Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Is it Important to Talk About Technologies with Eating Disorder Clients? The Health-Care Professional Perspective

ABSTRACT Nowadays, the use of digital technology is an important issue that should be addressed during the treatment of people who have eating disorders. The involvement or absence of this issue reflects the understanding, experience, and atttude of health-care professionals toward their clients’ use of technology. The aim of the present study was to investigate the perceptions of health-care professionals and their assessment of their clients’ usage of digital technology while developing strategies for treatment. Semistructured interviews with 30 professionals were performed from October 2015 to June 2016 and a thematic analysis was used to analyze the data. The health-care professionals’ views could be summarized in three thematic groups: (1) technology use is not relevant for the cooperation; (2) technology use is relevant for the cooperation and addressed generally; and (3) technology use is relevant for the cooperation and addressed specifically. The results are discussed in relation to the theoretical model presented by Rodgers about the impact of technology on disordered eating behaviors and the implications for practice.
Demonstration, by somatic cell genetics, of coordinate regulation of genes for two enzymes of purine synthesis assigned to human chromosome 21.

A method for determining coordinate genetic regulation is proposed for mammalian cells. The method involves (i) isolation of a set of mutants defective in the relevant pathway; (ii) complementation analysis of these mutants to determine dominance and to categorize the mutants into various different complementation groups; (iii) determination of the biochemical blocks in the mutants; (iv) identification of individual mutants that fail to complement the members of at least two distinct complementation groups that complement each other, such mutants being said to show coordinate regulation of the affected functions; (v) biochemical and reversion analysis of the relevant cell types to confirm the basis for the observed coordinate regulation; (vi) assignment of the individual genes to particular human chromosomes; (vii) mapping of the genes to determine contiguity on the genome; and (viii) examination of the structure of the relevant gene products. This method has allowed the demonstration of coordinate regulation between the gene coding for phosphoribosylglycineamide synthetase [5-phosphoribosylamine:glycine ligase (ADP-forming), EC 6.3. 4.13], defective in our Ade-C mutants, and the gene coding for phoshoribosylaminoimidazole synthetase [5'-phosphoribosylformylglycinamidine cyclo-ligase (ADP-forming), EC 6.3. 3.1], defective in our Ade-G mutants. Moreover, both genes can be assigned to human chromosome 21. Because at least two genes for purine biosynthesis have now been assigned to chromosome 21, and because patients with trisomy 21 (Down syndrome) show increased levels of serum purines, it may be that cells of these patients overproduce purines and that this overproduction may be relevant to the pathology of the syndrome.
The herpes simplex virus type 1 alpha protein ICP27 can act as a trans-repressor or a trans-activator in combination with ICP4 and ICP0

The herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) alpha proteins ICP4, ICP0, and ICP27 are trans-acting proteins which affect HSV-1 gene expression. To investigate potential interactions between these alpha products and to determine the specificity of action of the alpha proteins in combination with each other compared with their activities individually, we performed a series of transient-expression assays. In these assays we used plasmids containing the alpha genes encoding ICP4, ICP0, and ICP27 either singly or in combination as effectors and HSV-1 genes of different kinetic classes and heterologous genes as targets. The HSV-1 targets consisted of promoter-regulatory domains from alpha (ICP0 and ICP27), beta (thymidine kinase and alkaline exonuclease), beta-gamma (glycoprotein D, glycoprotein B, and VP5), and gamma (glycoprotein C) genes, each fused to the chloramphenicol acetyltransferase (CAT) gene. The heterologous target genes consisted of the simian virus 40 early promoter with enhancer and the Rous sarcoma virus long terminal repeat promoter and enhancer each fused to the CAT gene. Target promoter activity was measured by the assay of CAT activity in extracts of transfected cells and by Northern (RNA) blot hybridization of CAT mRNA. The results of these experiments showed that ICP4 activated only HSV-1 target genes, whereas ICP0 activated all of the targets and ICP27 had little effect on any of the targets. ICP4 and ICP0 had a synergistic effect when inducing HSV-1 targets, but they did not have this effect on the heterologous targets pSV2-CAT or pRSV-CAT. In fact, lower levels of CAT activity and CAT mRNA were found in the presence of both effectors than with ICP0 alone. Most interestingly, although the effector plasmid containing the ICP27 gene had little effect on its own, two different and marked effects depending on the target were observed when ICP27 was combined with ICP4 or ICP0 or both. A trans-repression of the induction seen with ICP4 and ICP0 was found when ICP27 was present in the transfections with pSV2-CAT, pRSV-CAT, pICP0-CAT, pICP27-CAT, pTK-CAT, pgD-CAT, pgB-CAT, and pgC-CAT. This resulted in CAT activity levels which were similar to or lower than the basal level of expression of the target genes in the absence of effector plasmids. This trans-repression occurred over a wide range of concentrations of input ICP27 plasmid. In contrast to this repressive effect of ICP27, a trans-activation was seen when ICP4, ICP0, and ICP27 plasmids were combined in transfections with pAE-CAT and pVP5-CAT as targets. This trans-activation also occurred over a 10-fold range of input ICP27 plasmid. These results suggest that ICP27 can facilitate both down
Detections of salient region by using fast pixelwise image saliency aggregation (F-PISA)

Salient object detection is the term that extract the foreground object from background. Saliency mostly occurs from the contrast between object and their neighborhood. Salient region is unique because they have low redundancy information value where other scene may highly redundant. Saliency is broadly classified into color contrast-based, structure contrast-based, a combination of both color and structure contrast-based measures. There are many effective algorithms to analyze different salient detection methods; however there is a trade-off between the algorithm accuracy and algorithm speed. Salient region detection is a more difficult problem in computer vision. It has a wide range of applications, such as object recognition and segmentation. A novel method is simple to determine salient region in the images. The aim of doing silent region detection is to measure the saliency and salience of each pixel in an icon. It too produces a threshold value and detecting foreground region. This paper analyzes the medical images (i.e, CT scan images, such as breast cancer, brain tumor, prostate, lung, and colon cancer) for naming and classifying them among the various lung diseases.
Joint Optimization of Beamforming and Power Allocation for Multicell Downlink Systems

This paper investigates a joint optimization design method for beamforming and power allocation to improve the energy efficiency (EE) of a multicell MIMO downlink system considering the effect of channel estimation errors. The channel state information (CSI) imperfections can be well modeled with the power for training sequence. Assuming that both base stations and users are equipped with multiple antennas, this research focuses on the joint optimization of the beamforming vectors and the power allocation ratio between training sequence power and transmit data in order to maximize the EE under power constraints. A robust alternating optimization based on iterative algorithm to solve this problem which is in a nonconvex fractional form is proposed. First, the fractional problem is transformed into a linear form using the Dinkelbach method. The sumrate maximization problem is, then, replaced by the sum-MSE minimization problem by applying weighted mean square error minimization (WMMSE) method. Finally, the expectation taken over the distribution of the channels can be approximated using the sample average approximation (SAA) and the problem can be solved by computing a second order cone programming (SOCP). The robustness and effectiveness of the proposed method are validated by the simulation results.
Chronic Kidney Disease in Primary Care

Because chronic kidney disease is a growing health concern, family physicians must be equipped to care for this unique patient population. Diabetes mellitus and hypertension, which are commonly addressed in the office setting, are the largest contributors to chronic kidney disease; therefore, these risk factors should be tightly controlled and these patients should be screened closely for signs of renal damage. The National Kidney Foundation recommends that screening include determination of the glomerular filtration rate (GFR) and assessment for the presence of proteinuria. Once the diagnosis of chronic kidney disease is established (by the presence of persistent kidney damage or a GFR <60 mL/min/1.73m2 for at least 3 months), the etiology of chronic kidney disease needs to be elucidated. Often the etiology can be determined by history alone; however, reversible causes of chronic kidney disease should be considered in all patients. Regardless of the underlying etiology of the chronic kidney disease, the family physician can make a significant impact in slowing the progression of chronic kidney disease through strict blood pressure control, tight glycemic control, reduction in the degree of proteinuria, and smoking cessation. All chronic kidney disease patients are at significantly increased risk of cardiovascular events; therefore, additional cardiovascular risk factors such as hyperlipidemia should be managed aggressively. Assessment for the complications of chronic kidney disease, including anemia, bone metabolism abnormalities, metabolic acidosis, and malnourishment, should be assessed once the GFR declines below 60 mL/min/1.73m2 (stage 3). Early screening and treatment of these complications can prevent the development of further sequelae and should not be delayed until referral to nephrology. Appropriate counseling and health maintenance is also needed for this patient population and should be given by the family physician involved in the patient's care.
Cutting Edge: STAT Activation By IL-19, IL-20 and mda-7 Through IL-20 Receptor Complexes of Two Types1

IL-10-related cytokines include IL-20 and IL-22, which induce, respectively, keratinocyte proliferation and acute phase production by hepatocytes, as well as IL-19, melanoma differentiation-associated gene 7, and AK155, three cytokines for which no activity nor receptor complex has been described thus far. Here, we show that mda-7 and IL-19 bind to the previously described IL-20R complex, composed by cytokine receptor family 2–8/IL-20Rα and DIRS1/IL-20Rβ (type I IL-20R). In addition, mda-7 and IL-20, but not IL-19, bind to another receptor complex, composed by IL-22R and DIRS1/IL20Rβ (type II IL-20R). In both cases, binding of the ligands results in STAT3 phosphorylation and activation of a minimal promoter including STAT-binding sites. Taken together, these results demonstrate that: 1) IL-20 induces STAT activation through IL-20R complexes of two types; 2) mda-7 and IL-20 redundantly signal through both complexes; and 3) IL-19 signals only through the type I IL-20R complex.
Statistical Analyses of Brain Surfaces Using Gaussian Random Fields on 2-D Manifolds

Interest in the morphometric analysis of the brain and its subregions has recently intensified because growth or degeneration of the brain in health or illness affects not only the volume but also the shape of cortical and subcortical brain regions, and new image processing techniques permit detection of small and highly localized perturbations in shape or localized volume, with remarkable precision. An appropriate statistical representation of the shape of a brain region is essential, however, for detecting, localizing, and interpreting variability in its surface contour and for identifying differences in volume of the underlying tissue that produce that variability across individuals and groups of individuals. Our statistical representation of the shape of a brain region is defined by a reference region for that region and by a Gaussian random field (GRF) that is defined across the entire surface of the region. We first select a reference region from a set of segmented brain images of healthy individuals. The GRF is then estimated as the signed Euclidean distances between points on the surface of the reference region and the corresponding points on the corresponding region in images of brains that have been coregistered to the reference. Correspondences between points on these surfaces are defined through deformations of each region of a brain into the coordinate space of the reference region using the principles of fluid dynamics. The warped, coregistered region of each subject is then unwarped into its native space, simultaneously bringing into that space the map of corresponding points that was established when the surfaces of the subject and reference regions were tightly coregistered. The proposed statistical description of the shape of surface contours makes no assumptions, other than smoothness, about the shape of the region or its GRF. The description also allows for the detection and localization of statistically significant differences in the shapes of the surfaces across groups of subjects at both a fine and coarse scale. We demonstrate the effectiveness of these statistical methods by applying them to study differences in shape of the amygdala and hippocampus in a large sample of normal subjects and in subjects with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
Using item response theory to address vulnerabilities in FFQ

Abstract The limitations for self-reporting of dietary patterns are widely recognised as a major vulnerability of FFQ and the dietary screeners/scales derived from FFQ. Such instruments can yield inconsistent results to produce questionable interpretations. The present article discusses the value of psychometric approaches and standards in addressing these drawbacks for instruments used to estimate dietary habits and nutrient intake. We argue that a FFQ or screener that treats diet as a ‘latent construct’ can be optimised for both internal consistency and the value of the research results. Latent constructs, a foundation for item response theory (IRT)-based scales (e.g. Patient Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System) are typically introduced in the design stage of an instrument to elicit critical factors that cannot be observed or measured directly. We propose an iterative approach that uses such modelling to refine FFQ and similar instruments. To that end, we illustrate the benefits of psychometric modelling by using items and data from a sample of 12 370 Soldiers who completed the 2012 US Army Global Assessment Tool (GAT). We used factor analysis to build the scale incorporating five out of eleven survey items. An IRT-driven assessment of response category properties indicates likely problems in the ordering or wording of several response categories. Group comparisons, examined with differential item functioning (DIF), provided evidence of scale validity across each Army sub-population (sex, service component and officer status). Such an approach holds promise for future FFQ.
Long-Lived Antitumor CD8+ Lymphocytes for Adoptive Therapy Generated Using an Artificial Antigen-Presenting Cell

Purpose: Antitumor lymphocytes can be generated ex vivo unencumbered by immunoregulation found in vivo. Adoptive transfer of these cells is a promising therapeutic modality that could establish long-term antitumor immunity. However, the widespread use of adoptive therapy has been hampered by the difficulty of consistently generating potent antitumor lymphocytes in a timely manner for every patient. To overcome this, we sought to establish a clinical grade culture system that can reproducibly generate antigen-specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL). Experimental Design: We created an off-the-shelf, standardized, and renewable artificial antigen-presenting cell (aAPC) line that coexpresses HLA class I, CD54, CD58, CD80, and the dendritic cell maturation marker CD83. We tested the ability of aAPC to generate tumor antigen-specific CTL under optimal culture conditions. The number, phenotype, effector function, and in vitro longevity of generated CTL were determined. Results: Stimulation of CD8+ T cells with peptide-pulsed aAPC generated large numbers of functional CTL that recognized a variety of tumor antigens. These CTLs, which possess a phenotype consistent with in vivo persistence, survived ex vivo for prolonged periods of time. Clinical grade aAPC33, produced under current Good Manufacturing Practices guidelines, generated sufficient numbers of CTL within a short period of time. These CTL specifically lysed a variety of melanoma tumor lines naturally expressing a target melanoma antigen. Furthermore, antitumor CTL were easily generated in all melanoma patients examined. Conclusions: With clinical grade aAPC33 in hand, we are now poised for clinical translation of ex vivo generated antitumor CTL for adoptive cell transfer.
Investigating temporal fluctuations in tumor vasculature with combined carbogen and ultrasmall superparamagnetic iron oxide particle (CUSPIO) imaging

A combined carbogen ultrasmall superparamagnetic iron oxide (USPIO) imaging protocol was developed and applied in vivo in two murine colorectal tumor xenograft models, HCT116 and SW1222, with established disparate vascular morphology, to investigate whether additional information could be extracted from the combination of two susceptibility MRI biomarkers. Tumors were imaged before and during carbogen breathing and subsequently following intravenous administration of USPIO particles. A novel segmentation method was applied to the image data, from which six categories of R2* response were identified, and compared with histological analysis of the vasculature. In particular, a strong association between a negative ΔR2*carbogen followed by positive ΔR2*USPIO with the uptake of the perfusion marker Hoechst 33342 was determined. Regions of tumor tissue where there was a significant ΔR2*carbogen but no significant ΔR2*USPIO were also identified, suggesting these regions became temporally isolated from the vascular supply during the experimental timecourse. These areas correlated with regions of tumor tissue where there was CD31 staining but no Hoechst 33342 uptake. Significantly, different combined carbogen USPIO responses were determined between the two tumor models. Combining ΔR2*carbogen and ΔR2*USPIO with a novel segmentation scheme can facilitate the interpretation of susceptibility contrast MRI data and enable a deeper interrogation of tumor vascular function and architecture. Magn Reson Med 66:227–234, 2011. © 2011 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Caveolae Dysfunction Contributes to Impaired Relaxation Induced by Nitric Oxide Donor in Aorta from Renal Hypertensive Rats

Relaxation induced by nitric oxide (NO) donors is impaired in renal hypertensive two kidney-one clip (2K-1C) rat aortas. It has been proposed that caveolae are important in signal transduction and Ca2+ homeostasis. Therefore, in the present study we investigate the integrity of caveolae in vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs), as well as their influence on the effects produced by NO released from both the new NO donor [Ru(NH.NHq) (terpy)NO+]3+ (TERPY) and sodium nitroprusside (SNP) on 2K-1C rat aorta. The potency of both TERPY and SNP was lower in the 2K-1C aorta that in the normotensive aorta [two kidney (2K)], whereas the maximal relaxant effect (ME) was similar in both 2K-1C and 2K aortas. In the 2K aorta, methyl-β-cyclodextrin (CD) reduced both the potency of TERPY and SNP, and their ME compared with the control, but it had no effect on the potency and ME of these NO donors in 2K-1C aortas. The decrease in cytosolic Ca2+ concentration ([Ca2+]c) induced by TERPY was larger in 2K than in 2K-1C cells, and this effect was inhibited by CD in 2K cells only. Aortic VSMCs from 2K rats presented a larger number of caveolae than those from 2K-1C rats. Treatment with CD reduced the number of caveolae in both 2K and 2K-1C aortic VSMCs. Our results support the idea that caveolae play a critical role in the relaxant effect and in the decrease in [Ca2+]c induced by NO, and they could be responsible for impaired aorta relaxation by NO in renal hypertensive rats.
Water pipe smoking and health-related quality of life: a population-based study.

BACKGROUND Water pipe smoking is increasing in Eastern Mediterranean Region. The objective of this study was to investigate any relationship between water pipe smoking and health-related quality of life in the general population of Bandar Abbas, Iran. METHODS Using a multistage sampling method, a random sample of 1675 individuals aged 15 years and over was studied from June through July 2007. All eligible participants were interviewed using the Short Form Health Survey (SF-36) questionnaire and a short questionnaire containing items regarding socio-demographic characteristics and water pipe smoking status. To compare SF-36 scores between water pipe smokers and nonsmokers, t-test was performed. In addition, multiple logistic regression analysis was used to determine the influence of water pipe smoking on SF-36 scores after adjusting for other independent variables. RESULTS In all, 1675 individuals were studied. The mean age of the respondents was 42.1 (SD=16.5) years. One hundred and seventy-two participants (10.4%) were water pipe smokers. There were statistically significant differences between water pipe smokers and nonsmokers on all scales except for role emotional (P<0.001). Logistic regression analysis showed that using water pipe was a risk factor for decreasing Physical Component Summary and Mental Component Summary scores [OR (95% CI): 2.15 (1.56-2.96), P<0.01; and OR (95% CI): 1.88 (1.36-2.60), P<0.01, respectively]. CONCLUSION The study findings indicated that people who smoked water pipe carried a higher risk for poorer health-related quality of life.