Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Limited Sampling Strategy for Mycophenolic Acid in Chinese Kidney Transplant Recipients Receiving Enteric-Coated Mycophenolate Sodium and Tacrolimus During the Early Posttransplantation Phase

Background: Mycophenolic acid (MPA), a potent immunosuppressant, is widely used in solid organ transplantations. This study aimed to investigate the pharmacokinetics of enteric-coated mycophenolate sodium (EC-MPS) in Chinese adult renal allograft recipients and to generate optimal model equations for estimation of the MPA area under the concentration–time curve from 0 to 12 hours (AUC0–12 h), using a limited sampling strategy (LSS). Methods: Serial blood samples were collected over 12 hours from 38 recipients of a primary living-related donor kidney graft treated with EC-MPS, tacrolimus, and corticosteroid. MPA concentrations were evaluated using an enzyme-multiplied immunoassay technique. The LSSs were developed and validated by multiple regression analysis using a 2-group method (test group, n = 19; validation group, n = 19). Results: The best algorithms obtained from the test group were the following: 15.09 + 1.05 × C1.5 + 1.8 × C4 + 4.18 × C6 (for 3 time points, r2 = 0.902) and 10.44 + 0.7 × C1 + 1.22 × C2 + 1.75 × C4 + 4.36 × C6 (for 4 time points, r2 = 0.941). When these algorithms were tested in the validation group, there were no significant differences in prediction errors. Conclusions: LSSs using time points of 1.5, 4, and 6 hours or 1, 2, 4, and 6 hours after dose provide effective and reliable estimations of the MPA AUC0–12 h in Chinese renal allograft recipients treated concomitantly with EC-MPS and tacrolimus during the early posttransplantation phase.
Postnatal maturation of gephyrin/glycine receptor clusters on developing Renshaw cells

Adult mammalian Renshaw cells express large and complex postsynaptic gephyrin/glycine receptor clusters on their surface. Larger gephyrin clusters correlate with more “efficacious” inhibitory synapses, in terms of larger postsynaptic quantal size amplitudes, in part because they likely contain more postsynaptic receptors (Lim et al. [1999] J. Physiol. (Lond.) 516:505–512; Oleskevich et al. [1999] J. Neurophysiology 82:312–319). Here, we studied the postnatal development of the gephyrin/glycine receptor cluster size on Renshaw cells. Renshaw cells were identified by their calbindin immunoreactivity, location and morphology, and presence of cholinergic input. The populations of clusters over developing Renshaw cells immunoreactive to gephyrin or glycine receptor α1 subunits were comparable in number, size, and complexity and displayed a high degree of colocalization (>90%) at all ages. Quantitative morphologic analysis was performed on gephyrin‐immunoreactive clusters. In neonatal animals, Renshaw cells expressed small punctate gephyrin‐immunoreactive clusters (mean cluster size ± SD = 0.19 ± 0.19 μm2at 2 days; 0.22 ± 0.19 μm2at 5 days). By 10 and 15 days of age, Renshaw cells exhibited gephyrin‐immunoreactive clusters that were larger and more complex (0.32 ± 0.19 μm2 at 10 days; 0.41 ± 0.32 μm2 at 15 days). Cluster growth reached a plateau in 25‐ and 60‐day‐old Renshaw cells (0.45 ± 0.43 μm2; 0.56 ± 0.55 μm2, respectively). By using electron microscopy, we confirmed that gephyrin‐immunoreactive clusters were located at postsynaptic sites at both early and late postnatal ages on Renshaw cells. The potential significance of this gephyrin/glycine receptor cluster size maturation that sets Renshaw cells apart from other interneurons is discussed. J. Comp. Neurol. 426:130–142, 2000. © 2000 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Collagen organization in articular cartilage, determined by X-ray diffraction, and its relationship to tissue function

X-ray diffraction has been used to measure the preferred orientation of the collagen fibrils, and their angular distribution within the tissue, as a function of depth from the articular surface in patellar cartilage. Measurements have been made at four different sites chosen to represent differing surface curvatures and régimes of wear. The orientation of fibrils in the surface layer allows it to oppose the swelling pressure exerted by the gel of hydrated glycosaminoglycans within the cartilage. An intermediate layer (where a bimodal distribution of fibrils is sometimes resolved) allows the orientation of the fibrils to change, with increasing depth, until they are roughly perpendicular to the articular surface. In this deep layer the fibrils can tie into the underlying calcified tissue so as to firmly anchor the cartilage. In the plane of the surface the fibrils tend to be aligned in the direction of stress caused by motion.
Secondary Impairments After Spinal Cord Injury: A Population-Based Study

ObjectiveTo determine the prevalence of secondary impairments among individuals with long-standing spinal cord injury in Quebec and the potential relationships between these impairments and several variables. DesignA review of 2200 medical files was conducted to determine the target population; 976 patients were selected randomly and mailed questionnaires. The results were based on 482 individuals with spinal cord injury who returned the completed questionnaire. The questionnaire included 14 subsections, such as sociodemographic, medical, psychosocial, and environmental information. The medical section, including the type and level of lesion and the presence of secondary impairments, was analyzed. ResultsUrinary tract infection, spasticity, and hypotension were the most frequently reported secondary impairments, regardless of the severity of injury. Relationships between the prevalence of secondary impairments and the duration of injury, as well as perceived health status, were observed. ConclusionsThis is the first study to describe secondary impairments after long-standing spinal cord injury in Quebec. Patients with spinal cord injury still present a high prevalence of secondary impairments many years after their rehabilitation, despite preventive education or medical follow-up visits. Further studies are required to determine the specific impact that these impairments have on the patients’ social role and their quality-of-life.
An in vitro investigation of wear resistance and hardness of composite resins.

PURPOSE The aim of the present study was to investigate the wear resistance and hardness of five kinds of composite resins. MATERIALS AND METHODS Sixty-five specimens were fabricated with one nano-hybrid (Charisma Diamond), two micro-hybrid (3MZ250, Clearfil AP-X) and two packable (3MP60, Surefil) composite resins, according to a randomized complete block design (n=13, 8 for wear test; 5 for hardness test). The composites were filled in a rectangular mold, and light polymerization. After storage in 37°C deionized water for 24h, all specimens were tested with a custom-made toothbrush machine with a stainless-steel ball as antagonist (3N loads, 1Hz, 6×10(5) cycles) immersed in calcium fluoride slurry. Wear volume, hardness and surface structure of each tested material was examined by a three-dimensional non-contact optical profilometer, Vickers indentation technique and scanning electron microscope. RESULTS The volume loss ranked from least to most as follows: Charisma Diamond, P60, Z250, Clearfil AP-X and Surefil. Regarding hardness, the rank from highest to lowest as follows: Clearfil AP-X, P60, Surefil, Z250, Charisma Diamond. The interactions between wear resistance and microhardness were not significant. CONCLUSIONS The custom-made machine is considered suitable to simulate sliding of an antagonist cusp on an opposing occlusal composite restoration. Nanofilled composite may have superior wear compared to other composite resins.
New cassettes for single‐step drug resistance and prototrophic marker switching in fission yeast

Construction of multiply mutated strains for genetic interaction analysis and of strains carrying different epitope tags at multiple open reading frames for testing protein localization, abundance and protein–protein interactions is hampered by the availability of a sufficient number of different selectable markers. Moreover, strains with single gene deletions or tags often already exist in strain collections; for historical reasons these will mostly carry the ura4+ gene or the G418‐resistance kanMX as marker. Because it is rather cumbersome to produce multiply deleted or tagged strains using the same marker, or to completely reconstruct a particular strain with a different marker, single‐step exchange protocols of markers are a time‐saving alternative. In recent years, dominant drug resistance markers (DDRMs) against clonNAT, hygromycin B and bleomycin have been adapted and successfully used in Schizosaccharomyces pombe. The corresponding DDRM cassettes, natMX, hphMX and bleMX, carry the TEF promotor and terminator sequences from Ashbya gossypii as kanMX; this provides flanking homologies to enable single‐step marker swapping by homologous gene targeting. To expand this very useful toolset for single‐step marker exchange, I constructed MX cassettes containing the nutritional markers arg3+, his3+, leu1+ and ura4+. Furthermore, a set of constructs was created to enable single‐step exchange of ura4+ to kanMX6, natMX4 and hphMX4. The functionality of the cassettes is demonstrated by successful single‐step marker swapping at several loci. These constructs allow straightforward and rapid remarking of existing ura4+‐ and MX‐deleted and ‐tagged strains. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Porous polymer scaffolds surface-modified with arginine-glycine-aspartic acid enhance bone cell attachment and differentiation in vitro.

This study was designed to determine if the surface modification of porous poly(lactic acid) (PLA) scaffolds would enhance osteogenic precursor cell (OPC) attachment, growth, and differentiation. A covalently grafted amino group (-NH(2)), poly(L-lysine) (PLL), and the peptide arginine-glycine-aspartic acid (RGD) were selected for the evaluation. The hypothesis was that surface modification would have a positive impact on cell-substratum interactions. The experiment was performed by OPC cells being placed on PLA films and scaffolds modified with NH(2), PLL, or RGD in tissue culture media. OPC attachment to PLA films was assessed after 24 h of incubation. The growth and differentiation of the adherent OPCs on porous PLA scaffolds were assessed after 14 and 28 days for alkaline phosphatase (APase) activity and calcium levels, both of which increase as OPCs differentiate into mature bone cells. All assays were accomplished in triplicate, and data were tested with post hoc orthogonal contrasts (i.e., Fisher's least significant difference) at p < or = 0.05. The PLA film surface-modified with RGD showed better OPC cell attachment than the other films. The cells on the PLA scaffolds surface-modified with RGD also exhibited an increase in APase activity and calcium levels in comparison with those on other scaffolds. This difference was apparent at both time intervals and was especially evident in the tissue culture media containing an osteogenic supplement. The results of this study indicate that modifying the surface of PLA polymer scaffolds with RGD enhances bone cell attachment and differentiation and may improve their ability to regenerate bone tissue more efficiently in wound models.
Multi-task Multi-modal Models for Collective Anomaly Detection

This paper proposes a new framework for anomaly detection when collectively monitoring many complex systems. The prerequisite for condition-based monitoring in industrial applications is the capability of (1) capturing multiple operational states, (2) managing many similar but different assets, and (3) providing insights into the internal relationship of the variables. To meet these criteria, we propose a multi-task learning approach based on a sparse mixture of sparse Gaussian graphical models (GGMs). Unlike existing fused- and group-lasso-based approaches, each task is represented by a sparse mixture of sparse GGMs, and can handle multi-modalities. We develop a variational inference algorithm combined with a novel sparse mixture weight selection algorithm. To handle issues in the conventional automatic relevance determination (ARD) approach, we propose a new ℓ0-regularized formulation that has guaranteed sparsity in mixture weights. We show that our framework eliminates well-known issues of numerical instability in the iterative procedure of mixture model learning. We also show better performance in anomaly detection tasks on real-world data sets. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first proposal of multi-task GGM learning allowing multi-modal distributions.
Community-Acquired Clostridium difficile Diarrhea Caused by Binary Toxin, Toxin A, and Toxin B Gene-Positive Isolates in Hungary

ABSTRACT The aim of this work was to study the toxin types of Clostridium difficile isolates originating from different parts of Hungary. A PCR method was used for amplification of the two major toxin genes and the binary toxin gene and to detect the deletion or insertion in the 3′ end of the toxin A gene. The findings were compared with the results of cytotoxicity assays on the HeLa cell line. One hundred twelve isolates were tested; the toxin A and toxin B genes were detected in 79 strains by the PCR method. All of the isolates that were positive by the PCR method were also positive by the cytotoxicity assay. All of the other strains (n = 33) were negative for the toxin A and toxin B genes; in these cases, cytopathic effects on the cell line were not observed. No tcdA-negative and tcdB-positive isolates were found by the PCR method. In two cases, the presence of a binary toxin gene was observed by PCR; both isolates that were isolated from diarrheal feces carried the tcdA and tcdB genes. No prior hospitalization had occurred in either case.
Selective intrauterine growth restriction in monochorionic twins: changing patterns in umbilical artery Doppler flow and outcomes

To describe changes in umbilical artery (UA) Doppler flow in monochorionic diamniotic (MCDA) twins affected by selective intrauterine growth restriction (sIUGR), to correlate Doppler findings with pregnancy course and perinatal outcome, and to report postnatal follow‐up.
Interrater variability with the Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS) and Functional Systems (FS) in a multiple sclerosis clinical trial

We describe the interrater variability in the Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS) and Functional Systems (FS) in a multiple sclerosis clinical trial. Two physicians blinded to their previous assessments and to each other's scores consecutively examined 168 patients (545 paired examinations). Perfect agreement on the assignment of the disability scores ranged from 48% (cerebellar functional group) to 69% (EDSS and pyramidal functional group). Only 31% to 62% of this agreement occurred independently of that expected by chance (kappa). With the exception of the cerebellar and sensory functional groups, agreement within 1 step occurred in at least 92% of cases. These findings suggest that differences of a single step on these scales may not reflect an important functional change. We recommend that at least a 2-step change (1.0 point on the EDSS and 2 points on the FS) is needed to be confident of an important change in the degree of disability or response to treatment in this disease.
Perceived Realism and Twitter Use Are Associated with Increased Acceptance of Cosmetic Surgery among Those Watching Reality Television Cosmetic Surgery Programs

Background: Reality television programming is a popular type of television programming, and features shows about cosmetic surgery. Social media such as Facebook and Twitter are increasingly popular methods of sharing information. The authors surveyed college students to determine among those watching reality television cosmetic surgery programs whether perceived realism or social media use was associated with attitudes toward cosmetic surgery. Methods: Participants (n = 126) were surveyed about their reality television cosmetic surgery program viewing habits, their perception of the realism of reality television programming, and social media topics of Twitter and Facebook. Outcome variables were the Acceptance of Cosmetic Surgery Scales of social, intrapersonal, and consider. Results: Perceived realism was significantly associated with increased scores on the Acceptance of Cosmetic Surgery Scale subscales of social (p = 0.004), intrapersonal (p = 0.03), and consider (p = 0.03). Following a character from a reality television program on Twitter was significantly associated with increased social scores (p = 0.04). There was no significant association of Facebook behavior with attitudes toward cosmetic surgery. Conclusions: Cosmetic plastic surgeons may benefit by advertising their services on cosmetic surgery reality television programs. These reality television programs portray cosmetic surgery in a positive manner, and viewers with increased perceived realism will be a potential receptive audience toward such advertising. Also, advertising cosmetic surgery services on Twitter feeds that discuss cosmetic surgery reality television programs would be potentially beneficial.
Flow and fracture behavior of aluminum alloy 6082-T6 at different tensile strain rates and triaxialities

This study aims to investigate the flow and fracture behavior of aluminum alloy 6082-T6 (AA6082-T6) at different strain rates and triaxialities. Two groups of Charpy impact tests were carried out to further investigate its dynamic impact fracture property. A series of tensile tests and numerical simulations based on finite element analysis (FEA) were performed. Experimental data on smooth specimens under various strain rates ranging from 0.0001~3400 s-1 shows that AA6082-T6 is rather insensitive to strain rates in general. However, clear rate sensitivity was observed in the range of 0.001~1 s-1 while such a characteristic is counteracted by the adiabatic heating of specimens under high strain rates. A Johnson-Cook constitutive model was proposed based on tensile tests at different strain rates. In this study, the average stress triaxiality and equivalent plastic strain at facture obtained from numerical simulations were used for the calibration of J-C fracture model. Both of the J-C constitutive model and fracture model were employed in numerical simulations and the results was compared with experimental results. The calibrated J-C fracture model exhibits higher accuracy than the J-C fracture model obtained by the common method in predicting the fracture behavior of AA6082-T6. Finally, the Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) of fractured specimens with different initial stress triaxialities were analyzed. The magnified fractographs indicate that high initial stress triaxiality likely results in dimple fracture.
The Histopathology of Pediatric Celiac Disease: Order Must Prevail Out of Chaos

The role of histopathology for diagnosing celiac disease (CD) has been recently challenged. However, based in our experience with roughly 4,600 distal duodenal and jejunal biopsies in children it is apparent that appropriate biopsy site, handling, processing, and microscopic evaluation result in a consistent pattern of microscopic changes which allows strong clinical-pathologic correlation. A simple way for establishing the villous/crypt (V/C) ratio is proposed. Normal mucosa displays a V/C ratio of 2.5 or more. Villous atrophy is then graded according to the V/C ratio as follows: Grade 1: 2.5-2; Grade 2: 1-2; Grade 3: 1-0.5, and Grade 4: less than 0.5. The grading should be done in areas of the biopsy where at least 2 to 3 crypts are present in almost its full length. CD disease was consistently associated with villous atrophy grades 3 and 4, which fully recovered or maintained Grade 1 after gluten-free diet. Grade 2 biopsies were rare and related to incomplete gluten-free diet. Patchy lesions were never seen as were patients with normal biopsies later developing mucosal atrophy. Histopathologic evaluation of mucosal biopsies to rule out CD requires adequate biopsy site (distal duodenum or proximal jejunum), and proper handling (oriented material), processing (cutting on edge) and interpretation. The proposed villous atrophy grading may help to adequately compare experiences from different centers as well as to reconcile apparent different findings in separate biopsies. In children histopathology keeps on having a central role for CD diagnosis.
Underlying Microstructure of Parapapillary Deep-Layer Capillary Dropout Identified by Optical Coherence Tomography Angiography.

Purpose To characterize the microstructure underlying the parapapillary deep-layer microvasculature dropout (MvD) identified by optical coherence tomography (OCT) angiography (OCTA) in eyes with primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG). Methods Parapapillary MvD was defined as a focal sectoral capillary dropout without any visible microvascular network identified in deep-layer en face images obtained using swept-source OCTA. The peripapillary microstructure was characterized in 188 POAG patients with MvD in the parapapillary deep layer. Twelve radial optic nerve images were obtained using swept-source OCT to examine the peripapillary structure and measure the juxtapapillary choroidal thickness (JPCT). The JPCT was also measured in 72 age-matched POAG eyes having β-zone parapapillary atrophy (PPA) without an MvD (control group). Results Microvascular dropouts were observed within the areas with a PPA involving the β-zone, γ-zone, and a mixture of both zones in 72, 57, and 59 eyes, respectively. Choroid of noticeable thickness was observed without obvious thinning in the PPA area when the MvD was associated with the β-zone. The JPCT was comparable between eyes with MvD and control eyes. There was no distinguishable feature in the microstructure of the γ-zone, regardless of whether it was associated with MvD. Conclusions Optical coherence tomography angiography showed MvDs in the parapapillary deep layers that were associated with both β- and γ-zones within the PPAs. The microstructure of PPAs with MvDs was not distinguishable from that of PPAs not associated with MvDs.