Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cross-protection among lethal H5N2 influenza viruses induced by DNA vaccine to the hemagglutinin

Inoculation of mice with hemagglutinin (HA)-expressing DNA affords reliable protection against lethal influenza virus infection, while in chickens the same strategy has yielded variable results. Here we show that gene gun delivery of DNA encoding an H5 HA protein confers complete immune protection to chickens challenged with lethal H5 viruses. In tests of the influence of promoter selection on vaccine efficacy, close correlations were obtained between immune responses and the dose of DNA administered, whether a cytomegalovirus (CMV) immediate-early promoter or a chicken beta-actin promoter was used. Perhaps most important, the HA-DNA vaccine conferred 95% cross-protection against challenge with lethal antigenic variants that differed from the primary antigen by 11 to 13% (HA1 amino acid sequence homology). Overall, the high levels of protection seen with gene gun delivery of HA-DNA were as good as, if not better than, those achieved with a conventional whole-virus vaccine, with fewer instances of morbidity and death. The absence of detectable antibody titers after primary immunization, together with the rapid appearance of high titers immediately after challenge, implicates efficient B-cell priming as the principal mechanism of DNA-mediated immune protection. Our results suggest that the efficacy of HA-DNA influenza virus vaccine in mice extends to chickens and probably to other avian species as well. Indeed, the H5 preparation we describe offers an attractive means to protect the domestic poultry industry in the United States from lethal H5N2 viruses, which continue to circulate in Mexico.
Efficient mapping of nondeterministic automata to FPGA for fast regular expression matching

With the growing number of viruses and network attacks, Intrusion Detection Systems have to match a large set of regular expressions at multi-gigabit speed to detect malicious activities on the network. Many algorithms and architectures have been designed to accelerate pattern matching, but most of them can be used only for strings or a small set of regular expressions. We propose new NFA-Split architecture, which reduces the amount of consumed FPGA resources in order to match larger set of regular expressions at multi-gigabit speed. The proposed reduction uses model of nondeterministic and deterministic automaton for effective mapping of regular expressions to FPGA. A new algorithm is designed to split the nondeterministic automaton transition table in order to map a part of the table into memory. The algorithm can place more than 49% of transition table to memory, which reduces the amount of look-up tables by more than 43% and flip-flops by more than 38% for all selected sets of regular expressions. Moreover, a sparse transition table is mapped to memory with overlapped rows, which enables to store the table in a highly compact form.
Impact of a multimodal anti‐emetic prophylaxis on patient satisfaction in high‐risk patients for postoperative nausea and vomiting

Postoperative nausea and vomiting (PONV) are frequent and unpleasant symptoms. This prospective study aimed to assess the efficacy of a multimodal approach to prevent PONV, and patient satisfaction using the willingness‐to‐pay method. Two validated risk scores were applied to forecast the individual risk for PONV in 900 consecutive patients of whom 108 were identified as high‐risk patients (predicted risk: 79–87%). High‐risk patients received multimodal anti‐emetic prophylaxis: total intravenous anaesthesia with propofol, high fractional inspired oxygen (80%), omission of nitrous oxide, dexamethasone 8 mg, haloperidol 10 µg. kg−1, and tropisetron 2 mg. Of the remaining patients with low or moderate risk for PONV, a random sample of 71 females received balanced propofol‐desflurane anaesthesia without prophylactic anti‐emetics. All patients were interviewed 2 and 24 h after surgery for occurrence of nausea and vomiting. Patient satisfaction was measured using the willingness‐to‐pay method. The incidence of PONV (95%‐confidence interval) in the control‐group was 41% (29–51%), slightly lower than predicted by the risk scores (53–57%). The multimodal anti‐emetic approach reduced the predicted risk (79–87%) in the high risk‐group to 7% (3–14%). This was associated with a high willingness‐to‐pay median (25th/75th percentile) of £84 (£33–184) in the multimodal anti‐emetic grouped compared to £14 (£4–30) in the control group. A multimodal anti‐emetic approach can considerably reduce the incidence of PONV in high‐risk patients and is associated with a high patient satisfaction as measured by the willingness‐to‐pay method.
Conversion of Human Umbilical Cord Mesenchymal Stem Cells in Wharton's Jelly to Dopaminergic Neurons In Vitro: Potential Therapeutic Application for Parkinsonism

Human mesenchymal stem cells isolated from Wharton's jelly of the umbilical cord were induced to transform into dopaminergic neurons in vitro through stepwise culturing in neuron‐conditioned medium, sonic hedgehog, and FGF8. The success rate was 12.7%, as characterized by positive staining for tyrosine hydroxylase (TH), the rate‐limiting catecholaminergic synthesizing enzyme, and dopamine being released into the culture medium. Transplantation of such cells into the striatum of rats previously made Parkinsonian by unilateral striatal lesioning with the dopaminergic neurotoxin 6‐hydroxydopamine partially corrected the lesion‐induced amphetamine‐evoked rotation. Viability of the transplanted cells at least 4 months after transplantation was identified by positive TH staining and migration of 1.4 mm both rostrally and caudally. These results suggest that human umbilical mesenchymal stem cells have the potential for treatment of Parkinson's disease.
Mandibular Hypoplasia With Curvilinear Distraction

Mandibular distraction with intraoral curvilinear distractor is an effective procedure for lengthening the mandibular corpus and ramus dimensions. Mandibular distractor is valuable for the treatment of hypoplastic mandible. The aim of this article was to describe the treatment of a patient with hypoplastic and severely retrognathic mandible resulting from isolated Pierre Robin sequence, by means of curvilinear distraction osteogenesis followed by fixed orthodontic treatment. As a result, the curvilinear path of distraction can form a new mandibular angle and bring the mandible significantly forward. Attention should be given for the stability of the treatment results.
Biological Activities of Red Pepper (Capsicum annuum) and Its Pungent Principle Capsaicin: A Review

Capsaicin, the pungent alkaloid of red pepper (Capsicum annuum) has been extensively studied for its biological effects which are of pharmacological relevance. These include: cardio protective influence, antilithogenic effect, antiinflammatory, and analgesia, thermogenic influence, and beneficial effects on gastrointestinal system. Therefore, capsaicinoids may have the potential clinical value for pain relief, cancer prevention and weight loss. It has been shown that capsaicinoids are potential agonists of capsaicin receptor (TRPV1). They could exert the effects not only through the receptor-dependent pathway but also through the receptor-independent one. The involvement of neuropeptide Substance P, serotonin, and somatostatin in the pharmacological actions of capsaicin has been extensively investigated. Topical application of capsaicin is proved to alleviate pain in arthritis, postoperative neuralgia, diabetic neuropathy, psoriasis, etc. Toxicological studies on capsaicin administered by different routes are documented. Capsaicin inhibits acid secretion, stimulates alkali and mucus secretion and particularly gastric mucosal blood flow which helps in prevention and healing of gastric ulcers. Antioxidant and antiinflammatory properties of capsaicin are established in a number of studies. Chemopreventive potential of capsaicin is evidenced in cell line studies. The health beneficial hypocholesterolemic influence of capsaicin besides being cardio protective has other implications, viz., prevention of cholesterol gallstones and protection of the structural integrity of erythrocytes under conditions of hypercholesterolemia. Beneficial influences of capsaicin on gastrointestinal system include digestive stimulant action and modulation of intestinal ultrastructure so as to enhance permeability to micronutrients.
Range of motion as a predictor of clinical shoulder pain during recovery from delayed-onset muscle soreness.

CONTEXT Athletic trainers use clinical pain and range of motion (ROM) to gauge recovery after musculoskeletal injury. Limited evidence to date suggests which shoulder ROM measures can predict symptomatic relief and functional recovery after delayed-onset muscle soreness (DOMS). OBJECTIVE To determine whether shoulder passive internal rotation, passive external rotation, active abduction, and active flexion and evoked pain with abduction are associated with resting pain experienced after exercise-induced DOMS. DESIGN Descriptive laboratory study. SETTING Controlled research laboratory. PATIENTS OR OTHER PARTICIPANTS A total of 110 healthy, right-hand-dominant participants (44 men: age = 25.39 ± 7.00 years, height = 178.93 ± 7.01 cm, weight = 78.59 ± 14.04 kg; 66 women: age = 22.98 ± 6.11 years, height = 164.64 ± 6.94 cm, weight = 61.86 ± 11.67 kg). INTERVENTION(S) Participants completed an exercise-induced DOMS protocol for the external rotators of the dominant shoulder to replicate muscle injury. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE(S) Current resting pain was assessed daily for 96 hours using the Brief Pain Inventory. We evaluated functional recovery with measures of ROM in abduction, internal rotation, external rotation, and flexion. Evoked pain with active abduction was reported, and the pain rating served as the dependent variable in the regression model. RESULTS Impairment measures explained resting pain at 48 (R2 = 0.392) and 96 hours (R2 = 0.164). Abduction and internal-rotation ROM and evoked pain with abduction predicted resting pain at 48 hours (P < .001). At 96 hours, evoked pain with abduction of the injured arm (P < .001) was the significant contributor to resting pain. CONCLUSIONS These models suggest that resting pain after experimentally induced DOMS occurs at 48 hours and is associated with specific ranges of motion and evoked pain with abduction.
Targeted learning in real‐world comparative effectiveness research with time‐varying interventions

In comparative effectiveness research (CER), often the aim is to contrast survival outcomes between exposure groups defined by time‐varying interventions. With observational data, standard regression analyses (e.g., Cox modeling) cannot account for time‐dependent confounders on causal pathways between exposures and outcome nor for time‐dependent selection bias that may arise from informative right censoring. Inverse probability weighting (IPW) estimation to fit marginal structural models (MSMs) has commonly been applied to properly adjust for these expected sources of bias in real‐world observational studies. We describe the application and performance of an alternate estimation approach in such a study. The approach is based on the recently proposed targeted learning methodology and consists in targeted minimum loss‐based estimation (TMLE) with super learning (SL) within a nonparametric MSM. The evaluation is based on the analysis of electronic health record data with both IPW estimation and TMLE to contrast cumulative risks under four more or less aggressive strategies for treatment intensification in adults with type 2 diabetes already on 2+ oral agents or basal insulin. Results from randomized experiments provide a surrogate gold standard to validate confounding and selection bias adjustment. Bootstrapping is used to validate analytic estimation of standard errors. This application does the following: (1) establishes the feasibility of TMLE in real‐world CER based on large healthcare databases; (2) provides evidence of proper confounding and selection bias adjustment with TMLE and SL; and (3) motivates their application for improving estimation efficiency. Claims are reinforced with a simulation study that also illustrates the double‐robustness property of TMLE. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
3D Porous Chitosan–Alginate Scaffolds: A New Matrix for Studying Prostate Cancer Cell–Lymphocyte Interactions In Vitro

The treatment of castration‐resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) remains palliative. Immunotherapy offers a potentially effective therapy for CRPC; however, its advancement into the clinic has been slow, in part because of the lack of representative in vitro tumor models that resemble the in vivo tumor microenvironment for studying interactions of CRPC cells with immune cells and other potential therapeutics. This study evaluates the use of 3D porous chitosan–alginate (CA) scaffolds for culturing human prostate cancer (PCa) cells and studying tumor cell interaction with human peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBLs) ex vivo. CA scaffolds and Matrigel matrix samples support in vitro tumor spheroid formation over 15 d of culture, and CA scaffolds support live‐cell fluorescence imaging with confocal microscopy using stably transfected PCa cells for 55 d. PCa cells grown in Matrigel matrix and CA scaffolds for 15 d are co‐cultured with PBLs for 2 and 6 d in vitro and evaluated with scanning electron microscopy (SEM), immunohistochemistry (IHC), and flow cytometry. Both the Matrigel matrix and CA scaffolds support interaction of PBLs with PCa tumors, with CA scaffolds providing a more robust platform for subsequent analyses. This study demonstrates the use of 3D natural polymer scaffolds as a tissue culture model for supporting long‐term analysis of interaction of prostate cancer tumor cells with immune cells, providing an in vitro platform for rapid immunotherapy development.
Normal values of reactive oxygen metabolites on the cord-blood of full-term infants with a colorimetric method.

The main end-point of the study was to evaluate the normal values of reactive oxygen metabolites (ROMs) in healthy full-term babies. Secondary end-points were differences between groups related to modality of delivery, Apgar score, birth weight, gestational age and sex. All apparently healthy babies born at our institution between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. Monday to Friday with gestational age 37-42 weeks, delivered both vaginally or by caesarean section and without foetal distress and perinatal asphyxia. ROMs were evaluated by a colorimetric method (d-ROM test) on cord-blood immediately after birth. The values are reported as arbitrary unit U. Carr. Statistical analysis was performed by t-test and by multiple and stepwise regression analysis. We have analyzed 80 babies with mean birth weight 3301 +/- 446 g. and mean gestational age 39.5 +/- 1.0 weeks. The male:female ratio was 1.56 and the median (range) Apgar score was 9 (7-10) at 1' and 10 (9-10) at 5'. The babies born by vaginal delivery were 37 out of 80 while the remaining 43 were delivered by cesarean section. Because the two groups did not differ for the clinical characteristics they were considered together for the determination of the mean value of ROMs and indicated as "total". The mean value +/- SD of ROMs of the "total" was 115.5 +/- 32.6 U. Carr. Significant differences in the mean value of ROMs were not found related to type of delivery, birth weight, gestational age, and Apgar score at 1' and 5'. Instead the female infants had a significantly lower mean value of ROMs than the male babies (respectively 104.4 +/- 32.2 vs 120.2 +/- 30.6 U. Carr.; p = 0.031). Multiple and stepwise regression analyses both demonstrated that the sex of the neonate is able to independently influence the value of ROMs (respectively p = 0.025 and p = 0.035). The main end-point of the study was to determine the standard reference values for this method in the healthy full-term infant at birth: the values of ROMs we found in the "total" population are lower than those of healthy adults (between 250-300 U. Carr.) and similar to those of adults treated with steroids or antioxidant drugs. The finding that the female sex is able to independently determine lower values of ROMs at birth compared to the male sex, lets speculate that the female infants are less prone to oxidative stress in the first moments of life.
Technological adaptation to a platform and dependence: value co-creation through partnerships

ABSTRACT This article examines technology exchange mechanisms in technological platform partnerships between software and hardware firms. Such firms form complementary partnerships to develop innovative technological products in the mobile telephony sector. Data were collected from 110 high-tech firms which have formed technological platform partnerships, and analyzed data, by using partial least squares structural equation modeling. The results show that a focal firm’s technological complexity and technological adaptation to its partner’s platform increase its dependence on a partner, which in turn positively affects value co-creation in such partnerships. Complementary technological collaboration through adaptation-dependence between technological partners helps resolve knowledge accessibility and technological integration for value co-creation and innovation between heterogeneous partners from different high-tech industries. This study provides a clue as to how technological partners co-create value in the high-tech industry.
Differential localization of G-proteins Gi and Go in the accessory olfactory bulb of the rat

To clarify the functional differences among G-proteins, we investigated the localization of Gi and Go in the olfactory bulb of rats by both immunohistochemical and immunochemical techniques, using purified antibodies specific to the alpha-subunits of Gi1 (Gi1 alpha), Gi2 (Gi2 alpha), and Go (Go alpha), respectively. We found that Gi2 alpha is localized exclusively in the accessory olfactory bulb, but it is present at only low levels in the main olfactory bulb. The unique pattern of immunoreactivity specific for Gi2 alpha and Go alpha within the glomeruli of the accessory olfactory bulb and the results of immunoassays indicate that the accessory olfactory bulb is divided into two parts: the anterior region is rich in Gi2, while the posterior region is rich in Go. These findings suggest that the accessory olfactory bulb has two different functions. In addition, we found that the concentration of Gi2 alpha in the accessory olfactory bulb increases during puberty and reaches the adult level at 12 weeks after birth, while that in the main olfactory bulb remains constant. By contrast, the concentrations of Go alpha in the accessory olfactory bulb and the main olfactory bulb increase with similar kinetics. These findings suggest that Gi2 is a key protein in signal transduction in the accessory olfactory bulb, and increases in its level seem to be related to sexual maturation.
Comparison of Neurodegenerative Pathology in Transgenic Mice Overexpressing V717F β-Amyloid Precursor Protein and Alzheimer’s Disease

Overexpression of mutated human amyloid precursor protein (hAPP717V→F) under control of platelet-derived growth factor promoter (PDAPP minigene) in transgenic (tg) mice results in neurodegenerative changes similar to Alzheimer’s disease (AD). To clarify the pathology of these mice, we studied images derived from laser scanning confocal and electron microscopy and performed comparisons between PDAPP tg mice and AD. Similar to AD, neuritic plaques in PDAPP tg mouse contained a dense amyloid core surrounded by anti-hAPP- and anti-neurofilament-immunoreactive dystrophic neurites and astroglial cells. Neurons were found in close proximity to plaques in PDAPP tg mice and, to a lesser extent, in AD. In PDAPP tg mice, and occasionally in AD, neuronal processes contained fine intracellular amyloid fibrils in close proximity to the rough endoplasmic reticulum, coated vesicles, and electron-dense material. Extracellular amyloid fibrils (9–11 nm in diameter) were abundant in PDAPP tg and were strikingly similar to those observed in AD. Dystrophic neurites in plaques of PDAPP tg mouse and AD formed synapses and contained many dense multilaminar bodies and neurofilaments (10 nm). Apoptotic-like figures were present in the tg mice. No paired helical filaments have yet been observed in the heterozygote PDAPP tg mice. In summary, this study shows that PDAPP tg mice develop massive neuritic plaque formation and neuronal degeneration similar to AD. These findings show that overproduction of hAPP717V→F in tg mice is sufficient to cause not only amyloid deposition, but also many of the complex subcellular degenerative changes associated with AD.
Production of Delayed Death and Neoplastic Transformation in CGL1 Cells by Radiation-Induced Bystander Effects

Abstract Lewis, D. A. , Mayhugh, B. M. , Qin, Y. , Trott, K. and Mendonca, M. S. Production of Delayed Death and Neoplastic Transformation in CGL1 Cells by Radiation-Induced Bystander Effects. Radiat. Res. 156, 251–258 (2001). Other investigators have demonstrated by transfer of medium from irradiated cells and by irradiation with low-fluence α particles or microbeams that cells do not have to be directly exposed to ionizing radiation to be detrimentally affected, i.e. bystander effects. In this study, we demonstrate by transfer of medium from X-irradiated human CGL1 hybrid cells that the killing of bystander cells reduces the plating efficiency of the nonirradiated CGL1 cells by 33 ± 6%. In addition, we show that the amount of cell death induced by bystander effects is not dependent on X-ray dose, and that the induction of apoptosis does not appear to be responsible for the cell death. Furthermore, we found that the reduction in plating efficiency in bystander cells is evident for over 18 days, or 22 cell population doublings, after medium transfer, despite repeated refeeding of the cell cultures. Finally, we report the novel observation that bystander effects induced by the transfer of medium from irradiated cells can induce neoplastic transformation. Exposing unirradiated CGL1 cells to medium from cells irradiated with 5 or 7 Gy increased the frequency of neoplastic transformation significantly from 6.3 × 10–6 in unirradiated controls to 2.3 × 10–5 (a factor of nearly four). We conclude that the bystander effect induces persistent, long-term, transmissible changes in the progeny of CGL1 cells that result in delayed death and neoplastic transformation. The data suggest that neoplastic transformation in bystander cells may play a significant role in radiation-induced neoplastic transformation at lower doses of X rays.