Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Extension of radiofrequency ablation of the liver by transcatheter arterial embolization with iodized oil and gelatin sponge: results in a pig model.

PURPOSE To determine whether transcatheter arterial embolization (TAE) with iodized oil and gelatin sponge particles can be used to expand radiofrequency (RF)-induced coagulation necrosis, the morphology and histologic characteristics of ablation lesions were evaluated in the normal pig liver after three different TAE procedures. MATERIALS AND METHODS Ten consecutive animals with 33 ablation lesions produced with an RF ablation system were randomly assigned to one of three treatment groups and a control group: a group treated with TAE with iodized oil, a group treated with TAE with gelatin sponge, a group treated with TAE with iodized oil and gelatin sponge, and a control group in which TAE was not performed. After the completion of ablation, the lesions were excised for gross and histologic examination. RESULTS The longest and shortest diameters of ablation lesions were greatest in the group treated with TAE with iodized oil and gelatin sponge, followed by the groups treated with TAE with gelatin sponge and TAE with iodized oil (P < .05 vs controls, respectively). The hemorrhagic rim was also widest in the group treated with TAE with iodized oil and gelatin sponge (P < .05 vs controls), and it spread toward the liver periphery like a segmental hemorrhagic area adjacent to the ablation lesion. Histochemical staining for lactate dehydrogenase, maleate dehydrogenase, and nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide diaphorase showed what appeared to be 100% cellular destruction in all the ablation lesions and their hemorrhagic rims. CONCLUSION RF ablation combined with TAE with iodized oil and gelatin sponge induces the greatest area of coagulation necrosis accompanied by peripherally spreading segmental necrosis in normal pig liver tissue.
Vitamin B12 Counteracts Dexamethasone-Induced Proliferation and Apoptosis During Key Periods of Palatogenesis in Mice

B vitamins rescue cleft palate induced by glucocorticoids in rodents; however, the mechanism of this effect remains largely unknown. The objective of our study was to assess the effect of dexamethasone and Vitamin B12 on cell proliferation and apoptosis during palatogenesis. In our study, mesenchymal cell proliferation in mouse embryonic palates decreased when the subjects were administered dexamethasone at embryo day 13.5 (E 13.5). However, mesenchymal cell proliferation was increased after dexamethasone exposure at E 14.0 and E 14.5 in comparison with the control group. After Vitamin B12 treatment, proliferation of mesenchymal cells was restored. No apoptosis was detected until bilaterial palatal shelves adhered and formed a medial epithelium seam in the control group and Vitamin B12-treated group. However, the apoptotic cells were detected under the medial edge epithelium before the palate contacted after dexamethasone treatment. The results suggested that Vitamin B12 restored proliferation, which had been reduced by dexamethasone via a delayed cellular cycle and apoptosis. This study implies that Vitamin B12 may be used to prevent or alleviate cleft palate induced by dexamethasone during embryonic palatogenesis.
ABOUT AMD ? * —

Patients who receive a diagnosis of the early or intermediate stage of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) invariably raise a multitude of questions, ranging from why it developed to the risk of blindness. These patients want and deserve informative answers, in addition to reassurance that something can be done to preserve vision. Most questions tend to cluster around causes and risk factors, the use of nutritional supplements, the risk of vision loss, the effect of general surgery or surgery for other eye conditions on risk of AMD progression, and treatment. This article addresses questions that patients frequently ask and reviews available data to ensure that the questions are answered as adequately and completely as possible. The article also provides practical advice for the comprehensive ophthalmologist and the patient to encourage lifestyle changes, reduce risk, and preserve vision. (Adv Stud Ophthalmol. 2007;4(2):43-48) A very important aspect of clinical practice, regardless of medical specialty, is to a n s wer questions posed by patients. Whether a question is directly related to the patient’s clinical condition or deals with an ancillary issue, such as the cost of treatment, or whether it is simple or complex, it should be addressed, with the answer based on the best data available. When an ophthalmologist tells a patient that he or she has the early or intermediate stage of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the patient invariably has questions, often a series of difficult questions (Sidebar). In this scenario, it is important for the ophthalmologist to bear in mind that the questions are not only requests for informative answers, but also an opportunity to counsel patients about reducing risk, slowing or preventing progression to advanced AMD, and preserving vision. Most questions often fall into 1 of 5 categories: causes of and risk factors for AMD; use of nutritional supplements; risk of vision loss; impact of surgery, particularly cataract surgery, on AMD; and current and investigational therapies. This article addresses the most frequently asked questions within each category, reviews available data, and provides valuable practical advice that comprehensive ophthalmologists can use when counseling patients with AMD.
Chronic alcoholism is associated with an imbalanced production of Th-1/Th-2 cytokines by peripheral blood T cells.

BACKGROUND In the present study, we analyzed, at the intracellular level, the pattern of cytokine secretion by the major CD4+ and CD8strong+ peripheral blood (PB) T-cell subsets in patients with chronic alcoholism, and we correlated it both with the ethanol (EtOH) intake status and with the presence or not of alcoholic liver disease. METHODS For that purpose, a total of 30 chronic alcoholic patients, 10 without liver disease (AWLD group) and 20 diagnosed with alcoholic liver cirrhosis (ALC) were studied. In all cases, flow cytometric measurement of intracellular expression of interferon-gamma (IFN-gamma), interleukin (IL)-2, and IL-4 was performed on PB CD4+ and CD8strong+ T lymphocytes. RESULTS After studying AWLD patients, we found increased numbers of both CD4+ and CD8strong+ PB T cells with detectable cytoplasmic levels of the IL-2 and IFN-gamma T helper (Th)-1-associated cytokines, the greater increase being observed for this latter cytokine (p<0.001 for CD4+ and p<0.01 for CD8strong+ T cells). Regarding ALC patients, the pattern of expression of intracellular cytokines by PB T cells was different depending on the status of EtOH intake at the moment of entering this study. Accordingly, as in AWLD patients, ALC individuals who were actively drinking also displayed increased numbers of both CD4+ and CD8strong+ T cells expressing Th-1-associated cytokines. However, in these patients, expression of IFN-gamma, although being significantly greater than that observed in control individuals (p<0.05), was significantly lower than that in AWLD patients (p<0.01 and p<0.05, for CD4+ and CD8strong+ T cells, respectively). After a withdrawal period of > or =1 yr, ALC patients did not show significant changes in the cytoplasmic expression of Th-1-associated cytokines compared with the control group; in contrast, these patients showed a marked increase on the proportion of CD4+ and CD8strong+ T cells expressing IL-4, a Th-2-associated cytokine (p<0.01). After considering the ratio between the number of T cells expressing Th- (IFN-gamma)- and Th-2 (IL-4)-associated cytokines in each individual, we found that there was a significant imbalance in this ratio, with a predominance of IFN-gamma-producing T cells over IL-4+ T lymphocytes during EtOH intake. CONCLUSIONS Our results showed that in patients with chronic alcoholism, active EtOH intake is associated with a Th-1 pattern of cytokine production by PB T cells.
Conditioning treatments affect insect and mite populations on bedding plants in the greenhouse

During greenhouse production in Spring 1995, conditioning treatments were applied to columbine (Aquilegia ×hybrida Sims 'McKana Giants'), New Guinea impatiens (Impatiens hawkeri Bull. 'Antares'), marigold ( Tagetes erecta L. 'Little Devil Mix') and ageratum (Ageratum houstonianum Mill. 'Blue Puffs') plants. Treatments included: mechanical conditioning (brushing 40 strokes twice daily); moisture stress conditioning (MSC) (wilting for ≈2 hours per day); undisturbed ebb-and-flow irrigation; overhead irrigation; high (500 mg·L -1 N) or low (50 mg·L -1 N) 3×/week N fertilizer regimes; daminozide (5000 mg·L -1 ); or paclobutrazol (30, 45, or 180 mg·L -1 ). One week after initiation of treatments, individual plants in separate greenhouses were inoculated with two adult green peach aphids (Myzus persicae Sulzer) or five two-spotted spider mites (Tetranychus urticae Koch). A natural infestation of western flower thrips ( Frankliniella occidentalis Pergande) in the mite-inoculated greenhouse provided an additional insect treatment. Brushing was the only treatment that consistently reduced thrips and mite populations. Aphid populations were lower on low-N than on high-N plants, but thrips and mite populations were not consistently affected by plant fertilization. Moisture stress conditioning tended to increase aphid populations on New Guinea impatiens and mari- gold, but had little effect on spider mite or thrips populations. Ebb-and-flow irrigation reduced the mite population on ageratum relative to that on overhead irrigated (control) plants. Plant growth regulators did not consistently affect pest populations. Chemical names used: butane-dioic acid mono(2,2-dimethylhydrazide) (daminozide); β-((4- chlorophenyl)methyl)-α-(1,1-dimethylethyl)-1H-1,2,4-triazole-1-1-ethanol (paclobutrazol).
IN SITU NEUROBLASTOMAS: A CONTRIBUTION TO THE NATURAL HISTORY OF NEURAL CREST TUMORS.

The subject of this study is a group of minute, incidentally encountered adrenal tumors which appear to represent an early stage in the histogenesis of neuroblastomas. These tumors are cytologically identical with typical malignant neuroblastoma, but are rendered distinctive by their microscopic size, and by the absence of demonstrable metastases. For such lesions, the term "in situ neuroblastoma" will be used in this paper. ' Investigation of this group of lesions was prompted by the hope that they would serve as a basis for a more precise analysis of the histogenesis of neuroblastoma and related neural crest tumors. In a search for instances of the lesion, however, it became apparent that their incidence among young infants in our necropsy experience was higher than would be predicted from the known clinical incidence of neuroblastoma. This observation has important implications from the standpoint of the natural history of neuroblastomas, particularly in regard to the question of their spontaneous disappearance. For this reason, it seemed desirable to establish more precisely the nature and significance of in situ neuroblastoma. Toward this end, a complete review of our material and of the scant literature pertaining to such lesions was under-taken.
Native American medicine.

This article summarizes common principles, practices, and ethics of Native American healing, the traditional medicine of North America. Native American healing, spirituality, culture, and, in modern times, political, social, and economic concerns are closely intertwined. Intuition and spiritual awareness are a healer's most essential diagnostic tools. Therapeutic methods include prayer, music, ritual purification, herbalism, massage, ceremony, and personal innovations of individual healers. A community of friends, family, and helpers often participate in the healing intervention and help to alleviate the alienation caused by disease. A healthy patient has a healthy relationship with his or her community and, ultimately, with the greater community of nature known as "All Relations. " The goal of Native American healing is to find wholeness, balance, harmony, beauty, and meaning. "Healing," making whole, is as important as curing disease; at times they are identical.
Investigating the Effect of Functionality Level of Analogical Stimulation on Design Outcomes

Design-by-analogy is a growing field of study and practice, due to its power to augment traditional concept generation methods by expanding the set of generated ideas using similarity relationships from solutions to analogous problems. A new method for extracting functional analogies from data sources has been developed to assist designers in systematically seeking and identifying analogies from general data sources, databases, or repositories, such as patent databases. This search engine and design-by-analogy facilitation tool uses a functional vector space model to quantitatively evaluate the functional similarity between represented design problems and, in this case, patent descriptions of products. Document parsing algorithms are developed to reduce the patent text to key functions and solved conflicts using Zipf’s law to reduce the words within the patents into the applicable functionally analogous terms, providing a mapping process for functional-based search. The mapping of the patents into the functional analogous words enables the generation of novel ideas that can be customized in various ways, providing potentially relevant sources of design-by-analogy inspiration. This paper presents a controlled experiment designed to evaluate the search engine efficacy during the conceptual ideation process. The two treatments explored are the effect of including analogous patents during ideation, and the effect of functionality level. The tool efficacy during concept generation is shown to increase novelty of generated solutions, while there is no significant change in the quantity of generated solutions.
Antimicrobial Evaluation of Some Mannich Bases of Acetophenones and Representative Quaternary Derivatives

Summary 1-Aryl-3-dimethylamino-1-propanone hydrochlorides Ia-f (series I) as mono-Mannich bases bis (β-aroylethyl) ethylamine hydrochlorides IIa, IIb, IId, IIe (series II) as bis-Mannich bases, 3-aroyl-4-aryl-1-ethyl-4-piperidinol hydrochlorides (structural isomer of bis derivatives IIIa-e, series III), and some of their representative quaternary salts (Ig, IIIf, IIIg) were synthesized. Antimicrobial activities of the compounds were evaluated against some bacteria and fungi. Series I and III showed antimicrobial activity against gram positive bacteria. All series demonstrated activity against fungi, however, they generally did not affect gram negative bacteria at the concentration range tested (2–64 µg/ml). Quaternisation procedure improved the bioactivity in compound IIIa for antibacterial activity and in compounds IIIa and IIIb for antifungal activity against Trichophyton rubrum and Mycosporium canis. There was no relationship between Hammett values of the aryl substituents and bioactivities in series III. The mono-Mannich bases of series I had better antimicrobial activities than bis-Mannich bases of series II. Compounds Ia, If, IIId had equal and compounds If and IIIf had higher antibacterial activities compared to the reference drug, streptomycin (CAS 57-92-1), against various gram positive bacteria. On the other hand, compounds Ia, IIIa, IIIc, IIIe, IIIf, and IIIg had equal and If, IIId, IIIf, IIIg had higher antifungal activity compared to the reference drug, amphotericin-B (CAS 1397-89-3), against various fungi. To conclude, the compounds of series III, having both marked antifungal and antibacterial activities, may serve as candidate compounds for further studies. Especially compound IIIf may serve as a model compound to develop new agents against dermatophytes.
The rs1256044 polymorphism in the ESR2 gene and the risk for osteoporosis in Polish postmenopausal women

Abstract Population association studies have demonstrated a strong association between ESR2 SNPs and BMD, indicating that ESR2 may influence attainment of bone mass. The aim of the study was to investigate the ESR2 gene, located on chromosome 14q linked with BMD, which demonstrates a correlation with changes in bone mass in healthy Caucasian women. The study included 675 unrelated Polish postmenopausal women, including 109 with osteopenia, 333 with osteoporosis and 233 healthy women. The women were classified into the following groups: osteopenia, osteoporosis and normal T-score. Analysis of genotype frequency for the ESR2 rs1256044 polymorphism revealed no statistically significant differences. No statistically significant differences were noted for the allele frequency. However, it is noticeable that the CT genotype occurred more often in women with osteopenia (50.4%, OR = 1.14) and osteoporosis (54.7%, OR = 1.33) than controls (47.7%). There were statistically significant differences between the clinical parameters and distribution of genotypes in patients with osteopenia but not osteoporosis. ESR2 polymorphisms demonstrate minimal influence on BMD changes in women. Identification of various genes with little impact on BMD, such as ESR2, might help design a screening panel for osteoporosis risk assessment in healthy subjects.
Clinical predictors of fetal outcome in systemic lupus erythematosus.

OBJECTIVE To describe the fetal outcomes in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) in the University of Toronto Lupus Clinic Cohort and to identify clinical or serological factors that would predict pregnancy loss and poor fetal outcome. METHODS Seventy-three patients with 141 pregnancies were identified between 1970 and 1995. Patients were evaluated before pregnancy and at each trimester with a standardized protocol. Analysis included descriptive statistics and univariate and multivariate analysis. RESULTS There were 86 (60.1%) live births, 34 (23.8%) spontaneous abortions, 3 (2.2%) stillbirths, and 20 (14%) therapeutic abortions. Of live births, 21 (24.4%) were premature babies, 6 (7.9%) intrauterine growth retardation, 3 (3.5%) had neonatal lupus, 2 (2.3%) congenital malformations, and there were 2 (2.3%) perinatal deaths. Maternal renal disease was the only statistically significant predictor for fetal loss (p<0.0 12) and hypertension for poor fetal outcome (p<0.024) using univariate analysis. CONCLUSION Most lupus pregnancies do well, but there is an increased incidence of adverse fetal outcome. Predictive factors for adverse fetal outcome include maternal renal disease and hypertension.
Supply chain management practices in the electronics industry in Malaysia Consequences for supply chain performance

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the effects of different dimensions of supply chain management practices (SCMP) on supply chain performance (SCP) in the electronics industry in Malaysia. Design/methodology/approach – The study employed the quantitative method where convenience sampling and self-administrated survey questionnaires were sent to 125 electronics firms in Malaysia. The research framework was tested using variance-based structural equation model, the partial least squares (PLS) method. Findings – The empirical results of PLS indicate that six of the seven dimensions of SCMP have a significant positive effect on SCP. Furthermore, agreed vision and goals shows a greater influence than other dimensions of SCMP. Research limitations/implications – This study took a narrow focus solely on the electronics manufacturing industry with a relatively small sample size of respondents. Also the data were only collected from single respondents in an organization. However, being the first study to explore the dimensions of SCMP and how those dimensions relate to SCP, the study shapes the pathway for future research. Practical implications – The results offer insights to SCM practitioners and policy makers on the importance of SCMP to increase the competitiveness of manufacturing industry in terms of SCP. Originality/value – This study employs a newly developed framework based on existing theoretical arguments to empirically examine the relationship between two important factors, the SCMP and SCP. This study is perhaps one of the first to address the effect of SCMP that includes combination of comprehensive practices and system approach towards the overall performance of the supply chain.
Compensation for Occupational Disease: Evaluating the Options

This paper evaluates alternative rules of liability and compensation for occupational disease. The criterion applied is minimization of the sum of the costs associated with occupational disease, disease prevention, uninsured risk costs, and litigation and insurance overhead or transaction costs. Options considered include the workers' compensation system, the tort system, first party insurance, and potential government programs. It is argued that the costs of insurance and uninsured risk significantly affect the optimal liability rule for occupational disease, because the long latency of many occupational diseases undermines diversification of risk through liability and first party insurance. The workers' competisation system, with pro rata division of liability among contributing employers, appears to be superior to the alternatives.
Dissociation of remote and anterograde memory impairment and neural correlates in alcoholic Korsakoff syndrome

Alcoholic Korsakoff's syndrome (KS) is marked by remote memory impairment together with characteristic profound anterograde memory deficits. Despite previous studies of memory processes in KS, questions remain regarding the nature and severity of these impairments and identification of brain systems that underlie these different memory impairments. This study examined remote and anterograde memory function in 5 KS patients in comparison with 8 patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and 24 normal control subjects (NC). In addition, relationships between memory performance and regional brain volumes were examined in the KS group. Overall, the KS group showed severe impairment on both remote and anterograde memory measures, performing at the level of the AD group on most measures. Differences were observed on the pattern of temporal gradient for verbal recognition, with KS exhibiting a more steeply graded rate of decline over the most recent period examined. Severity of the remote memory deficit in KS was not associated with severity of anterograde memory deficit. Examination of brain structure–function relationships in the KS subjects revealed that photo naming of remote historical information was related to posterior cortical white matter volumes but not hippocampal volumes; sequencing was related to prefrontal but not hippocampal volumes. By contrast, a measure of anterograde memory for nonverbal visual material showed a relationship to hippocampal but not regional cortical white matter volumes. This set of dissociations, which parallels that observed in our earlier study of AD, is now documented in KS and provides further evidence that these separate cortical and limbic brain systems are principal neural substrates of the remote and anterograde memory and sequencing deficits in KS. (JINS, 2004, 10, 427–441.)