Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Comparative trial of rifampin-doxycycline versus tetracycline-streptomycin in the therapy of human brucellosis

In an attempt to compare the efficacy of rifampin-doxycycline with tetracycline-streptomycin for the treatment of human brucellosis, we administered both combinations for a 30-day period, similar to the period recommended by the World Health Organization in a prospective, randomized trial. Forty-six patients were included in the final study (36 men and 10 women); 41 had blood cultures positive for Brucella melitensis. The 28 patients in group A received tetracycline hydrochloride at doses of 0.5 g every 6 h or doxycycline at 100 mg every 12 h for 30 days plus 1 g of streptomycin a day for 21 days. The 18 patients in group B received rifampin at 15 mg/kg per day in a single morning dose plus 100 mg of doxycycline every 12 h for 30 days. For patients with focal disease from both groups, therapy was prolonged to 45 days. All patients underwent rigorous clinical and bacteriological long-term follow-up. There were no therapeutic failures in either group, and the defervescence period was similar for both groups (3.1 days for group A, 2.6 days for group B). Two patients (7.1%) from group A had relapses, as did seven (38.8%) from group B (P = 0.024), and blood cultures again became positive for B. melitensis in all of them. In both groups treatment was generally well tolerated. The results strongly suggest that the rifampin-doxycycline combination is a less efficacious mode of therapy for brucellosis to prevent relapses than is the classical tetracycline-streptomycin combination when both are administered for 30 days. A more prolonged period of administration of the rifampin-doxycycline combination may be required to obtain the same low relapse rate as that achieved with the classical tetracycline-streptomycin treatment.
De novo design of fibrils made of short alpha-helical coiled coil peptides.

BACKGROUND The alpha-helical coiled coil structures formed by 25-50 residues long peptides are recognized as one of Nature's favorite ways of creating an oligomerization motif. Known de novo designed and natural coiled coils use the lateral dimension for oligomerization but not the axial one. Previous attempts to design alpha-helical peptides with a potential for axial growth led to fibrous aggregates which have an unexpectedly big and irregular thickness. These facts encouraged us to design a coiled coil peptide which self-assembles into soluble oligomers with a fixed lateral dimension and whose alpha-helices associate in a staggered manner and trigger axial growth of the coiled coil. Designing the coiled coil with a large number of subunits, we also pursue the practical goal of obtaining a valuable scaffold for the construction of multivalent fusion proteins. RESULTS The designed 34-residue peptide self-assembles into long fibrils at slightly acid pH and into spherical aggregates at neutral pH. The fibrillogenesis is completely reversible upon pH change. The fibrils were characterized using circular dichroism spectroscopy, sedimentation diffusion, electron microscopy, differential scanning calorimetry and X-ray fiber diffraction. The peptide was deliberately engineered to adopt the structure of a five-stranded coiled coil rope with adjacent alpha-helices, staggered along the fibril axis. As shown experimentally, the most likely structure matches the predicted five-stranded arrangement. CONCLUSIONS The fact that the peptide assembles in an expected fibril arrangement demonstrates the credibility of our conception of design. The discovery of a short peptide with fibril-forming ability and stimulus-sensitive behavior opens new opportunities for a number of applications.
Pulmonary hypertension in systemic sclerosis: risk factors for progression and consequences for survival.

OBJECTIVE To assess the rate of progression of pulmonary hypertension (PHT) in systemic sclerosis (SSc) and its bearing on mortality. METHODS A retrospective record review of 930 patients with SSc attending a specialist centre was carried out. Those at risk for both idiopathic and secondary PHT were assessed by serial Doppler echocardiography. Mortality data were reviewed. RESULTS The cumulative prevalence of PHT was 13%. Pressures remained static in most cases. The mortality among those with a single pressure reading of 30 mmHg or higher was 20% at 20 months. An increased mortality risk was associated with high initial pressures and rising pressures. Rapid pressure rises occurred more frequently in limited than in diffuse SSC. CONCLUSIONS The prevalence of PHT in SSc is high and the detection of PHT at any time in the disease course is associated with substantial mortality. These results demonstrate the value of echocardiographic screening for PHT in all patients with SSC.
Emerging antibiotic resistance in Salmonella Typhimurium in Norway

The antimicrobial resistance of 809 Salmonella Typhimurium isolates collected from humans in Norway between 1975 and 1998 was studied. The material was subdivided into domestic and foreign isolates according to whether the patient had recently travelled abroad or not. In imported isolates the largest increase in resistance was in 1996 when 35% of the isolates were multi-resistant. The first multi-resistant isolate acquired in Norway appeared in 1994, but already in 1998 23% of the isolates domestically acquired were multi-resistant, and a majority were S. Typhimurium DT104. We found no ciprofloxacin resistance in domestically acquired isolates. Amplified fragment length polymorphism analysis was performed on selected multi-resistant isolates. The method discriminated well between different multi-resistant isolates, but not between DT104 isolates. Resistant and multi-resistant S. Typhimurium were until 1998 essentially recovered from patients who had travelled abroad, but multi-resistant isolates, mainly DT104, are now also being transmitted within the country.
Energy balance-related behavioural patterns in 5-year-old children and the longitudinal association with weight status development in early childhood

Abstract Objective The current study examined clustering of dietary intake and activity behaviours (i.e. physical activity (PA) and sedentary behaviour) in 5-year-old children, as well as the longitudinal association with BMI and overweight development. Design Principal component analysis (PCA) was used to identify behavioural patterns. Backward regression analyses were used to examine the association of behavioural patterns with parent and child background characteristics, as well as the association of the patterns with BMI Z-score and overweight development up to ages 7 and 8 years. Setting The Netherlands. Subjects Data originated from the KOALA Birth Cohort Study (n 2074 at age 5 years). Results Four patterns emerged: a ‘sedentary-snacking’ pattern (including television viewing and snack consumption), a ‘healthy intake’ pattern (including healthy items such as fruit, vegetables and fish), a ‘sandwich’ pattern (including bread and sandwich fillings) and a ‘sporty-traditional meal’ pattern (including sports, meat and potatoes). The patterns were related to child gender, general appetite and various parental characteristics. The sedentary-snacking pattern was positively associated with longitudinal BMI development. Conclusions Cross-behavioural energy balance-related behavioural patterns exist at age 5 years. Different activity types (e.g. sports, television viewing) clustered differently with the behavioural patterns, indicating the need to incorporate these different types instead of one general PA measure in energy balance-related pattern analyses. The clustering and potential synergy between activity behaviours and dietary intake, as well as the associations with weight status development, stress the importance of an integrated approach to PA and healthy nutrition promotion in preventing childhood overweight.
A theoretical study of Love wave sensors mass loading and viscoelastic sensitivity in gas and liquid environments

The sensitivity of Love wave (also known as guided shear horizontal surface acoustic wave (SH-SAW)) sensors to mass loading and/or to viscoelastic change, in gas and liquid environments, is theoretically investigated. The objective is to present effective design parameters for Love wave sensors. The investigated sensor platform consists of a ST and AT-cut quartz substrate, a guiding layer, and a thin (poly)methylmetacrylate (PMMA) coating, used to simulate the chemically sensitive layer. The investigation process consists of computing optimal guiding layer thickness (resulting in the largest perturbation, hence the highest sensitivity), for increasing layer density and shear modulus that includes all available materials. It is demonstrated that the device sensitivity, in general, increases as the difference in bulk shear wave velocities between the substrate and the guiding layer. The relative importance of mass loading and viscoelasticity are discussed. First experiments to confirm this theoretical study lead us to bring up a material characterization technique which shows that literature material parameters are not usable for film materials.
A Cell-Line-Specific Defect in the Intracellular Transport and Release of Assembled Retroviral Capsids

ABSTRACT Retrovirus assembly involves a complex series of events in which a large number of proteins must be targeted to a point on the plasma membrane where immature viruses bud from the cell. Gag polyproteins of most retroviruses assemble an immature capsid on the cytoplasmic side of the plasma membrane during the budding process (C-type assembly), but a few assemble immature capsids deep in the cytoplasm and are then transported to the plasma membrane (B- or D-type assembly), where they are enveloped. With both assembly phenotypes, Gag polyproteins must be transported to the site of viral budding in either a relatively unassembled form (C type) or a completely assembled form (B and D types). The molecular nature of this transport process and the host cell factors that are involved have remained obscure. During the development of a recombinant baculovirus/insect cell system for the expression of both C-type and D-type Gag polyproteins, we discovered an insect cell line (High Five) with two distinct defects that resulted in the reduced release of virus-like particles. The first of these was a pronounced defect in the transport of D-type but not C-type Gag polyproteins to the plasma membrane. High Five cells expressing wild-type Mason-Pfizer monkey virus (M-PMV) Gag precursors accumulate assembled immature capsids in large cytoplasmic aggregates similar to a transport-defective mutant (MA-A18V). In contrast, a larger fraction of the Gag molecules encoded by the M-PMV C-type morphogenesis mutant (MA-R55W) and those of human immunodeficiency virus were transported to the plasma membrane for assembly and budding of virions. When pulse-labeled Gag precursors from High Five cells were fractionated on velocity gradients, they sedimented more rapidly, indicating that they are sequestered in a higher-molecular-mass complex. Compared to Sf9 insect cells, the High Five cells also demonstrate a defect in the release of C-type virus particles. These findings support the hypothesis that host cell factors are important in the process of Gag transport and in the release of enveloped viral particles.
Self-Generation and Households’ Willingness to Pay for Reliable Electricity Service in Nigeria

Many households in developing countries often engage in self-generation to mitigate the impacts of poor public electricity provision. What is less well known, however, is whether (and how) self-generation influences households’ willingness to pay (WTP) for service reliability. Using data collected from a sample of Nigerian households, the results reveal that engagement in self-generation is positively correlated with WTP for reliability. This is despite the fact that self-generation reduces the negative welfare impact of unreliability. Further analyses, however, show that backup households’ decisions to pay a higher amount than non-backup households are influenced by the costs of self-generation: an increase of N1 (US$0.006) in self-generation’s fuel cost per-hour is associated with WTP about N5.22 (US$0.032) more in the monthly bill. However, households’ WTP US$0.15-0.16/kWh of improved reliability is smaller than the marginal costs of reliability from self-generation—US$0.27-0.41/kWh. We conclude by discussing the policy implications of our findings.
The Role of APOE in the Occurrence of Frontotemporal Dementia in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis.

IMPORTANCE Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a heterogeneous disease with a wide spectrum of involvement of cognitive functions. The mechanisms of this heterogeneity are still largely unknown, but genetic variants may account for this variability. OBJECTIVE To assess the influence of the apolipoprotein E (APOE) and C9ORF72 genotypes on cognitive impairment in a population-based series of Italian patients with ALS. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS All 504 patients with ALS living in Piemonte, Italy, diagnosed between January 1, 2009, and December 31, 2013, and identified through the Piemonte and Valle d'Aosta register for ALS, were eligible to participate in the study. Controls were 223 age- and sex-matched individuals identified through the patients' general practitioners. Data analysis was performed from June 1 to December 31, 2014. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES The presence of APOE and C9ORF72 genotypes was assessed. Patients were cognitively classified as having ALS with normal cognition, ALS with frontotemporal dementia (FTD), ALS with executive or nonexecutive impairment, and ALS with behavioral impairment. RESULTS Of the 504 patients with incident ALS, 357 (70.8%) were included in the study; 154 were women, 203 were men, they had a mean (SD) age at onset of 64.8 (10.2) years, and 37 of them carried a C9ORF72 repeat expansion. Cognitive testing revealed that 184 patients (51.5%) had ALS with normal cognition, 51 (14.3%) had ALS with FTD, 103 (28.9%) had ALS with executive or nonexecutive impairment, and 19 (5.3%) had ALS with behavioral impairment. Distribution of APOE haplotypes did not significantly differ between patients and controls or among patients with different levels of cognitive impairment. According to multivariate logistic regression, the presence of C9ORF72 repeat expansions was the strongest determinant of FTD (odds ratio, 13.08; 95% CI, 4.75-36.02; P < .001); however, the presence of an APOE ε2 allele significantly increased the risk of FTD (odds ratio, 2.61; 95% CI, 1.14-6.10; P = .03). Presence of an APOE ε4 allele was ineffectual. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE C9ORF72 repeat expansions have a primary role in increasing the risk of cognitive impairment in patients with ALS; the APOE ε2 allele, to a lesser extent, also increases the risk of FTD. These study findings highlight the importance of considering the genetic background of patients with ALS when analyzing the putative effect of genetic modifiers.
Rate Maximization in MIMO Decode-and-Forward Communications With an EH Relay and Possibly Imperfect CSI

In this paper, we investigate the simultaneous wireless information and power transfer in a multiple-input multiple-output decode-and-forward relay system, where the relay is an energy harvesting (EH) multi-antenna node equipped with an EH receiver and an information decoding (ID) receiver. The relay harvests the energy from the radio frequency signals sent by the source and uses it to forward the signals to the destination. The main objective in this paper is to maximize the achievable transmission rate of the overall link by optimizing the source/relay precoders. First, we study an upper bound on the maximum achievable rate where we assume that the EH and ID receivers operate simultaneously and have access to the whole power of the received signals. Afterward, we study two practical schemes, which are the power splitting and time switching schemes, where the ID and EH receivers have partial access to the power or duration of the received signals. For each scheme, we have studied the complexity and the performance comparison. In addition, we considered the case of the imperfect channel estimation error and we have observed its impact on the achievable end-to-end rate and the harvested energy at the relay.
John Hunter's specimen of talocalcaneal bridge.

In 1948 w’e called attention to talocalcaneal bridge (synostosis talocalcanea) as a cause of rigid flat foot, which until then had been unrecognised as a clinical entity. ’ Since the publication of this paper there has been ample confirmation of the accuracy of our observation from the experiences reported to us by our colleagues and from our own further investigations. Though orthopaedic surgeons have only now come to recognise the existence of this anomaly, and to appreciate its importance in the etiology of certain cases of peroneal spastic flat foot, anatomists have long been aware of it. We have discovered recently, in the Pathological
The Impact of Perceived Subgroup Formation on Transactive Memory Systems and Performance in Distributed Teams

With distributed teams becoming increasingly common in organizations, improving their performance is a critical challenge for both practitioners and researchers. This research examines how group members' perception of subgroup formation affects team performance in fully distributed teams. The authors propose that individual members' perception about the presence of subgroups within the team has a negative effect on team performance, which manifests itself through decreases in a team's transactive memory system TMS. Using data from 154 members of 41 fully distributed teams where no group members were colocated, the authors found that members' perceptions of the existence of subgroups impair the team's TMS and its overall performance. They found these effects to be statistically significant. In addition, decreases in a group's TMS partially mediate the effect of perceived subgroup formation on team performance. The authors discuss the implications of their findings for managerial action, as well as for researchers, and they propose directions for future research.
Using Information and Communication Technology in Secondary Schools in Nigeria: Problems and Prospects

Though it has been rightly said that what is wrong with education cannot be fixed with technology; there is no doubt that modern life is dominated by technology. There is universal recognition of the need to use Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in education as we enter the era of globalization where the free flow of information via satellite and the internet hold sway in global information dissemination of knowledge. Already, Nigeria is on he wrong side of the international digital divide, as it has not made significant effort to integrate ICT into secondary school curriculum. A great deal of instructional and administrative work in secondary school in Nigeria is still carried out manually. This paper, therefore, examines the major obstacles militating against the use of ICT in secondary education in Nigeria. It identifies he high cost of computer hardware and software; weak infrastructure; lack of human skills and knowledge in ICT, and lack of relevant software appropriate and culturally suitable to Nigeria as the major stumbling block o the adoption of ICT in secondary education in Nigeria. Also, secondary schools in Nigeria are not given adequate funds to provide furniture, relevant textbooks and adequate classroom let alone being given adequate fund for high-tech equipment. At present the cost of subscribing to the Internet is too high for many of the impoverished secondary schools in Nigeria. In modern society, Nigeria needs ICT to aid teaching and learning and educational management. ICT is an instrument for the economic and technological development in the 21 st century; therefore, Nigeria cannot afford to be on the wrong side of the digital divide.
Tumor necrosis factor alpha blockade treatment down-modulates the increased systemic and local expression of Toll-like receptor 2 and Toll-like receptor 4 in spondylarthropathy.

OBJECTIVE Abnormal host defense against pathogens has been implicated in the pathogenesis of spondylarthropathy (SpA), a disease characterized by abundant synovial infiltration with innate immune cells. Given the role of Toll-like receptors (TLRs) in activation of innate inflammation and the occurrence of TLR-dependent infections after tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNFalpha) blockade treatment, the present study was undertaken to analyze TLRs and their modulation by TNFalpha blockade in SpA. METHODS Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) were obtained from SpA and rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients during infliximab therapy, and from healthy controls. TLR-2 and TLR-4 expression and TNFalpha production upon lipopolysaccharide (LPS) stimulation were analyzed by flow cytometry on different monocyte subsets. Synovial biopsy specimens from 23 SpA patients before and after infliximab or etanercept treatment, from 15 RA patients, and from 18 osteoarthritis (OA) patients were analyzed by immunohistochemistry. RESULTS Expression of TLR-4, but not TLR-2, was increased on PBMCs from patients with SpA, whereas both TLRs were increased in RA patients. TLR expression was particularly increased on the CD163+ macrophage subset. Infliximab reduced TLR-2 and TLR-4 expression on monocytes of SpA and RA patients, leading to lower levels than in controls and to impaired TNFalpha production upon LPS stimulation. In inflamed synovium, the expression of both TLRs and of CD163 was significantly higher in patients with SpA than in those with RA or OA. Paralleling the systemic effect, TLRs in synovium were down-regulated following treatment with infliximab as well as etanercept, indicating a class effect of TNFalpha blockers. CONCLUSION Inflammation in SpA is characterized by increased TLR-2 and TLR-4 expression, which is sharply reduced by TNFalpha blockade. These findings suggest a potential role of innate immunity-mediated inflammation in SpA and provide an additional clue regarding the mechanism of action as well as the potential side effects of TNFalpha blockade.
Semantic dictionary design for database interoperability

Criteria and techniques to support the establishment of a semantic dictionary for database interoperability are described. The techniques allow the analysis of conceptual schemas of databases in a federation and the definition and maintenance of concept hierarchies. Similarity-based criteria are used to evaluate concept closeness and, consequently, to generate concept hierarchies. Experimentation of the techniques in the public administration domain is discussed.
Stressors and Resources of Caregivers of Patients With Incurable Progressive Illness in Sub-Saharan Africa

Family caregivers are central to palliative care in sub-Saharan Africa. Yet although supporting caregivers requires a comprehensive understanding of caregiver burden, there has been little research into this topic in Africa. Using the Stress Process Model to investigate the burden experienced by caregivers in South Africa and Uganda, we interviewed 37 caregivers and analyzed the data thematically. Caregivers’ primary stressors related to day-to-day patient care and emotional support; secondary stressors included financial hardship, family responsibilities, and social isolation. Caregivers’ social, relational, spiritual, and psychological resources mediated the effects of these stressors. Strengthening one resource strengthened others, but the failure of one resource hindered other resources, exacerbating burden. In providing caregiver support, policymakers and service providers should focus on enhancing caregivers’ resources as well as alleviating their stressors.