selected from 2 rural areas. Data were collected by survey. Health beliefs constructs were measured with Champion's HBM Scale-Korea version. Mammography participation was measured using the Stage of Mammography Adoption Scale developed by Rakowski, et al. (1992). RESULTS The most frequent stage of mammography adoption was 'contemplation' (40.5%). Predictors of stage of mammography adoption included 'mammogram recommended by health professional' (beta=0.59, t=16.12, p=.000), 'perceived benefits' (beta=0.09, t=2.21, p=.050), 'perceived susceptibility' (beta=0.09, t=1.98, p=.050), and 'perceived barriers' (beta= 0.07, t= -2.05, p=.041). 'Mammogram recommended by health professional' demonstrated the greatest association with having a mammogram. CONCLUSION Health professionals play key roles in improving mammography participation and should recognize the importance of their role in cancer prevention and be more actively involved in education and counseling on prevention of breast cancer.