Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Efficacy of Radiofrequency Procedures for the Treatment of Spinal Pain: A Systematic Review of Randomized Clinical Trials

Background and Objectives The use of radiofrequency (RF) procedures in the peripheral nervous system to treat chronic spinal pain has been the subject of controversy. Publications concerned only uncontrolled studies, and irreversible nervous tissue damage was believed to be responsible for the effect, if any. In recent years, randomized, controlled studies have appeared, which have attested to an increasing use of these techniques. This is a systematic review of randomized controlled trials on RF procedures for spinal pain. Methods We performed a standardized literature search for randomized, controlled trials. Three adjudicators independently registered trial methodology and outcome using validated and subject-related instruments. Interadjudicator disagreement was resolved by discussion. It was found necessary to devise additional parameters of study assessment. Results Six trials met the inclusion criteria. This small number, along with clinical and technical heterogeneity precluded statistical analysis. All studies, whether high or low quality, reported positive outcomes. Conclusions We conclude that there is moderate evidence that RF lumbar facet denervation is more effective for chronic low back pain than placebo. Limited evidence exists for efficacy of RF neurotomy in chronic cervical zygapophyseal joint pain after flexion-extension injury. There is limited evidence that RF heating of the dorsal root ganglion is more effective than placebo in chronic cervicobrachialgia. We recommend the systematic application of our additional parameter assessments for future evaluations of RF studies. These additional parameters should also be used in the preparation of future trial protocols of RF procedures for the treatment of chronic pain.
Glutathione peroxidase and subarachnoid hemorrhage: implications for the role of oxidative stress in cerebral vasospasm

Abstract Objective: Worldwide, cerebral vasospasm after subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) has an estimated morbidity and mortality of 1.2 million annually. While it has long been suspected that reactive oxygen species play a major role in the etiology of cerebral vasospasm after SAH, promising results in animal work were not borne out in human clinical trials, despite intensive research effort. The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of glutathione peroxidase in the SAH cerebrospinal fluid milieu. Methods: We utilized commercially available kits for the quantitation of glutathione peroxidase 1 (glutathione peroxidase) activity and oxygen radical capacity and sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis with Western blotting with specific antibodies to human glutathione peroxidase to determine the enzyme content of the cerebrospinal fluid samples. Human cerebrospinal fluid was obtained in an Institutional Review Board-exempt manner for this study in the following groups: control (no SAH), CSFC (SAH but no vasospasm on angiography) and CSFV (SAH with clinical and angiographic vasospasm). Results: We found that glutathione peroxidase activity is significantly higher in CSFV compared with CSFC, and this is reflected in a higher total oxidative capacity in CSFV. Despite similar levels of glutathione peroxidase protein, CSFV had significantly greater activity than CSFC. Discussion: These results further elucidate previous research from this laboratory, showing increased oxidative stress in CSFV compared with CSFC. In conclusion, there appears to be increased glutathione peroxidase activity in CSFV, despite there being increased levels of oxidative stress markers, suggesting overwhelming oxidative stress may play a role in cerebral vasospasm after SAH.
Impairment of memory functions after acute head injury 1

When memory functions are evaluated after head injury, two trends are apparent. Acute head injury patients with approximately normal intelligence demonstrate a reduced capacity to utilize structure in delayed recall relative to a control group. Furthermore, head injury patients with low intelligence demonstrate a wider memory deficit than the previous group, affecting perception and immediate recall as well. No relationship was found between severity of injury, recovery, and performance on the memory scale.
A new secure method for the transmission of protection information between substations based on compressed sensing

Wide-Area protection uses the global information to detect faults and to achieve stability control, which is a hot research topic nowadays. However, wide-area protection system needs to use information from a number of substations. Therefore, communication's reliability requirement is high. To ensure reliability of the information transmitted between substations, this paper presents an encoding method based on compressed sensing (CS). This method creates sparsity for the data to be transferred and maps the information to the frequency domain before transmission. At the receiving end, an orthogonal matching pursuit (OMP) reconstruction algorithm is used to reconstruct the original information. The simulation results show that even with the worst case bit change, or when the communication channel has noise, the normalized root mean square error (NMRSE) is still acceptable. The method simplifies the encoding and decoding complexity, greatly improves efficiency.
Malignant Retroperitoneal Fibrosis: MRI Characteristics in 50 Patients

AbstractWe analyzed magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) morphologic patterns of retroperitoneal fibrosis (RF) to identify those able to distinguish malignant RF (mRF) from idiopathic RF (iRF). This retrospective study concerned 50 consecutive patients with MRI–based RF diagnoses, 35 of whom also had histologically proven RF. Previous radiotherapy, abdominal or pelvic surgery or infection during the preceding 6 months, vascular aneurysm (aorta or iliac artery), presence of retroperitoneal multiple nodular masses, or enlarged lymph nodes with a diameter >15 mm constituted exclusion criteria.Patients with mRF differed from those with iRF by age, smoking habits, and follow–up duration but not by clinical manifestations, inflammatory syndrome, or renal insufficiency. MRI–documented mRF extension along the aorta, from above the renal arteries to below the aortic bifurcation, was more frequent than iRF (47% vs. 0%; p = 0.001) but less frequent between the renal arteries and the aortic bifurcation (18% vs. 50%; p = 0.04); mRF extension behind the aorta was wider than iRF (5.0 vs. 2.5 mm; p = 0.03). Neither urinary tract nor vessel involvement differed. Medial ureteral attraction was significantly less frequent in mRF than iRF (24% vs. 83%; p < 0.001), according to univariate and multivariate analyses. An algorithm based on the most discriminant criteria (RF extending from above the renal arteries to below the aortic bifurcation and the absence of medial ureteral attraction) for mRF diagnosis had 82% sensitivity and 83% specificity. When applied to the 15 iRF patients without histologic data, specificity was 73%. This mRF decision tree, consisting of the 2 most discriminant MRI criteria, could be used as a supplementary argument to support RF biopsy.
A potential strategy for decreasing milk production in the ewe at weaning using a growth hormone release blocker.

Following the loss or removal of ewes' lambs, ewes frequently continue to lactate for a short time, which potentially predisposes them to mastitis. Therapies that stop or reduce milk production in such situations would be beneficial. Milk production in ruminants is positively correlated with serum concentrations of growth hormone (GH). We sought to determine whether methscopolamine bromide (MB), an anticholinergic agent reported to block GH secretion, would selectively and reversibly reduce milk yield in lactating ewes. White-face ewes (n = 24) that were nursing lambs were assigned on d 59 +/- 2 postpartum (d 0) to receive s.c. injections of 96 mg of MB on d 2, 3, and 4 (1630). On d 0, 2, 5, and 7 (0900), ewes were sequentially separated from their lambs, treated with 40 IU oxytocin, and 30 s later were milked. Ewes remained separated from their lambs for 6 h, after which (1500) ewes were again milked and quantity of milk was determined. Milk yields at d 0, 2, 5, and 7 were 267 +/- 16.9, 266 +/- 15.5, 225 +/- 11.9, and 244 +/- 13.4 g, respectively. It was concluded that treatment of ewes with MB reduced milk yield (P < .01), and the effect was reversible. A second experiment was performed to determine the acute effects of MB on serum concentrations of GH. Hampshire ewes (n = 14) that were nursing lambs were assigned on d 55 +/- 1 postpartum to receive a.s.c. injection of saline (n = 7) or 96 mg of MB (n = 7) at min 0. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
BAG1 Over‐expression in Brain Protects Against Stroke

The co‐chaperone BAG1 binds and regulates 70 kDa heat shock proteins (Hsp70/Hsc70) and exhibits cytoprotective activity in cell culture models. Recently, we observed that BAG1 expression is induced during neuronal differentiation in the developing brain. However, the in vivo effects of BAG1 during development and after maturation of the central nervous system have never been examined. We generated transgenic mice over‐expressing BAG1 in neurons. While brain development was essentially normal, cultured cortical neurons from transgenic animals exhibited resistance to glutamate‐induced, apoptotic neuronal death. Moreover, in an in vivo stroke model involving transient middle cerebral artery occlusion, BAG1 transgenic mice demonstrated decreased mortality and substantially reduced infarct volumes compared to wild‐type littermates. Interestingly, brain tissue from BAG1 transgenic mice contained higher levels of neuroprotective Hsp70/Hsc70 protein but not mRNA, suggesting a potential mechanism whereby BAG1 exerts its anti‐apoptotic effects. In summary, BAG1 displays potent neuroprotective activity in vivo against stroke, and therefore represents an interesting target for developing new therapeutic strategies including gene therapy and small‐molecule drugs for reducing brain injury during cerebral ischemia and neurodegenerative diseases.
Practical Service Placement Approach for Microservices Architecture

Community networks (CNs) have gained momentum in the last few years with the increasing number of spontaneously deployed WiFi hotspots and home networks. These networks, owned and managed by volunteers, offer various services to their members and to the public. To reduce the complexity of service deployment, community micro-clouds have recently emerged as a promising enabler for the delivery of cloud services to community users. By putting services closer to consumers, micro-clouds pursue not only a better service performance, but also a low entry barrier for the deployment of mainstream Internet services within the CN. Unfortunately, the provisioning of the services is not so simple. Due to the large and irregular topology, high software and hardware diversity of CNs, it requires of a "careful" placement of micro-clouds and services over the network. To achieve this, this paper proposes to leverage state information about the network to inform service placement decisions, and to do so through a fast heuristic algorithm, which is vital to quickly react to changing conditions. To evaluate its performance, we compare our heuristic with one based on random placement in Guifi.net, the biggest CN worldwide. Our experimental results show that our heuristic consistently outperforms random placement by 211% in terms of bandwidth gain. We quantify the benefits of our heuristic on a real live video-streaming service, and demonstrate that video chunk losses decrease significantly, attaining a 37% decrease in the loss packet rate. Further, using a popular Web 2.0 service, we demonstrate that the client response times decrease up to an order of magnitude when using our heuristic.
Spatial and Social Class Variations in Child Deprivation in Madhya Pradesh, India

This paper develops a composite child deprivation index to measure child deprivation in Madhya Pradesh and its constituent districts by residence and social class using the data available through the 2001 Population Census. The paper uses the median polish technique to analyse the social class and residence effects of child deprivation. It is observed that children of Scheduled Tribes (STs) in the rural areas of the Madhya Pradesh live in a state of extreme deprivation. It is also observed that both the residence effect and social class effect of child deprivation in the state are quite substantial. The paper argues that the current sectoral approaches of meeting the needs of the children are not adequate enough to address the issue of child deprivation and emphasizes the need for an integrated rights-based approach of meeting the survival, growth, and development needs of the children of the state.
Successful immunotherapy induces previously unidentified allergen-specific CD4+ T-cell subsets

Significance The mechanisms through which successful immunotherapy induces possible deletion, replacement, or reprogramming of T cells are unknown. By evaluating the expression of T-cell–related genes, and using appropriate multivariate statistical approaches, our data show that successful immunotherapy can induce previously unidentified CD4+ T-cell subtypes during treatment that could help to predict an “immune-tolerant” clinical phenotype identified after cessation of treatment. The ability to use “anergic” transcriptional phenotypes in single T cells to predict successful “immune tolerance” induction in the clinic setting, as suggested by our findings, could lead to transformative impacts in the field of immunotherapy. Allergen immunotherapy can desensitize even subjects with potentially lethal allergies, but the changes induced in T cells that underpin successful immunotherapy remain poorly understood. In a cohort of peanut-allergic participants, we used allergen-specific T-cell sorting and single-cell gene expression to trace the transcriptional “roadmap” of individual CD4+ T cells throughout immunotherapy. We found that successful immunotherapy induces allergen-specific CD4+ T cells to expand and shift toward an “anergic” Th2 T-cell phenotype largely absent in both pretreatment participants and healthy controls. These findings show that sustained success, even after immunotherapy is withdrawn, is associated with the induction, expansion, and maintenance of immunotherapy-specific memory and naive T-cell phenotypes as early as 3 mo into immunotherapy. These results suggest an approach for immune monitoring participants undergoing immunotherapy to predict the success of future treatment and could have implications for immunotherapy targets in other diseases like cancer, autoimmune disease, and transplantation.
Mobile phone programming for multimedia

This compact hands-on tutorial introduces a novel way of creative mobile phone programming for multi-media that is easy to learn and fun. It was created in 2006 by the author of this paper and was published as a free online tutorial at http://www.mobilenin. com/pys60/menu.htm. Pedagogically fine-tuned, it teaches the programming of a large set of mobile phone features including camera, sound, video, messaging, telephony, location, Bluetooth, graphics, Wi-fi, GPS and networking. The problem in the past has been that developing applications on the mobile platform was time consuming and required a steep learning curve. Also, mobile platforms have often been closed or were too restricted. Mobile Python, also known as 'Python for S60' (PyS60) offers a crucial turning point here. It provides a Python execution environment for the mobile phone. It is developed by Nokia Research as an Open Source Project. This tutorial uses PyS60 in combination with a set of code examples, turning it into a ready working toolkit. It allows developing mobile applications even by novice programmers, artists and people from the creative communities. In a matter of days, people can build powerful applications based on their own ideas and contribute to the mobile space. This tutorial has been taught in more than 40 occasions in academia and industry and in more than 17 countries during the last 2 years. Among these are Yahoo Research Berkeley, Nokia, NTU Taiwan, MIT and Stanford University.
The Bacterial Magnesium Transporter CorA Can Functionally Substitute for Its Putative Homologue Mrs2p in the Yeast Inner Mitochondrial Membrane*

The yeast nuclear gene MRS2 encodes a protein of 54 kDa, the presence of which has been shown to be essential for the splicing of group II intron RNA in mitochondria and, independently, for the maintenance of a functional respiratory system. Here we show that the MRS2 gene product (Mrs2p) is an integral protein of the inner mitochondrial membrane. It appears to be inserted into this membrane by virtue of two neighboring membrane spanning domains in its carboxyl-terminal half. A large amino-terminal and a shorter carboxyl-terminal part are likely to be exposed to the matrix space. Structural features and a short sequence motif indicate that Mrs2p may be related to the bacterial CorA Mg2+transporter. In fact, overexpression of the CorA gene in yeast partially suppresses the pet − phenotype of an mrs2 disrupted yeast strain. Disruption of theMRS2 gene leads to a significant decrease in total magnesium content of mitochondria which is compensated for by the overexpression of the CorA gene. Mutants lacking or overproducing Mrs2p exhibit phenotypes consistent with the involvement of Mrs2p in mitochondrial Mg2+ homeostasis.
Evaluation of an ELISA-PPD for the diagnosis of bovine tuberculosis in field trials in Brazil.

Bovine tuberculosis is a major health problem in Brazil. The intradermal tuberculin test is the standard test for its detection, but it can lack both sensitivity and specificity. The purpose of this study was to evaluate a bovine enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay- (ELISA - PPD) under field conditions in Brazil. A total of 1632 animals from 13 dairy farms were tested with the intradermal tuberculin test (ITT). Two hundred and seven cows gave a positive reaction, which represents 12.7 per cent of the cattle studied. The sensitivity and specificity rates to ITT were 87.7 per cent and 95.2 per cent, respectively. From the 1632 animals 15 per cent of each herd (220 in total) were selected to be tested by the ELISA. Differences between mean optical density (OD) of the control group, ITT -positive and ITT -negative groups were all significant (P<0.01). The sensitivity rates to ELISA - PPD were 86.7 per cent, while specificity was 90.6 per cent. The use of ELISA - PPD is suggested for situations where the investigation of the whole herd is more important than the individual testing of each cow. In addition, the ELISA - PPD can also be helpful when a collective diagnosis is desired to elucidate clinical suspicions of disease, or in the first steps of a control program, for identification of foci.
Solution structure of the C‐terminal domain of Ole e 9, a major allergen of olive pollen

Ole e 9 is an olive pollen allergen belonging to group 2 of pathogenesis‐related proteins. The protein is composed of two immunological independent domains: an N‐terminal domain (NtD) with 1,3‐β‐glucanase activity, and a C‐terminal domain (CtD) that binds 1,3‐β‐glucans. We have determined the three‐dimensional structure of CtD‐Ole e 9 (101 amino acids), which consists of two parallel α‐helices forming an angle of ∼55°, a small antiparallel β‐sheet with two short strands, and a 3–10 helix turn, all connected by long coil segments, resembling a novel type of folding among allergens. Two regions surrounded by aromatic residues (F49, Y60, F96, Y91 and Y31, H68, Y65, F78) have been localized on the protein surface, and a role for sugar binding is suggested. The epitope mapping of CtD‐Ole e 9 shows that B‐cell epitopes are mainly located on loops, although some of them are contained in secondary structural elements. Interestingly, the IgG and IgE epitopes are contiguous or overlapped, rather than coincident. The three‐dimensional structure of CtD‐Ole e 9 might help to understand the underlying mechanism of its biochemical function and to determine possible structure–allergenicity relationships.
The effect of frailty on HAI response to influenza vaccine among community-dwelling adults ≥ 50 years of age

ABSTRACT The immune response to vaccine antigens is less robust in older adults because of changes in the aging immune system. Frailty, the multi-dimensional syndrome marked by losses in function and physiological reserve, is increasingly prevalent with advancing age. Frailty accelerates this immunosenescence but the consequence of frailty on immune response specific to influenza vaccine among older adults, is mixed. An observational, prospective study of 114 adults was conducted in the fall of 2013 to assess the association of physical frailty with immune response to standard dose influenza vaccine in community-dwelling adults ≥ 50 years of age. Participants were stratified by age (<65 years and ≥65 years), and vaccine strain (Influenza A/H1N1, A/H3N2 and B) was analyzed separately adjusting for body mass index (BMI) and baseline log2 hemagglutination inhibition (HAI) titers. Overall, immune responses were lower among those ≥65 years of age than those <65 years. Among those ≥65 years there were no significant differences between frail and non-frail individuals in seroprotection or seroconversion for any influenza strain. Frail individuals <65 years of age compared with non-frail individuals were more likely to be seroprotected and to seroconvert post vaccination. Linear regression models show the same pattern of significant differences between frail and non-frail for those <65 years but no significant differences between frailty groups for those ≥65 years. Additional research may elucidate the reasons for the differences observed between younger frail and non-frail adults.
Optimized process design flow for fabrication of superjunction VDMOS for enhanced RDSonA

In this paper, we proposed a simple and optimized process design flow for the fabrication of Silicon Charge Balance (CB) Super Junction (SJ) Vertical Double Diffused MOS (VDMOS). Deep Reactive Ion etching (DRI) is used for forming trench p-pillar with process simulation, which reduces the design complexity and number of steps required for device fabrication. The trench p-pillar that has been formed at 1100° C using DRI causes crystal defects. We remove these defects by annealing at 1150°C which results in reduction of Area Specific ON Resistance across Source/Drain (S/D) (RDSonA). The proposed process device has Breakdown Voltage (BV) 590V, RDSonA 3. 1MΩcm2 and maximum operating switching frequency (fT) 1.027GHz.
Reinterpreting the relation between external efficacy and political participation. The role of output structures for state- and non-state oriented action forms

From an instrumental point of view, political efficacy is one of the most important predictors of political participation. The more effective people consider certain forms of action to be, the more likely they are to engage in them. Numerous studies have stressed the role of citizens’ perceptions of the state as a political context to explain (the perceived effectiveness of) political participation, yet in doing so they have mainly focused on perceptions of the state’s willingness to be responsive – i.e., citizens’ external input efficacy. Perceptions of the state’s ability to be responsive – i.e., external output efficacy – are often emphasized from a theoretical point of view, but remain empirically overlooked. The main goal of this paper is to address this gap in the literature by analyzing the link between external output efficacy and different forms of stateand non-state oriented forms of participation. To do so, data are used from the 2014 PARTIREP Belgian election survey (N = 2015). In line with the hypotheses, it is found that high levels of external output efficacy indirectly increase state-oriented political participation, while non-state oriented political participation is unaffected.