Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Long-term Outcome after Robotic-assisted Gastroplication in Adolescents: Hunger Hormone and Food Preference Changes Two Case Reports

Weight loss surgery (WLS) is efficacious for long-term weight reduction and decreases overall mortality in severely obese patients. The mechanisms implicated in long-term weight loss are not fully understood. Proposed mechanisms include changes in gut hormones and brain regulation of appetite and satiety. We aimed to investigate the long-term ghrelin and leptin profiles and changes in food preference and eating behavior after WLS in adolescent patients. Two obese females aged 15 years and 14 4/12 years, who did not respond to lifestyle changes, including dietary intervention and physical exercise in combination with medical therapy, underwent robotic-assisted gastroplication. Anthropometric measurements, food habits and eating behavior, as well as metabolic and hormonal changes during long-term post-surgical follow-up were monitored. Long-term weight reduction was obtained in both patients, with a significant decrease in waist circumference. Resting energy expenditure showed a decrease over time, with a respiratory quotient that increased showing a shift from oxidation of a high-fat diet before surgery to oxidation of a mixed diet two and three years later. Both subjects improved their eating habits and lifestyle. Co-morbidity resolution was also noted. Increased pre-prandial ghrelin levels as well as higher post-prandial ghrelin and a leptin drop compared with pre-surgery values were observed in both patients. Persistent weight loss after gastroplication is associated with a favorable change in gut hormones and food preferences. The role of hormonal and sensory components in long-term results seems crucial. Particularly in adolescent patients, a multidisciplinary approach and continuous nutritional care is mandatory for weight maintenance and consolidation of changes.
Knowledge of congenital heart disease of mothers: presentation of a standardized questionnaire and first results.

OBJECTIVE The "Hannover Inventory of Parental Knowledge of Congenital Heart Disease," a questionnaire for the assessment of knowledge about congenital heart disease (CHD) for use in parents, is presented, and the first results are reported. It consists of eight subscales covering general knowledge of cardiac functioning, signs and symptoms of the child's individual CHD before and after treatment, type of individual CHD and treatment, management of CHD, surveillance of deterioration, endocarditis, and physical activity. DESIGN One hundred thirty-seven mothers completed the questionnaire immediately after their children underwent CHD surgery. RESULTS The questionnaire has satisfactory psychometric properties. Knowledge on most dimensions was satisfactory, but it was rather poor with respect to important subscales as endocarditis and surveillance of deterioration. CONCLUSIONS The questionnaire covers a range of relevant topics by taking the individual CHD into account. Parents have satisfactory knowledge of CHD in some areas, but knowledge about preventive behaviors turned out as rather poor. This needs to be improved in order to make parents capable to take their share of after-treatment care.
A Wnt3a variant participates in chick apical ectodermal ridge formation: Distinct biological activities of Wnt3a splice variants in chick limb development

Wnt/β‐catenin signaling is involved in the formation of the apical ectodermal ridge (AER) during vertebrate limb development. Although Wnt3a is a potent ligand for chick AER formation, whether chick Wnt3a can induce Fgf8 expression in chick embryos is unclear and the Wnt ligand involved in chick AER formation remains unknown. Here, we examined whether another Wnt3a isoform is expressed in the AER, and whether Wnt3 contributes to AER formation in chick as well as mouse embryos. We found that chick Wnt3 was not expressed in the presumptive limb ectoderm at the early stages of AER formation. Using 5′‐rapid amplification of cDNA ends, we isolated another chick Wnt3a transcript. This novel variant, Wnt3a variant 2, induced Fgf8 in the limb ectoderm and activated the β‐catenin pathway in vivo and in vitro. These data showed that Wnt3a variant 2 is an active form of chick Wnt3a that regulates chick AER formation.
The Design and Analysis of Computer Algorithms

From the Publisher: With this text, you gain an understanding of the fundamental concepts of algorithms, the very heart of computer science. It introduces the basic data structures and programming techniques often used in efficient algorithms. Covers use of lists, push-down stacks, queues, trees, and graphs. Later chapters go into sorting, searching and graphing algorithms, the string-matching algorithms, and the Schonhage-Strassen integer-multiplication algorithm. Provides numerous graded exercises at the end of each chapter. 0201000296B04062001
Enhancing the Research-Teaching Nexus: Building Teaching-Based Research from Research-Based Teaching.

This paper presents a case study of the development of a research-teaching nexus in the context of two undergraduate business research methods courses in an Australian university, one first year course and one final year course. In both cases existing mathematics-based statistical analysis courses were transformed into problembased learning courses that engaged students, working in collaborative research groups, in the exploration of an authentic and ongoing research problem: “What factors influence students’ decisions to drop out of university? ” The paper begins with an overview of literature relating to the research-teaching nexus and to problembased learning. Subsequently it describes the activities undertaken by the students and lecturer in the two courses transformed into problem-based learning courses, as well as the students’ responses to the transformation. Next it details how, in a reversal of the usual process of feeding research into teaching/learning activities, teaching/learning activities fed directly into research and led to the gaining of a large government grant. Finally, the paper details evaluations of the transformed courses, presents reflections on the implemented research-teaching nexus and, on the basis of these, makes recommendations related to the implementation of a similar research-teaching nexus in other discipline areas. Defining the Research-Teaching Nexus
Cross-modality matching based on Fisher Vector with neural word embeddings and deep image features

Cross-modal retrieval, which aims to solve the problem that the query and the retrieved results are from different modality, becomes more and more essential with the development of the Internet. In this paper, we mainly focus on the exploration of high-level semantic representation of image and text for cross-modal matching. Deep convolutional image features and Fisher Vector with neural word embeddings are utilized as visual and textual features respectively. To further investigate the correlation among heterogeneous multimodal characteristics, we use multiclass logistic classifier for semantic matching across modalities. Experiments on Wikipedia and Pascal Sentence dataset demonstrate the robustness and effectiveness for both Img2Text and Text2Img retrieval tasks.
Resveratrol ‐ an ingredient of red wine abrogates the reproductive capacity in male mice

Resveratrol has been considered as an antioxidant in biological system. However, its role in male reproductive biology has not yet been evaluated in much detail. Present study analysed its effect on male reproductive function in adult mouse, after its intraperitoneal administration (2, 8 and 20 mg kg b.wt.−1 per day) for 2 weeks. The generation of reactive oxygen species and lipid peroxidation in testis increased with concomitant decrease in sperm count and motility following resveratrol treatment as compared with the control group. Resveratrol had a negative impact on the activities of antioxidant enzymes namely catalase and superoxide dismutase and on the level of reduced glutathione. Increase in the level of oxidised glutathione by resveratrol lead to a shift in the redox ratio. Additionally, a significant loss of Leydig cells and alterations in testicular histomorphology (excessive vacuolisation and shrinkage of seminiferous tubules) was also observed. In conclusion, the deleterious effects of resveratrol on germ cells could be attributed to its pro‐oxidant ability leading to testicular tissue damage.
Titanium carbide/carbon composite nanofibers prepared by a plasma process

The incorporation of metal or metal carbide nanoparticles into carbon nanofibers modifies their properties and enlarges their field of application. The purpose of this work is to report a new non-catalytic and easy method to prepare organized metal carbide–carbon composite nanofibers on nanopatterned silicon substrates prepared by laser interference lithography coupled with deep reactive ion etching. Titanium carbide–carbon composite nanofibers were grown on the top of the silicon lines parallel to the substrate by a hybrid plasma process combining physical vapor deposition and plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition. The prepared nanofibers were analyzed by scanning electron microscopy, x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy and transmission electron microscopy. We demonstrate that the shape, microstructure and the chemical composition of the as-grown nanofibers can be tuned by changing the plasma conditions.
Role of the spindle pole body of yeast in mediating assembly of the prospore membrane during meiosis

Spindle pole bodies (SPBs) are the centrosome equivalents in yeast, required for microtubule organization. In yeast, the SPB further serves as the attachment sites of the prospore membrane during meiosis. Here we report the identification of two new meiosis‐specific components of the SPB, Mpc54p and Mpc70p, and the first protein specific for the prospore membrane, Don1p. Mpc54p and Mpc70p are not present in mitotic SPBs, and during meiosis II they are components of a meiosis‐specific structural alteration of the outer plaque of the SPB. Both proteins are dispensable for the meiotic divisions but are essentially required for the formation of the prospore membrane. In the mpc54 and mpc70 mutants, the Don1p‐containing precursors of the prospore membrane can still be found in the cytoplasm and associated with the SPB. Unexpectedly, however, the assembly of the precursors to a continuous membrane system is affected. Thus, the meiotic SPB is directly involved in the formation of a specialized membrane system, the membrane of the prospore.
Letter: proton pump inhibitors ‐ severity of liver disease and mortality in patients with cirrhosis

*Department of Hospital Medicine, Medicine Institute, Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Cleveland, OH, USA. Department of Pediatric Gastroenterology, Cleveland Clinic Children’s Hospital, Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Cleveland, OH, USA. Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Digestive Disease Institute, Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Cleveland, OH, USA. Department of Pathobiology, Lerner Research Institute, Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Cleveland, OH, USA. Department of Pulmonary Diseases, Respiratory Institute, Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Cleveland, OH, USA. E-mail: florian.rieder@t-online.de
Small-molecule thyrotropin receptor agonist activates naturally occurring thyrotropin-insensitive mutants and reveals their distinct cyclic adenosine monophosphate signal persistence.

BACKGROUND Subclinical hypothyroidism (SHT), characterized by normal thyroid hormone levels maintained by elevated thyrotropin (TSH), predisposes patients to health problems as they age. Some cases arise from mutations of the TSH receptor (TSHR) that confer TSH resistance. This resistance might be circumvented by TSHR agonists with different modes of binding compared with TSH. We hypothesized that the recently discovered small-molecule TSHR agonist C2, with its unique mode of receptor binding, would activate mutant TSHRs associated with SHT, facilitating their study. MATERIALS AND METHODS HEK-EM293 cells transiently expressing TSHR variants-wild-type TSHR or mutants C41S, L252P, L467P, or C600R-were analyzed for TSH or C2-induced cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) signaling to establish C2 as a mutant TSHR agonist. These cells were also pretreated with TSH or C2 to characterize each mutant receptor's ability to maintain and desensitize cAMP signaling. RESULTS We showed that C2 could activate the TSH-unresponsive TSHR ectodomain mutants C41S and L252P but had no effect on the serpentine mutant L467P. We found that TSH and C2 could acutely activate the serpentine mutant C600R. Preincubation with C2 caused persistent cAMP signaling and receptor desensitization in wild-type TSHR and cAMP signal persistence with no detectable desensitization in the cases of C41S and L252P. CONCLUSIONS The small-molecule agonist C2 is a useful pharmacological tool for the study of mutant TSHRs. It revealed that some naturally occurring TSH-insensitive mutants can mediate induction of cAMP elevation upon stimulation with C2 and that this signal is differentially maintained within cells.
Experimental respiratory infection with type 4 adenovirus vaccine in volunteers: clinical and immunological responses.

ered acceptable or optimally effective [1, 2]. A living type 4 adenovirus (AV-4) vaccine developed by Chanock et al. [3] offers promise for control of type-specific disease. This entericcoated tablet has been administered orally to approximately 350,000 recruits by several investigative groups over the past several years, and has been shown effective in preventing ARD due to AV-4 [4-6]. However, in a study in 1966 at Fort Dix, New Jersey, reduction in ARD following vaccination was followed by increased incidence of ARD due to adenovirus type 7 (AV-7). Before introduction of vaccine, this virus was responsible for insignificant amounts of ARD; following suppression of AV-4, it predominated as the cause of respiratory disease, and total rates for ARD approached those before immunization [5]. The same phenomenon has been
Particle Swarm Optimization to Design Ideotypes for Sustainable Fruit Production Systems

Designing peach ideotypes that satisfy the requirement of high fruit quality and low sensitivity to brown rot in a given environment was formulated as a multi-objective problem. The 'Virtual Fruit' model was used to perform virtual experiments. Particle swarm optimization PSO was interfaced to the 'Virtual Fruit' for solving the weighted optimization problem resulting by the linear aggregation of the criteria of the multi-objective problem. The comparison of the PSO with the Genetic Algorithm GA showed that the PSO method achieves better performance and outperforms the GA. The optimization results found by the PSO algorithm are considered to be satisfactory for the sustainable production systems of the peach fruit.
Impact of Cliff and Ord (1969, 1981) on Spatial Epidemiology

The influence in spatial epidemiology of the seminar work on autocorrelation by Cliff and Ord is discussed. Quantifying the evidence of spatial clustering was an important step in the development of modern statistical methods for analyzing spatial variations of diseases. Autocorrelation is nowadays mostly accounted for at a latent level within a hierarchical framework to small area disease mapping. The importance of accounting for autocorrelation in geographical correlation studies is also reviewed.
RELATION BETWEEN DEGREE OF TUBERCULIN SENSITIVITY AND PREVALENCE OF TUBERCULOSIS.

The authors have studied the possibility of using a low-dose tuberculin test for the selection of persons for radiographic examination by analysing data from an epidemiological survey conducted in Portuguese Guinea on nearly 70 000 persons.It was found that the likelihood of a person's having pulmonary tuberculosis increased steadily with increase in size of tuberculin reaction, but also increased equally steadily with age. The authors therefore conclude that selection of persons for X-ray examination could most profitably be done by taking into account both these factors and, for instance, X-raying all persons in the oldest age-groups (45 years and over), but only the strong tuberculin reactors among the younger age-groups.
Efficacy of Ginkgo biloba extract EGb 761® in dementia with behavioural and psychological symptoms: A systematic review

Objectives. To review current evidence of efficacy of Ginkgo biloba extract EGb 761® in dementia with behavioural and psychological symptoms (BPSD). Methods. Randomized, placebo-controlled trials assessing the effects of EGb 761® in dementia patients with BPSD were included if the diagnosis was made in accordance with internationally accepted criteria, the treatment period was at least 22 weeks, outcome measures covered BPSD and at least two of the following domains of assessment, i.e. cognition, activities of daily living and clinical global assessment, and methodological quality was adequate. An analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) model was used to calculate the pooled effect estimates and to compare effects of EGb 761® and placebo; furthermore, combined risk differences of response rates were calculated. Results. Four published trials were identified, involving altogether 1,628 outpatients with mild to moderate dementia. Least-square mean differences for change from baseline in cognition, BPSD (including caregiver distress rating), activities of daily living, clinical global impression, and quality of life favoured EGb 761® (P < 0.001 for all comparisons). Conclusions. The pooled analyses provide evidence of efficacy of EGb 761® at a daily dose of 240 mg in the treatment of out-patients suffering from Alzheimer's, vascular or mixed dementia with BPSD.
Urokinase Stimulates Human Vascular Smooth Muscle Cell Migration via a Phosphatidylinositol 3-Kinase-Tyk2 Interaction*

Janus kinases Jak1 and Tyk2 play an important role in urokinase-type plasminogen activator (uPA)-dependent signaling. We have recently demonstrated that both kinases are associated with the uPA receptor (uPAR) and mediate uPA-induced activation of signal transducers and activators of transcription (Stat1, Stat2, and Stat4) in human vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMC). Janus kinases are not only required for Stat activation but may also interfere with other intracellular signaling pathways. Here we report that in VSMC, Tyk2 interacts with a downstream signaling cascade involving phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3-K). We demonstrate that uPA induces PI3-K activation, which is abolished in VSMC expressing the dominant negative form of Tyk2. The regulatory subunit p85 of PI3-K co-immunoprecipitates with Tyk2 but not with Jak1, Jak2, or Jak3, and uPA stimulation increases the PI3-K activity in Tyk2 immunoprecipitates. Tyk2 directly binds to either of the two Src homology 2(SH2)p85 domains in a uPA-dependent fashion. We provide evidence that the Tyk2-mediated PI3-K activation in response to uPA is required for VSMC migration. Thus, two unrelated structurally distinct specific inhibitors of PI3-K, wortmannin and LY294002, prevent VSMC migration induced by uPA. No migratory effect of uPA was observed in VSMC expressing the dominant negative form of Tyk2. Our results underscore the versatile function of Tyk2 in uPA-related intracellular signaling and indicate that PI3-K plays a selective role in the regulation of VSMC migration.
Solving Multi-criteria Minimum Spanning Tree Problem with Discrete Particle Swarm Optimization

The minimum spanning tree (MST) of a graph is an important concept in network design, the basic MST problem can be solved efficiently, but the multi-criteria MST (mc-MST) is NP-hard problem. In this paper, a discrete particle swarm optimization (PSO) approach is developed to deal with this problem. The principles of mutation and crossover operator in the genetic algorithm (GA) are incorporated into the proposed PSO algorithm to achieve a better diversity and break away from local optima. In the end, an enumeration method of Chen's is used to evaluate the algorithm's performance and the results show that this algorithm is efficient and feasible.
Computational Environment: An ODP to Support Finding and Recreating Computational Analyses

The Computational Environment ontology design pattern models the environment in which a computational analysis was conducted down to the hardware level. The pattern is intended to support comparison and reproducibility of computational analyses. Due to the concrete nature of the pattern, it makes use of several controlled vocabularies, which are kept current through an automated script that leverages the manually curated information on Wikipedia.
Designing Real-Time Biosensors and Chemical Sensors Based on Defective 1-D Photonic Crystals

In this letter, we have designed a new biosensing and chemical sensing structure based on 1-D photonic crystals. The proposed structure is a 1-D photonic crystal with a gradient refractive index (GRIN) defect layer in the middle of the structure and two microfluidic channels around the central defect layer. As a result of the introduced GRIN defect layer, which has a spatial refractive index distribution function, spatial defect modes will appear in the first bandgap. By irradiating a beam of light in a chosen frequency of defect modes to the structure, a ring-shaped intensity distribution appears on the output plane of the structure. The radius of this ring is highly sensitive to the refractive index of the fluid that is in two microfluidic channels. By variation of the refractive index, the radius of the ring-shaped intensity profile will change that can be detected by scanning slit beam profilers. The refractive index resolution of Δn = 0.0001 RIU that causes 3.6 μm change in the radius of the ring-shaped intensity can be detected by the introduced structure. One of the key advantages of the proposed sensor is the possibility of real-time monitoring of the variation of refractive indices due to its fast reply to the refractive index changes. As an important example in medical sciences, aggregation of some proteins can cause the variation of the effective refractive index of the solution, which can be monitored in real time by the highly sensitive designed sensor.
Pattern discovery and specification techniques for alarm correlation

Ever increasing amounts of alarm data threaten the stability of management systems in high speed telecommunications networks. As networks continue to develop, becoming larger, using substantially higher bandwidth links and using more complex equipment, so the danger of alarm inundation is increased. Alarm correlation systems have been seen to play a vital role in dealing with the problem. However, the question of what to correlate and how to recognise and specify related alarms has either been left largely unanswered or distinct from the physical correlation process. In this presentation, we describe a unifying framework which uses a purpose-designed language to specify alarm patterns and then use the results in a real-time correlation engine. In order to test the effectiveness of the solution, the language was translated onto an existing proprietary correlation system and fed with alarm data from an SDH network test-bed. Preliminary evaluation has indicated the system to be extremely fast, potentially robust to network dynamics and, importantly, resilient to a degree of input space error. Furthermore, it is easy to use, intuitive and may be extended through the incorporation of artificial intelligence modules.