Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
2012 Liver resections in the 21st century: we are far from zero mortality.

OBJECTIVES Recent improvements in surgical technique have extended the indications for liver resection. The aims of this study were to assess whether this extension is associated with a changing patient profile and to evaluate how this potential shift has influenced mortality after liver resection in order to define standard expectations for hepatectomy. METHODS The characteristics and postoperative outcomes of all patients undergoing elective hepatectomy from 2000 to 2009 were reviewed retrospectively. Multivariate analysis was conducted to determine the factors associated with mortality in the subgroup of patients with malignant disease. RESULTS Among the 2012 patients in whom hepatectomies were performed, the percentage of patients operated for malignancy increased from 66.4% in 2000 to 82.3% in 2009 (P < 0.001). These patients experienced higher mortality (4.5% versus 0.7%; P < 0.001), were significantly older, and displayed greater comorbidity and underlying parenchymal disease compared with those with benign lesions. Mortality over the entire study period was 3.5% and was fairly stable, dropping from 3.8% in 2000 to 3.1% in 2009 (P = 0.686). On multivariate analysis, age of >60 years, an American Society of Anesthesiologists score of ≥3, major resection, vascular procedure, severe fibrosis (F3-F4) and steatosis of >30% were associated with increased mortality in patients with malignant disease. CONCLUSIONS The profile of patients undergoing liver resection has changed and now includes more high-risk patients with diseased parenchyma undergoing major hepatectomy for malignancy. This change in patient profile is responsible for the stability in mortality rates over the years.
Rubus rosaefolius Extract as a Natural Preservative Candidate in Topical Formulations

ABSTRACTEven though the synthetic preservatives may offer a high antimicrobial efficacy, they are commonly related to adverse reactions and regarded as having potentially harmful effects caused by chronic consumption. The development of natural preservatives provides a way of reducing the amount of synthetic preservatives normally used in pharmaceutical and cosmetic preparations. In addition, these agents have less toxic effects and represent a possible natural and safer alternative of the preservatives. The purpose of this research was to evaluate the Rubus rosaefolius Smith extract efficiency as a natural preservative in base formulations. Of the extract, 0.2% (w/w) was assayed for its effectiveness of antimicrobial protection in two different base formulations (emulsion and gel). The microbial challenge test was performed following the standard procedures proposed by The United States Pharmacopoeia 33nd, European Pharmacopoeia 6th, Japanese Pharmacopoeia 15th, and the Cosmetics, Toiletries, and Fragrance Association using standardized microorganisms. The results demonstrated that R. rosaefolius extract at the studied concentration reduced the bacterial inocula, satisfying the criterion in all formulations, even though it was not able to present an effective preservative behavior against fungi. Thus, the investigation of new natural substances with preservative properties that could be applied in pharmaceutical and cosmetic products is relevant due to the possibility of substituting or decreasing the concentration of synthetic preservatives, providing a way for the development of safer formulas for the use of consumers.
Motor-evoked potentials elicited from human erector spinae muscles by transcranial magnetic stimulation.

STUDY DESIGN The compound muscle action potentials elicited from the erector spinae muscles by transcranial magnetic stimulation was studied in 15 healthy adults. OBJECTIVE To describe the recording procedure for consistent compound muscle action potentials elicited from the human erector spinae by transcranial magnetic stimulation and to establish the normal latency ranges of the responses, at respective spinal levels, for the practical use of this test. SUMMARY OF BACKGROUND DATA Although recording of the compound muscle action potentials from limb muscles after transcranial magnetic stimulation has been extensively studied, the use of the erector spinae as the target muscle has not, probably because of the difficulty of consistently evoking compound muscle action potentials. METHODS Compound muscle action potentials from the erector spinae muscles were recorded with the subject prone during tonic voluntary background contraction of the back extensor muscles at approximately 20% of maximum effort. The compound muscle action potentials were recorded concurrently at multiple levels after magnetic stimulation to the brain with a round coil centered over the vertex. RESULTS The onset and peak latencies (mean +/- SD) of the major negative potential increased progressively toward the caudal level from 13.4 +/- 2.2 msec and 17.6 +/- 2.2 msec at T5-T6 to 20.8 +/- 1.5 msec and 26.3 +/- 3.0 msec at L4-L5 in healthy subjects. The latencies changed significantly between two adjacent segments from T5-T6/T6-T7 through T12-L1/L1-L2. CONCLUSIONS The compound muscle action potential was elicited from the voluntarily contracted erector spinae at all spinal levels from T5-T6 through L4-L5 in all subjects tested. This noninvasive test has potential for evaluating the functional integrity of the motor pathway in the thoracic spinal cord, the spinal nerves, or both.
Information Flow Dependence in Financial Markets

In response to empirical evidence, we propose a continuous-time model for multivariate asset returns with a two-layered dependence structure. The price process is subject to multivariate information arrivals driving the market activity modeled by nondecreasing pure-jump Lévy processes. A Lévy copula determines the jump dependence and allows for a generic multivariate information flow with a flexible structure. Conditional on the information flow, asset returns are jointly normal. Within this setup, we provide an estimation framework based on maximum simulated likelihood. We apply novel multivariate models to equity data and obtain estimates which meet an economic intuition with respect to the two-layered dependence structure.
[The development of maternal-fetal attachment during pregnancy].

UNLABELLED This study is to examine the degree to which women engage in attachment behaviors toward their unborn children. Cranley's Maternal-Fetal Attachment Scale (MFAS) was modified to Japanese version (MFAS-J2), which consists of 20 items with . 87 reliability. MFAS-J2 was administered to both normal and high-risk pregnant women (n = 275) during gestation. All subjects were restricted to women who were having their first child, and they were between 5 and 40 weeks gestation at the time they completed the instrument. Demographic data were also gathered. RESULTS (1) Maternal-fatal attachment increased significantly from 5 to 40 weeks of gestation. Especially feeling fetal movement had positive effect on maternal-fetal attachment. (2) Women who reported negative perception or ambivalent feeling about their pregnancy showed low attachment score. And women whose husband reported negative feeling about their pregnancy responded lower in the scale. (3) Some negative relationships were observed between maternal-fetal attachment score and the histories of abortion and sterility. (4) Maternal-fetal attachment showed no significant correlations to factors of threatened abortion, premature labor, and IUGR. (5) Maternal-fetal attachment showed negative correlations to State-Trait anxiety during early pregnancies.
Safety of minimally invasive radical prostatectomy in patients with prior abdominopelvic or inguinal surgery.

INTRODUCTION Despite the widespread use of minimally invasive radical prostatectomy (MIRP), there remain concerns regarding its safety in patients with a history of prior abdominopelvic or inguinal surgery. METHODS A prospective database of 1165 MIRP procedures performed by a single surgeon at a high-volume tertiary care center from 2001 to 2013 was analyzed. After an initial period of transperitoneal MIRP (TP), an extraperitoneal (EP) approach was used preferentially beginning in 2005 (for both laparoscopic and robotic cases), and robotics were used preferentially beginning in 2010. Overall perioperative complications, major complications (Clavien-Dindo III or IV), and abdominal complications (e.g., ileus, bowel/organ injury, or vascular injury) were compared for patients with and without a prior surgical history. Uni- and multivariate logistic regression were used to control the impact of robotics, approach, operative time, estimated blood loss, case number, prostate weight, and primary Gleason on complications. RESULTS Three hundred patients undergoing MIRP had prior abdominopelvic or inguinal surgery (25.8%). Of these, 102 (34%) underwent TP and 198 (66%) EP MIRP. Robotics was used in 286 cases (24.6%) and pure laparoscopy in 879 (75.4%). Complications occurred in 111 patients (9.5%) from the total cohort, with major complications in 32 (2.75%) and abdominal complications in 19 (1.63%). Prior surgery was not associated with overall, major, or abdominal complications. Of the controlling factors, only increasing operative time was associated with postoperative abdominal complications (most of which were ileus) on multivariate analysis. CONCLUSIONS In this large single-surgeon series where both EP and TP approaches to MIRP are utilized, prior abdominopelvic or inguinal surgery was not associated with an increased risk of perioperative complications.
Detection of selective sweeps in structured populations: a comparison of recent methods

Identifying genomic regions targeted by positive selection has been a long‐standing interest of evolutionary biologists. This objective was difficult to achieve until the recent emergence of next‐generation sequencing, which is fostering the development of large‐scale catalogues of genetic variation for increasing number of species. Several statistical methods have been recently developed to analyse these rich data sets, but there is still a poor understanding of the conditions under which these methods produce reliable results. This study aims at filling this gap by assessing the performance of genome‐scan methods that consider explicitly the physical linkage among SNPs surrounding a selected variant. Our study compares the performance of seven recent methods for the detection of selective sweeps (iHS, nSL, EHHST, xp‐EHH, XP‐EHHST, XPCLR and hapFLK). We use an individual‐based simulation approach to investigate the power and accuracy of these methods under a wide range of population models under both hard and soft sweeps. Our results indicate that XPCLR and hapFLK perform best and can detect soft sweeps under simple population structure scenarios if migration rate is low. All methods perform poorly with moderate‐to‐high migration rates, or with weak selection and very poorly under a hierarchical population structure. Finally, no single method is able to detect both starting and nearly completed selective sweeps. However, combining several methods (XPCLR or hapFLK with iHS or nSL) can greatly increase the power to pinpoint the selected region.
Adaptive control of air delivery system for PEM fuel cell using backstepping

The proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells have attracted significant attention due to high efficiency and low pollution. The performance and lifetime of the fuel cell power system depend on the heat and water management, gas flow control and pressure regulation. This paper focuses on the oxygen excess ratio regulation for the fuel cell system to improve the performance and extend the lifetime. Firstly, a third-order model of the air delivery subsystem is introduced based on suitable assumption and simplification. Secondly, the third-order model is transformed to the non-affine nonlinear form, and the oxygen excess ratio regulation is reconsidered as load current tracking problem. Using the backstepping technique and neural network, an adaptive controller is proposed for the tracking problem and guarantees the system's stability in presence of modeling errors, external disturbances and uncertainties. Finally, the simulation illustrates the effectiveness of the adaptive controller.
The helicase activity associated with hepatitis C virus nonstructural protein 3 (NS3)

To assess the RNA helicase activity of hepatitis C virus (HCV) nonstructural protein 3 (NS3), a polypeptide encompassing amino acids 1175 to 1657, which cover only the putative helicase domain, was expressed in Escherichia coli by a pET expression vector. The protein was purified to near homogeneity and assayed for RNA helicase activity in vitro with double-stranded RNA substrates prepared from a multiple cloning sequence and an HCV 5' nontranslated region (5'-NTR) or 3'-NTR. The enzyme acted successfully on substrates containing both 5' and 3' single-stranded regions (standard) or on substrates containing only the 3' single-stranded regions (3'/3') but failed to act on substrates containing only the 5' single-stranded regions (5'/5') or on substrates lacking the single-stranded regions (blunt). These results thus suggest 3' to 5' directionality for HCV RNA helicase activity. However, a 5'/5' substrate derived from the HCV 5'-NTR was also partially unwound by the enzyme, possibly because of unique properties inherent in the 5' single-stranded regions. Gel mobility shift analyses demonstrated that the HCV NS3 helicase could bind to either 5'- or 3'-tailed substrates but not to substrates lacking a single-stranded region, indicating that the polarity of the RNA strand to which the helicase bound was a more important enzymatic activity determinant. In addition to double-stranded RNA substrates, HCV NS3 helicase activity could displace both RNA and DNA oligonucleotides on a DNA template, suggesting that HCV NS3 too was disposed to DNA helicase activity. This study also demonstrated that RNA helicase activity was dramatically inhibited by the single-stranded polynucleotides. Taken altogether, our results indicate that the HCV NS3 helicase is unique among the RNA helicases characterized so far.
Chronic Cocaine Use and Its Association With Myocardial Steatosis Evaluated by 1H Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy in African Americans

Objectives:Cardiac steatosis is a manifestation of ectopic fat deposition and is associated with obesity. The impact of chronic cocaine use on obesity measures and on the relationship between obesity measures and cardiac steatosis is not well-characterized. The objectives of this study were to compare obesity measures in chronic cocaine users and nonusers, and to explore which factors, in addition to obesity measures, are associated with myocardial triglyceride in African Americans, using noninvasive magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Methods:Between June 2004 and January 2014, 180 healthy African American adults without HIV infection, hypertension, and diabetes were enrolled in an observational proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy and imaging study investigating factors associated with cardiac steatosis. Results:Among these 180 participants, 80 were chronic cocaine users and 100 were nonusers. The median age was 42 (interquartile range, 34-47) years. Obesity measures trended higher in cocaine users than in nonusers. The median myocardial triglyceride was 0.6% (interquartile range, 0.4%-1.1%). Among the factors investigated, years of cocaine use, leptin, and visceral fat were independently associated with myocardial triglyceride. Body mass index and visceral fat, which were significantly associated with myocardial triglyceride in noncocaine users, were not associated with myocardial triglyceride content in cocaine users. Conclusions:This study shows (1) cocaine users may have more fat than nonusers and (2) myocardial triglyceride is independently associated with duration of cocaine use, leptin, and visceral fat in all subjects, whereas leptin and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, but not visceral fat or body mass index, in cocaine users, suggesting that chronic cocaine use may modify the relationships between obesity measures and myocardial triglyceride.
Lower education predicts poor response to dietary intervention in pregnancy, regardless of neighbourhood affluence: secondary analysis from the ROLO randomised control trial

Abstract Objective To determine if response to a low glycaemic index (GI) dietary intervention, measured by changes in dietary intake and gestational weight gain, differed across women of varying socio-economic status (SES). Design Secondary data analysis of the ROLO randomised control trial. The intervention consisted of a two-hour low-GI dietary education session in early pregnancy. Change in GI was measured using 3 d food diaries pre- and post-intervention. Gestational weight gain was categorised as per the 2009 Institute of Medicine guidelines. SES was measured using education and neighbourhood deprivation. Setting The National Maternity Hospital, Dublin, Ireland. Subjects Women (n 625) recruited to the ROLO randomised control trial. Results The intervention significantly reduced GI and excess gestational weight gain (EGWG) among women with third level education residing in both disadvantaged (GI, mean (sd), intervention v. control: −3·30 (5·15) v. −0·32 (4·22), P=0·024; EGWG, n (%), intervention v. control: 7 (33·6) v. 22 (67·9); P=0·022) and advantaged areas (GI: −1·13 (3·88) v. 0·06 (3·75), P=0·020; EGWG: 41 (34·1) v. 58 (52·6); P=0·006). Neither GI nor gestational weight gain differed between the intervention and control group among women with less than third level education, regardless of neighbourhood deprivation. Conclusions A single dietary education session was not effective in reducing GI or gestational weight gain among less educated women. Multifaceted, appropriate and practical approaches are required in pregnancy interventions to improve pregnancy outcomes for less educated women.
Modeling the structure of mAb 14B7 bound to the anthrax protective antigen

The anthrax protective antigen (PA) is a key component of the tripartite anthrax toxin. Monoclonal antibody (mAb) 14B7 and its engineered, affinity‐matured variants have been shown to be effective in blocking PA binding to cellular receptors and mitigating anthrax toxicity. Here, we perform computational structural modeling of the mAb 14B7‐PA interaction. Our objectives are to determine the structure of the 14B7‐PA complex, to deduce a structural explanation for the affinity maturation from the docking models, and to study the effect of inaccuracies in the antibody homology model on docking. We used the RosettaDock program to dock PA with the mAb 14B7 crystal structure or homology model. Our simulations generate two distinct binding orientations consistent with experimental residue mutations that diminish 14B7‐PA binding. Furthermore, the models suggest new site‐directed mutations to positively identify one of these two solutions as the correct 14B7‐PA docking orientation. The models indicate that PA regions 648–660 and 712–720 may be important for 14B7 binding in addition to the known PA epitope, and the binding interfaces are similar to that seen in the PA complex with cellular receptor CMG2. Antibody residues involved in affinity maturation do not contact the antigen in the docking models, suggesting that affinity maturation in the 14B7 family does not result from direct enhancements of antibody–antigen contacts. Docking the homology model produces low‐resolution representations of the crystal structure docking orientations, but homology model docking is frustrated by antibody H3 loop conformation errors. This work demonstrates the usefulness and limitations of computational structure prediction for the development of antibody therapeutics, and reemphasizes the need for flexible backbone docking algorithms to achieve high‐resolution docking using homology models. Proteins 2008. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Fission yeast Rad26 is a regulatory subunit of the Rad3 checkpoint kinase.

Fission yeast Rad3 is a member of a family of phosphoinositide 3-kinase -related kinases required for the maintenance of genomic stability in all eukaryotic cells. In fission yeast, Rad3 regulates the cell cycle arrest and recovery activities associated with the G2/M checkpoint. We have developed an assay that directly measures Rad3 kinase activity in cells expressing physiological levels of the protein. Using the assay, we demonstrate directly that Rad3 kinase activity is stimulated by checkpoint signals. Of the five other G2/M checkpoint proteins (Hus1, Rad1, Rad9, Rad17, and Rad26), only Rad26 was required for Rad3 kinase activity. Because Rad26 has previously been shown to interact constitutively with Rad3, our results demonstrate that Rad26 is a regulatory subunit, and Rad3 is the catalytic subunit, of the Rad3/Rad26 kinase complex. Analysis of Rad26/Rad3 kinase activation in rad26.T12, a mutant that is proficient for cell cycle arrest, but defective in recovery, suggests that these two responses to checkpoint signals require quantitatively different levels of kinase activity from the Rad3/Rad26 complex.
The expression of the Acinetobacter calcoaceticus recA gene increases in response to DNA damage independently of RecA and of development of competence for natural transformation.

Using the lacZ operon fusion technique, the transcriptional control of the Acinetobacter calcoaceticus recA gene was studied. A low (approximately twofold) inductive capacity was observed for compounds that damage DNA and/or inhibit DNA replication, e.g. methyl methanesulfonate, mitomycin C, UV light and nalidixic acid. Induction of the recA gene by DNA damage was independent of functional RecA. The presence of the recA promoter region on a multicopy plasmid had the same effect on recA transcription as the presence of DNA-damaging agents. Thus, recA expression in A. calcoaceticus appears to be regulated in a novel fashion, possibly involving a non-LexA-like repressor. Regulation of the recA gene in A. calcoaceticus appears not to be part of a regulon responsible for competence for natural transformation: in cells exhibiting extremely low transformation frequencies, the level of transcription of the recA gene was found to be comparable to the level found in cells in the state of maximal competence.
Short and Long Recall Errors in Retrospective Household Surveys: Evidence from a Developing Country

ABSTRACT While recall errors in retrospective data from household surveys may generate estimation biases, the nature and the relative magnitude of the errors are still largely unknown, especially in the context of developing countries. To bridge this gap in the existing studies, we conduct a resurvey of respondents of the Vietnam Household Living Standards Survey (VHLS) 2006. The combined data set allows us to investigate a variety of short-term and long-term errors associated with recall surveys. First, our empirical results suggest that when we ask total expenditure rather than categorised expenditures, long recall errors are no worse than short recall errors. Second, we found mean-reversion only for long recall errors in the sum of categorised expenditures but not necessarily for total expenditure. Finally, the inclusion of household size, asset, income, and geographical dummy variables in regression analyses may mitigate the biases arising from measurement errors.