Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Anti‐CD30 (BER‐H2) immunotoxins containing the type‐1 ribosome‐inactivating proteins momordin and PAP‐S (pokeweed antiviral protein from seeds) display powerful antitumour activity against CD30+ tumour cells in vitro and in SCID mice

The anti‐CD30 immunotoxin (IT) Ber‐H2/saporin is effective in patients with refractory Hodgkin’s disease. However, responses are short and partial, one of the main reasons being the inability to repeat IT doses because of formation of human antibodies against the murine antibody and/or the toxin. To overcome this problem, we constructed two new anti‐CD30 ITs by covalently linking the mouse monoclonal antibody Ber‐H2 to the type 1 ribosome‐inactivating proteins (RIPs) momordin (MOM) and pokeweed antiviral protein from seeds (PAP‐S), which do not cross‐react with each other or with saporin. Both ITs inhibited protein synthesis by Hodgkin’s disease and anaplastic large‐cell lymphoma (ALCL)‐derived CD30+ target cell lines with a very high efficiency (IC50 ranging from < 5 × 10−13 m to 2.75 × 10−11m, as RIP). In a SCID mouse model of xenografted CD30+ human ALCL, a 3 d treatment with non‐toxic doses of Ber‐H2/MOM (50% LD50), started 24 h after transplantation, prevented tumour development in about 40% of the animals and significantly delayed tumour growth rate in the others. Main toxicity signs in mice and rabbits were a dose‐related increase of serum transaminases (AST and ALT) and creatine phosphokinase (CPK). LD50 (as RIP) in Swiss mice was 7 mg/kg for Ber‐H2/MOM and 0.45 mg/kg for Ber‐H2/PAP‐S. Sequential administration of two anti‐CD30 ITs (Ber‐H2/MOM and Ber‐H2/saporin) was well tolerated and did not result in formation of antibodies cross‐reacting with the two plant toxins. The results presented in this paper suggest that, in the future, sequential administration of anti‐CD30 humanized antibodies linked to antigenically distinct type 1 RIPs (saporin, MOM, PAP‐S) should be feasible.
A prospective study of pre-illness diet in newly diagnosed patients with Crohn's disease.

BACKGROUND Environmental factors, including diet, seem to participate in the etiology of inflammatory bowel disease. The kind of dietetic habits before the appearance of the illness in patients with Crohn's disease (CD) has not been studied extensively. AIM To prospectively assess the kind of food consumption in patients with CD exactly at the time of diagnosis and to identify dietary constituents as risk factors for development of CD. PATIENTS - METHODS: Twenty eight patients with a newly established diagnosis of CD (2-4 weeks), (12 men and 16 women), 30 patients with previously (between 2 - 11 years) established diagnosis of CD (14 men and 16 women) and 38 age- and sex-matched healthy controls (16 men and 22 women) were included in the study. Dietary intake was assessed by means of special questionnaire. RESULTS Comparisons between controls and newly diagnosed patients showed that increased consumption of milk and yogurt (P = 0.042), fruits (P = 0.0001), citrus (P = 0.0001), vegetables (P = 0.0001), carrots (P = 0.0001), legumes (P = 0.036), fish and selfish (P = 0.001), honey (P = 0.003), and nuts (P = 0.038), was associated with decreased risk for CD. On the other hand, significantly increased intake of fat (P = 0.041), olive oil (P = 0.038), margarine (P = 0.038), sugar (P = 0.02), alcohol drinks (P = 0.009), fried food (P = 0.0001), and pasta (P = 0.0001), was noticed on recently diagnosed patients in comparison with the healthy control group. On logistic regression analysis foods remaining statistically significant were: margarine, pasta, fried foods, fat, olives, sugar (increased risk), and yogurt, honey, fruits, nuts, fish, and citrus fruits (decreased risk). Newly diagnosed patients were significantly overweighed (64%) compared to healthy people (26%) and old patients (7%). CONCLUSION Significant differences in many kinds of food between newly diagnosed patients with CD, patients with established CD and normal people certainly exist. Our results suggest that specific dietary patterns could be associated with higher or lower risks for CD in adults. However, whether these dietary factors are important for the development of CD or modulate the effect of other environmental factors is unknown.
Social Trust: A Major Challenge for the Future of Autonomous Systems

The immense technological advancements in the past decade have enabled robots to enjoy high levels of autonomy, paving their way into our society. The recent catastrophic accidents involving autonomous systems (e.g., Tesla fatal car accident), however, show that sole engineering progress in the technology is not enough to guarantee a safe and productive partnership between a human and a robot. In this paper we argue that we also need to advance our understanding of the role of social trust within human-robot relationships, and formulate a theory for expressing and reasoning about trust in the context of decisions affecting collaboration or competition between humans and robots. Therefore, we call for cross-disciplinary collaborations to study the formalization of social trust in the context of human-robot relationship. We lay the groundwork for such a study in this paper.
Treating small herds as fixed or random in an animal model.

SUMMARY The simulated population was characterized by its small herd size and the occurrence of preferential treatment for animals, which was modelled as a non-random association between sires and herds or as an extra effect due to the sire's genetic advantage. Robustness for prediction was compared between animal models with fixed herd effect and random herd effect. No difference in empirical accuracy was observed between the prediction models if data included only large herds, whereas for data with small herds, the random herd model had a higher accuracy and smaller empirical MSE than the fixed herd model in general. This superiority of the random herd model did not change under selection. The empirical MSE particularly increased when the extra effect, due to the sire's merit, was very large, where the MSE of the random herd model was significantly larger than the fixed herd model. This result suggested a larger bias in the random herd model. On the contrary, the random herd model had a higher accuracy and a lower MSE than the fixed herd model, when the extra effect was small. As the large magnitude of this extra effect is unrealistic, the random herd model is concluded to be superior to the fixed herd model in general. ZUSAMMENFASSUNG: Behandlung kleiner Herden als fixeoder zufällige Größle in einem Tiermodell Die simulierte Population ist charakterisiert durch kleine Herdengrößen und Vorzugsbehandlung von Tieren, was im Modell einmal als nicht-zufällige Assoziation von Stieren und Herden, oder als Extra Einfluß wegen des Zuchtwertes eines Stieres eingebaut wurde. Die Robustheit der Voraussage wurde durch Vergleich von Tiermodellen mit fixen und mit zufaälligem Herdeneffekt geprüft. Bei großen Herden zeigte sich kein Unterschied zwischen den Voraussagemodellen, aber bei kleinen Herden zeigte das Modell mit zufälligen Herdeneinflüssen höhere Genauigkeit und geringeren empirischen MSE, was bei Vorhandensein von Selektion sich nicht änderte. Der empirische MSE nahm zu, wenn die Sonderwirkung des väterlichen Zuchtwertes groß war, wo dann der MSE des zufälligen Herdenmodells größer als beim fixen war, was eine größere Verzerrung in ersterem vermuten läßt. Bei kleinen Extrawirkungen verhielt es sich umgekehrt. Nachdem große Extrawirkungen unrealistisch sein dürgten, sollte im allgemeinen das Modell mit zufälligen Herdenwirkungen überlegen sein.
Neural tracking of attended versus ignored speech is differentially affected by hearing loss.

Hearing loss manifests as a reduced ability to understand speech, particularly in multitalker situations. In these situations, younger normal-hearing listeners' brains are known to track attended speech through phase-locking of neural activity to the slow-varying envelope of the speech. This study investigates how hearing loss, compensated by hearing aids, affects the neural tracking of the speech-onset envelope in elderly participants with varying degree of hearing loss (n = 27, 62-86 yr; hearing thresholds 11-73 dB hearing level). In an active listening task, a to-be-attended audiobook (signal) was presented either in quiet or against a competing to-be-ignored audiobook (noise) presented at three individualized signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs). The neural tracking of the to-be-attended and to-be-ignored speech was quantified through the cross-correlation of the electroencephalogram (EEG) and the temporal envelope of speech. We primarily investigated the effects of hearing loss and SNR on the neural envelope tracking. First, we found that elderly hearing-impaired listeners' neural responses reliably track the envelope of to-be-attended speech more than to-be-ignored speech. Second, hearing loss relates to the neural tracking of to-be-ignored speech, resulting in a weaker differential neural tracking of to-be-attended vs. to-be-ignored speech in listeners with worse hearing. Third, neural tracking of to-be-attended speech increased with decreasing background noise. Critically, the beneficial effect of reduced noise on neural speech tracking decreased with stronger hearing loss. In sum, our results show that a common sensorineural processing deficit, i.e., hearing loss, interacts with central attention mechanisms and reduces the differential tracking of attended and ignored speech. NEW & NOTEWORTHY The present study investigates the effect of hearing loss in older listeners on the neural tracking of competing speech. Interestingly, we observed that whereas internal degradation (hearing loss) relates to the neural tracking of ignored speech, external sound degradation (ratio between attended and ignored speech; signal-to-noise ratio) relates to tracking of attended speech. This provides the first evidence for hearing loss affecting the ability to neurally track speech.
Performance assessment of conventional modulation schemes in terms of conducted EMI generated by PWM inverters

This paper proposes a comparative study between the performance of sine-triangle, third harmonic injection and space vector modulation schemes in terms of conducted (common and differential mode) EMI generated by two-level three-phase voltage source inverters. For this purpose, an experimental setup has been built to measure in time domain the conducted disturbances propagated back into the DC source. The experimental results analyzed in both time and frequency domains showed that these disturbances are effectively related to the applied modulation scheme.
Nestin expression in embryonic human neuroepithelium and in human neuroepithelial tumor cells.

Nestin is a recently described member of the intermediate filament (IF) protein family that is especially abundant in neuroepithelial stem cells of the rat. The studies described here examine this class VI IF protein in the normal human developing central nervous system (CNS), human brain tumor-derived cell lines, and tissue samples of human CNS tumors. Human nestin exhibited biochemical and immunochemical properties similar to those of rat nestin. Further, as in the rat, nestin was detected immunohistochemically in several different types of immature human CNS cells, i.e. germinal matrix cells, neuroepithelial cells lining the central canal, radial glia and vascular cells. Nestin appeared in these cells at the earliest gestational age (i.e., 6 weeks) examined here and then it declined in all but the vascular cells at later embryonic stages. Nestin also was detected by immunocytochemistry in 6 of 7 primitive neuroectodermal tumor cell lines and in both of 2 malignant glioma cell lines examined. In these cell lines, nestin co-localized incompletely with bundles of IFs containing other IF proteins (i.e., vimentin, glial filament, neurofilament). Nestin was ubiquitous in a wide variety of brain tumors, but was most prominent in gliomas. The transient expression of nestin in primitive neuroepithelial cells at early stages of human embryogenesis and its abundance in neuroepithelial tumors suggest a role for nestin IFs in cellular events that precede the exit of embryonic CNS stem cells from the cell cycle and the commitment of the progeny of these stem cells to a specific lineage. The subsequent induction of different members of the IF protein family in phenotypically distinct CNS cells (i.e. neurons, glia) and the elimination of nestin from almost all differentiated CNS cells, imply that different classes of IFs subserve functions that are closely linked to the maturational state, as well as the lineage, of CNS cells.
Characterization of Epidemiologically Unrelated Acinetobacter baumannii Isolates from Four Continents by Use of Multilocus Sequence Typing, Pulsed-Field Gel Electrophoresis, and Sequence-Based Typing of blaOXA-51-like Genes

ABSTRACT This study used a diverse collection of epidemiologically unrelated Acinetobacter baumannii isolates to compare the robustness of a multilocus sequence typing (MLST) scheme, based on conserved regions of seven housekeeping genes, gltA, gdhB, recA, cpn60, rpoD, gyrB, and gpi, with that of sequence-based typing of bla OXA-51-like genes (SBT-bla OXA-51-like genes). The data obtained by analysis of MLST and SBT-bla OXA-51-like genes were compared to the data generated by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE). The topologies of the phylogenetic trees generated for the gyrB and gpi genes showed evidence of recombination and were inconsistent with those of the trees generated for the other five genes. MLST identified 24 sequence types (STs), of which 19 were novel, and 5 novel alleles. Clonality was demonstrated by eBURST analysis and standardized index of association values of >1 (P < 0.001). MLST data revealed that all isolates harboring the major bla OXA-51-like alleles OXA-66, OXA-69, and OXA-71 fell within the three major European clonal lineages. However, the MLST data were not always in concordance with the PFGE data, and some isolates containing the same bla OXA-51-like allele demonstrated <50% relatedness by PFGE. It was concluded that the gyrB and gpi genes are not good candidates for use in MLST analysis and that a SBT-bla OXA-51-like gene scheme produced results comparable to those produced by MLST for the identification of the major epidemic lineages, with the advantage of having a significantly reduced sequencing cost and time. It is proposed that studies of A. baumannii epidemiology could involve initial screening of bla OXA-51-like alleles to identify isolates belonging to major epidemic lineages, followed by MLST analysis to categorize isolates from common lineages, with PFGE being reserved for fine-scale typing.
Deep learning for polyp recognition in wireless capsule endoscopy images

Purpose Wireless capsule endoscopy (WCE) enables physicians to examine the digestive tract without any surgical operations, at the cost of a large volume of images to be analyzed. In the computer‐aided diagnosis of WCE images, the main challenge arises from the difficulty of robust characterization of images. This study aims to provide discriminative description of WCE images and assist physicians to recognize polyp images automatically. Methods We propose a novel deep feature learning method, named stacked sparse autoencoder with image manifold constraint (SSAEIM), to recognize polyps in the WCE images. Our SSAEIM differs from the traditional sparse autoencoder (SAE) by introducing an image manifold constraint, which is constructed by a nearest neighbor graph and represents intrinsic structures of images. The image manifold constraint enforces that images within the same category share similar learned features and images in different categories should be kept far away. Thus, the learned features preserve large intervariances and small intravariances among images. Results The average overall recognition accuracy (ORA) of our method for WCE images is 98.00%. The accuracies for polyps, bubbles, turbid images, and clear images are 98.00%, 99.50%, 99.00%, and 95.50%, respectively. Moreover, the comparison results show that our SSAEIM outperforms existing polyp recognition methods with relative higher ORA. Conclusion The comprehensive results have demonstrated that the proposed SSAEIM can provide descriptive characterization for WCE images and recognize polyps in a WCE video accurately. This method could be further utilized in the clinical trials to help physicians from the tedious image reading work.
Species Visitation at Quail Feeders and Guzzlers in Southern New Mexico

1Texas Agricultural Experiment Station, 7887 U. S. Highway 87 North, Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences, Texas A&M University, San Angelo, TX, 76901, USA 2Texas Agricultural Experiment Station, 7887 U. S. Highway 87 North, San Angelo, TX, 76901, USA 3Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, 77840, USA 4New Mexico Ranch Properties, Inc., HCR 32, Box 191, Truth or Consequences, NM, 87932, USA 5New Mexico Ranch Properties, Inc., HCR 31, Box 95, Caballo, NM, 87931, USA
The Marlowe-Crowne, Repressor-Sensitizer, and Internal-External Scales and Attribution of Unconscious Hostile Intent

Two follow-up experiments demonstrated weak and inconsistent relationships between attribution of unconscious hostile intent and other variables, thus casting doubt on its use as a construct. The Repressor-Sensitizer and Internal-External scales intercorrelated for both sexes, but the Marlowe-Crowne scale was related to the other scales for males only, suggesting that results with this scale should not be generalized across sexes.
Renal Cell Carcinoma Bone Metastasis: Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor Targeting

Renal cell carcinoma frequently metastasizes to the skeleton in the later stages of the disease. Patients with bone metastasis from renal cell carcinoma experience severe pain, neurologic compromise, and frequent pathologic fractures. These tumors are relatively resistant to chemotherapy and radiation, and the 5-year survival of patients is less than 10%. The epidermal growth factor receptor is overexpressed in human renal cell carcinoma and hypothesized to be a potential target in the treatment of bone metastasis. Using in vitro studies, it was shown that blockade of the epidermal growth factor receptor was effective in decreasing proliferation and receptor autophosphorylation of a human bone-derived renal cell carcinoma cell line. In an experimental nude mouse model, treatment with Taxol and protein tyrosine kinase inhibitor 166, a small molecule receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitor, blocked the growth of renal cell carcinoma in the tibia and resulted in decreased bone destruction. The use of protein tyrosine kinase inhibitor 166 and Taxol was cytostatic and nontoxic in long-term animal experiments. Epidermal growth factor receptor blockade is an exciting potential therapy for renal cell carcinoma bone metastasis in humans, but because it is cytostatic rather than cytotoxic, its optimal role may be as a supplement to cytotoxic chemotherapy. It ultimate role and its relationship to other therapeutic interventions remains to be elucidated and validated.
Value of semen culture in the diagnosis of chronic bacterial prostatitis: A simplified method

Objective. To investigate the role of semen cultures versus segmented urine cultures for the diagnosis of bacterial chronic prostatitis. Material and methods. We retrospectively examined 895 patients (age range 17–67 years) who met the consensus criteria for clinical chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome, 50.1% of whom had dysuria and/or perineal discomfort, 37.4% infertility of unknown etiology and 12.5% erectile dysfunction. Segmented urine cultures, including expressed prostatic secretions (EPSs) and semen culture, were performed in all patients. Results. Of the 895 patients, 182 had significant positive cultures for Gram-negative microorganisms (Escherichia coli was the commonest specimen isolated: 70.4% of cases) and 283 had significant positive cultures for Gram-positive microorganisms. We compared the culture yield in EPS and/or the urine voided after prostatic massage (VB3) sample (four-glass method) with that of the semen sample. In the Gram-negative group, 32 patients were diagnosed by means of semen culture (negative EPS and/or VB3 sample) and in only five cases was a positive diagnosis made despite a negative semen culture (positive EPS and/or VB3 sample). In the remaining subjects, diagnosis was performed with the aid of both EPS/VB3 sample and semen (both of which were positive). In the Gram-positive group, there was significant growth of such microorganisms in semen in every case considered positive, but in only 46 cases was diagnosis achieved via EPS and/or VB3 sample. A diagnosis of chronic prostatitis by Gram-positive microorganisms in these patients was only considered when the same microorganism was retrieved in repeated cultures without previous treatment. Only three cases met such criteria (all of whom had negative EPSs). To evaluate the diagnostic efficiency of the semen and EPS samples, we analyzed their sensitivity and specificity, obtaining higher sensitivity in semen than EPS samples for significant Gram-negative cultures: 97% vs 82.4%. In significant Gram-positive cultures, the sensitivity of semen samples was 100%, compared to only 16.1% for EPS. Conclusions. A semen sample has higher sensitivity than an EPS for the diagnosis of bacterial chronic prostatitis. In our clinical work-up, first-void urine and a semen culture are considered the only tests necessary to diagnose chronic prostatitis.
Mortality among a cohort of drug users after their release from prison: an evaluation of the effectiveness of a harm reduction program in Taiwan.

AIMS To determine the effect of methadone maintenance therapy (MMT) on mortality among injection drug users. DESIGN A cohort of prisoners with a history of injecting opiates who were followed after their release from prison in July 2007. Mortality between July 2007 and December 2008 was determined by linking the National Death Registry with the Methadone Maintenance Treatment (MMT) database. SETTING Taiwan. PARTICIPANTS A total of 4357 amnestied prisoners with a history of opiate injection. MEASUREMENTS The total mortality rates (MR) among the cohort were calculated based on their person-time contribution to methadone attendance and re-incarceration during follow-up. We used survival methods with MMT and re-incarceration as time-varying covariates adjusted for length of follow-up in the community. RESULTS A total of 142 deaths occurred: 13 in the 1st week after release [MR = 13.7/100 person-years (pyrs)], which was greater than that in the next 4 weeks [MR = 3.2/100 pyrs, relative rate (RR) = 4.3, P < 0.001]. Overall, 1982 (46%) subjects enrolled in MMT; however, 1282 of them discontinued MMT after enrolling. FINDINGS The mortality among those who continued in MMT attendance was lower (MR = 0.24/100 pyrs) than those who never enrolled in MMT (MR = 2.6/100 pyrs) or those who enrolled but dropped out of MMT (MR = 7.0/100 pyrs) after adjusting for age, gender and human immunodeficiency virus status at amnesty (RR = 0.07). CONCLUSIONS In ex-prisoners in Taiwan with a history of opiate injecting, enrollment and continued participation in methadone maintenance treatment is associated with substantially lower mortality.