Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Increased mortality associated with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus ( MRSA ) infection in the ICU : Results from the EPIC II study

Background: Controversy continues regarding whether the presence of methicillin resistance increases mortality risk in Staphylococcus aureus infections. We assessed the role of methicillin resistance on survival of patients with S. aureus infection in the EPIC II study cohort. Methods: The EPIC II point-prevalence study of infection in critically ill patients was performed on May 8, 2007. Demographic, physiological, bacteriological and therapeutic data were collected for 13,796 adult patients in 1,265 participating ICUs from 75 countries on the study day. ICU and hospital outcomes were recorded. We compared characteristics of patients with methicillin-sensitive (MSSA) and methicillin-resistant (MRSA) S. aureus infection. Comorbidities, age, SAPS II score and MRSA/MSSA were entered into a multivariable model and odds ratios (OR)[95% CI] for ICU and hospital mortality rates were calculated. Results: On the study day, 7,087 of the 13,796 patients (51%) were classified as infected. There were 494 patients with MRSA and 505 patients with MSSA infections. There were no significant differences between the two groups in use of mechanical ventilation or hemofiltration/hemodialysis. Cancer and chronic renal failure were more prevalent in MRSA than in MSSA patients. ICU mortality rates were 29.1% and 20.5%, respectively (p<0.01) and corresponding hospital mortality rates were 36.4% and 27.0% (P<0.01). Multivariable analyses of ICU and hospital mortality for MRSA infection showed an OR of 1.39[1.02-1.9], P=0.04 for ICU mortality and 1.37[1.03-1.83], P=0.03 for hospital mortality. Conclusion: In ICU patients, MRSA infection is associated with an almost 40% increase in adjusted ICU and hospital mortality risk compared to MSSA.
Mitochondrial myopathy, encephalopathy, lactic acidosis, and stroke‐like episodes (MELAS)

We studied 40 MELAS patients (21 male and 19 female) to characterize the clinical features and biochemical and muscle biopsy findings related to the mtDNA mutation at the nucleotide position of 3,243, the most common genetic defect in MELAS. The most frequent symptom was episodic sudden headache with vomiting and convulsions, which commonly affected patients aged 5 to 15 years (80%). Biochemical defects in the muscle were variable; 13 patients had complex I, seven complex IV, and four complexes I+IV deficiencies. In four muscle biopsies without ragged-red fibers or any enzyme defect, we based the diagnosis on the identification of strongly SDH-reactive blood vessels, which occurred in 87.5% of the biopsies. The mtDNA mutation was present in 32 of 40 patients (80%). We conclude that there are no clinical and pathologic differences between the patients with and without this mtDNA mutation.
Observations of the Upper Ocean Using a Multi-Beam Doppler Sonar

Abstract : This dissertation presents several different applications of Doppler sonar measurements. Data were collected from four downward-slanting sonars operated on the Research Platform FLIP. The sonars provide profiles of backscattered intensity and slant velocity from approximately 100 m to 1000 m in depth with 20 m depth resolution. A technique to measure the vertically-acting Reynolds stresses, (u'w') ave and (v'w') ave, in the oceanic internal wave field using a multibeam Doppler sonar is presented. The stress measurement technique is applied to the Doppler velocity data collected during the experiment. The principal result is a lack of observed Reynolds stresses in the high vertical wavenumber, high frequency internal wave band which can be considered significantly different from zero, despite the use of a scale separation which is more restrictive than that of previous investigators, and the consideration of stresses on several different time scales. A characterization of the diurnal migration patterns of acoustic scattering layers based on the Doppler sonar measurements is presented. The effects of the diurnal migration of scatters are evident in both backscattered intensity and Doppler velocity, and two measurements provide complementary methods of analysis. The principal result is the observation of three distinct scattering layers whose patterns of vertical migration show a high degree of persistence in both space and time.
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Validity and Reliability of Persian Version of the 12-Item Expectations Regarding Aging Survey

Objective:The present study was designed to assess the construct validity and reliability of the Persian version of the 12-item Expectations Regarding Aging (ERA) survey among the older adult Iranian population. Methods: The Persian version of this scale was developed using translation and revision in the current study. The construct validity was assessed through exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The reliability was assessed through internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha and McDonald’s omega), composite reliability (CR), and maximal reliability (MaXR). The data compiled online was based on a sample of 400 older adults aged 65 years and older. Results: The Persian version includes 12 items loading onto three factors with 12 items explaining 46.633% of the total variance with excellent internal consistency and reliability. Conclusion: The Persian version of ERA is reliable and valid that can be used to assess the ERA concept among older adults.
Differentiation of Embryonic Stem Cells into Cardiomyocytes in a Microfluidic System

The MIT Faculty has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters. Abstract The differentiation process of murine embryonic stem cells into cardiomyocytes was investigated with a compliant microfluidic platform which allows for versatile cell seeding arrangements, optical observation access, long term cell viability, and programmable uniaxial cyclic stretch. Specifically, two environmental cues were examined with this platform – culture dimensions and uniaxial cyclic stretch. First, the cardiomyogenic differentiation process, assessed by a GFP reporter driven by the α-MHC promoter, was enhanced in microfluidic devices compared with conventional well-plates. The addition of BMP-2 neutralizing antibody reduced the enhancement observed in the microfluidic devices and the addition of exogenous BMP-2 augmented the cardiomyogenic differentiation in well plates. Second, 24 hours of uniaxial cyclic stretch at 1Hz and 10% strain on day 9 of differentiation was found to have a negative impact on cardiomyogenic differentiation. This microfluidic platform builds upon an existing design and extends its capability to test cellular responses to mechanical strain. It provides capabilities not found in other systems for studying differentiation, such as seeding embryoid bodies in 2D or 3D in combination with cyclic strain. This study demonstrates that the microfluidic system contributes to enhanced cardiomyogenic differentiation and may be a superior platform compared with conventional well plates. In addition to studying the effect of cyclic stretch on cardiomyogenic differentiation, this compliant platform can also be applied to investigate other biological mechanisms.
Stereotactic Radiosurgery and Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy Effective : March 1 , 2018

PLEASE NOTE: Contracts exclude from coverage, among other things, services or procedures that are considered investigational or cosmetic. Providers may bill members for services or procedures that are considered investigational or cosmetic. Providers are encouraged to inform members before rendering such services that the members are likely to be financially responsible for the cost of these services.
Development and characterization of a polyclonal antiserum‐based radioimmunoassay for dog osteocalcin

Determination of the serum concentration of the protein osteocalcin (OC) is useful for the noninvasive evaluation of bone metabolism. Because the dog is an excellent experimental model for the study of bone, we produced and characterized a polyclonal antiserum specific for dog OC and used it to develop a radioimmunoassay (RIA) for the measurement of the concentration of this protein in dog serum. The antiserum expresses higher affinity for Ca2+‐bound than for Ca2+‐free OC (B50 at 10−5 versus 2 × 10−4 dilution). Also, in the presence of Ca2+ affinity is higher for the carboxylated than for the decarboxylated form of the protein, and under Ca2+‐free conditions the affinity is equal for the two forms. The study of peptide fragments of OC demonstrates competitive binding of the peptide comprising amino acids 20–44 but not of other fragments; this suggests that the antigenic epitope of dog OC is located in the midmolecular region of the protein. The RIA displays excellent sensitivity for the measurement of OC in blood (detection limit 0.31 ng/ml), with intraassay and interassay variations of 4.6 and 6.8%, respectively. Analysis of gel chromatography fractions of normal dog serum shows that greater than 90% of the antigenic material coelutes with purified radiolabeled dog OC. Test of parallelism reveals lack of interference of serum constituents with the binding assay. The antiserum displays limited species specificity since it cross‐reacts with human OC, but not with the protein from rodents. Consistent with previous observations in other in vivo models, the serum concentration of OC in experimental dogs is decreased significantly 7–10 days after thyroparathyroidectomy and it is unchanged 1 month following ovariohysterectomy.
Size-Dependent Strain Gradient-Based Thermoelastic Damping in Micro-Beams Utilizing a Generalized Thermoelasticity Theory

The small-scale effects on the thermoelastic damping (TED) in Euler–Bernoulli micro-beams is investigated in this study. To this purpose, by utilizing the strain gradient theory (SGT) and the dual-phase-lag (DPL) heat conduction model, the coupled equations of motion and heat conduction are derived. By solving these equations simultaneously and using the Galerkin method, the real and imaginary parts of the frequency and the amount of TED in thin micro-beams are obtained. The results predicted by SGT are compared with those given by the modified couple stress theory (MCST) and the classical continuum theory. In addition, TED is calculated on the basis of energy dissipation approach which shows that the difference between the obtained results and those evaluated based on the frequency approach is negligible. Some numerical results are also presented in order to study the effects of different parameters of the micro-beams as well as the type of the boundary conditions on TED and the critical thickness; these parameters include the micro-beam height, its aspect ratio and type of the material.
Multiscale Modeling of Metabolism and Macromolecular Synthesis in E. coli and Its Application to the Evolution of Codon Usage

Biological systems are inherently hierarchal and multiscale in time and space. A major challenge of systems biology is to describe biological systems as a computational model, which can be used to derive novel hypothesis and drive experiments leading to new knowledge. The constraint-based reconstruction and analysis approach has been successfully applied to metabolism and to the macromolecular synthesis machinery assembly. Here, we present the first integrated stoichiometric multiscale model of metabolism and macromolecular synthesis for Escherichia coli K12 MG1655, which describes the sequence-specific synthesis and function of almost 2000 gene products at molecular detail. We added linear constraints, which couple enzyme synthesis and catalysis reactions. Comparison with experimental data showed improvement of growth phenotype prediction with the multiscale model over E. coli’s metabolic model alone. Many of the genes covered by this integrated model are well conserved across enterobacters and other, less related bacteria. We addressed the question of whether the bias in synonymous codon usage could affect the growth phenotype and environmental niches that an organism can occupy. We created two classes of in silico strains, one with more biased codon usage and one with more equilibrated codon usage than the wildtype. The reduced growth phenotype in biased strains was caused by tRNA supply shortage, indicating that expansion of tRNA gene content or tRNA codon recognition allow E. coli to respond to changes in codon usage bias. Our analysis suggests that in order to maximize growth and to adapt to new environmental niches, codon usage and tRNA content must co-evolve. These results provide further evidence for the mutation-selection-drift balance theory of codon usage bias. This integrated multiscale reconstruction successfully demonstrates that the constraint-based modeling approach is well suited to whole-cell modeling endeavors.
Variations in the management of fibromyalgia by physician specialty: rheumatology versus primary care

Purpose To evaluate the effect of physician specialty regarding diagnosis and treatment of fibromyalgia (FM) and assess the clinical status of patients initiating new treatment for FM using data from Real-World Examination of Fibromyalgia: Longitudinal Evaluation of Costs and Treatments. Patients and methods Outpatients from 58 sites in the United States were enrolled. Data were collected via in-office surveys and telephone interviews. Pairwise comparisons by specialty were made using chi-square, Fisher’s exact tests, and Student’s t-tests. Results Physician specialist cohorts included rheumatologists (n=54), primary care physicians (n=25), and a heterogeneous group of physicians practicing pain or physical medicine, psychiatry, neurology, obstetrics and gynecology, osteopathy, or an unspecified specialty (n=12). The rheumatologists expressed higher confidence diagnosing FM (4.5 on a five-point scale) than primary care physicians (4.1) (P=0.037). All cohorts strongly agreed that recognizing FM is their responsibility. They agreed that psychological aspects of FM are important, but disagreed that symptoms are psychosomatic. All physician cohorts agreed with a multidisciplinary approach including nonpharmacological and pharmacological treatments, although physicians were more confident prescribing medications than alternative therapies. Most patients reported moderate to severe pain, multiple comorbidities, and treatment with several medications and nonpharmacologic therapies. Conclusion Physician practice characteristics, physician attitudes, and FM patient profiles were broadly similar across specialties. The small but significant differences reported by physicians and patients across physician cohorts suggest that despite published guidelines, treatment of FM still contains important variance across specialties.
Structural time series modelling of the number of fatalities in Poland in relation to economic factors

Comparing with other European countries Poland’s traffic fatality risk rates still remain on very high levels. These last years the numbers of fatalities were around 3500 and the mortality rate reached about 9 killed per 100,000 population, which places Poland in a very bad position in Europe. This situation shows a strong need of intensified systemic and preventive work, which also prevails in the field of road safety analysis. The objective of this paper is to describe models that have been developed for analysing the short term changes in the aggregate number of fatalities in Poland, measured on a monthly basis between 1998 and 2012. The models account for the influence of economic conditions on the level of road mortality.
On the exponent of Bogomolov multipliers

Abstract We prove that if G is a finite group, then the exponent of its Bogomolov multiplier divides the exponent of G in the following four cases: (i) G is metabelian, (ii) exp⁡G=4{\exp G=4}, (iii) G is nilpotent of class ≤5{\leq 5}, or (iv) G is a 4-Engel group.
Antimicrobial Activity, Cytotoxicity and Phytochemical Analysis of Sanguinaria canadensis Native to South Dakota

A methanolic extract of Sanguinaria canadensis rhizome contains a mixture of benzophenanthridine alkaloids with the major component sanguinarine. American Indians used this rhizome in the treatment of rheumatism, asthma, bronchitis, lung ailments, fever, and warts. Lethal diarrhea in neonatal and post-weaned pigs due to enterotoxigenic Escherchia coli (ETEC) is a major problem among the swine producers of South Dakota region. The increasing resistance of ETEC towards synthetic antibiotics is a matter of concern. Our aims in this study were I) to determine the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of methanol extract of S. canadensis against ETEC II) to evaluate the cytotoxicity activity against porcine intestinal epithelial cell lines and III) to quantify the amount of sanguinarine in the rhizome of S. canadensis native to South Dakota. The MIC value was found to be 6.25 mg/mL against ETEC whereas the 100% inhibition of IPEC-J2 cells was found to be at 0.312 mg/mL. The total amount of alkaloids in this plant was found to be 1247 mg in 100 gm of fresh plant material whereas the amount of sangunarine was 559.64 mg in 100 gm of fresh plant material. The percentage of sangunarine in fresh plant material was 0.55% and in total alkaloid is 44.8%. Our results showed that S. canadensis has antibacterial effect against E. coli but it is toxic to IPECJ2 cells in vitro. It is important to carry out an in vivo animal study to confirm its further use as feed supplements.
Air-sea carbon fluxes and their controlling factors in the Prydz Bay in the Antarctic

The Prydz Bay in the Antarctic is an important area in the Southern Ocean due to its unique geographic feature.It plays an important role in the carbon cycle in the Southern Ocean.To investigate the distributions of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and surface seawater and its air-sea exchange rates in this region,the Chinese National Antarctic Research Expedition(CHINARE)had set up several sections in the Prydz Bay.Here we present the results from the CHINARE—XVI cruises were presented onboard R/V Xuelong from November 1999 to April 2000 and the main driving forces were discussed controlling the distributions of partial pressure of carbon dioxide.According to the partial pressure of carbon dioxide distributions,the Prydz Bay can be divided into the inside and outside regions.The partial pressure of carbon dioxide was low in the inside region but higher in the outside region during the measurement period.This distribution had a good negative correlation with the concentrations of chlorophyll-a in general,suggesting that the partial pressure of carbon dioxide was substantially affected by biological production.The results also indicate that the biological production is most likely the main driving force in the marginal ice zone in the Southern Ocean in summer.However,in the Antarctic divergence sector of the Prydz Bay(about 64°S),the hydrological processes become the controlling factor as the sea surface partial pressure of carbon dioxide is much higher than the atmospheric one due to the upwelling of the high DIC CDW,and this made the outside of Prydz Bay a source of carbon dioxide.On the basis of the calculations,the CO2 flux in January(austral summer)was-3.23 mmol/(m2·d)in the inner part of Prydz Bay,i.e.,a sink of atmospheric CO2,and was 0.62 mmol/(m2·d)in the outside part of the bay,a weak source of atmospheric CO2.The average air-sea flux of CO2 in the Prydz Bay was 2.50 mmol/(m2·d).
A Model for Geodatabase Organization for Purposes of Large-scale Mapping of Land-Use Conflicts

Clarifying of geoecological aspects of nature use is one of the most important criteria for sustainable development assessment of the territory. This is a comparatively new trend in nature sciences. The report represents a model for organization of geodatabase for purposes of large-scale mapping of land-use conflicts for mapping level of the land of settlement. The required information sources included topographic and thematic maps, aerial photographs and satellite images and department databases, for completion of necessary attributive information are described. Two groups of parameters are usually represented on the maps of conflict-situations in land-use: the sources of the conflicts and the affected objects. The proposed data organization is based on 12 classification indicators of the conflicts of land-use in personal geodatabase. Each class includes specific information such as conflict source, affected object conformity with the land use categories, arising of the conflict, manifestation, development duration, conflict development stages, development trends, degree of the conflict’s impact, shape of the layout contours, border character, conflict groups, available undertaken measures for solving the conflicts. It is foreseen to be made relationships with external attributive information (files and tables). Information for all these main parameters of the conflicts, which are necessary to develop plans for land-use management and also for landscape-ecological plans, is difficult to be represented on single map. It is suggested to compose two maps inventory and analytic. The first one represents the localization of the concrete conflict sources and the conflict areas according to the source. The second map represents areas with typical combinations of the conflicts, different development tendencies, conflict duration, conflicts’ shape of layout contours, border character, degree of conflict’s impact, and conflict groups. The producing of such type of maps is necessary to be integrated in the map system in landscape-ecological planning of the territory. The proposed model for geodatabase organization for purposes of large-scale mapping is approbated for the land of the town of Novi Iskur, Sofia Municipality. The developed geodatabase serves as a main source of information for preparing suggestions for removal or mitigation their influence.