Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Deep brain stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus preferentially alters the translational profile of striatopallidal neurons in an animal model of Parkinson's disease

Deep brain stimulation targeting the subthalamic nucleus (STN-DBS) is an effective surgical treatment for the motor symptoms of Parkinson's disease (PD), the precise neuronal mechanisms of which both at molecular and network levels remain a topic of debate. Here we employ two transgenic mouse lines, combining translating ribosomal affinity purification (TRAP) with bacterial artificial chromosome expression (Bac), to selectively identify changes in translational gene expression in either Drd1a-expressing striatonigral or Drd2-expressing striatopallidal medium spiny neurons (MSNs) of the striatum following STN-DBS. 6-hydroxydopamine lesioned mice received either 5 days stimulation via a DBS electrode implanted in the ipsilateral STN or 5 days sham treatment (no stimulation). Striatal polyribosomal RNA was selectively purified from either Drd2 or Drd1a MSNs using the TRAP method and gene expression profiling performed. We identified eight significantly altered genes in Drd2 MSNs (Vps33b, Ppp1r3c, Mapk4, Sorcs2, Neto1, Abca1, Penk1, and Gapdh) and two overlapping genes in Drd1a MSNs (Penk1 and Ppp1r3c) implicated in the molecular mechanisms of STN-DBS. A detailed functional analysis, using a further 728 probes implicated in STN-DBS, suggested an increased ability to receive excitation (mediated by increased dendritic spines, increased calcium influx and enhanced excitatory post synaptic potentials) accompanied by processes that would hamper the initiation of action potentials, transport of neurotransmitters from soma to axon terminals and vesicular release in Drd2-expressing MSNs. Finally, changes in expression of several genes involved in apoptosis as well as cholesterol and fatty acid metabolism were also identified. This increased understanding of the molecular mechanisms induced by STN-DBS may reveal novel targets for future non-surgical therapies for PD.
Contraction of the human diaphragm during rapid postural adjustments

1 The response of the diaphragm to the postural perturbation produced by rapid flexion of the shoulder to a visual stimulus was evaluated in standing subjects. Gastric, oesophageal and transdiaphragmatic pressures were measured together with intramuscular and oesophageal recordings of electromyographic activity (EMG) in the diaphragm. To assess the mechanics of contraction of the diaphragm, dynamic changes in the length of the diaphragm were measured with ultrasonography. 2 With rapid flexion of the shoulder in response to a visual stimulus, EMG activity in the costal and crural diaphragm occurred about 20 ms prior to the onset of deltoid EMG. This anticipatory contraction occurred irrespective of the phase of respiration in which arm movement began. The onset of diaphragm EMG coincided with that of transverses abdominis. 3 Gastric and transdiaphragmatic pressures increased in association with the rapid arm flexion by 13.8 ± 1.9 (mean ±s.e.m.) and 13.5 ± 1.8 cmH2O, respectively. The increases occurred 49 ± 4 ms after the onset of diaphragm EMG, but preceded the onset of movement of the limb by 63 ± 7 ms. 4 Ultrasonographic measurements revealed that the costal diaphragm shortened and then lengthened progressively during the increase in transdiaphragmatic pressure. 5 This study provides definitive evidence that the human diaphragm is involved in the control of postural stability during sudden voluntary movement of the limbs.
Drug-eluting stents vs. coronary-artery bypass grafting in multivessel coronary disease.

BACKGROUND Numerous studies have compared the outcomes of two competing interventions for multivessel coronary artery disease: coronary-artery bypass grafting (CABG) and coronary stenting. However, little information has become available since the introduction of drug-eluting stents. METHODS We identified patients with multivessel disease who received drug-eluting stents or underwent CABG in New York State between October 1, 2003, and December 31, 2004, and we compared adverse outcomes (death, death or myocardial infarction, or repeat revascularization) through December 31, 2005, after adjustment for differences in baseline risk factors among the patients. RESULTS In comparison with treatment with a drug-eluting stent, CABG was associated with lower 18-month rates of death and of death or myocardial infarction both for patients with three-vessel disease and for patients with two-vessel disease. Among patients with three-vessel disease who underwent CABG, as compared with those who received a stent, the adjusted hazard ratio for death was 0.80 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.65 to 0.97) and the adjusted survival rate was 94.0% versus 92.7% (P=0.03); the adjusted hazard ratio for death or myocardial infarction was 0.75 (95% CI, 0.63 to 0.89) and the adjusted rate of survival free from myocardial infarction was 92.1% versus 89.7% (P<0.001). Among patients with two-vessel disease who underwent CABG, as compared with those who received a stent, the adjusted hazard ratio for death was 0.71 (95% CI, 0.57 to 0.89) and the adjusted survival rate was 96.0% versus 94.6% (P=0.003); the adjusted hazard ratio for death or myocardial infarction was 0.71 (95% CI, 0.59 to 0.87) and the adjusted rate of survival free from myocardial infarction was 94.5% versus 92.5% (P<0.001). Patients undergoing CABG also had lower rates of repeat revascularization. CONCLUSIONS For patients with multivessel disease, CABG continues to be associated with lower mortality rates than does treatment with drug-eluting stents and is also associated with lower rates of death or myocardial infarction and repeat revascularization.
Teaching Computer Vision for telemedicine systems using OpenCV

This paper reports on experiences of teaching Computer Vision for robotic telemedicine cluster system, within the practice based ICTD subject within the undergraduate Software Engineering Program at the Faculty of Engineering, University of Technology Sydney (UTS). Topics described by this paper include shared experiences in designing and implementing Computer Vision subsystem and discusses successes, as well as common problems both experienced and anticipated in adaptation of OpenCV framework for building a robotic system for telemedicine. One of the main objectives of the ICTD is to bridge the gap between the students' theoretical knowledge of design and programming with the practical side of software reuse and modularization when designing and implementing a robotic system for medical applications.
An Improved Dynamic User Authentication Scheme for Wireless Sensor Networks

Over the last few years, many researchers have paid a lot of attention to the user authentication problem. However, to date, there has been relatively little research suited for wireless sensor networks. Recently, Wong et al. proposed a dynamic user authentication scheme for WSNs that allows legitimate users to query sensor data at every sensor node of the network. We show that Wong et al.'s scheme is vulnerable to the replay and forgery attacks and propose a lightweight dynamic user authentication scheme for WSNs. The proposed scheme not only retains all the advantages in Wong et al.'s scheme but also enhances its security by withstanding the security weaknesses and allows legitimate users to change their passwords freely. In comparison with the previous scheme, our proposed scheme possesses many advantages, including resistance of the replay and forgery attacks, reduction of user's password leakage risk, capability of changeable password, and better efficiency.
Discharge Advice in Cancer Patients: Posttreatment Patients' Report

Background: Cancer patients are presented with advice and instructions during treatment and at discharge. Most recommendations aim at relief of physical problems, psychosocial well-being, and patients' health care behaviors. Patients often struggle to incorporate advice into daily life, and this influences symptom relief, quality of life, and even longevity. Objective: The aim of this study was to gain insight into the content and form of discharge advice to cancer patients and to determine the factors that hinder or promote the actual adoption of advice by patients. Methods: Using a descriptive, exploratory research design, data were collected using structured interviews in a convenience sample of 21 head and neck cancer patients who had completed treatment with curative intent 2 to 6 months earlier. Descriptive statistics and a thematic content analysis procedure were used to analyze the data. Results: Findings showed that advice or instructions received by individual patients had a range from 1 to 13, and that 17 out of 21 patients received 4 advices or more. Relevant influencing factors included patient characteristics (cognition, emotion, behavior, and social aspects) and characteristics of health professionals (content and efficacy of advice, professional attitude, behavior, and communication). Conclusions: Cancer patients try but often struggle to fit the multitude and complexity of advice from health professionals into everyday life. Implications for Practice: There seems to be an excellent opportunity for health professionals to support cancer patients by further tailoring of follow-up care. Knowledge and insight into the challenges patients face posttreatment will benefit both professionals and patients.
Acrylamide: a human cancer risk?

Exposure to normoxic conditions is necessary (Kung et al., 2000; Zhang et al., 2004; Gillespie et al., 2007) as the oxygen levels of subcutaneously xenografted (BALB/c nude mice) measured by Lawrentschuk et al. (2011) were not equal to hypoxia (2% O2) in an in-vitro condition (Zhou et al., 2012). In addition, the decrease in the HIF-1a protein under both a normoxic and a hypoxic condition may indicate the inhibition of proteasomal degradation (Gillespie et al., 2007). The efficiency of a recombinant retroviral vector can also be established at the protein level.
A Phase II Clinical Study of mFOLFOX6 Plus Bevacizumab as First-line Therapy for Japanese Advanced/Recurrent Colorectal Cancer Patients

Objective In Japan, there had been no prospective clinical studies conducted in terms of modified FOLFOX6 + bevacizumab therapy. We performed a post-marketing Phase II multicenter clinical study to examine the efficacy and safety of this regimen as first-line therapy for Japanese patients with advanced/recurrent colorectal cancer. Methods Bevacizumab (5 mg/kg) was administered intravenously, and then oxaliplatin (85 mg/m2) and levofolinate calcium (200 mg/m2) were infused intravenously over 2 h. Subsequently, a bolus dose of 5-fluorouracil (400 mg/m2) was injected, followed by infusion of 5-fluorouracil (2400 mg/m2) for 46 h. This regimen was repeated every 2 weeks until 24 cycles unless there was disease progression, unacceptable toxicity or patient refusal. The primary end point was the response rate. Results Among the 70 patients enrolled, two patients withdrew the study before treatment, and 68 patients were eligible for analysis of efficacy and safety. The response rate was 51.5% (95% confidence interval: 39.0–63.8%). The median progression-free survival and median overall survival time were 12.6 months (95% confidence interval: 10.4–14.5 months) and 28.5 months [95% confidence interval: 23.1 months–(not applicable)], respectively. There were no treatment-related deaths observed. The most common Grade 3 and 4 adverse events included neutropenia in 35.3% of the patients, peripheral neuropathy in 16.2% and hypertension in 16.2%. All adverse events were manageable and tolerable. The exploratory analysis of polymorphisms of three genes, ERCC1, XPD and GSTP1, did not show any trends in terms of correlation with the efficacy or safety of modified FOLFOX6 + bevacizumab therapy. Conclusions Modified FOLFOX6 + bevacizumab therapy was manageable and tolerable in Japanese patients, achieving a high response rate.
Mining Top-K Patterns from Binary Datasets in Presence of Noise

The discovery of patterns in binary dataset has many applications, e.g. in electronic commerce, TCP/IP networking, Web usage logging, etc. Still, this is a very challenging task in many respects: overlapping vs. non overlapping patterns, presence of noise, extraction of the most important patterns only. In this paper we formalize the problem of discovering the Top-K patterns from binary datasets in presence of noise, as the minimization of a novel cost function. According to the Minimum Description Length principle, the proposed cost function favors succinct pattern sets that may approximately describe the input data. We propose a greedy algorithm for the discovery of Patterns in Noisy Datasets, named PaNDa, and show that it outperforms related techniques on both synthetic and realworld data.
Relationship between air pollution, lung function and asthma in adolescents

Background: The interrelationships between air pollution, lung function and the incidence of childhood asthma have yet to be established. A study was undertaken to determine whether lung function is associated with new onset asthma and whether this relationship varies by exposure to ambient air pollutants. Methods: A cohort of children aged 9–10 years without asthma or wheeze at study entry were identified from the Children’s Health Study and followed for 8 years. The participants resided in 12 communities with a wide range of ambient air pollutants that were measured continuously. Spirometric testing was performed and a medical diagnosis of asthma was ascertained annually. Proportional hazard regression models were fitted to investigate the relationship between lung function at study entry and the subsequent development of asthma and to determine whether air pollutants modify these associations. Results: The level of airway flow was associated with new onset asthma. Over the 10th–90th percentile range of forced expiratory flow over the mid-range of expiration (FEF25–75, 57.1%), the hazard ratio (HR) of new onset asthma was 0.50 (95% CI 0.35 to 0.71). This protective effect of better lung function was reduced in children exposed to higher levels of particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter <2.5 &mgr;m (PM2.5). Over the 10th–90th percentile range of FEF25–75, the HR of new onset asthma was 0.34 (95% CI 0.21 to 0.56) in communities with low PM2.5 (<13.7 &mgr;g/m3) and 0.76 (95% CI 0.45 to 1.26) in communities with high PM2.5 (⩾13.7 &mgr;g/m3). A similar pattern was observed for forced expiratory volume in 1 s. Little variation in HR was observed for ozone. Conclusion: Exposure to high levels of PM2.5 attenuates the protective effect of better lung function against new onset asthma.
Enterohaemorrhagic Escherichia coli inhibits recycling endosome function and trafficking of surface receptors

Enteropathogenic and enterohaemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EPEC/EHEC) manipulate many cell processes by injecting effector proteins from the bacteria into the host cell via a Type III secretion system. In this paper we report that the effector protein EspG disrupts recycling endosome function. In particular, we found that following transferrin binding and endocytosis EspG reduces recycling of the transferrin receptor (TfR), the prototypical recycling protein, from an intracellular location to the cell surface, resulting in an accumulation of TfR within the cell. The surface levels of three receptors [TfR, epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and β1 integrin] were tested and found to be reduced dependent on EspG translocation. Furthermore, disruption of recycling endosome function and the reduced surface presentation of receptors was dependent on the previously reported RabGAP activity and ARF binding ability of EspG. This paper therefore supports the previous hypothesis that EspG acts as an enzyme scaffold perturbing cell signalling events, in this case altering recycling endosome function and cell surface receptor levels during infection.
Outcome after decompressive craniectomy in patients with dominant middle cerebral artery infarction: A preliminary report

Introduction: Life-threatening, space occupying, infarction develops in 10-15% of patients after middle cerebral artery infarction (MCAI). Though decompressive craniectomy (DC) is now standard of care in patients with non-dominant stroke, its role in dominant MCAI (DMCAI) is largely undefined. This may reflect the ethical dilemma of saving life of a patient who may then remain hemiplegic and dysphasic. This study specifically addresses this issue. Materials and Methods: This retrospective analysis studied patients with DMCAI undergoing DC. Patient records, operation notes, radiology, and out-patient files were scrutinized to collate data. Glasgow outcome scale (GOS), Barthel index (BI) and improvement in language and motor function were evaluated to determine functional outcome. Results: Eighteen patients between 22 years and 72 years of age were included. 6 week, 3 month, 6 month and overall survival rates were 66.6% (12/18), 64% (11/17), 62.5% (10/16) and 62.5% (10/16) respectively. Amongst ten surviving patients with long-term follow-up, 60% showed improvement in GOS, 70% achieved BI score >60 while 30% achieved full functional independence. In this group, motor power and language function improved in 9 and 8 patients respectively. At last follow-up, 8 of 10 surviving patients were ambulatory with (3/8) or without (5/8) support. Age <50 years corresponded with better functional outcome amongst survivors (P value –0.0068). Conclusion: Language and motor outcomes after DC in patients with DMCAI are not as dismal as commonly perceived. Perhaps young patients (<50 years) with DMCAI should be treated with the same aggressiveness that non-DMCAI is currently dealt with.
The Impact of Public Ownership, Profits, and Competition on Number of Newsroom Employees and Starting Salaries in Mid-Sized Daily Newspapers

This study of seventy-seven dailies between 25,000 and 100,000 circulation found publicly held daily newspapers produced higher profit margins than did privately held dailies. Public ownership and higher profits were associated with smaller newsroom staffs. Public ownership was positively related with starting salaries. Also, the presence of competition was positively correlated with newsroom size and starting salary. The impact of profitability on newsroom size was progressively greater for newspapers with higher-than-average profit margins.
Fluoroscopy-based 3-D reconstruction of femoral bone cement: a new approach for revision total hip replacement

In revision total hip replacement the removal of the distal femoral bone cement can be a time consuming and risky operation due to the difficulty in determining the three-dimensional (3-D) boundary of the cement. We present a new approach to reconstruct the bone cement volume by using just a small number of calibrated multiplanar X-ray images. The modular system design allows the surgeon to react intraoperatively to problems arising during the individual situation. When encountering problems during conventional cement removal, the system can be used on demand to acquire a few calibrated X-ray images. After a semi-automatic segmentation and 3-D reconstruction of the cement with a deformable model, the system guides the surgeon through a free-hand navigated or robot-assisted cement removal. The experimental evaluation using plastic test implants cemented into anatomic specimen of human femoral bone has shown the potential of this method with a maximal error of 1.2 mm (0.5 mm RMS) for the distal cement based on just 4-5 multiplanar X-ray images. A first test of the complete system, comparing the 3-D-reconstruction with a computed tompography data set, confirmed these results with a mean error about 1 mm.
Ego-motion analysis using average image data intensity

In this paper, we present a new method to perform ego-motion analysis using intensity averaging of image data. The method can estimate general motions from two sequential images on pixel plane by calculating cross correlations. With distance information between camera and objects, this method also enables estimates of camera motion. This method is sufficiently robust even for out of focus image and the calculational overhead is quite low because it uses a simple averaging method. In the future, this method could be used to measure fast motions such as human head tracking, or robot movement. We present a detailed description of the proposed method, and experimental results demonstrating its basic capability. With these results, we verify that our proposed system can detect camera motion even with blurred images. Furthermore, we confirm that it can operate at up to 714 FPS in calculating one dimensional translation motion.
MapA, an iron-regulated, cytoplasmic membrane protein in the cyanobacterium Synechococcus sp. strain PCC7942

Growth of Synechococcus sp. strain PCC 7942 in iron-deficient media leads to the accumulation of an approximately 34-kDa protein. The gene encoding this protein, mapA (membrane-associated protein A), has been cloned and sequenced (GenBank accession number, L01621). The mapA transcript is not detectable in normally grown cultures but is stably accumulated by cells grown in iron-deficient media. However, the promoter sequence for this gene does not resemble other bacterial iron-regulated promoters described to date. The carboxyl-terminal region of the derived amino acid sequence of MapA resembles bacterial proteins involved in iron acquisition, whereas the amino-terminal end of MapA has a high degree of amino acid identity with the abundant, chloroplast envelope protein E37. An approach employing improved cellular fractionation techniques as well as electron microscopy and immunocytochemistry was essential in localizing MapA protein to the cytoplasmic membrane of Synechococcus sp. strain PCC 7942. When these cells were grown under iron-deficient conditions, a significant fraction of MapA could also be localized to the thylakoid membranes.
Crystal structure of 4′-bromo-2,5-dihydroxy-2′,5′-dimethoxy-[1,1′-biphenyl]-3,4-dicarbonitrile

In the crystal of the title substituted hemibiquinone derivative, the ring systems interact through an intramolecular O—H⋯Omethoxy hydrogen bond, which induces a geometry quite different from those in previously reported hemibiquinone structures. The molecules associate through an intermolecular O—H⋯Nnitrile hydrogen bond and are interlinked through very weak C—H⋯N hydrogen bonds.