Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Peritoneal Dialysis Access: Open versus Laparoscopic Surgical Techniques

Aim To outline pros and cons with the open and laparoscopic techniques when placing peritoneal dialysis (PD) catheters. Background Controversy exists regarding which technique, the open and laparoscopic, if any, is superior to the other. In addition, there is the question of which approach is best in rescuing malfunctioning PD catheters. Results Rather than promoting one doctrine fits all, philosophically, doing the right thing for the patient by specific criteria is ethically the better model. These specific selection criteria include patient characteristics, the team's skills and knowledge and institutional resources and commitment. Also, the sophistication of a PD unit for training and monitoring of patients is crucial for successful outcomes. Open paramedian and two laparoscopic approaches are described in detail, outlining advantages and disadvantages of each, with suggestions when one method is preferred. Conclusions In general, the laparoscopic technique is associated with longer operative times, higher costs and the need to utilize general anesthesia. It is, however, the preferred method when rescuing malfunctioning catheters and may increase the PD patient population in patients with previous abdominal surgeries. The dialysis access surgeon should be familiar with both open and laparoscopic techniques and appropriately choose the ideal method based upon the individual patient and institutional resources.
Species-specific endogenous retroviruses shape the transcriptional network of the human tumor suppressor protein p53

The evolutionary forces that establish and hone target gene networks of transcription factors are largely unknown. Transposition of retroelements may play a role, but its global importance, beyond a few well described examples for isolated genes, is not clear. We report that LTR class I endogenous retrovirus (ERV) retroelements impact considerably the transcriptional network of human tumor suppressor protein p53. A total of 1,509 of ≈319,000 human ERV LTR regions have a near-perfect p53 DNA binding site. The LTR10 and MER61 families are particularly enriched for copies with a p53 site. These ERV families are primate-specific and transposed actively near the time when the New World and Old World monkey lineages split. Other mammalian species lack these p53 response elements. Analysis of published genomewide ChIP data for p53 indicates that more than one-third of identified p53 binding sites are accounted for by ERV copies with a p53 site. ChIP and expression studies for individual genes indicate that human ERV p53 sites are likely part of the p53 transcriptional program and direct regulation of p53 target genes. These results demonstrate how retroelements can significantly shape the regulatory network of a transcription factor in a species-specific manner.
Selection Abilities of Select Indian Mutual Fund Managers

The stock selection is considered to be the core of the investment process. This involves identifying and selecting undervalued securities which are expected yield good results in the future. In practice fund managers are expected to earn superior returns for unit holders consistently as being professionals therefore possession of superior skills to collect and analyze the data with the purpose to select the right type of securities for the portfolio is a must for them. The present work is based on the review of many studies both foreign and Indian studies relating to mutual funds. The mutual fund industry in India consists of public sector, private sector and foreign funds. All the three sectors are studied to analyse the selectivity performance on the basis of sponsorship of funds. However, from these only active funds belongings to Growth, Income, Balanced and Tax-Saving Schemes were selected for the study. In this paper stock selectivity skills of sample fund managers were tested using Jensen’s Alpha and Fama’s net selectivity measures models.
Analysis of sequence homogenisation in rDNA arrays of Haemonchus contortus by denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis

Testing different theories of concerted evolution experimentally has been hampered mainly due to the lack of appropriate model systems and technical limitations. In this study, we employed a denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) approach for the display and definition of nucleotide variations in the second internal transcribed spacer (ITS‐2) of ribosomal DNA (rDNA) of the parasitic nematode, Haemonchus contortus. The ITS‐2 was amplified from individual adult nematodes by PCR and subjected to DGGE. Of the 94 individuals (representing nine different populations) analysed, 13 different DGGE profiles were displayed. Eighteen bands representing those profiles were excised and sequenced. Sequencing defined 13 different types of ITS‐2 with 12 nucleotide variations (4 transitions, 5 transversions, 1 insertion and 2 deletions) which could be related to particular positions of the predicted secondary structure for the ITS‐2 pre‐rRNA. The results showed that individuals of interbreeding populations of H. contortus can have rDNA arrays that are partially or fully homogenised for different sequence variants (despite interindividual variation), suggesting that the homogenisation process is driven mainly by intrachromosomal exchange. The findings also demonstrated the capacity of the DGGE‐sequencing strategy to quantify the frequency of ITS‐2 sequence types within individual nematodes from different populations without the need for cloning or Southern blot procedures. This has important implications for studying the mechanisms of sequence homogenisation in rDNA and pre‐rRNA processing as well as for elucidating speciation events and population differentation at the molecular level.
The development of political knowledge in adolescence: Which mediating institutions have the strongest influence?

Recent research on the development of political knowledge often focuses on the role of one specific mediating institution in this process. In this paper, we argue that it is important to put the role of different mediating institutions (i.c. parents, peers and mass media) into a comparative perspective in order to explain the influence of each mediating institutions in a more systematic way. Is the content (the information-richness) of the mediating institutions crucial for the development of political knowledge, or is it especially important that citizens are exposed to political views and knowledge in an interactive way? We investigate the development of political knowledge and the role of these different mediating institutions among adolescents, as young citizens are in a phase in life in which knowledge on societal issues is fully being developed. Using data from a recent large scale study on among 3,426 adolescents in Belgium (Parent-Child Socialization Study 2012), we simultaneously analyze the role of family, peers and mass media in the development of political knowledge. This points at the importance of an information-rich context. Interactive exposure to political information is not a necessary condition for the development of political knowledge.
The xenoestrogens ethinylestradiol and bisphenol A regulate BCRP at the blood–brain barrier of rats

Abstract 1. Breast cancer resistance protein (BCRP) is an ABC-transporter at the blood–brain barrier (BBB) facilitating efflux of xenobiotics into blood. Expression and function are regulated via estrogen-receptors (ERs). 2. 17α-Ethinylestradiol (EE2) and bisphenol A (BPA) represent two prominent xenoestrogens. We studied whether EE2 and BPA regulate BCRP function and expression upon a 6 h treatment in an ER-dependent manner in a rat BBB-ex-vivo-model. 3. Isolated brain capillaries were incubated with EE2 or BPA. BCRP function and expression were analyzed by confocal microscopy and Western-Blot. ERα-antagonist MPP and ER-antagonist ICI182.780 were used to study involvement of ERs. 4. EE2 and BPA down-regulated BCRP transport function and expression. EE2 effects occurred at pharmacologically relevant doses, BPA exhibited only weak influences. Down-regulation by EE2 was reversed by ICI but not MPP. BPA effects were not reversed by either antagonist. 5. EE2 is a potent regulator of BCRP expression and function acting by ERβ-stimulation. Oral contraception could alter uptake of pharmaceuticals to the brain and might thus be considered as an origin of central nervous system (CNS) side-effects. EE2 could also present a novel co-treatment to improve CNS-pharmacotherapy. BPA is a weak modulator of BCRP expression. Its effects appear not to be caused by ERs.
Two Applied Economics Essays: Trade Duration in U.S. Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Imports & Goods-Time Elasticity of Substitution in Household Food Production for SNAP participants and nonparticipants

The first study investigates the factors that impact the duration of U.S. fresh fruit and vegetable imports. We employ both survival analysis (Kaplan Meier estimates and Cox proportional hazards model) as well as count data models. Our results indicate that SPS treatment requirements positively impact the duration of trade while new market access has the opposite effect. Other factors typically included in trade duration models (such as: GDP, transportation costs, tariff rates, etc.) were also investigated. We also employ a probit model to understand the factors impacting the probability that a country selects into exporting fresh fruits and vegetables to the United States. The second study estimates the goods-time elasticity of substitution for Food Stamp/SNAP participants versus non participants. We find that the elasticity of substitution for SNAP participants is not statistically different from zero. This indicates that SNAP participants have Leontief production function in household food production, implying that increasing the amount of SNAP benefits paid to participants will not lead to more food production if the time households dedicate to food preparation remains unchanged. This finding extends the analysis done by Baral, Davis and You (2011) and offers insights for policies related to the SNAP program.
Performance characteristics of dedicated molecular breast imaging systems at low doses.

PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to compare the system performance characteristics and lesion detection capability of two molecular breast imaging (MBI) systems: a multicrystal sodium iodide (NaI)-based single-head system and a cadmium zinc telluride (CZT)-based dual-head system at low administered doses (150-300 MBq) of Tc-99m sestamibi. METHODS System performance characteristics including count sensitivity, uniformity, energy resolution, and spatial resolution were measured using standard NEMA methods, or a modified version thereof in cases where the standard NEMA protocol could not be applied. A contrast-detail phantom with 48 lesions at varying depths from the collimator surface was used to assess lesion contrast-to-noise-ratio (CNR) using background count densities comparable to those observed in patient studies performed with administered doses of 150 MBq Tc-99m sestamibi. Lesions with CNR >3 were deemed to be detectable. Thirty patients undergoing MBI examinations with administered doses of 150-300 MBq were scanned for an additional view on the pixelated NaI system. CNR was calculated for lesions observed on patient images. Background count densities of patient images were measured and compared between the two systems. RESULTS Over the central field of view, integral and differential uniformity were 6.1% and 4.2%, respectively, for the pixelated NaI system, and 3.8% and 2.7%, respectively, for the CZT system. Count sensitivity was 10.8 kcts/min/MBq for the NaI system and 32.9 kcts/min/MBq for the CZT system. Energy resolution was 13.5% on the pixelated NaI system and 4.5% on the CZT system. Spatial resolution (full-width at half-maximum) for the pixelated NaI detector was 4.2 mm at a distance of 1.2 cm from the collimator and 5.2 mm at 3.1 cm. Spatial resolution of a single CZT detector was 2.9 mm at a distance of 1.2 cm from the collimator and 4.7 mm at 3.1 cm. Effective spatial resolution obtained with dual-head CZT was below 4.7 mm throughout a simulated breast thickness of 6 cm. From contrast-detail phantom images of lesions at distances of 1.5-4.5 cm from the collimator face, the CZT system detected 124 of 144 (86%) of lesions compared to 97 of 144 (67%) with the NaI system. In patient studies, from comparison of the same view with both systems, a total of 7 breast lesions were identified on CZT system in seven patients, and 4 of 7 (57%) were detected on NaI system. Patient image background count densities on the CZT system were on average 3.4 times higher than those on the NaI system. CONCLUSIONS The CZT system demonstrated better uniformity, count sensitivity, spatial resolution, energy resolution, and lesion detection in phantom and patient studies compared to the NaI system. At administered doses of 150-300 MBq Tc-99m sestamibi, patient results obtained with CZT systems may not be directly translatable to NaI systems.
Tour Guides’ Roles and Their Perceptions of Tourism Development in Cuba

ABSTRACT US tourists had been exploring Cuba with government licensed local guides on cultural exchange trips since 1999. In 2016, changes in US–Cuban relations have further opened Cuba to US tourists and some loosening of the government controlled tourism system. This research examines tour guides’ role in formulating US tourists’ perceptions of Cuba before more free-market tourism, including tour guiding, was allowed. Cuban government guides that work with a US receptive operator were interviewed using a semi-structured script by a local bilingual researcher. Cohen’s [(1985). The tourist guide. Annals of Tourism Research, 12(1), 5–29. doi:10.1016/0160-7383(85)90037-4] tour guide communicative roles and Canally and Carmichael’s [(2011). Political economy of destination image: Manufacturing Cuba. Tourism Analysis, 16, 731–746] image model with government prism filter were useful to interpret findings. Cohen’s tour guide roles were found amongst the government employed guides except for fabrication. Canally and Carmichael’s [(2011). Political economy of destination image: Manufacturing Cuba. Tourism Analysis, 16, 731–746] model was supported by the omnipresence of guarded responses by tour operators and their adherence to government controlled jobs and messaging to tourists, particularly US tourists.
N1L Is an Ectromelia Virus Virulence Factor and Essential for In Vivo Spread upon Respiratory Infection

ABSTRACT The emergence of zoonotic orthopoxvirus infections and the threat of possible intentional release of pathogenic orthopoxviruses have stimulated renewed interest in understanding orthopoxvirus infections and the resulting diseases. Ectromelia virus (ECTV), the causative agent of mousepox, offers an excellent model system to study an orthopoxvirus infection in its natural host. Here, we investigated the role of the vaccinia virus ortholog N1L in ECTV infection. Respiratory infection of mice with an N1L deletion mutant virus (ECTVΔN1L) demonstrated profound attenuation of the mutant virus, confirming N1 as an orthopoxvirus virulence factor. Upon analysis of virus dissemination in vivo, we observed a striking deficiency of ECTVΔN1L spreading from the lungs to the livers or spleens of infected mice. Investigating the immunological mechanism controlling ECTVΔN1L infection, we found the attenuated phenotype to be unaltered in mice deficient in Toll-like receptor (TLR) or RIG-I-like RNA helicase (RLH) signaling as well as in those missing the type I interferon receptor or lacking B cells. However, in RAG-1−/− mice lacking mature B and T cells, ECTVΔN1L regained virulence, as shown by increasing morbidity and virus spread to the liver and spleen. Moreover, T cell depletion experiments revealed that ECTVΔN1L attenuation was reversed only by removing both CD4+ and CD8+ T cells, so the presence of either cell subset was still sufficient to control the infection. Thus, the orthopoxvirus virulence factor N1 may allow efficient ECTV infection in mice by interfering with host T cell function.
A system for the direct determination of the nonvolatile organic carbon, dissolved organic carbon, and inorganic carbon in water samples through inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry.

A new system has been developed for the determination of total organic carbon (TOC) and inorganic carbon (IC) or total inorganic carbon (TIC) in waters. Only nonvolatile organic compounds can be detected through the present method. The system presented in this work is based on the measurement of the carbon atomic emission intensity in inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-AES). This way, the organic matter does not undergo any preoxidation step. A semiautomatic accessory connected to the spectrometer separates the different carbon fractions (i.e., organic and inorganic). Because most of the solutions used in the present work did not contain suspended solid particles, the actual parameter that was determined was the dissolved organic carbon (DOC). The present system exhibits good sensitivities compared to those provided by conventional TOC and IC determination methods. The limits of detection obtained in the present work have been 0.07 and 0.0007 mg/L C in terms of TOC and IC, respectively. Furthermore, the system is able to handle high-salt-content solutions. This fact suggests that it would be possible to analyze seawater samples, avoiding some of the problems encountered with conventional methods, such as system blocking or interferences. The TOC and IC values found for natural samples are very close to those measured using conventional methods. The ICP-AES method has been successfully used in two interesting applications: (i) monitoring the efficiency of a water treatment plant and (ii) determining the contents of dissolved carbon dioxide, on one hand, and that of carbonate and bicarbonate, on the other, in the same sample.
An Intelligent Multi-Agents Method for Study on Membrane Protein Interaction Network

Membrane protein and its interaction network has become a novel research direction in bioinformatics. Multiple researches on these interactions can improve our understanding of diseases and provide the basis to revolutionize therapeutic treatments. In this paper, a novel membrane protein interaction network simulator is proposed for system biology studies by intelligent multi-agents method. We consider biological system as a set of active computational components interacting with each other and with an external environment. Then we can use the network simulator to construct membrane protein interaction networks. Interactions among small membrane protein interaction networks can emerge a large membrane protein interaction network which has its remarkable ability to accomplish a complex function or task. Based on the proposed approach, we find out that the membrane protein interaction network almost has the some dynamic and collective characters, such as small-world network, topological character, and hierarchical module structure. These characters of the membrane protein interaction network will be valuable for its relatively biological and medical studies.
Appearance-based necrosis detection using textural features and SVM with discriminative thresholding in histopathological whole slide images

Automatic detection of necrosis in histological images is an interesting problem of digital pathology that needs to be addressed. Determination of presence and extent of necrosis can provide useful information for disease diagnosis and prognosis, and the detected necrotic regions can also be excluded before analyzing the remaining living tissue. This paper describes a novel appearance-based method to detect tumor necrosis in histopathogical whole slide images. Studies are performed on heterogeneous microscopic images of gastric cancer containing tissue regions with variation in malignancy level and stain intensity. Textural image features are extracted from image patches to efficiently represent necrotic appearance in the tissue and machine learning is performed using support vector machines followed by discriminative thresholding for our complex datasets. The classification results are quantitatively evaluated for different image patch sizes using two cross validation approaches namely three-fold and leave one out cross validation, and the best average cross validation rate of 85.31% is achieved for the most suitable patch size. Therefore, the proposed method is a promising tool to detect necrosis in heterogeneous whole slide images, showing its robustness to varying visual appearances.
Evaluation of applicability of modified vector space representation for in-VM malicious activity detection in Cloud

Malware writers use increasingly complex evasion mechanisms to ensure the concealment of malware against standard anti-malware suites. To identify malware through its behaviour, rather than its approach is an interesting venue of exploration. System call traces are highly indicative of a process behaviour. However, it is difficult to acquire system calls of all processes running on a physical machine. Fortunately, the same cannot be said for the virtual machines, owing to the advancement of Virtual Machine Introspection (VMI) techniques. This opens up the possibility of utilizing system call information for malicious activity detection. In this paper, we study different representations of system call information and evaluate their applicability for in- VM malicious activity detection in Cloud environment.
Short-term exposure of high glucose concentration induces generation of reactive oxygen species in endothelial cells: implication for the oxidative stress associated with postprandial hyperglycemia

Abstract Recent studies demonstrating a close relationship between postprandial hyperglycemia and the incidence of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease prompted us to investigate the generation and source of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in endothelial cells stimulated by short-term exposure to a high glucose concentration. In addition, we investigated the effect of insulin on ROS production induced by high glucose concentration. Cultured bovine aortic endothelial cells demonstrated a significant increase in intracellular ROS generation after a 3-h exposure to 25 mM glucose (131.4% versus 5 mM glucose). This increased generation of ROS was suppressed by an inhibitor of NAD(P)H oxidase. Intracellular ROS production in cells exposed to 3 h of high glucose concentration was increased significantly by the presence of a physiological concentration of insulin. However, after a 1-h exposure to high glucose levels, ROS generation in cells incubated with insulin was only about 80% of that measured in cells incubated without insulin. The generation of intracellular nitric oxide (NO) resulting from an acute insulin effect may account for this difference. In conclusion, acute hyperglycemia itself may possibly cause endothelial oxidative stress in patients with postprandial hyperglycemia. Endothelial oxidative stress may be determined by the interaction between NO and superoxide generation.