Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Ecotoxicology of oil derived pollutants in urban receiving waters

The Silk Stream in north London is one of two principal surface feeders into the Welsh Harp reservoir. The reservoir represents an important amenity and recreational site and is internationally recognized for its wintering wildfowl. However, the larger part of the catchment area lies within a highly urbanized zone and is therefore subjected to a variety of point and non-point pollution sources rendering the ecological balance considerably more delicate than corresponding rural areas. The construction of a litter screen and oil boom on the lowest reaches of the Silk Stream has highlighted the particular problem of oil inputs from urban runoff. In order to assess the ecotoxicological damage resulting from hydrocarbon pollution in the Silk Stream and at the receiving basin, two common, physiologically contrasting macroinvertebrates, Asellus aquaticus and Lymnaea peregra were used as caged biomonitors. Both organisms were found to be bioaccumulators of hydrocarbons when transferred from rural sites to the caged urban sites although tissue levels were substantially lower at the receiving basin site. Elevated mortality rates of both organisms were also observed at the three stream sites indicating the considerable recovery that occurs at the receiving basin. Hydrocarbon tissue concentrations were found to mirror those of the surrounding sediments in which the combustion derived compounds, fluoranthene and pyrene, were consistently the most abundant polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). The alkane profiles were generally unimodal, peaking in the C20-C23 range. Inputs of biogenically derived hydrocarbons and of lubricating oils were also identified in the abiotic environment as well as in the organism tissues. The application of Principal Component Analysis revealed an association between a lubricating hydrocarbon source and mortality in L. peregra at two sites and with A. aquaticus at one site. Links between mortality and rainfall were also established at the Silk Stream for L. peregra and to a lesser extent for A. aquaticus. Neither hydrocarbon tissue burdens nor rainfall were linked to the low mortalities at the receiving basin. Laboratory toxicity tests showed that both organisms accumulate and depurate hydrocarbons rapidly and that lower mortalities were attained for similar tissue burdens compared with the field results. The depuration patterns indicated that a substantial proportion of the measured hydrocarbons were in non-assimilated forms.
Effects of pelvic floor muscle exercise on faecal incontinence in rectal cancer patients after stoma closure

Y. -H. LIN, RN, PHD, PROFESSOR, Department of Nursing, I-Shou University, Kaohsiung, H. -Y. YANG, RN, PHD, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, Department of Nursing, Mackay Medical College, Taipei, S. -L. HUNG, RN, PHD, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, Department of Nursing, National Tainan Junior College of Nursing, Tainan, H. -P. CHEN, BSC, PHYSICIAN, Division of Colon and Rectal Surgery, Department of Surgery, E-DA Hospital, Kaohsiung, K. -W. LIU, BSC, PHYSICIAN, Division of Colon and Rectal Surgery, Department of Surgery, E-DA Hospital, Kaohsiung, T. -B. CHEN, PHD, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, Department of Medical Imaging and Radiological Science, I-Shou University, Kaohsiung, & S. -C. CHI, RN, MSN, DEAN, Nursing Department, E-DA Hospital, Kaohsiung, Taiwan
The efficacy and safety of lixisenatide in a predominantly Asian population with type 2 diabetes insufficiently controlled with basal insulin : the GetGoal-LC randomized trial

China–Japan Friendship Hospital, Beijing, China Eulji General Hospital, Seoul, Korea The Second Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, Changsha, Hunan Province, China Shengjing Hospital of China Medical University, Shenyang, Liaoning Province, China Fuzhou General Hospital, Fuzhou, China Nanjing Gulou Hospital, Nanjing, China MaxCure Hospital, Hyderabad, Telangana, India Cauvery Medical Centre, Sahakaranagar, Bengaluru, India Sanofi, Shanghai, China Diabetes Division, Sanofi, Frankfurt, Germany Corresponding author: Professor Wenying Yang Department of Endocrinology China–Japan Friendship Hospital Beijing 100029 China Tel: 0086-10-84205664 Email: ywying_1010@163.com
Effect of an experimental zirconia-silica coating technique on micro tensile bond strength of zirconia in different priming conditions

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Clinical/scientific Notes Supplemental Data at Neurology.org/nn Sleep Disorder, Chorea, and Dementia Associated with Iglon5 Antibodies

A novel syndrome characterized by a distinctive sleep disorder accompanied by variable symptoms of brain-stem involvement and a highly restricted haplotype was recently described in association with antibodies to a neuronal cell adhesion protein named IgLON5. Because of the symptoms and chronic disease progression , most of these patients are primarily seen by specialists in sleep and neurodegenerative disorders. Since the initial description of this encephalopathy in 2014, only 1 additional patient has been reported. 1 In order to improve clinical recognition we report a new patient who presented with the characteristic sleep dysfunction and subsequently developed chorea. Case report. A 71-year-old right-handed woman was referred for evaluation of chorea. She had been well until 6 years earlier, when she presented with abnormal movements and behavior during sleep. These ranged from simple to complex movements (threading a needle, salting food, dabbing perfume) and were associated with vocalizations, " snoring, " and excessive daytime sleepiness. A polysomnogram (PSG) without video recording detected obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). Treatment with continuous positive airway pressure mask was started, but the nocturnal abnormal movements and behaviors persisted. One year after symptom onset, she developed chorea, progressive memory loss, depression, and mild gait imbalance. An initial neurologic consultation suggested the diagnosis of Huntington chorea, and she was treated with haloperidol, which improved the abnormal movements. On neurologic examination she scored 20 points on the Mini-Mental State Examination. Neuropsychological testing showed impaired executive function (planning, verbal fluency), visuospatial function (clock drawing, Rey Complex Figure Test), and episodic memory (Wechsler Memory Scale-Revised and Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test). She had restricted upward voluntary gaze and mildly ataxic gait; the chorea predominated in the head and face (video at Neurology.org/nn) and was accompanied by mild motor impersistence and hypotonia. The remainder of the neurologic examination was normal. Laryngoscopy showed no vocal cord paresis. Brain MRI was normal and repeat CSF examinations showed mild pleocytosis (ranging from 5 to 9 cells per mm 3) and increased protein concentration (ranging from 56 to 62 mg/dL); oligoclonal bands were absent. Testing for antibodies against cell surface proteins showed IgG4 antibodies against IgLON5 in serum (titer 1:2,560) and CSF (1:64) using an immu-nofluorescence cell-based assay with human embry-onic kidney cells expressing IgLON5, as reported. 2 The human leukocyte antigen (HLA) haplotype was HLA-DRB1*1001 and HLA-DQB1*0501. In a nocturnal video-PSG (under treatment with haloper-idol), sleep efficiency was approximately 62% (normal . 75%). There were …
Food variety, dietary diversity, and type 2 diabetes in a multi‐center cross‐sectional study among Ghanaian migrants in Europe and their compatriots in Ghana: the RODAM study

K; Addo, J; Aikins, AD; Amoah, SK; Agyei-Baffour, P; Boateng, D; Bedu-Addo, G; Spranger, J; Smeeth, L; Owusu-Dabo, E; Agyemang, C; Mockenhaupt, FP; Beune, E; Schulze, MB (2017) Food variety, dietary diversity, and type 2 diabetes in a multi-center cross-sectional study among Ghanaian migrants in Europe and their compatriots in Ghana: the RODAM study. European journal of nutrition. ISSN 1436-6207 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00394-017-1538-4
for published version

T HIS research examines the impact of stereotypical expectations on older people’s cognitive performance. establish of which either stereotypically disadvantaged or advantaged relative to younger people. Study 2 was an experiment to test how a potentially threatening versus control versus enhancing comparison with younger people would affect performance in negatively and positively stereotyped task domains. Results. As predicted, compared with the control condition, stereotype threat caused performance decrements in both task domains. This effect was partially mediated by anxiety. Moreover, the enhancing social comparison boosted performance, but only on a crossword task, a task on which older people’s abilities are favorably stereotyped. Discussion. The research demonstrates that a threatening comparison can result in underperformance by older people both in negatively and positively self-stereotyped task domains. It also demonstrates that social comparison with younger people can enhance older people’s performance in a positively stereotyped task domain. The implications for creating circumstances likely to enable older people to achieve their full potential are discussed.
Adhésion, délamination et compaction de plaques minces

Nous avons etudie dans cette these des exemples de grandes deflexions de plaques minces soumises a diverses sollicitations (gravite, capillarite, geometrique), allant en termes d'echelle de cloques de delamination de graphene a l'emboutissage, en utilisant des experiences modeles macroscopiques et une analyse par des modeles analytiques ou en lois d'echelle. Le fil conducteur qui relie ces differents exemples est l'effet du changement de courbure de Gauss et ses consequences mecaniques sur les deformations des plaques minces. Dans une premiere partie, nous avons rappele la modelisation et les caracteristiques des plaques minces que nous avons illustrees au moyen de deux problemes modeles. Nous nous sommes interesses aux cloques de delamination qui apparaissent lorsqu'une plaque mince adhere partiellement sur un substrat plan. Nous avons montre quelles informations peuvent etre deduites de ces cloques pour faire de la metrologie. Nous avons decrit ensuite les principales caracteristiques du contact entre une plaque mince et une sphere adhesive, a savoir la taille de la zone de contact et l'aspect general du motif. Enfin, nous avons etudie la compaction d'une plaque entre deux calottes spheriques, qui conduit a l'apparition de plis radiaux dont nous avons explique les caracteristiques et modelise la reponse mecanique.
Different doses of steroid injection in elderly patients with carpal tunnel syndrome: a triple-blind, randomized, controlled trial

Background: Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) is commonly seen in elderly populations, in part due to increased presence of predisposing comorbidities as well as physiological changes. We aimed at comparing the effectiveness of different doses of steroid using the ultrasound-guided hydrodissection method in elderly patients with CTS. Methods: We conducted a prospective, triple-blind, randomized, controlled trial in elderly patients with CTS. Patients were allocated to one of three groups by simplified randomization. Groups I–III received 80 mg triamcinolone (2 mL) and 1 mL of 2% lidocaine; 40 mg triamcinolone (1 mL), 1 mL of 2% lidocaine, and 1 mL normal saline; and 1 mL of 2% lidocaine and 2 mL normal saline, respectively to make up to 3 mL volume. A wrist splint was then applied for support. Outcome measures included the visual analog scale (VAS) and the Boston Carpal Tunnel Questionnaire, and median motor and sensory nerve conduction and its sonographic inlet cross-sectional area were used as objective measures. All data were recorded at baseline and 2, 12, and 24 weeks after injection. The investigators, patients, and statistician were blinded to the treatment assignment. Results: In total, 161 patients were recruited without statistically significant demographic differences between the three groups. There were no statistically significant differences between groups in any outcome, with the exception of the median distal motor latency, which was greater in Group II at all three follow-up visits, and significant baseline VAS difference between Groups I and III. Conclusion: Hydrodissection with lidocaine and normal saline is as effective as hydrodissection with low- and high-dose steroid medication in elderly patients with CTS in this study, but further studies with matched baseline measures and also a sham group are suggested for definitive recommendation.
Flume Experiments on Alternate Bar Formation

A SERIES OF LABORATORY EXPERIMENTS WERE PERFORMED TO DETERMINE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN ALTERNATE BAR GEOMETRY, BED MATERIAL PROPERTIES AND HYDRAULIC PARAMETERS. THE EXPERIMENTS WERE CONDUCTED IN A RECIRCULATING LABORATORY FLUME 100 FT. LONG AND 3 FT. WIDE. THE FLUME HAD SMOOTH RIGID WALLS AND A MOVABLE BED. SAND, EXPANDED CLAY AGGREGATE AND PLASTIC PELLETS WERE USED AS BED MATERIALS. A LINEAR RELATIONSHIP EXISTED BETWEEN THE LOGARITHM OF THE DIMENSIONLESS PARAMETER DELTA S/D AND THE FROUDE NUMBER, WHERE DELTA IS THE MEANDERING WAVE LENGTH, S IS THE SLOPE AND D IS THE MEAN DEPTH. /ASCE/
Recent Advances in Biology and Medicine

Histopathological studies of the effects of chloroform and methanolic leaf extracts of Ilex kudingcha in Trypanosoma brucei infected albino wistar rats were investigated. The toxicity and phytochemical study were also carried out using standard protocol. T. brucei infected animals were administered orally with 200 and 400 mg/kg b.w. of the extracts and 3.5 mg/kg b.w. of the standard drug (diminazene aceturate). Results on acute toxicity studies (LD50) revealed no sign of lethality up to the dose of 5,000 mg/kg body weight but the liver and kidney histology of infected animals treated with 5,000 mg/kg b.w. of I. kudingcha extracts were observed to be hepatotoxic and nephrotoxic. The methanol extracts showed appreciably high in vivo anti-trypanosomal activities compared to the reference drug. Histological examination of the organs revealed serious pathological lesions in the liver of the infected animals without treatment (negative control). In the positive control animals (infected animals administered standard drug), mild multifocal aggregate of inflammatory leucocytes was observed. In the other experimental animals, no pathological lesion was observed in the liver, kidney, brain, and heart of infected animals treated with the methanolic extract and combined methanol and chloroform extracts. The effectiveness of the methanolic extract at reducing the lesions caused by the parasite is the same compared with the standard drug. Phytochemical analysis of the plant extracts showed that methanol extract contained appreciable high levels of alkaloids, saponin, tannins, phenol, and glycoside while flavonoid was not detected. Hence, the curative properties of methanolic extract of I. kudingcha as observed in the organs indicate its anti-trypanosomal properties but it should be consumed at minimal doses.
Recent Advances in Biology and Medicine

Crocin (a water-soluble carotenoid) is the most abundant antioxidant among active constituents of Crocus sativus. Crocin has protective effects on brain, skeletal muscle, and kidney ischemia-reperfusion injury models via its antioxidant properties. The protective and anti-inflammatory effect of crocin against L-methionine-induced hyperhomocysteinemia (HHcy) in rats was evaluated. Thirty male albino rats were divided into three equal groups. Group I (control normal): rats fed ordinary diet without any treatment. Group II (L-methionine-induced HHcy): rats received L-methionine (1.7 g/kg body weight/day) orally for 8 weeks continuously. Group III (HHcy 1 crocin): rats received crocin in dose (50 mg/kg body weight/day, I.P.) for 4 weeks after induction of HHcy. The results obtained showed a significant increase in serum Hcy concentration and upregulation of NF-kβ gene expression in liver tissue and also in the gene expression level of TIMP-1, MMp-9, MCP-1, Caspase-3, and PPARα in heart tissues with significant downregulation of serum miRNA188 gene expression level in hyperhomocysteinemic (HHcy) rats. However, crocin treatment to HHcy induced in rats significantly improved all previous indicators to its normal ranges. The histopathological findings revealed that crocin treatment markedly reduced the HHcy-induced pathological changes and displayed marked improvement with normal histological architecture of the heart and brain tissues. These results suggested that crocin had a potentially ameliorating role with powerful anti-inflammatory and anti-apoptotic effects on cardiac tissue, as revealed by suppression of proinflammatory mediators and secretion through inhibition of NF-kB signaling pathways, which may lead to upregulated miR-188 gene expression, suppress proapoptotic Caspase-3, and may protect from heart tissue injury against HHcy.
Single cell transcriptomes reveal characteristics of miRNA in gene expression noise reduction

Isogenic cells growing in identical environments show cell-to-cell variations because of stochastic gene expression. The high level of variation or noise could disrupt robust gene expression and result in tremendous consequences on cell behaviors. In this work, we showed evidence that microRNAs (miRNAs) could reduce gene expression noise in mRNA level of mouse cells based on single-cell RNA-sequencing data analysis. We identified that miRNA expression level, number of targets, targets pool abundance and interaction strength of miRNA with its targets are the key features contributing to noise repression. MiRNAs tend to work together as cooperative sub-networks to repress target noise synergistically in a cell type specific manner. Using a physical model of post-transcriptional regulation, we demonstrated that the accelerated degradation with elevated transcriptional activation of miRNA target provides resistance to extrinsic fluctuations. Together, through the integration analysis of single-cell RNA and miRNA expression profiles. We demonstrated that miRNAs are important post-transcriptional regulators for reducing gene expression noise and conferring robustness to biological processes.
Distributed Texture-based Terrain Synthesis

Terrain synthesis is an important field of Computer Graphics that deals with the generation of 3D landscape models for use in virtual environments. The field has evolved to a stage where large and even infinite landscapes can be generated in realtime. However, user control of the generation process is still minimal, as well as the creation of virtual landscapes that mimic real terrain. This thesis investigates the use of texture synthesis techniques on real landscapes to improve realism and the use of sketch-based interfaces to enable intuitive user control. We present a patch-based terrain synthesis framework constrained by user-specified curvilinear features such as ridges and valleys. The framework copies patches of a Digital Elevation model from a real landscape onto the output terrain such that the output contains the curvilinear features specified by the user and exhibit the characteristics of the real landscape. A user specifies where terrain features appear in the generated terrain by providing a 2D sketch map or drawing 212D sketched curves in the sketching interface. Features are automatically extracted from the user constraints and a real landscape, and a patch-based texture synthesis guided by these features produces a realistic terrain that fits the user constraints. A novel patch merging technique is proposed to remove boundary artifacts created by overlapping patches. We show that terrains generated by our system are more realistic than current state-of-the-art terrain synthesis methods. We also present two GPU acceleration techniques and show that these parallel implementations accelerate the matching process by 6 to 30 times. We conclude that texture-based terrain synthesis provides an excellent solution to user control and realism challenges of virtual landscape generation.
Factors associated with a prolonged length of stay after acute exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (aeCOPD)

Background: Early identification of patients with a prolonged stay due to acute exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) may reduce risk of adverse event and treatment costs. This study aimed to identify predictors of prolonged stay after acute exacerbation of COPD based on variables on admission; the study also looked to establish a prediction model for length of stay (LOS). Methods: We extracted demographic and clinical data from the medical records of 599 patients discharged after an acute exacerbation of COPD between March 2006 and December 2008 at Oslo University Hospital, Aker. We used logistic regression analyses to assess predictors of a length of stay above the 75th percentile and assessed the area under the receiving operating characteristic curve to evaluate the model’s performance. Results: We included 590 patients (54% women) aged 73.2 ± 10.8 years (mean ± standard deviation) in the analyses. Median LOS was 6.0 days (interquartile range [IQR] 3.5–11.0). In multivariate analysis, admission between Thursday and Saturday (odds ratio [OR] 2.24 [95% CI 1.60–3.51], P , 0.001), heart failure (OR 2.26, 95% CI 1.34–3.80), diabetes (OR 1.90, 95% CI 1.07–3.37), stroke (OR 1.83, 95% CI 1.04–3.21), high arterial PCO 2 (OR 1.26 [95% CI 1.13–1.41], P , 0.001), and low serum albumin level (OR 0.92 [95% CI 0.87–0.97], P = 0.001) were associated with a LOS . 11 days. The statistical model had an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.73. Conclusion: Admission between Thursday and Saturday, heart failure, diabetes, stroke, high arterial PCO 2 , and low serum albumin level were associated with a prolonged LOS. These findings may help physicians to identify patients that will need a prolonged LOS in the early stages of admission. However, the predictive model exhibited suboptimal performance and hence is not ready for clinical use.
Population and Poverty in the Developing World

The increasing gap between developed and developing world will be one of the most important themes of the 21st century. The contributions contained in this volume take a multidisciplinary approach to the problem, offering a comprehensive review of the theoretical issues and empirical findings that relate to the complex and multidirectional link between poverty and demographic behaviours and outcomes in the contemporary developing world. The starting point of the volume is an exact definition of poverty. The contributors go on to analyse in the detail its causes and effects, both at the micro and macro level, concentrating on those factors and consequences which relate more directly to the demographic sphere. Population growth, household structure and labour, fertility, AIDS, urbanization, migration, and mortality are amongst the areas covered, with the major themes discussed and elaborated in an introductory overview chapter.