Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Behavioural pharmacology and its contribution to the molecular basis of memory consolidation

Recent findings have significantly advanced our understanding the mechanisms of memory formation. Most of these advances stemmed from behavioural pharmacology research involving, particularly, the localized infusion of drugs with specific molecular actions into specific brain regions. This approach has revealed brain structures involved in different memory types and the main neurotransmitter systems and sequence of metabolic cascades that participate in memory consolidation. Biochemical studies and, in several cases, studies of genetically manipulated animals, in which receptors or enzymes affected by the various drugs were absent or overexpressed, have complemented the pharmacological research. Although most studies have concentrated on the involvement of the hippocampus, many have also investigated the entorhinal cortex, other regions of the cortex, and the amygdala. Behavioural pharmacology has been of crucial importance in establishing the major neurohumoral and hormonal systems involved in the modulation of memory formation. These systems act on specific steps of memory formation in the hippocampus and in the entorhinal, parietal, and cingulate cortex. A specialized system mediated by the basolateral amygdaloid nucleus, and involving several neuromodulatory systems, is activated by emotional arousal and serves to regulate memory formation in other brain ( ) regions. The core mechanisms involved in the formation of explicit declarative memory are in many respects similar to ( ) those of long-term potentiation LTP , particularly in the hippocampus. However, there are also important differences between memory formation and LTP. Memory formation involves numerous modulatory influences, the co-participation of various brain regions other than the hippocampus, and some properties that are specific to memory and absent in LTP ( ) i.e. flexibility of response . We discuss the implications of these similarities and differences for understanding the neural bases of memory. Q 2000 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.
Impact of Chronic Periodontitis on Systemic Conditions: A Review

The oral cavity might well be thought of as the window of the human body due to the extent of the inflammatory burden caused by periodontal disease. This can influence systemic diseases with a similar inflammatory pathology and vice versa, raising the relevance regarding periodontal and systemic health affecting each other. The interrelationship between periodontal disease and systemic health has been a matter of debate since ancient times. A theory of focal infection states that the oral pathogens had the capability to either directly enter or release their toxic products into the systemic circulation. Recent evidence reveals that we need to change our thought about the etiology and pathogenesis of periodontal disease. Although bacteria are a necessary factor in the equation, the reaction of the host’s immuno-inflammatory system is responsible for most of the destruction found in periodontal disease. Thus, it makes sense that a number of environmental and acquired factors may modify a patient’s risk of developing periodontal disease. Since oral health has a significant influence on the final prognosis of a number of systemic disorders, it is essential that we understand the underlying pathophysiology linking oral health to systemic health. Review Article Saranyan et al.; AJMAH, 9(2): 1-10, 2017; Article no.AJMAH. 38511 2
Extensive Pyramid Networks for Text Classification

Text classiﬁcation is an important task in Natural Language Processing. Traditionally, human-designed features are used on text classiﬁers. In recent years, methods based on word embeddings and deep learning have made a great breakthrough. Deep neural networks such as convolutional neural networks and recurrent neural networks have achieved very good results. The attention mechanism, especially self-attention, has also gained great performance on many NLP tasks. This paper describes an extensive pyramid network for text classiﬁcation. The pyramid architecture is simple and elegant by using max pooling layers in many pyramid blocks. In each pyramid block, self-attention layers are used to capture the relationship between the words in the sequences. In addition, recurrent layers are used to obtain the order information and convolutional layers are applied to get the local contextual information. Experiments on ﬁve large-scale text classiﬁcation datasets show that our network achieves better performance than the previous models.
Sports-related dentofacial trauma among high school students in Nairobi

Objectives: To determine the prevalence and pattern of occurrence of sports - related dentofacial injuries among athletes participating in Rugby and Football in Nairobi, Kenya. Design: A descriptive cross-sectional study. Setting: Seventeen Secondary schools participating in either or both Rugby tournaments and the Nairobi Football League during the 2015 season in Nairobi. Subjects: Five hundred and ten male high school students aged 14 to 18 years. Results: Among the 510 participants in the two sports, 281 (55.1%) had reported having experienced dentofacial injuries. Participants playing both sports had a significantly higher prevalence of dentofacial injuries 24 (66.7%)in comparison to those who participated in rugby 138 (54.3%)and football with 119 (54.1%)(p = 0.02). The most commonly reported injury involved the soft tissue at 68.3%, teeth at 19.5%, a combination of the hard and soft tissues at 8.1% and bone fractures at 3.9%. Regarding the phase of play during which the injuries were sustained, collision accounted for 26.2% followed by tackling (19.7%), having been tackled (18.0%) while lineout (1.17%) was the least cause of dentofacial injury. Of the 281 of the injured respondents, 153 (54.4%) had received first aid treatment with 72 (47.1%) having received treatment on the pitch side. One hundred and eighty three (35.9%) of all the participants reported having had some form of medical insurance while 227 (44.5%) did not have any. Conclusion: More than half of the participants had experienced dentofacial injuries with those of the soft tissue having been the most commonly reported. About a third of the injuries encountered were sustained during collision of players.
Nutritional status, physical activity and associated nutrition knowledge of primary school learners

Background: Nutrition education has the potential to improve eating habits, physical activity and nutritional status of schoolchildren. Aim: This study aimed to determine the nutritional status, physical activity levels and the associated nutrition knowledge of primary school learners aged 9–14 years in Harare, Zimbabwe. Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted among learners (n = 368) from eight primary schools. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect sociodemographic, nutrition knowledge and physical activity data. The weights and heights were measured using World Health Organization (WHO) standards. Pearson chi-square and Fisher’s exact tests were used to assess association between categorical variables. Binary logistic regression was used to explore the determinants of wasting and overweight. The level of significance was set at p < 0.05. Results: Overweight, wasting and stunting affected 25.8%, 6.3% and 3% of the learners, respectively. Only 52.7% of the learners achieved the WHO recommended 60 minutes of physical activity. The mean±standard deviation nutrition knowledge score of the learners was 70.3±10.9%. Stunted children were more likely to be wasted (odds ratio (OR) = 4.38; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.07–17.8; p = 0.039). Inadequate dietary diversity score (OR = 0.44; 95% CI 0.22–0.87; p = 0.018) and using non-active forms of transportation (OR = 2.69; 95% CI 1.52–4.76; p = 0.001) were a significant predictor of overweight among the learners. Conclusions: Overweight was the leading form of malnutrition, coexisting with undernutrition, reflecting the presence of a ‘double burden of malnutrition’. Therefore, comprehensive and multi-sectoral interventions to improve healthy eating and physical activity are warranted.
Safety of antithyroid drugs in pregnancy: update and therapy implications

ABSTRACT Introduction: The thionamide antithyroid drugs, methimazole (MMI), its pro-drug derivative carbimazole (CMZ), and propylthiouracil (PTU) are the mainstay of treatment for hyperthyroidism in pregnancy. However, antithyroid drugs carry risks of adverse effects that can affect fetal and maternal well-being. Areas covered: This review provides an update on the safety of antithyroid drugs in pregnancy, focusing on the most serious concerns of severe liver disease and congenital anomalies. Expert opinion: PTU-induced liver disease is uncommon but can run a catastrophic course in pregnancy with a risk of liver failure and threats to maternal or fetal survival. Acute pancreatitis is a relatively rare occurrence that has been linked to thionamide use in a handful of reports in non-pregnant individuals. Observational studies on the risk of birth defects with antithyroid drug exposure in pregnancy overall show an increase in birth defect risk with exposure to CMZ/MMI, and to a lesser extent, PTU. Further studies are required to determine whether the currently recommended approach of switching between thionamide drugs in pregnancy improves outcomes. Ultimately, a preventative strategy of offering definitive therapy to hyperthyroid women of childbearing potential offers the best approach to truly reduce the risks of antithyroid drug adverse effects in pregnancy.
The Course of Posttraumatic Stress in Children: Examination of Symptom Trajectories and Predictive Factors Following Admission to Pediatric Intensive Care*

Objectives: This study investigated trauma symptom trajectories of children 2–16 years old following admission to pediatric intensive care and identified factors that predicted a child’s trauma symptom trajectory. Design: Prospective longitudinal design. Setting: Two tertiary care PICUs in Brisbane, Qld, Australia. Patients: Children 2–16 years old admitted to PICU for longer than 8 hours. Measurements Main Results: Maternal reported child posttraumatic stress symptoms (n = 272) on the Trauma Symptom Checklist for Young Children were used to assess posttraumatic stress symptoms up to 12 months post admission. Semiparametric group-based trajectory analyses were completed to identify patterns over time. Age, gender, length of stay, premorbid functioning, maternal perceived threat to life, and maternal acute distress were assessed as potential risk factors. Three likely trajectory groups were identified. The majority of children were resilient (83.8%); however, a significant minority experienced chronic symptoms (12.9%) or elevated stress symptoms which resolved quickly (3.3%). After controlling for other variables, maternal report of premorbid internalizing behavior significantly predicted both chronic (odds ratio, 6.3) and recovery (odds ratio, 38.0) trajectories. Maternal acute distress significantly predicted child chronic symptom trajectories (odds ratio, 5.2). Conclusions: Children with elevated trauma symptoms postintensive care need timely and effective intervention. The majority of children with high levels of acute symptoms will continue to have chronic, ongoing posttraumatic stress symptoms. In addition, acute maternal distress and preexisting internalizing child behavior predict ongoing psychologic distress after discharge from the PICU. Screening in the acute period post-PICU admission may identify children likely to experience ongoing chronic posttraumatic distress symptoms and enable targeted treatment of children at risk. This is the first study to examine symptom trajectories in children following pediatric intensive care admission and includes a sample of very young children.
High expression of the CKIP-1 gene might promote apoptosis through downregulation of the Ras/ERK signalling pathway in the intestinal type of gastric cancer

Objective To investigate the effect of the casein kinase 2 interacting protein 1 (CKIP-1) on the apoptosis of the intestinal type of gastric cancer (GC). Methods The levels of CKIP-1 protein and the rates of apoptosis were measured in tissue samples of the intestinal type of GC and human GC cell lines. The rate of apoptosis and the protein levels of B cell lymphoma-2 (Bcl-2), Bcl-2 associated X protein (Bax), cleaved cysteinyl aspartate specific protease 3 (cleaved caspase-3), cleaved caspase-9, rat sarcoma (Ras), extracellular signal-regulated kinase 1 and 2 (ERK1/2) and phosphorylated extracellular signal-regulated kinase 1 and 2 (p-ERK1/2) were analysed in SGC7901 cells expressing CKIP-1 short hairpin RNA (shRNA; knockdown) and SGC7901 cells overexpressing CKIP-1. Results The levels of CKIP-1 protein were significantly lower in the intestinal type of GC tissues compared with the samples of intestinal metaplasia. Both the levels of CKIP-1 protein and the levels of apoptosis decreased gradually with decreasing cell differentiation in the intestinal type of GC tissue and cell lines; and they were positively correlated. In the CKIP-1 shRNA group, the rate of apoptosis and the levels of Bax, cleaved caspase-3 and cleaved caspase-9 were decreased; and the levels of Bcl-2, Ras and the ratio of p-ERK/ERK were increased, compared with the control group. Opposite results were observed in the CKIP-1 overexpression group. Conclusion High levels of CKIP-1 protein may promote apoptosis in the intestinal type of GC, possibly via the downregulation of the Ras/ERK signalling pathway.
Treatment of Combined Hepatocellular and Cholangiocarcinoma

Combined hepatocellular and cholangiocarcinoma (HCC-CC) is a rare primary liver cancer. It is constituted by neoplastic cells of both hepatocellular and cholangiocellular derivation. Different histology types of HCC-CC have been reported, hinting at heterogeneous carcinogenic pathways leading to the development of this cancer. Due to its rarity and complexity, mixed HCC-CC is a scantly investigated condition with unmet needs and unsatisfactory outcomes. Surgery remains the preferred treatment in resectable patients. The risk of recurrence, however, is high, especially in comparison with other primary liver cancers such as hepatocellular carcinoma. In unresectable or recurring patients, the therapeutic options are challenging due to the dual nature of the neoplastic cells. Consequently, the odds of survival of patients with HCC-CC remains poor. We analysed the literature systematically about the treatment of mixed HCC-CC, reviewing the main therapeutic options and their outcomes and analysing the most interesting developments in this topic with a focus on new potential therapeutic avenues.
Depressive symptoms among mothers with young children—the role of family migration and social networks in Mexico

Abstract Background Women who remain in migratory sending communities as their family members migrate internationally are at risk for depression. Limited research examines the association between the number of absent household members and a woman’s mental health. Aims This study examines the association between residing in a migrant household and depressive symptoms for women in Mexico while accounting for social networks and social support. Methods Logistic regression analysis was employed using the Social Networks and Health Information Survey (SNHIS) (n = 320), a random household survey conducted in a medium-sized municipality in Guanajuato, Mexico. Results Multivariate results suggest that residing in a household with two or more migrants was associated with increased odds of depressive symptoms, while having immediate kin in the community reduced the odds of depressive symptoms. Social relationships in the community and social support were associated with reduced odds of depressive symptoms. Their inclusion in the models reduced the significance of but did not significantly mediate the association between residing in a household with multiple migrants and depressive symptoms. Conclusions Services aimed at improving women’s health should target women who reside in households with multiple migrants and focus on reducing the stress and mental health impacts associated with these relationships.
Ambulatory Care Organizations: Improving Diagnosis

Author(s): McDonald, Kathryn Mack | Advisor(s): Shortell, Stephen M | Abstract: Ambulatory care comprises a major and increasingly important part of the U.S. and other countries’ health care sectors. Every year in the U.S., about 80% of the population seeks care at a doctor’s office, amounting to one billion visits. These visits divide almost equally between primary care and specialty clinic organizations. Diagnostic work is part of most ambulatory care, and central to over 40% of patient visits that originate due to a new problem or a flare-up of an ongoing chronic problem. Yet, the risks associated with diagnostic failures have not garnered much attention from health care leaders and policy makers until a recent National Academy of Medicine (NAM 2015) report synthesized research data with the statement that “most people will experience at least one diagnostic error in their lifetime, sometimes with devastating consequences. ” This dissertation first reviews organizational theories and measurement challenges relevant to diagnostic safety and quality in the context of ambulatory care, and then presents three papers analyzing specific organizational factors hypothesized to enable or thwart an accurate and timely diagnosis. The first paper targets delayed diagnosis from missed evidence-based monitoring in high-risk conditions (e.g., cancer) within five specialty clinics in an urban publicly funded health system. The second paper analyzes staff-reported office problems that could lead to diagnostic error (e.g., not having test results when needed) in over 900 primary and specialty clinics across the nation. The third paper examines the associations between two types of time pressure (i.e., encounter-level and practice-level), organizational factors, and patient effects including perceptions of missed diagnostic opportunities. The three primary conclusions from this work are 1) organizational vulnerabilities for missed monitoring common to the different clinics included challenges with data systems, communications handoffs, population-level tracking, and patient activities, leading to the development of ‘design seeds’ for context-flexible solutions to improve diagnostic quality; 2) two organizational factors – stage of health information technology (HIT) deployment and patient safety culture are associated with diagnostic-related office problems, and 3) encounter and practice-level time stressors in primary care clinics are associated with perceptions of greater adverse effects on diagnosis and treatment, and worse patients’ experiences of chronic care from the clinic team, respectively, as well as associated with several organizational factors including HIT, patient-centered culture, relational coordination for interdependent teamwork, and leadership facilitation of changes to address frontline practice challenges. Taken together, the dissertation papers also demonstrate the applicability of the NAM Improving Diagnosis Conceptual Framework for research on ambulatory care organizations.
Colorectal Cancer Study with Nanostructured Sensors: Tumor Marker Screening of Patient Biopsies

Despite the great progress in screening techniques and medical treatments, colorectal cancer remains one of the most widespread cancers in both sexes, with a high death rate. In this work, the volatile compounds released from human colon cancer tissues were detected by a set of four different chemoresistive sensors, made with a nanostructured powder of metal-oxide materials, inserted into an innovative patented device. The sensor responses to the exhalation of a primary cancer sample and of a healthy sample (both of the same weight, collected during colorectal surgery from the intestine of the same patient) were statistically analyzed. The sensors gave reversible, reproducible, and fast responses for at least one year of continuous use, making them quite superior in respect to the existing diagnostic methods. Preliminary results obtained using principal component analysis of the sensor responses to samples removed from 13 patients indicate that the nanostructured sensors employed in this study were able to distinguish between healthy and tumor tissue samples with coherent responses (the discrimination power of the most sensitive sensor was about 17%), highlighting a strong potential for clinical practice.
Institutional First 100 Case Experience and Outcomes of Robotic Hepatectomy for Liver Tumors

The nascent robotic approach for hepatic resections is gaining momentum in the United States because it offers solutions to the known limitations of laparoscopic approach. Herein, we report our initial experience and short-term outcomes of the first 100 robotic hepatectomies. With Institutional Review Board approval, all patients undergoing robotic hepatectomy were prospectively followed up. Patient demographics, operative outcomes, complications, and 30-day readmissions were collected and analyzed. Data are presented as median (mean ± SD). One hundred consecutive patients underwent robotic hepatectomy. Patients were aged 62 (63 ± 13.6) years, 66 per cent were women, and BMI was 29 (29 ± 6.4) kg/m2. In all, 76 per cent of the hepatectomies were undertaken for malignancy [metastatic colorectal cancer (28%), hepatocellular carcinoma (21%), and intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (15%)], and 20 per cent for benign lesions; 66 per cent of patients underwent nonanatomical partial hepatectomies, 17 per cent right hepatectomies, 16 per cent left hepatectomies, and 1 per cent trisegmentectomy. Operative time was 233 (268 ± 109.3) minutes, and the estimated blood loss was 123 (269 ± 322.1) mL. Conversion to “open” approach was necessary in one patient. The length of stay was 3 (5 ± 4.6) days. There were no intraoperative complications. Twelve patients experienced postoperative complications. Six patients required readmission to the hospital within 30 days of discharge. Robotic hepatectomy is safe and feasible with favorable short-term outcomes. The robotic system enhances application of minimally invasive surgery for complex hepatobiliary operations.