Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Concurrence of Granular Cell Tumor and Mycobacterium tuberculosis

Granular cell tumors (GCT) are rare, usually benign neoplasms of Schwann cell origin. Since discovery in 1926, fewer than 80 cases of GCT involving the lung have been reported. This report presents a 45-year-old male who presented with symptoms consistent with chronic pancreatitis associated with night sweats, weight loss, and a chronic productive cough. Chest radiography revealed a 3 × 4 cm left upper lobe lung mass with an unremarkable right lung field. Bronchoscopy revealed mixed mucosal abnormalities in the left upper lobe and a 4-mm polypoidal lesion in the right lower lobe. Bronchial washings stained positive for acid-fast bacilli. The left upper lobe lesion biopsy showed granulomatous inflammation with caseous necrosis consistent with tuberculosis. The right lower lobe lesion was a GCT without evidence of tuberculosis. This report reviews the literature regarding GCT and presents this unusual case of granular cell tumor co-occurring with active tuberculosis.
Price transmission among different Atlantic salmon products in the U.S. import market

ABSTRACT The cross-commodity price transmission is an approach to derive meaningful results from the price information, and is mostly influenced by the substitutability and complementary relations among products. Using time series data collected from the National Marine Fisheries Statistics, the present study specified and estimated cross-commodity price transmission models for 13 salmon products imported in the U.S. market. The salmon products are differentiated by form, cut, source/origin, and production environment. The estimated cross-product price transmission elasticity and degree of substitutability among them varied considerably. Whole fresh farmed Canadian and Norwegian Atlantic salmon did not have any close import substitutes in the U.S. market among the salmon products considered in the study. A reduced pricing strategy would result in an increase in U.S. salmon import market share of Chilean and U.K. Atlantic fillet fresh, if the U.S. import demand for it is relatively own-price elastic.
A data pattern-tolerant adaptive equalizer using spectrum balancing method

This paper presents a data pattern-tolerant adaptive equalizer using spectrum balancing method. In addition to a high-frequency boosting control loop, this equalizer has a corner frequency control loop to guarantee its adaptation accuracy for various data patterns and data rates. Measured results show that the jitter of the eye is reduced by maximum 37%. The chip fabrication is based on the 0. 18μm CMOS process and the equalizer core occupies 0.35mm2 and consumes 85mW.
Reading with low vision: the impact of research on clinical management *

The past 40 years has seen a great expansion in low‐vision research, which has changed low‐vision teaching and our clinical management of people with low vision. Australian optometrists have contributed significantly to this research and the development of multidisciplinary low‐vision services. This paper reviews the research that has shaped our clinical assessment and patient management for reading by adults with low vision. The major improvements in clinical assessment of low vision for reading were brought about by the improvements in distance and near visual acuity measurements during the 1970s and research during the 1980s and 1990s showing the factors affecting the reading rate. These changes, together with a different method for representing the magnification provided by optical and electronic systems, allows a scientific, logical and practical method for prescribing magnification. An illustration of the step‐by‐step approach for prescribing magnification for low‐vision reading that is easy to apply in any clinical practice is included.
Insulin sensitivity, glucose effectiveness, and free fatty acid dynamics after human islet transplantation for type 1 diabetes.

CONTEXT Islet transplantation results in impaired insulin secretion, but whether defects in insulin sensitivity contribute to impaired glucose disposal after islet transplantation under modern immunosuppression is not known. OBJECTIVE Our objective was to evaluate insulin sensitivity after islet transplantation performed under tacrolimus-based immunosuppression that used minimal steroids. SETTING This study was conducted at the University of Pennsylvania General Clinical Research Center. PARTICIPANTS Eight islet transplant recipients, six type 1 diabetic (T1D), and 10 nondiabetic control subjects participated. INTERVENTION We performed an insulin-modified frequently sampled iv glucose tolerance test to measure insulin sensitivity (S(I)), glucose effectiveness, and free fatty acid (FFA) dynamics. RESULTS S(I) was significantly greater in the islet transplant and control groups, compared with the T1D group (P < 0.05 for both comparisons). Glucose effectiveness was not significantly different across all three groups but was lower by trend in the T1D and islet transplant groups, compared with the control group (P = 0.07 overall ANOVA). FFA levels suppressed normally in the transplant recipients, but the timing and magnitude of FFA suppression were significantly impaired in the T1D group, compared with the islet transplant and control groups (P < 0.05 for all comparisons). The acute insulin response to glucose and the disposition index (D(I) = acute insulin response to glucose x S(I)) were significantly lower in the islet transplant group, compared with the control group (P < 0.05 for all comparisons). CONCLUSIONS These data suggest that even modest restoration of insulin secretion in islet transplant recipients may result in improved insulin sensitivity and FFA dynamics.
Protothecal bursitis after simultaneous kidney/liver transplantation: a case report and review

Solid organ transplantation is an accepted therapy for end‐stage diseases of the kidneys, liver, heart, and lungs. Unfortunately, transplantation is associated with infectious complications. Here, we present a case report of Prototheca wickerhamii olecranon bursitis and review all of the cases in solid organ transplant (SOT) recipients published in the literature to date. In our patient, the infection resolved with surgical therapy and limited antifungal therapy, and no symptoms have recurred over 24 months of follow‐up. A review of the literature suggests that 50% of SOT recipients with Prototheca infection present with disseminated infection, and the overall mortality is 75%. More studies are required to determine the optimal management of protothecosis in this population.
Increased carotid intima-media thickness in men born in east Finland: a twin study of the effects of birthplace and migration to Sweden on subclinical atherosclerosis

BACKGROUND. There is a clear east-west difference in coronary heart disease (CHD) mortality and incidence in Finland, people living in east Finland having higher CHD rate. A study of Finnish immigrants to Sweden has suggested that a long stay in Sweden would be associated with reduced CHD risk. AIM. To determine whether structural and functional markers of subclinical atherosclerosis differ between men originating from east and west Finland, and whether migration to Sweden influences subclinical atherosclerosis. METHOD. Carotid intima-media thickness (IMT) and brachial artery flow-mediated dilatation (FMD) with high-resolution ultrasound and a set of cardiovascular risk factors were measured in 76 middle-aged male twin pairs (55 pairs from east and 21 pairs from west Finland) discordant for migration to Sweden. RESULTS. Among men living in Finland, IMT was significantly higher in men originating from east Finland compared to those from west Finland (0.796 - 0.212 versus 0.704 - 0.123 mm, P = 0.02). A similar east-west difference was observed in men who had migrated to Sweden (0.766 - 0.220 versus 0.686 - 0.089 mm, P = 0.03). The east-west difference in IMT persisted after adjustment for the major traditional cardiovascular risk factors. No east-west difference was seen in FMD. Smoking, Framingham risk score and physical activity had a greater impact on IMT in men originating from east compared to west Finland. CONCLUSIONS. Men originating from east Finland, irrespective of their current residence, have a greater degree of subclinical atherosclerosis and they may be more susceptible to the impact of conventional cardiovascular risk factors than men originating from west Finland.
Effect of genome size and rrn gene copy number on PCR amplification of 16S rRNA genes from a mixture of bacterial species

In order to assess the effect of genome size and number of 16S rRNA genes (rDNAs) on the quantities of PCR-generated partial 16S rDNA fragments, equimolar amounts of DNA from pairs of different species for which these parameters are known were subjected to gene amplification. The experimentally determined ratio of PCR products obtained, as determined by image analysis of SYBR-Green I-stained amplification products, corresponded well with the predicted ratio calculated from the number of rrn genes per equimolar amounts of DNA in mixtures of Escherichia coli and "Thermus thermophilus" and of Pseudomonas aeruginosa and "T. thermophilus. " The values for the pair of Bacillus subtilis and "T. thermophilus" showed greater deviations from the predicted value. The dependence of the amount of 16S rDNA amplification product on these two parameters makes it impossible to quantify the number of species represented in 16S rDNA clone libraries of environmental samples as long as these two parameters are unknown for the species present.
Navigating social distance in foundational clinical encounters: Understanding medical students’ early experiences with diverse patients

Abstract Background: Social distance between patients and physicians has been shown to affect the quality of care that patients receive. Little is known about how social distance between students and patients is experienced by learners during early clinical exposures in medical school. Objective: This study aims to explore students’ stories of experiencing social distance with patients with concordant and discordant social characteristics as themselves, respectively, as well as students’ needs from medical curricula regarding developing social competence. Methods: Semi-structured interviews of medical students [n = 16] were performed, and a post-interview survey and a visual analog scale were completed. The interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed. The written transcripts were coded using the constant comparison method and analyzed for emerging themes. Results: Students experience social distance with patients; yet, they are not taught explicitly by their preceptors how to manage these experiences. Students identified their needs for the curriculum in regard to developing social competence and proposed various strategies and curriculum recommendations. Conclusions: Our results support that students believe that social competence training is important for their professional development to improve relationship-building with diverse patients. As such, it would be valuable to incorporate student recommendations in the formation of a social competence curriculum.
The extraneous electromagnetic field produced by a wireless power transfer system employing dd polarized couplers

Magnetic field wireless power transfer (WPT) systems for vehicular applications are rapidly becoming standardized in order to facilitate interoperability. One somewhat unconventional coupler (winding assembly) design, the DD topology, has been shown to provide good performance in terms of efficiency, maximum separation, and tolerance to misalignment. However, the extraneous electromagnetic field of this topology has not been extensively investigated. Therefore, we provide quantitative analysis of the extraneous electromagnetic field of a representative WPT system employing DD coupler designs as specified by the SAE in the J2954 TIR. It is shown that the DD coupler, like the more conventional solenoidal polarized coupler, primarily produces a horizontal magnetic dipole moment with the axis of the dipole coinciding with a line connecting the centers of the two constituent spiral windings. The dominant horizontal magnetic dipole moment is enhanced by conducting ground due to a constructive image. However, the fields of the DD coupler are somewhat more complex and contain higher-order magnetic multipoles. This causes the near field pattern to deviate from that of a pure horizontal magnetic dipole.
Role of the Low Density Lipoprotein (LDL) Receptor Pathway in the Metabolism of Chylomicron Remnants

Two receptor pathways are thought to mediate the hepatic clearance of chylomicron remnants, (i) the low density lipoprotein receptor (LDLR) pathway and (ii) non-LDLR pathway. The current study was undertaken to quantitatively assess the contribution of each receptor pathway to hepatic catabolism of chylomicron remnants, by using mice that are deficient in apolipoprotein E (apoE) (apoE(−/−)), the LDLR (LDLR(−/−)), and both (apoE(−/−);LDLR(−/−)). Vitamin A fat tolerance tests showed that the area under the curves of the plasma excursions of retinyl ester in the LDLR(−/−), apoE(−/−), and apoE(−/−);LDLR(−/−) mice were 4, 12, and 12 times larger than those in wild-type mice. The retinyl ester accumulated in the plasma of the LDLR(−/−) mice was distributed in larger subfractions of triglyceride-rich lipoproteins, chylomicrons through very low density lipoprotein-C. These results indicate that the LDLR constitutes the major pathway for the clearance of retinyl ester. In support of this, agarose gel electrophoresis revealed that an oral fat load resulted in retention of chylomicrons in the LDLR(−/−) mice, which was not seen in wild-type mice. The observation that the apoE(−/−) mice showed larger retinyl ester excursion than LDLR(−/−) mice indicates that an apoE-dependent non-LDLR pathway is involved in the rest of the clearance of the retinyl ester. Together, we conclude that the LDLR pathway plays a significant role in the chylomicron remnant metabolism in mice fed a normal chow.
Medical image registration and fusion using principal component analysis

: Principal Component Analysis ( PCA ) is widely used in the field of medical image processing. In this paper, PCA is applied to align and fuse the images. When alignment, first, the centroids of the static and moving images are derived by computing the image moments and taken as the translation values for registration, then the subtraction of two rotation angles produced by using PCA to solve the covariance matrice of image coordinates is counted as the rotation values for registration, finally the moving image is aligned with the static one. The Closest Iterative Point ( ICP ) algorithm exists some problems which worth improving. Therefore, we combine PCA with ICP to align the images in this paper. The translation and rotation values derived by PCA are views as the initial request parameters of ICP, which is conducive to further advancing the registration accuracy. The experimental results show that the combination method has a fairly simple implementation, low computational load, good registration accuracy, and also can efficiently avoid trapping in the local optima. When fusion, a slipping window with size being Size Size  is first moved across the fusing images to construct sub-block with size also being Size Size  , then the eigenvectors of the covariance matrix created by using PCA to each sub-block are acquired, finally the absolute values of the eigenvectors are added to compute the fusion coefficient of the central pixel of each sub-block and the images are fused. The results reveal that this proposed fusion method is superior to the traditional PCA-based image fusion.
Deformation monitoring over a large area via the ESD technique with data takes on adjacent tracks

Enhanced spatial differences (ESD) is a new processing chain for monitoring ground deformations at small scale over wide areas. Core of the processing is the spatial differencing (SD) step that performs a quick preliminary estimation of the mean deformation velocity and residual topography via spatial differences. We show the results achieved by applying the ESD algorithm to data collected over adjacent tracks for ERS and ENVISAT.
Co-Transplantation of Plasmid-Transfected Myoblasts and Myotubes into Rat Brains Enables High Levels of Gene Expression Long-Term

We have previously proposed the use of primary muscle cells as a “platform,” or “vehicle” for intracerebral transgene expression. Brain grafts of minced muscle, or cultured muscle cells persisted in rat brains for at least 6 mo without any decrease in graft size, or tumor formation. Stable, but moderate levels of intracerebral transgene expression were obtained by transplanting plasmid-transfected myotubes in culture. In the present study, high and stable levels of intracerebral transgene expression were achieved by the co-transplantation of plasmid-transfected myoblasts and myotubes in culture. Approximately 5 × 10s myoblasts and myotubes were transfected with 10 μg pRSVL plasmid DNA, and 30 μg Lipofectin (BRL), respectively. They were mixed together (total cell number was 1 million), and stereotactically injected into the caudate nucleus of an adult rat brain. The activity of luciferase, the product of transgene expression, was stable for at least 4 mo, and much higher than the levels in myotube grafts, or co-grafts of myoblasts and minced muscle. Presumably, the myotubes served as a framework on which the myoblasts can form myotubes. The sections of brains transplanted with co-graft of myoblasts, and myotubes transfected with pRSVLac-Z were stained immunofluorescently for β-galactosidase activity. The muscle grafts contained β-galactosidase positive myofibers 4 mo after transplantation. Such high and stable levels of in vivo expression after postnatal gene transfer have rarely been achieved. Primary muscle cells are useful vehicle for transgene expression in brains, and potentially valuable for gene therapy of degenerative neurological disorders.
Correlating a Protein Structure with Function of a Bacterial Mechanosensitive Channel* 210

MscL, a mechanosensitive channel found in many bacteria, protects cells from hypotonic shock by reducing intracellular pressure through release of cytoplasmic osmolytes. First isolated fromEscherichia coli, this protein has served as a model for how a protein senses and responds to membrane tension. Recently the structure of a functionally uncharacterized MscL homologue fromMycobacterium tuberculosis was solved by x-ray diffraction to a resolution of 3.5 Å. Here we demonstrate that the protein forms a functional MscL-like mechanosensitive channel in E. colimembranes and azolectin proteoliposomes. Furthermore, we show thatM. tuberculosis MscL crystals, when re-solubilized and reconstituted, yield wild-type channel currents in patch clamp, demonstrating that the protein does not irreversibly change conformation upon crystallization. Finally, we apply functional clues acquired from the E. coli MscL to the M. tuberculosis channel and show a mechanistic correlation between these channels. However, the inability of the M. tuberculosis channel to gate at physiological membrane tensions, demonstrated by in vivo E. coli expression and in vitro reconstitution, suggests that the membrane environment or other additional factors influence the gating of this channel.
Differential expression of the two VEGF receptors flt and KDR in placenta and vascular endothelial cells

Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is a newly identified growth and permeability factor with a unique specificity for endothelial cells. Recently the flt‐encoded tyrosine kinase was characterized as a receptor for VEGF. A novel tyrosine kinase receptor encoded by the KDR gene was also found to bind VEGF with high affinity when expressed in CMT‐3 cells. Screening for flt and KDR expression in a variety of species and tissue‐derived endothelial cells demonstrates that flt is predominantly expressed in human placenta and human vascular endothelial cells. Placenta growth factor (PIGF), a growth factor significantly related to VEGF, is coexpressed with flt in placenta and human vascular endothelial cells. KDR is more widely distributed and expressed in all vessel‐derived endothelial cells. These data demonstrate that cultured human endothelial cells isolated from different tissues express both VEGF receptors in relative high levels and, additionally, that all investigated nonhuman endothelial cells in culture are also positive for KDR gene expression.
Health expectancy: an indicator for change?

Study objective - Health expectancy is an increasingly used indicator of population health status. It collapses both mortality and morbidity into a single indicator, and is therefore preferred to the total life expectancy index for populations with low mortality but high morbidity rates. Three methods of calculation exist: the Sullivan, double decrement, and multi-state methods. This report aims to describe their relative advantages and limitations when used to monitor changes in population health status over time.
Flexible Broadband Photodetectors Enabled by MXene/PbS Quantum Dots Hybrid Structure

Flexible photodetectors have attracted much attention due to their great potentials in wearable electronics, bendable image sensors, and environmental monitoring, which requires functional components with good machinal properties. Herein, we introduced a novel metallic two-dimensional (2D) material, MXene, to form the electrodes by a spray-coating method and zero-dimensional (0D) PbS quantum dots (QDs) to work as photoactive layer. All solution-processable fabrication technique contributes to a simplified, low-cost and large-scale route to develop flexible photodetectors. Benefiting from the excellent conductivity of MXene electrodes and broadband photoresponse of PbS QDs, our devices realize a high detectivity up to $2.4\times10$ 11 Jones and exhibit good stability even after 1000 bending cycles. This work provides a new device configuration with 2D electrodes and 0D photoactive layers for designing high-performance flexible electronics.
catena-Poly[[bis(dicyanamido-κN 1)cobalt(II)]bis{μ-1,2-bis[(1,2,4-triazol-1-yl)methyl]benzene-κ2 N 4:N 4′}]

In the title complex, [Co(C2N3)2(C12H12N6)2]n the CoII atom lies on a centre of symmetry and displays a slightly distorted octahedral coordination geometry. The 1,2-bis[(1,2,4-triazol-1-yl)methyl]benzene ligands link adjacent metal atoms into polymeric chains parallel to the c axis, forming centrosymmetric 26-membered metallamacrocycles. The conformation of the metallamacrocycles is stabilized by pairs of C—H⋯N hydrogen bonds. The dihedral angles formed by the planes of the triazole rings with those of the benzene ring are 79.4 (2) and 79.1 (2)°. In the crystal, the chains interact through C—H⋯N hydrogen bonds, forming a three-dimensional network.
Towards Middleware-Based Cooperation Topologies for the Next Generation of CPS

Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) integrate embedded computers that control physical processes. Application domains for CPS may be found in intelligent buildings, healthcare, transportation and factory automation, among many others. Typically, they are based on low profile computing elements, such as sensors and actuators that must communicate to carry out complex tasks. They must address certain issues such as managing available resources and service redundancy, as well as solving heterogeneity. In particular, managing communication issues can be relatively complex. In this scenario, middleware technologies can help developers in the design of state-of-the-art CPS. This work describes the design principles of CPS that require cooperation. More specifically, it presents a generic family of logical information exchange and cooperation topologies capable of adapting dynamically to changes in the environment. These topologies may be implemented on top of several middleware specifications as a means for managing distributed resources and service redundancy of CPS at run-time.