Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Survey of 400 Cases of Cerebral Palsy in Childhood

In recent years cerebral palsy, a previously neglected subject, has attracted much attention, at first in the U.S.A. and, more recently, in this country. In many districts plans are being made for the treatment and education of affected children. Before such plans can be effective we need to know how many children with cerebral palsy are to be expected in any community, and what will be the nature of their physical and mental handicap. Hitherto information of this nature has been scanty, and estimates of the incidence of cerebral palsy have been based on the numbers found in institutions, those presenting for treatment at special centres, or cases detected during routine school medical inspections. In making this survey of cerebral palsy among children in Birmingham and the neighbouring counties (Warwickshire, Staffordshire, and Worcestershire) our aim was to locate and examine every case in the area. We did not achieve this aim for, at the time of writing (October, 1949) there are 131 cases awaiting examination, and doubtless there are many others as yet unknown to us, especially among very young children. Still, we believe that we are now in a position to make a rough estimate of the incidence of cerebral palsy, at least in certain towns covered by our survey. Moreover, our sample, though not yet complete, we believe to be representative. We made every effort to see every case reported by general practitioners, specialists, school medical officers, welfare officers, school teachers and by the parents themselves; we searched mental defective institutions, special schools, and hospitals for cases we might otherwise have missed. We have seen every type of case, from the hopeless quadriplegic ament, bedridden in an institution, to the mildest hemiplegic or paraplegic attending a normal school. The physical and mental examination of these children has enabled us to estimate the relative incidence of the different types of cerebral palsy, and to assess the physical and mental handicap suffered by these children. Finally, our results enable us to make certain observations on the aetiology of cerebral palsy.
Extracellular adenosine 5′‐triphosphate elicits the expression of brain‐derived neurotrophic factor exon IV mRNA in rat astrocytes

A growing body of recent evidence indicates that ATP plays an important role in neuronal–glial communications. In this study, the authors demonstrated that extracellular ATP elicits the gene expression of brain‐derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), especially BDNF exon IV mRNA, in primary cultured rat cortical astrocytes but not in neurons. To investigate the mechanism by which ATP induces BDNF exon IV mRNA expression, the authors used immortalized astrocyte cell line RCG‐12. ATP dose‐dependently increased the expression of BDNF exon IV mRNA and activated BDNF promoter IV. P2Y receptor agonists (ADP and 2MeS‐ADP) but not a P2X receptor agonist (αβMeATP) induced the expression of BDNF exon IV mRNA. Moreover, ATP‐induced BDNF exon IV mRNA upregulation was inhibited by a P2Y antagonist (MRS2179) but not by P2X antagonists (TNP‐ATP and PPADS). These findings suggest the involvement of P2Y receptors in the ATP‐induced transcription of the BDNF gene. Among the signal transduction inhibiters examined in this study, intracellular Ca2+ chelator (BAPTA‐AM) and Ca2+/calmodulin‐dependent kinase (CaM kinase) inhibitors (KN‐93 and W‐7) attenuated ATP‐induced BDNF exon IV mRNA upregulation. ATP transiently induced the phosphorylation of cAMP‐responsive element‐binding protein (CREB). ATP‐induced CREB phosphorylation was repressed by P2Y antagonists, BAPTA‐AM, and CaM kinase inhibitors. Overexpression of dominant negative CREB mutants reduced the activation of BDNF promoter IV and attenuated the upregulation of BDNF exon IV mRNA expression. These results suggest that ATP induces BDNF expression through P2Y receptor followed by the activation of CaM kinase and CREB in astrocytes. These mechanisms are likely to contribute to the enhancement of neuronal–glial networks. © 2008 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Modulation of Chondrocytic Properties of Fat-Derived Mesenchymal Cells in Co-Cultures with Nucleus Pulposus

Human subcutaneous fat-derived mesenchymal cells recently have been shown to have the potential to differentiate in vitro into a variety of cell types, including adipocytes, osteoblasts, chondrocytes, and myoblasts. This effect suggests that fat tissue may serve as an abundant and easily acquired source of multipotent cells for tissue engineering. The multipotential characteristics of fat-derived mesenchymal cells from the inguinial fat pad of rabbit have not been clearly defined. In this study we have isolated a population of mesenchymal cells from inguinal fat from adult New Zealand white rabbits. The cells that were maintained under various differentiation conditions were shown to differentiate in vitro into adipocytes, osteoblasts, or chondrocytes; this differentiation was demonstrated using gene expression for tissue-specific proteins. We also co-cultured the cells with intervertebral disk tissue from the nucleus pulpous or from the annulus fibrosus. The fat-derived cells co-cultured with nucleus pulposus showed an increase in expression of type II collagen and aggrecan genes, compared with cells in alginate alone and cells co-cultured with annulus fibrosus. The data suggest that the fat-derived mesenchymal cells responded to soluble mediators from the disk. Future studies on intervertebral disk reconstruction could be based on our findings with fat-derived multipotential cells from the inguinal region of the rabbit that were co-cultured with disk tissue and may prove useful in tissue engineering strategies.
Minimizing false-positive errors in hormonal pulse detection.

To explore the problem of type I (false-positive) statistical errors associated with enumerating endocrine pulses, we used the analysis of immunoactive luteinizing hormone (LH) pulses as a paradigm. In this system, the distribution of measurement error was found to approximate a Gaussian pattern. Moreover, the choice of a fixed threshold criterion to identify a hormone pulse (as generally undertaken to date) was shown to yield significantly different false-positive error rates under different experimental conditions. Therefore, we developed a technique to minimize the detection of false-positive signals and to maintain an essentially uniform error rate among different experimental groups. This simple technique requires that the pulse-detection threshold be adjusted in relation to the degree of intra-assay measurement error present. Our method should facilitate the valid comparison of endocrine pulse frequencies in normal physiological states vs. those associated with hormonal deficiency when measurement error is typically greater. In addition, this approach will aid in a more meaningful assessment of pulse concordance between two or more different hormonal species (i.e., in different assays) and will assist in comparisons of pulse properties quantitated in different laboratories. In summary, rates of false-positive pulse detection using conventional fixed-threshold criteria are materially influenced by even small differences in within-assay variance. We present a technique to minimize this type I statistical error and to maintain an essentially uniform error rate among different experimental groups.
Correlation between histology and immunophenotype in a series of 322 cases of non‐Hodgkin's lymphoma

The non‐Hodgkin's lymphomas (NHL) are a heterogeneous group of lymphoid neoplasms displaying a wide variation in cell morphology, histological patterns, immunological phenotype and prognosis. In this paper we compare the results of phenotypic investigation of 322 tissue biopsies with the histology based on the Kiel classification. Immunological analysis revealed that 81 per cent of these tumours were of B cell origin. 12 per cent of T cell origin and the remaining 7 per cent could not be characterized as representing either cell lineage. This last group included a number of cases which had received a histological diagnosis of true histiocytic lymphoma. The original morphological diagnosis, based on routine haematoxylin and eosion sections correlated with the immunologically determined phenotype in 86 and 93 per cent of the T‐ and B‐cell cases respectively. The B cell tumours were phenotypically heterogenous with respect to immunoglobulin (Ig) heavy chain and B lymphocyte subset marker expression. IgG was most often found associated with NHL of cb/cc histology and a small subgroup of lymphocytic NHL. IgA expression was uncommon and occurred in combination with IgD and G in three cases and alone in two cases of NHL. The most common immunoglobulin isotype expressed was IgM this isotype occurred with IgD most often in lymphocytic and centrocytic NHL and less often in tumours of cb/cc histology. Whilst greater than 90 per cent of the lymphocytic NHLs expressed the CD5 antigen, between 20 and 75 per cent of B‐cell tumours of other histologies also expressed this epitope. The CD10 antigen and the epitope recognized by the monoclonal reagent FMC7 were widely distributed on tumour cells from all histologies. TdT expression commonly regarded as a marker for immature cells was found in one case of follicle centre cell lymphoma. All cases of T cell NHL displayed marked heterogeneity for both pan T and T subset antigens which is significant in terms of the routine diagnosis of T NHL and with regard to the rational classification of node based T NHL. Unlike resting peripheral blood T cells, MHC class II, OKT 10 and CD25 epitopes were expressed reflecting activation of tumour populations.
Nicardipine for the Treatment of Severe Hypertension in Pregnancy: A Review of the Literature

To evaluate the efficacy and safety of intravenous nicardipine for the treatment of severe hypertension in pregnancy. Articles were identified through electronic databases (Medline and Cochrane). No date or language restrictions were placed. Relevant citations were hand searched. The following search terms were used: pregnancy, severe hypertension and nicardipine. Patients included had chronic or gestational hypertension with or without marked proteinuria. Primary outcomes were reduction of systolic/diastolic and/or mean arterial pressure, time to target blood pressure, and severe maternal (hypotension, tachycardia) or severe fetal side effects (CTG abnormalities needing direct intervention). Five studies were found describing the use of nicardipine for treatment of severe hypertension in pregnancy. All studies were included in this review. One hundred forty-seven patients were treated. All patients had a significant reduction of both diastolic and systolic blood pressure. Treatment resulted in a 91% success rate in studies that defined success and 20% reduction of mean arterial blood pressure or systolic/diastolic blood pressure in 87%. Target blood pressure was reached within 23 minutes in 70% of the patients, 91% reached target blood pressure within 130 minutes. No severe maternal or fetal side effects were recorded. Nicardipine is a very effective therapy for treatment of severe hypertension in pregnancy and may be a better alternative to other available treatment options. Target Audience: Obstetricians & Gynecologists, Family Physicians Learning Objectives: After completion of this article, the reader will be able to evaluate the relative effectiveness of nicardipine for the treatment of severe hypertension in pregnancy. Compare the side effect profile of nicardipine to labetolol for the treatment of severe hypertension in pregnancy and calculate the appropriate dosing of nicardipine for the treatment of hypertension in pregnancy.
Improving fine motor function after brain injury using gesture recognition biofeedback

Purpose: We developed a gesture recognition biofeedback (GRB) device for improving fine motor function in persons with brain injury using surface muscle pressures of the forearm to provide real-time visual biofeedback. The GRB apparatus is easy to don by moderately impaired users and does not require precise placement of sensors. Method: The efficacy of GRB training with each subject was assessed by comparing its effectiveness against standard repetitive training without feedback. The outcome was measured using a nine-hole peg test (HPT) administered before and after each condition, in a cross-over study design. Results: GRB was shown to be effective for short-term improvement of fine motor function of 12 impaired participants, reducing their average time to completion of the HPT by 15.5% (S.D. 7.14%). In a subset of impaired subjects, this effect was significant in comparison to similar training without biofeedback (p < 0.05). Control subjects experienced negligible change in HPT time. Conclusions: This pilot study of a heterogeneous group shows that GRB may offer a simple means to help impaired users re-learn specified manual tasks. Implications for Rehabilitation Grasp Recognition Biofeedback (GRB) is a novel technology for biofeedback in fine motor function. Surface Muscle Pressure in the forearm is used to record hand activity and give simple, real-time feedback. In a relatively small sample, training with GRB yields short-term improvements in brain-injured subjects.
Do professional associations make a difference?: linking municipal managers’ association participation and attitudes toward citizen participation

ABSTRACT There has been a lingering debate on the relationship between public managers’ professional socialization and their acceptance of citizen participation. In this paper, it is empirically confirmed that association participation strengthens municipal managers’ predispositions toward engaging citizens. It is found that municipal managers that are active in generalist-oriented professional associations will be more likely to realize successful practices for citizen engagement in peer municipalities, which boosts their perceived sense of citizen contribution, and reduces their perceptions on the costliness of engaging citizens. These relationships are found to be mediated by municipal managers’ technocratic orientation and engagement self-efficacy.
Tree Species Extraction and Land Use/Cover Classification From High-Resolution Digital Orthophoto Maps

Understanding tree species distribution and land use/cover classes plays a key role for developing environmental monitoring and decision support systems. This study investigates a method based on integration of multiple classifiers to improve the classification accuracy for extraction of tree species and land use/cover classes from large scale data. First, a diverse set of classifiers from different families of statistical learning was selected as base classifiers namely: support vector machine, artificial neural network, and random forest. Both spectral and spatial features were, then, extracted and fed into individual classifiers to classify data into four classes (tea gardens, other trees, impervious surfaces, and bare land). Finally, the results obtained from each classifier were combined to obtain final output by maximum voting. The proposed method was evaluated by using an area-based accuracy assessment on a dataset consisting of ten high-resolution digital orthophoto maps. Experimental results showed that integrating the outputs of individual classifiers improved (4%–7%) overall classification accuracy.
Pulmonary nodule detection in CT images based on shape constraint CV model.

PURPOSE Accurate detection of pulmonary nodules remains a technical challenge in computer-aided diagnosis systems because some nodules may adhere to the blood vessels or the lung wall, which have low contrast compared to the surrounding tissues. In this paper, the analysis of typical shape features of candidate nodules based on a shape constraint Chan-Vese (CV) model combined with calculation of the number of blood branches adhered to nodule candidates is proposed to reduce false positive (FP) nodules from candidate nodules. METHODS The proposed scheme consists of three major stages: (1) Segmentation of lung parenchyma from computed tomography images. (2) Extraction of candidate nodules. (3) Reduction of FP nodules. A gray level enhancement combined with a spherical shape enhancement filter is introduced to extract the candidate nodules and their sphere-like contour regions. FPs are removed by analysis of the typical shape features of nodule candidates based on the CV model using spherical constraint and by investigating the number of blood branches adhered to the candidate nodules. The constrained shapes of CV model are automatically achieved from the extracted candidate nodules. RESULTS The detection performance was evaluated on 127 nodules of 103 cases including three types of challenging nodules, which are juxta-pleural nodules, juxta-vascular nodules, and ground glass opacity nodules. The free-receiver operating characteristic (FROC) curve shows that the proposed method is able to detect 88% of all the nodules in the data set with 4 FPs per case. CONCLUSIONS Evaluation shows that the authors' method is feasible and effective for detection of three types of nodules in this study.
Endogeneity in Accounting and Finance Research: Natural Experiments as a State-of-the-Art Solution

This paper provides a discussion of endogeneity as it relates to finance and accounting research. We discuss the textbook solutions: two-stage least squares, instrumental variables, differenced generalized method of moments (GMM) and system GMM and provide a unifying framework showing how they are related. We consider the limitations of these techniques and then detail a state-of-the-art solution, utilizing a natural experiment as a way of mitigating endogeneity and building stronger theory.
Interaction of Infectious Spleen and Kidney Necrosis Virus ORF119L with PINCH Leads to Dominant-Negative Inhibition of Integrin-Linked Kinase and Cardiovascular Defects in Zebrafish

ABSTRACT Infectious spleen and kidney necrosis virus (ISKNV) is the type species of the Megalocytivirus genus, Iridoviridae family, causing a severe systemic disease with high mortality in mandarin fish (Siniperca chuatsi) in China and Southeast Asia. At present, the pathogenesis of ISKNV infection is still not fully understood. Based on a genome-wide bioinformatics analysis of ISKNV-encoded proteins, we found that ISKNV open reading frame 119L (ORF119L) is predicted to encode a three-ankyrin-repeat (3ANK)-domain-containing protein, which shows high similarity to the dominant negative form of integrin-linked kinase (ILK); i.e., viral ORF119L lacks the ILK kinase domain. Thus, we speculated that viral ORF119L might affect the host ILK complex. Here, we demonstrated that viral ORF119L directly interacts with particularly interesting Cys-His-rich protein (PINCH) and affects the host ILK-PINCH interaction in vitro in fathead minnow (FHM) cells. In vivo ORF119L overexpression in zebrafish (Danio rerio) embryos resulted in myocardial dysfunctions with disintegration of the sarcomeric Z disk. Importantly, ORF119L overexpression in zebrafish highly resembles the phenotype of endogenous ILK inhibition, either by overexpressing a dominant negative form of ILK or by injecting an ILK antisense morpholino oligonucleotide. Intriguingly, ISKNV-infected mandarin fish develop disorganized sarcomeric Z disks in cardiomyocytes. Furthermore, phosphorylation of AKT, a downstream effector of ILK, was remarkably decreased in ORF119L-overexpressing zebrafish embryos. With these results, we show that ISKNV ORF119L acts as a domain-negative inhibitor of the host ILK, providing a novel mechanism for the megalocytivirus pathogenesis. IMPORTANCE Our work is the first to show the role of a dominant negative inhibitor of the host ILK from ISKNV (an iridovirus). Mechanistically, the viral ORF119L directly binds to the host PINCH, attenuates the host PINCH-ILK interaction, and thus impairs ILK signaling. Intriguingly, ORF119L-overexpressing zebrafish embryos and ISKNV-infected mandarin fish develop similar disordered sarcomeric Z disks in cardiomyocytes. These findings provide a novel mechanism for megalocytivirus pathogenesis.
Bis(2-methyl-1H-imidazol-3-ium) naphthalene-1,5-disulfonate dihydrate

The asymmetric unit of the title organic salt, 2C4H7N2 +·C10H6O6S2 2−·2H2O, consists of a 2-methylimidazolium cation, a half of a naphthalene-1,5-disulfonate anion, which lies about a center of symmetry, and a water molecule. In the crystal, N—H⋯O and O—H⋯O hydrogen bonds link the cations, anions and water molecules into the layers parallel to (111).
Family History of Migraine Associated With Posttraumatic Migraine Symptoms Following Sport-Related Concussion

Objective: To determine whether family history of migraine increased the likelihood of posttraumatic migraine (PTM) symptom presentation in adolescents following concussion, and examine the influence of family history of migraine and PTM on postinjury outcomes. Setting: Outpatient concussion clinic. Participants: A total of 153 patients with concussion (103 males and 50 females) aged 15.72 ± 1.48 years (range 12–18 years). Design: Cross-sectional, observational study of patients presenting for initial evaluation 4.72 ± 3.05 days (range 1–14) postinjury. Main Measures: Computerized neurocognitive testing, symptom report, and vestibular/oculomotor screening. Results: Patients with a family history of migraine were 2.6 times (odds ratio = 2.60, confidence interval = 1.35–5.02, P = .003) more likely to present with PTM compared with patients without a family history. Results of multivariate analyses of covariance, controlling for concussion history, revealed significant main effects for PTM on (1) Immediate Post-Concussion Assessment and Cognitive Testing (ImPACT)/Post-Concussion Symptom Scale (PCSS) (F = 15.43, P <.001) and (2) Vestibular/Ocular Motor Screening (VOMS) (F = 8.52, P < .001). There was no main effect for family history of migraine on ImPACT/PCSS (P = .22) and VOMS (P = .83) or interaction between family history of migraine and PTM on ImPACT/PCSS (P = .84) and VOMS (P = .52). Conclusion: Family history of migraine is associated with PTM symptoms following sport-related concussion, suggesting a genetic predisposition for migraine may serve as a catalyst or trigger for onset of PTM. However, only presence of PTM, rather than family history of migraine, was related to worse neurocognitive and vestibular/oculomotor outcomes.