Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Parenting and Children's Externalizing Problems in Substance-Abusing Families

This study tested associations in path models among positive and negative parenting and children's rule-breaking behavior, aggressive and oppositional behavior, and attention problems for families with a drug-dependent parent. A structural model tested relations between parenting and children's externalizing problems for 251 families with 399 children between the ages of 6 and 18, controlling for nonindependence of ratings at the family level. The model also tested potential moderators, including child age, gender, and ethnicity (White vs. other), and caregiver gender (families with a female substance-abusing caregiver vs. families with a male substance-abusing caregiver). Results indicated that caregiver ratings of monitoring predicted rule-breaking behavior and use of inconsistent discipline predicted ratings of all 3 externalizing syndromes, after controlling parenting and externalizing problems for the effects of the moderators and after controlling significant relations among types of parenting and types of externalizing problems.
Postnatal development of perineuronal nets in wild‐type mice and in a mutant deficient in tenascin‐R

The extracellular matrix glycoprotein tenascin‐R (TN‐R), colocalizing with hyaluronan, phosphacan, and aggregating chondroitin sulphate proteoglycans in the white and grey matter, is accumulated in perineuronal nets that surround different types of neurons in many brain regions. To characterize the role of TN‐R in the formation of perineuronal nets, we studied their postnatal development in wild‐type mice and in a TN‐R knock‐out mutant by using the lectin Wisteria floribunda agglutinin and an antibody to nonspecified chondroitin sulphate proteoglycans as established cytochemical markers. We detected the matrix components TN‐R, hyaluronan, phosphacan, neurocan, and brevican in the perineuronal nets of cortical and subcortical regions. In wild‐type mice, lectin‐stained, immature perineuronal nets were first seen on postnatal day 4 in the brainstem and on day 14 in the cerebral cortex. The staining intensity of these nets for TN‐R, hyaluronan, phosphacan, neurocan, and brevican was extremely weak or not distinguishable from that of the surrounding neuropil. However, all markers showed an increase in staining intensity of perineuronal nets reaching maximal levels between postnatal days 21 and 40. In TN‐R‐deficient animals, the perineuronal nets tended to show a granular component within their lattice‐like structure at early stages of development. Additionally, the staining intensity in perineuronal nets was reduced for brevican, extremely low for hyaluronan and neurocan, and virtually no immunoreactivity was detectable for phosphacan. The granular configuration of perineuronal nets became more predominant with advancing age of the mutant animals, indicating the continued abnormal aggregation of chondroitin sulphate proteoglycans complexed with hyaluronan. As shown by electron microscopy in the cerebral cortex, the disruption of perineuronal nets was not accompanied by apparent changes in the synaptic structure on net‐bearing neurons. The regional distribution patterns and the temporal course of development of perineuronal nets were not obviously changed in the mutant. We conclude that the lack of TN‐R initially and continuously disturbs the molecular scaffolding of extracellular matrix components in perineuronal nets. This may interfere with the development of the specific micromilieu of the ensheathed neurons and adjacent glial cells and may also permanently change their functional properties. J. Comp. Neurol. 428:616–629, 2000. © 2000 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Norbeck Social Support Questionnaire

The purpose of this paper is to summarize the development and testing of the Norbeck Social Support Questionnaire (NSSQ) and to discuss several issues that have arisen in recent use of the instrument. The NSSQ is a self-administered questionnaire that measures multiple dimensions of social support. Three functional properties--affect, affirmation, and aid--from Kahn's (1979) definition of social support are measured. The network properties of size, stability (duration of relationships), and accessibility (frequency of contact) are also measured, as well as changes in the convoy or support system due to losses of relationships. Nine categories are used to determine sources of support. Graduate students of nursing (N = 130) were used as subjects for several studies to test reliability and validity, and employed adults (N = 136) were used for additional validity testing and to provide normative data. Reliability was established through analysis of internal consistency and test-retest measures taken a week apart. Very high levels of internal consistency and test-retest reliability were found for the functional and network properties, and medium levels for the loss items. At a 7-month retesting, medium levels of stability were found, and the instrument was sensitive to changes in the network composition over time. Although the network composition changed, the overall level of functional support remained stable. Validity of the NSSQ was tested in relation to response bias and concurrent, construct, and predictive validity. The results indicated that the instrument is free from the response bias of social desirability. Medium levels of concurrent validity were shown with two other social support instruments. Construct validity was demonstrated by significant associations between NSSQ measures and two interpersonal constructs expected to be related to social support, while no significant relationships were found between the NSSQ measures and an unrelated interpersonal construct. Predictive validity was tested by examining the hypothesis that social support serves as a buffer for life stress. Among the functional properties, the interaction of aid and life stress accounted for 13.2% of the variance in negative mood. Of the network properties, duration of relationships had significant main and interaction effects, accounting together for 19.3% of the variance in negative mood. Normative data from a sample of employed adults provide means and standard deviations for each subscale and variable of the NSSQ, as well as descriptive data about sources of support. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
Esophageal cancer, gastric cancer and the use of pesticides in the southwestern of Turkey.

BACKGROUND Esophageal and gastric cancer generally have a poor prognosis and may share common risk factors. It has been demonstrated that the pesticide usage may contribute to development of many cancer types. In this study, the relation between amount of pesticides used in agriculture and esophageal and gastric cancer incidence was researched. MATERIALS AND METHODS Findings from the data bank of the Ministry of Health Provincial Health Directorate Cancer Records Center between the years of 1998-2010 were used. All patients who were diagnosed with gastric and esophageal cancer histopathologically were included. Data for annual pesticide usage were obtained from Provincial Agriculture Directorate for the same time period. Statistical analysis was performed using the Spearman test. RESULTS One thousand eight hundred and ninety-six patients were involved in the study, 1,233 males (65%) and 663 females (35%), 230 with esophageal cancer (12.1%) and 1,666 with gastric cancer (87.9%). No statistically significant relation was apparent between pesticide amount used and esophageal cancer (p: 0.87). CONCLUSIONS In our study, there was no relationship between pesticide usage and esophageal or gastric cancer. However, the time between pesticide usage and cancer development was not known, qualifying the comparison.
Hormone production in vivo and in vitro from follicles at different stages of the oestrous cycle in the sheep.

This experiment was undertaken in order to investigate the production of inhibin, oestradiol and androstenedione by ovarian follicles at different stages of the oestrous cycle in sheep. Twenty-four Scottish Blackface ewes were allocated to four groups of six ewes, i.e. those operated on during the luteal phase (day 10), and those operated on during the follicular phase 24-30, 36 and 60 h after the induction of luteal regression by an injection of 125 micrograms cloprostenol on day 10 of the luteal phase. Samples of jugular and ovarian venous blood were collected under anaesthesia and ovaries were then removed and all follicles larger than 3 mm diameter dissected out and incubated in medium for 2 h. After injection of cloprostenol, luteal regression occurred as indicated by a fall in the secretion rate of progesterone. The ovarian secretion rate of inhibin was similar at all stages of the follicular phase and during the luteal phase while, in contrast, the secretion rate of oestradiol was significantly (P less than 0.05) elevated in the group 24 h after injection of cloprostenol. There was good correlation between the in-vivo ovarian secretion rate and production rate during incubation in vitro for both inhibin (r = 0.57) and oestradiol (r = 0.60). When follicle diameter was compared with in-vitro hormone production there was good correlation for inhibin (r = 0.72) with larger follicles producing more inhibin, while the value for oestradiol was somewhat lower (r = 0.57) owing to the presence of large atretic follicles with low oestradiol production. Androstenedione production showed a lower correlation with follicle diameter (r = 0.39). When the four time periods were compared separately, there were significantly (P less than 0.05) more follicles with high in-vitro oestradiol production (greater than 90 fmol/min) in the group at 36 h than in the other three groups, while inhibin release in relation to follicle size was similar in the four groups. Large oestrogenic follicles were responsible for 90% of the total oestradiol production during culture while only providing 55% of the total inhibin production, with large non-oestrogenic and small follicles contributing 33% and 12% of inhibin production respectively. From the results of this study we conclude that while oestradiol is mainly produced by the large oestrogenic follicles, a considerable amount of inhibin is also produced by large non-oestrogenic and small follicles. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
Production of hybridoma growth factor by human monocytes

Human mononuclear leukocytes produce a growth factor (HGF) for hybridoma and plasmacytoma cells. HGF has recently been proven to be identical to IFN‐β2, 26‐kDa protein and BSF‐2. HGF can be quantitated in a proliferation assay with the HGF‐dependent hybridoma cell line B13.29. By selection of an extremely sensitive variant of this cell line, we were able to measure HGF production of single cells. Limiting dilution analysis of the producing cells in combination with size, density and adherence characteristics showed that HGF is produced by monocytes and not by lymphocytes. There was no need for the monocytes to be stimulated but the cells did require the presence of serum. This serum requirement could be met by purified bovine serum albumin, but not by other proteins like ovalbumin or human γ‐globulin. HGF production in vitro by monocytes starts after 2 h of incubation and is completed within 24 h.
Evaluation of one-to-one midwifery: women's responses to care.

BACKGROUND One-to-one midwifery was a demonstration project introduced into a London-based maternity service in 1993 to put into practice the new government policy for maternity services in England. Evaluation was integral to the development of the project. METHODS The evaluation of women's responses was conducted between August 1994 and August 1995 based on a longitudinal, self-completion questionnaire, interviews, and focus groups. Women in the study group (n = 728) received the new service and women in the control group (n = 675) received conventional care. The study design integrated quantitative and qualitative methods and went beyond a simple estimation of satisfaction with care. RESULTS Satisfaction with antenatal and birth care was generally high, but study group women showed more positive responses overall. Both groups showed a preference for continuity of caregiver, but expectations were higher in the study group (72% of the study group and 42% of the control group preferred to see one caregiver). Both groups had less satisfied responses to hospital postnatal care (50% study and 54% control group were very satisfied). Study group women showed greater preparedness for birth than control group women (18% vs 12% "very well prepared") and for the time after the baby's birth (26% vs 15% "very prepared"). CONCLUSIONS The study demonstrated that women were more satisfied with the one-to-one model of care. Taken together with the results of clinical and economic audit and professional responses, the evaluation suggests that this model should be developed and evaluated further to gain a greater understanding of women's needs of the maternity service.
Robust Learning-Based Parsing and Annotation of Medical Radiographs

In this paper, we propose a learning-based algorithm for automatic medical image annotation based on robust aggregation of learned local appearance cues, achieving high accuracy and robustness against severe diseases, imaging artifacts, occlusion, or missing data. The algorithm starts with a number of landmark detectors to collect local appearance cues throughout the image, which are subsequently verified by a group of learned sparse spatial configuration models. In most cases, a decision could already be made at this stage by simply aggregating the verified detections. For the remaining cases, an additional global appearance filtering step is employed to provide complementary information to make the final decision. This approach is evaluated on a large-scale chest radiograph view identification task, demonstrating a very high accuracy ( >; 99.9%) for a posteroanterior/anteroposterior (PA-AP) and lateral view position identification task, compared with the recently reported large-scale result of only 98.2% (Luo, , 2006). Our approach also achieved the best accuracies for a three-class and a multiclass radiograph annotation task, when compared with other state of the art algorithms. Our algorithm was used to enhance advanced image visualization workflows by enabling content-sensitive hanging-protocols and auto-invocation of a computer aided detection algorithm for identified PA-AP chest images. Finally, we show that the same methodology could be utilized for several image parsing applications including anatomy/organ region of interest prediction and optimized image visualization.
Use of Topical Besifloxacin in the Treatment of Mycobacterium chelonae Ocular Surface Infections

Purpose: To present the clinical outcome of 3 cases of ocular surface infections by Mycobacterium chelonae treated with besifloxacin (0.6%, Besivance; Bausch & Lomb, Tampa, FL). Methods: In this retrospective review of a small case series, we reviewed the medical records of 3 clinical patients with M. chelonae infection involving the ocular surface. Besifloxacin was used as an adjunct in 2 cases of keratitis and as the principal therapeutic agent in a case of nodular conjunctivitis. Results: Two patients who presented with culture-proven M. chelonae keratitis initially had been treated with topical amikacin and oral clarithromycin for 6 months in the first case and for 2 months in the second without complete resolution. Topical besifloxacin was added as an adjunct therapy to amikacin with progressive weaning of clarithromycin. Both cases of keratitis eventually resolved without recurrence after discontinuation of topical amikacin and besifloxacin. A third patient presented with nodular conjunctival inflammation, which initially had been treated with topical ciprofloxacin and corticosteroids without improvement. One nodular lesion was excised and submitted for microbial culture, which revealed the growth of M. chelonae. Marked improvement of the conjunctivitis was noted after 3 weeks of treatment with topical besifloxacin. Complete resolution of the conjunctival nodules was achieved after 10 weeks of treatment with besifloxacin. Conclusions: Topical besifloxacin seems to be a useful adjunct agent in the treatment of nontuberculous mycobacterial keratitis by M. chelonae and may be viable for use as a first-line agent in cases of nodular conjunctivitis by M. chelonae.
Interferon γ down‐regulates cytochrome P450 3A genes in primary cultures of well‐differentiated rat hepatocytes

Administration of interferons of both the γ and alfa/β classes down‐regulates hepatic cytochrome P450 (CYP) genes when administered to humans or rats. In male rats, interferons decrease expression of CYP3A2 at a pretranslational level, but because interferons also release other cytokines in vivo, it is unclear whether this is a direct effect on hepatocytes. We therefore examined the effects of rat recombinant interferon γ (IFN‐γ) on CYP3A2, other 3A genes, and 2C11 in stable primary cultures of male rat hepatocytes. Hepatocytes were cultured on matrigel in Williams' E, and messenger RNAs (mRNAs) for 3A2, 3A1‐like CYPs, and 2C11 mRNA were determined by RNase protection assays. CYP3A and 2C11 proteins were immunoquantified, and their catalytic activities were estimated by testosterone hydroxylation pathways. In control cells, 3A2 mRNA decreased initially but then recovered, and stable levels (15% of freshly isolated cells) were attained between days 3 and 7. Phenobarbital increased 3A2 mRNA to 60–120% values of freshly isolated cells, and mRNA for 3A1‐like CYPs were increased 20‐fold. In both control and phenobarbital‐treated hepatocytes, rat recombinant IFN‐γ (33 U/mL) reduced mRNA for 3A2 and 3A1‐like CYPs, as well as 3A protein and testosterone 6 β‐hydroxylase activity. Interferon had no effect on CYP2C11 at mRNA or protein levels in untreated cells, although a reduction in 2C11 protein was evident in phenobarbital‐treated cultures. It is concluded that interferon directly alters expression of constitutive and inducible CYP3A genes in well‐differentiated male rat hepatocytes in culture, but has no effect on constitutive expression of CYP2C11.
Microsurgical treatment for spinal tumours.

INTRODUCTION Although spinal tumours are amenable to total surgical excision, the factors determining the outcome are diverse. This study re-evaluates aspects of the disease that contribute to their outcome. METHODS Ninety-three consecutive patients with spinal cord tumours that underwent microsurgical excision between February 1992 and February 2002 were retrospectively studied. All patients underwent magnetic resonance imaging and had histological confirmation of spinal tumours. RESULTS There were 44 men and 49 women with a mean age of 49.05 years (range 6 to 83 years). The location of the tumours was cervical in 37 cases, thoracic in 41 cases, lumbosacral in 13 cases, and multilevel in two cases. The mean tumour size was 2.2 cm (range 0.8 to 7 cm) and mean duration of symptoms was 10.8 months. Complete excision was achieved in 72 cases and incomplete removal in 15 cases. The mean follow-up period was 21.45 months (range 3 days to 8 years). Immediate post-operative improvement was noted in 40 (43 percent) patients, 24 (25.4 percent) improved within six months, 13 (14 percent) improved after six months, 12 (12.9 percent) had no improvement and four patients died. The duration of symptoms and the completeness of excision were factors that correlated with post-operative improvement (p-value is less than 0.05). Age, gender, size, histological type, presenting symptoms, spinal level affected and axial location of tumour did not correlate with the outcome. CONCLUSION Microsurgical excision of spinal cord tumours is a safe and effective procedure, and post-operative outcome is correlated to duration of symptoms and the extent of tumour resection.
Age, model for end‐stage liver disease score, and organ functioning predict posttransplant tacrolimus neurotoxicity

Calcineurin‐inhibiting immunosuppressive medications are the mainstay of posttransplant immunosuppression. Although these highly beneficial drugs are critical for posttransplant survival, significant numbers of transplant recipients experience side effects, some requiring a switch to a different immunosuppressive regimen. Neurotoxicity is one of the most debilitating side effects because of its impact on mental status and cognition. As our center uses tacrolimus as the initial immunosuppressant for all liver transplant (LTX) recipients, we were interested in those patients who required a switch because of neurotoxic side effects. Over a 5‐year period, 827 adult LTX recipients received their first graft at our center. Ninety‐four patients were no longer on tacrolimus by 2 months post‐LTX (86 switched because of concerns over neurotoxicity, and 8 switched because of renal function concerns). Of those experiencing neurotoxic side effects, the majority (64%) had altered mental status, and 26% had seizures (first onset post‐LTX). On the basis of our prior work, we hypothesized that patients with a pre‐LTX history of excessive alcohol use would be at higher risk for neurotoxic effects. We also hypothesized that the elderly and those who had more advanced illness (that is, higher Model for End‐Stage Liver Disease scores) at LTX would be at risk as well. We found that patients with a pre‐LTX diagnosis of alcoholic liver disease were not more likely to be switched from tacrolimus. Furthermore, we found that in addition to older age and higher Model for End‐Stage Liver Disease scores, poorer hepatic functioning was significantly associated with a switch from tacrolimus. We discuss the implications of these findings and the relevance for future clinical care in these high‐risk patients. Liver Transpl, 2008. © 2008 AASLD.
Rhinovirus Disease in Children Seeking Care in a Tertiary Pediatric Emergency Department.

BACKGROUND Rhinovirus is the most common cause of viral respiratory tract infections in children. Virologic predictors of lower respiratory tract infection (LRTI), such as viral load and the presence of another respiratory virus (coinfection), are not well characterized in pediatric outpatients. METHODS Mid-nasal turbinate samples were collected from children presenting for care to the Seattle Children's Hospital emergency department (ED) or urgent care with a symptomatic respiratory infection between December 2011 and May 2013. A subset of samples was tested for rhinovirus viral load by real-time polymerase chain reaction. Clinical data were collected by chart reviews. Multivariate logistic regression was used to evaluate the relationship between viral load and coinfection and the risk for LRTI. RESULTS Rhinovirus was the most frequent respiratory virus detected in children younger than 3 years. Of 445 patients with rhinovirus infection, 262 (58.9%) had LRTIs, 231 (51.9%) required hospital admission and 52 (22.5%) were hospitalized for 3 days or longer. Children with no comorbidities accounted for 142 (54%) of 262 rhinovirus LRTIs. Higher viral load was significantly associated with LRTI among illness episodes with rhinovirus alone (OR, 2.11; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.24-3.58). Coinfection increased the risk of LRTI (OR, 1.83; 95% CI, 1.01-3.32). CONCLUSIONS Rhinovirus was the most common pathogen detected among symptomatic young children in a pediatric ED who had respiratory viral testing performed, with the majority requiring hospitalization. Higher rhinovirus viral load and coinfection increased disease severity. Virologic data may assist clinical decision making for children with rhinovirus infections in the pediatric ED.