Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Dead Sea mud packs for chronic low back pain.

BACKGROUND Low back pain (LBP) is chronic disease without a curative therapy. Alternative and complementary therapies are widely used in the management of this condition. OBJECTIVES To evaluate the efficacy of home application of Dead Sea mud compresses to the back of patients with chronic LBP. METHODS Forty-six consecutive patients suffering from chronic LBP were recruited. All patients were followed at the Soroka University Rheumatic Diseases Unit. The patients were randomized into two groups: one group was treated with mineral-rich mud compresses, and the other with mineral-depleted compresses. Mud compresses were applied five times a week for 3 consecutive weeks. The primary outcome was the patient's assessment of the overall back pain severity. The score of the Ronald & Morris questionnaire served as a secondary outcome. RESULTS Forty-four patients completed the therapy and the follow-up assessments: 32 were treated with real mud packs and 12 used the mineral-depleted packs. A significant decrease in intensity of pain, as described by the patients, was observed only in the treatment group. In this group, clinical improvement was clearly seen at completion of therapy and was sustained a month later. Significant improvement in the scores of the Roland & Morris questionnaire was observed in both groups. CONCLUSIONS The data suggest that pain severity was reduced in patients treated with mineral-rich mud compresses compared with those treated with mineral-depleted compresses. Whether this modest effect is the result of a "true" mud effect or other causes can not be determined in this study.
The A protein of the filamentous bacteriophage Cf of Xanthomonas campestris pv. citri

Filamentous bacteriophages have very strict host specificities. Experiments were performed to investigate whether the A protein of the filamentous phage Cf, which infects Xanthomonas campestris pv. citri but not X. campestris pv. oryzae, is involved in determining Cf's host specificity. The gene encoding the A protein of Cf was cloned and expressed in X. campestris pv. citri. The genomic DNA of another filamentous bacteriophage, Xf, which infects X. campestris pv. oryzae but not X. campestris pv. citri, was then introduced by electroporation into X. campestris pv. citri that had expressed the A protein of Cf. The progeny phages thus produced were able to infect both X. campestris pv. oryzae and X. campestris pv. citri, indicating that the A protein of Cf was incorporated into the viral particles of Xf and conferred upon Xf the ability to infect the host of Cf. Inactivation of the A protein gene abolished the infectivity of Cf. The results of this study indicate that the A protein of Cf is responsible for controlling the host specificity of Cf.
Effects of Nasal or Oral Breathing on Anaerobic Power Output and Metabolic Responses

Nasal and oral exclusive breathing modes have benefits and drawbacks during submaximal exercise. It is unknown whether these responses would extend to anaerobic work performed at high intensity. Nine individuals (males N = 7, females N = 2) performed a standard Wingate Anaerobic cycle test on a cycle ergometer under nose (N) and mouth (M) only respiratory conditions, performed in a counterbalanced order. A 2 (condition: nose, mouth) × 6 (time: 0–5 sec, 5–10 sec, 10–15 sec, 15–20 sec, 20–25 sec, 25–30 sec) repeated measures ANOVA was used to analyze the data with significance accepted at the p<0.05 level. No differences between breathing mode were observed for any power output or performance measures associated with the Wingate Anaerobic cycle test. Respiratory exchange ratio (RER) was significantly higher in the oral respiration condition from 10 seconds to 25 seconds during the test (p<0.05). On the other hand, heart rate (HR) in the nasal condition was significantly greater during the final two time intervals (p<0.05). Nasal breathing was effective in reducing hyperventilation as RER remained below 1.0. However, elevated HR with nasal breathing indicates increased cardiovascular stress associated with this mode. As breathing mode does not affect power output or performance measures during completion of a high-intensity anaerobic test, preference of the participant should be the determining factor if a choice is available.
3,6-Diazaoctane-1,8-diaminium diiodide

The asymmetric unit of the title salt, C6H20N4 2+·2I−, comprises half a 3,6-diazaoctane-1,8-diaminium dication plus an I− anion. The dications are symmetrical and lie across crystallographic centres of inversion. In the crystal, the ions form a network involving mainly weak N—H⋯I intermolecular interactions: two H atoms of the ammonium group form interactions with two I− anions and the H atom of the secondary amine forms a weak interaction with a third I− cation. The third ammonium H atom is hydrogen bonded to a secondary amine of an adjacent cation. The backbone of the cation does not form a uniformly trans chain, but is ‘kinked’ [C—N—C—C torsion angle = 71.5 (2)°], probably to accommodate the direct hydrogen bond between the ammonium group and the secondary amine in an adjacent cation.
Heparin induced thrombocytopenia: diagnosis and management

The incidence of heparin induced thrombocytopenia (HIT) in neurological patients continues to increase with expansion of indication for neurointerventional procedures. The pathophysiology of HIT is related to a hypersensitivity reaction against complex platelet factor 4. The diagnosis is mostly clinical and is often confirmed by laboratory testing. Patients with HIT have a higher rate of thromboembolic complications, both arterial and venous, and with worse neurological outcomes at the time of discharge. Early diagnosis and heparin cessation are essential in the management of those patients. Both immediate and prolonged alternative anticoagulation are necessary. Understanding of the mechanism of action, indication and drug interaction of the alternative anticoagulants (direct thrombin inhibitors, fondaparinux and danaparoid) and warfarin is essential during management of these patients.
Women leaders in higher education: a psycho-spiritual perspective

Demands on women in middle and senior leadership positions in higher education institutions inevitably challenge their well-being. How they manage these demands is strongly related to their sense of coherence and their spirituality, constructs that have demonstrated positive relations with general and work-related well-being. This study aims to explore the construction of sense of coherence and spirituality of women leaders in higher education institutions. It adopts a qualitative research approach, applying constructivist grounded theory. The sample comprises 13 academic and support services women working in higher education, who belong to the Higher Education Resource Services South Africa network, a non-profit organisation that promotes leadership development and representation of women in senior positions in higher education. This study contributes to knowledge on gender-specific well-being concepts by presenting qualitative findings on women leaders’ life-orientation in terms of sense of coherence and spirituality in a higher education institution in South Africa. Themes from the interview data provide key insights on three subcomponents of sense of coherence: manageability, comprehensibility, and meaningfulness. Spirituality furthermore emerged as constructed in inner-connectedness, trans-personality, and a coping resource in the work context. Meaningfulness emerged as central to the life-orientation and spirituality of women leaders in higher education. Finally, a core theoretical idea is presented in proposing an integrated psycho-spiritual perspective, with meaningfulness as central, grounded in a motivational and relational orientation, and facilitating the potential well-being of women leaders in higher education institutions. Recommendations are made for future research and to inform leadership development and well-being interventions targeting women in higher education.
Engaging with Comparative Risk Appraisals: Public Views on Policy Priorities for Environmental Risk Governance

Communicating the rationale for allocating resources to manage policy priorities and their risks is challenging. Here, we demonstrate that environmental risks have diverse attributes and locales in their effects that may drive disproportionate responses among citizens. When 2,065 survey participants deployed summary information and their own understanding to assess 12 policy‐level environmental risks singularly, their assessment differed from a prior expert assessment. However, participants provided rankings similar to those of experts when these same 12 risks were considered as a group, allowing comparison between the different risks. Following this, when individuals were shown the prior expert assessment of this portfolio, they expressed a moderate level of confidence with the combined expert analysis. These are important findings for the comprehension of policy risks that may be subject to augmentation by climate change, their representation alongside other threats within national risk assessments, and interpretations of agency for public risk management by citizens and others.
Retrieval Consistency in the Presence of Query Variations

A search engine that can return the ideal results for a person's information need, independent of the specific query that is used to express that need, would be preferable to one that is overly swayed by the individual terms used; search engines should be consistent in the presence of syntactic query variations responding to the same information need. In this paper we examine the retrieval consistency of a set of five systems responding to syntactic query variations over one hundred topics, working with the UQV100 test collection, and using Rank-Biased Overlap (RBO) relative to a centroid ranking over the query variations per topic as a measure of consistency. We also introduce a new data fusion algorithm, Rank-Biased Centroid (RBC), for constructing a centroid ranking over a set of rankings from query variations for a topic. RBC is compared with alternative data fusion algorithms. Our results indicate that consistency is positively correlated to a moderate degree with "deep'' relevance measures. However, it is only weakly correlated with "shallow'' relevance measures, as well as measures of topic complexity and variety in query expression. These findings support the notion that consistency is an independent property of a search engine's retrieval effectiveness.
Pivotal Advance: Characterization of mouse liver phagocytic B cells in innate immunity

Although B cells in vertebrates have been thought to lack phagocytic activity, there has been a recent report of such ability by the B cells of early vertebrates such as fish and frogs. Here, we show for the first time that mouse liver IgM+ B cells actively phagocytose microsphere beads and Escherichia coli and that they effectively kill bacterial cells. Such phagocytic activity is not observed in other liver MNCs, except for F4/80+ Kupffer cells. In the presence of fresh mouse serum (but not heat‐inactivated serum), the heat‐killed E. coli phagocytic activity of liver B cells increased significantly but was inhibited significantly by anticomplement component C3 antibody, suggesting E. coli opsonization by serum factors, including complement components. Upon i.v. injection of FITC‐labeled E. coli into mice, a substantial proportion of liver B cells phagocytosed the bacteria, as compared with spleen B cells. Functional phagolysosome formation in liver B cells was supported by several reagents showing an acidic change and lysosomes in the phagocytosed vacuoles. Indeed, mouse liver B cells killed viable E. coli more efficiently than did spleen B cells in vitro. Further, E. coli‐phagocytic liver B cells produced a substantial amount of IL‐12. These results indicate that liver B cells have phagocytic and bactericidal activities similar to those of dedicated phagocytes and may contribute to bacterial clearance.
Supportive Mental Health Self-Monitoring among Smartphone Users with Psychological Distress: Protocol for a Fully Mobile Randomized Controlled Trial

Mobile health (mHealth) could be widely used in the population to improve access to psychological treatment. In this paper, we describe the development of a mHealth intervention on the basis of supportive self-monitoring and describe the protocol for a randomized controlled trial to evaluate its effectiveness among smartphone users with psychological distress. Based on power analysis, a representative quota sample of N = 186 smartphone users will be recruited, with an over-sampling of persons with moderate to high distress. Over a 4-week period, the intervention will be compared to a self-monitoring without intervention group and a passive control group. Telephone interviews will be conducted at baseline, post-intervention (4 weeks), and 12-week follow-up to assess study outcomes. The primary outcome will be improvement of mental health. Secondary outcomes will include well-being, intentions toward help-seeking and help-seeking behavior, user activation, attitudes toward mental-health services, perceived stigmatization, smartphone app quality, user satisfaction, engagement, and adherence with the intervention. Additionally, data from the user’s daily life as collected during self-monitoring will be used to investigate risk and protective factors of mental health in real-world settings. Therefore, this study will allow us to demonstrate the effectiveness of a smartphone application as a widely accessible and low-cost intervention to improve mental health on a population level. It also allows to identify new assessment approaches in the field of psychiatric epidemiology.
Ii-Key/MHC class II epitope hybrids: a strategy that enhances MHC class II epitope loading to create more potent peptide vaccines

Life-threatening diseases, such as cancer and pandemic influenza, demand new efforts towards effective vaccine design. Peptides represent a simple, safe and adaptable basis for vaccine development; however, the potency of peptide vaccines is insufficient in most cases for significant therapeutic efficacy. Several methods, such as Ligand Epitope Antigen Presentation System and ISCOMATRIX®, have been developed to enhance the potency of peptide vaccines. One way of increasing the loading of MHC class II peptides occurs through the use of Ii-Key technology. Ii-Key (LRMK), a portion of the MHC class II-associated invariant chain (Ii), facilitates the direct loading of epitopes to the MHC class II molecule groove. Linking the Ii-Key moiety via a simple polymethylene bridge to an MHC class II epitope, to generate an Ii-Key/MHC class II epitope hybrid, greatly enhances the vaccine potency of the tethered epitope. The combination of such Ii-Key/MHC class II epitope hybrids with MHC class I epitope-containing peptides might generate a potent peptide vaccine for malignancies and infectious diseases. The Ii-Key hybrid technology is compared with other methods that enhance the potency of a peptide vaccine.
Low Levels of Environmental Ammonia Increase Susceptibility to Disease in Chinook Salmon Smolts

Ammonia criteria are established using data from standardized toxicity tests involving healthy animals. Both intrinsic and extrinsic environmental changes affect the immune system, but few toxicity studies consider the overall impact on this system and potential changes in resistance to infection. To investigate the effects of subacute levels of ammonia in coastal waters on physiological and immunological systems of fish, juvenile Chinook salmon were maintained in seawater (10°C, pH 7.8) and exposed to two concentrations of ammonia, 2.5 and 10 mg/L total nitrogen. Both test levels resulted in increased internal levels of ammonia in the fish. Neither treatment level affected feeding rates. Over a time course of 10 d, numerous significant effects were observed. White blood cell counts changed significantly, as did respiratory burst activity, plasma lysozyme activity, and plasma glucose concentration in both treatments compared to controls. In an experimental infection with Vibrio anguillarum, fish previously exposed to subacute levels of ammonia were more susceptible to pathogenic challenge. The findings of this study indicate that a more thorough investigation into the effects of environmental ammonia on fish populations in coastal waters should be undertaken and the current environmental standards reassessed.
The origin of malignant malaria

Plasmodium falciparum, the causative agent of malignant malaria, is among the most severe human infectious diseases. The closest known relative of P. falciparum is a chimpanzee parasite, Plasmodium reichenowi, of which one single isolate was previously known. The co-speciation hypothesis suggests that both parasites evolved separately from a common ancestor over the last 5–7 million years, in parallel with the divergence of their hosts, the hominin and chimpanzee lineages. Genetic analysis of eight new isolates of P. reichenowi, from wild and wild-born captive chimpanzees in Cameroon and Côte d'Ivoire, shows that P. reichenowi is a geographically widespread and genetically diverse chimpanzee parasite. The genetic lineage comprising the totality of global P. falciparum is fully included within the much broader genetic diversity of P. reichenowi. This finding is inconsistent with the co-speciation hypothesis. Phylogenetic analysis indicates that all extant P. falciparum populations originated from P. reichenowi, likely by a single host transfer, which may have occurred as early as 2–3 million years ago, or as recently as 10,000 years ago. The evolutionary history of this relationship may be explained by two critical genetic mutations. First, inactivation of the CMAH gene in the human lineage rendered human ancestors unable to generate the sialic acid Neu5Gc from its precursor Neu5Ac, and likely made humans resistant to P. reichenowi. More recently, mutations in the dominant invasion receptor EBA 175 in the P. falciparum lineage provided the parasite with preference for the overabundant Neu5Ac precursor, accounting for its extreme human pathogenicity.
Time-frequency analysis of temporomandibular joint (TMJ) clicking sounds using radially Gaussian kernels

Temporomandibular joint (TMJ) sounds and motion were recorded during two clinically-derived movements-simple jaw opening and jaw protrusion followed by opening-from ten patients. A new time-frequency method-radially Gaussian kernel distribution-was applied to classify the TMJ clicking sounds into six groups, type I to type VI, based on the time-frequency patterns of energy distribution. The number of clicks and percentage of each type were examined. Relations between the two movements were examined by the prevalence of each type. A detailed classification of TMJ clicking sounds is provided by time-frequency patterns and may provide a better understanding of temporomandibular disorders.
Chemical treatment of machined titanium surfaces. An in vitro study.

Microbial plaque accumulation on titanium dental implant surfaces can result in an inflammatory condition of the surrounding tissues. Cleaning of such a contaminated surface, in vivo, by means of a solution of amino-alcohol, following surgical exposure, has been proposed. However, the tissue healing following treatment resulted in formation of a fibrous capsule at the tissue-implant interface, i.e. improper implant re-integration. The present experiment was designed to investigate the possible influence of an amino-alcohol solution on machined titanium surface properties. Titanium samples with topography and chemical composition similar to the clinically used Brånemark implant surfaces were used in this experimental in-vitro study to investigate the adsorption of amino-alcohol to such surfaces, and the possibilities to chemically remove the adsorbed alcohols in order to recover a pristine titanium surface. The amino-alcohol solution was supplied to the sample surfaces and four different methods were subsequently used in order to remove the adsorbed alcohol molecules. It was shown that rinsing in water, saline solution, and 5% H2O2 did not remove the amino-alcohol from the surface. However, exposure to ozone produced by using a commercial mercury lamp in ambient air resulted in complete removal of the adsorbed amino-alcohol. The results show that the amino-alcohol used forms a stable and dense film at the implant surface in vitro. Presence of such a film most likely prevents re-integration to occur at the implant-tissue interface in vivo.
2,4,8-trihydroxybicyclo [3.2.1]octan-3-one scavenges free radicals and protects against xenobiotic-induced cytotoxicity

Currently, there is a great deal of interest in the study of natural compounds with free-radical-scavenging activity because of their potential role in maintaining human health and preventing diseases. In this paper, we report the antioxidant and cytoprotective properties of 2,4,8-trihydroxybicyclo [3.2. 1]octan-3-one (TBO) isolated from the aqueous extract of Decalepis hamiltonii roots. Our results show that TBO is a potent scavenger of superoxide (O2·−), hydroxyl (·OH), nitric oxide (·NO) and lipid peroxide (LOO·) – physiologically relevant free radicals with IC50 values in nmolar (42–281) range. TBO also exhibited concentration-dependent secondary antioxidant activities such as reducing power, metal-chelating activity and inhibition of protein carbonylation. Further, TBO at nmolar concentration prevented CuSO4-induced human LDL oxidation. Apart from the in vitro free-radical-scavenging activity, TBO demonstrated cytoprotective activity in primary hepatocytes and Ehrlich ascites tumour (EAT) cells against oxidative-stress-inducing xenobiotics. The mechanism of cytoprotective action involved maintaining the intracellular glutathione (GSH), scavenging of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and inhibiting lipid peroxidation (LPO). Based on the results, it is suggested that TBO is a novel bioactive molecule with implications in both prevention and amelioration of diseases involving oxidative stress as well as in the general well-being.
Reversal of lipopolysaccharide-analog-induced antibody suppression by anti-transforming growth factor beta and indomethacin

Monophosphoryl lipid A and a synthetic, nontoxic monosaccharide analog of lipid A, termed GLA 60, both strongly suppressed antibody production when administered 1 to 2 days prior to antigen. Evidence is presented that this suppression was mediated by two cytokines, prostaglandin E and transforming growth factor beta, because it was reversed by multiple injections of the cyclooxygenase inhibitor indomethacin and by in vitro addition of antibody to transforming growth factor beta.
Information Systems and Healthcare XXIV: Factors Affecting the EAI Adoption in the Healthcare Sector

Recent developments in the field of integration technologies like Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) have emerged to support organizations towards improving the quality of services and reducing integration costs. Despite the importance of EAI, there is limited empirical research reported on its adoption in the healthcare sector. Khoumbati et al. [2006] developed a model for the evaluation of EAI in healthcare organizations. In doing so, the causal interrelationship of EAI adoption factors was identified by using fuzzy cognitive mapping. This paper is a progression of previous work in the area and seeks to contribute by validating the model through a different case environment. Thus, this paper contributes by deriving and proposing the MAESTRO model for EAI adoption. MAESTRO identifies a set of factors that influence EAI adoption and it is evaluated through a real-life case study. It provides an understanding of the EAI adoption process through its grounding on empirical data. In doing so, the MAESTRO model supports the management of healthcare organizations during the decision-making process for EAI adoption.