Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Autobiography as Tool to Improve Lifestyle, Well Being, and Self-Narrative in Patients With Mental Disorders

The aims of the present study were to explore how the autobiographical process can lead to a transformation in psychiatric patients' lifestyle, well-being, and self-narrative. Nine participants, aged between 20 and 42 years and affected by axis I psychiatric disorders (DSM IV) were selected to participate in an autobiographical laboratory. Eight to 10 meetings took place, each lasting about an hour, during which autobiographical accounts were collected. At the beginning and end of the autobiographical laboratory, the medical staff completed the Social Functioning Scale to evaluate each patient across 6 dimensions: social engagement, interpersonal ability, prosocial activities, recreation, independence-competence, and independence-performance. The Language Inquiry and Word Count (Pennebaker and Francis, 1996) was used to analyze patients' autobiographical accounts. A comparison between the first and second compilation of the Social Functioning Scale showed significant positive changes across the 6 social dimensions. The analysis of language in the narratives collected in the first and seventh meeting showed how inpatients passed from a narrative that was more centered on the memory of the past to a narrative that was more similar to a conversation and enriched with “insight” terms and the use of verbs in the conjunctive form. The authors interpret these outcomes as being consistent with the improvement that was observed in inpatients' social functioning.
Hidden Markov Model Analysis of Motifs in interleukins and haematopoietic growth factor family

Haematopoietic cytokines are important in the regulation of haematopoiesis and immune responses, and they can also influence lymphocyte development. Hundreds of members of several different cytokines families have been discovered by some different methods. But fast evolution rate and low similarity of cytokines prevent identifying novel members of a cytokine family completely with classical tools such as BLAST. Here hidden Markov model algorithm is performed on haematopoietic cytokines and interleukin 10 (IL10) related family, and two motifs are discovered. Then, three famous protein sequence databases (SwissProt, IPI and Nr) were scanned using each motif respectively, which led to evaluate the relation between motif and every sequence of database including some unknown proteins or some ambiguous function proteins of known families. Furthermore, the biology features were compared to filter novel members of cytokines. As a result, four proteins are predicted to be the cytokine candidates
Risk of adverse events in children completing treatment for acute lymphoblastic leukemia: St. Jude Total Therapy studies VIII, IX, and X.

We studied the frequency, causes, and predictors of adverse events in 624 patients who had completed treatment for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) in three consecutive total therapy studies (VII, IX, and X, 1972 to 1983). Event-free survival in study X was significantly better overall than that in studies VIII and IX (P less than .0001 by the log-rank test). In study X, 75% of the patients were electively taken off therapy, compared with 54% in studies VIII and IX. However, the risks of having an adverse event during the first 5 years after completion of therapy were remarkably similar: 22% (95% confidence interval, 17% to 29%) in study X versus 24% (20% to 29%) in studies VIII and IX. Bone marrow, testicular, and CNS relapses accounted for the majority of failures in both groups (85% in study X and 92% in studies VIII and IX). Late adverse events consisted largely of hematologic relapses and the development of solid tumors. Black race (P = .001) and leukemia without an anterior mediastinal mass (P = .05) were associated with an increased risk of failure after completion of treatment in the two earlier clinical trials, whereas a lower leukemic cell DNA content (DNA index less than 1.16) was the only predictor of late treatment failure in the more recent trial (P = .019). None of the other presenting features that were examined (eg, age, leukocyte count, and sex) had value as predictors of late failure. Thus, improved treatment altered the impact of specific prognostic factors and the distribution of sites of relapse, but it did not significantly affect the risk of delayed failure.
Three‐dimensional measurement of essential tremor

A mechanical linkage device was used to measure the three‐dimensional position of the fingertip during a postural task. Thirty patients with essential tremor were tested simultaneously with the device, uniaxial accelerometry, and clinical tremor measures. Eighteen patients were tested again 16 ± 4 days later. The device accurately recorded the three‐dimensional behavior of essential tremor. Measures from the device included mean three‐dimensional velocity, mean three‐dimensional dispersion, and power of the three‐dimensional acceleration. The logarithms of these measures were strongly correlated (r = .841–.984) with all clinical measures including self‐reported tremor disability. The device measures were reliable within and between testing sessions (intraclass correlation coefficients = .971–.977). The performance of the device was superior to uniaxial accelerometry, most likely as a result of the three‐dimensional nature of the measurements. We conclude that essential tremor can be validly and reliably quantified during a postural task providing the recording device records movement in three dimensions and the measurements are logarithmically transformed.
A Comparison of the Ability of Intra-oral and Extra-oral Fibroblasts to Stimulate Extracellular Matrix Reorganization in a Model of Wound Contraction

Intra-oral wounds, like wounds in children, demonstrate privileged healing when compared with adult wounds at extra-oral sites. This study investigated whether this preferential healing is related to an increased ability of oral mucosal fibroblasts to reorganize extracellular matrix (ECM) when compared with their dermal counterparts. ECM reorganization was investigated by means of a fibroblast-populated collagen lattice (FPCL) system. The effect of donor age was also investigated in this system. Differences in ECM reorganization and FPCL contraction were evident: FPCL contraction was more rapid by oral mucosal fibroblasts than dermal fibroblasts (p < 0.01). FPCL contraction was also greater in child (donor < 10 years) than adult (donor > 18 years) oral mucosal fibroblasts (p < 0.01). These differences were not related to phenotypic differences in cell viability (p > 0.5), DNA synthesis (p > 0.05), and cell number (p > 0.5) within the FPCLs, or cellular attachment to collagen (p > 0.07). FPCL contraction was not stimulated by the addition of conditioned medium from oral mucosal or dermal fibroblasts (p > 0.05). These data show that the significantly increased ability of oral mucosal fibroblasts to reorganize ECM in vitro, when compared with dermal fibroblasts, represents a distinct phenotypic contractile difference, rather than differences in their production of soluble mediators or cell attachment to ECM.
Neutrophils from MMP‐9‐ or neutrophil elastase‐deficient mice show no defect in transendothelial migration under flow in vitro

Recent evidence has suggested a role for neutrophil proteases during certain inflammatory responses. We demonstrated previously that neutrophil proteases can degrade components of the adherens junctions during neutrophil‐endothelial adhesion. We tested the hypothesis that degradation of VE‐cadherin at lateral junctions by elastase or MMP‐9 facilitates neutrophil transendothelial migration. Neutrophils from MMP‐9 or elastase null mice and strain‐matched control mice expressed high levels of LFA‐1, Mac‐1, and L‐selectin on their cell surface. Under flow conditions, wild‐type and deficient neutrophils rolled, arrested, and transmigrated activated murine endothelium. There was no difference in the total numbers of interacting neutrophils or in the percentage of transmigrated cells. In addition, deficient neutrophils remained capable of degrading murine endothelial VE‐cadherin. These results indicate that although neutrophil proteases may play a role in the acute inflammatory response, neutrophil elastase or MMP‐9 is not essential for neutrophil transendothelial migration in this murine system.
"Theory at the Crossroads": Mapping Moments of Mathematics Education Research onto Paradigms of Inquiry.

In this essay, traveling through the past half-century, the authors illustrate how mathematics education research shifted, theoretical, beyond its psychological and mathematical roots. Mapping four historical moments of mathematics education research onto broader paradigms of inquiry, the authors make a case for the field to take up a theoretical “identity” that refutes closure and keeps the possibilities of mathematics teaching and learning open to multiple and uncertain interpretations and analyses.
Assessment of Safety of Lactobacillus Strains Based on Resistance to Host Innate Defense Mechanisms

ABSTRACT Seven Lactobacillus strains belonging to four species were evaluated for pathogenicity as well as for in vitro sensitivity to the bactericidal mechanisms of macrophages in a rabbit infective endocarditis (IE) model. Two bacteremia-associated strains, L. rhamnosus PHLS A103/70 and L. casei PHLS A357/84, as well as the L. rhamnosus type strain and the probiotic L. rhamnosus strain ATCC 53103, showed moderate infectivity, and the virulence of the probiotic L. casei strain Shirota and type strains such as L. acidophilus ATCC 4356T and L. gasseri DSM 20243T in the model was negligible. The strains that showed pathogenic potential in the rabbit IE model (PHLS A357/84, PHLS A103/70, and ATCC 53103) were more resistant than strain Shirota to intracellular killing activity by mouse macrophages in vitro and also to bactericidal nitrogen intermediates, such as nitric oxide and NO2− ions. These results suggest that resistance to host innate defense systems, which would function at inflammatory lesions, should be considered in the safety assessment of Lactobacillus strains.
B-Myb prevents growth arrest associated with terminal differentiation of monocytic cells.

B-Myb is a transcriptional regulator of gene expression and is highly homologous to c-Myb in its N-terminal DNA binding domain. However, unlike c-myb, whose expression is restricted largely to immature hematopoietic cells, B-myb mRNA has been found to be expressed in all proliferating mammalian cell lines and is clearly regulated in a cell cycle dependent manner. That c-Myb and B-Myb proteins perform different roles in proliferation and/or differentiation is suggested by the redundancy of their expression. It was previously shown that degenerated c-Myb expression can inhibit IL-6 induced terminal differentiation of the leukemia cell line M1. We found that, unlike the downregulation of c-Myb protein which is an early response of progenitor M1 cells to IL-6 treatment, the downregulation of B-Myb occurs late, just prior to terminal differentiation and growth arrest. It was, therefore, of interest to examine the role of the murine B-Myb protein in the proliferation and differentiation of the M1 cells and to compare these effects to those of c-Myb in the same system. Clones ectopically producing B-Myb, like those ectopically expressing c-Myb, proliferated in the presence of the differentiation-inducing agent and did not undergo the programmed cell death which normally follows terminal macrophage differentiation. In addition, the cell-cycle distribution of M1/B-Myb cells was comparable to untreated cells. Although M1/B-Myb and M1/c-Myb clones treated with IL-6 appeared quite immature, differentiation markers were demonstrated to be maintained at near normal levels (e.g. MyD88, Mac-2), or be partially reduced in expression (C3, Fc and Mac-1 receptors) suggesting that the cells had undergone commitment to maturation, but were unable to terminally differentiate.
Sustainable Decision Making for Store Brand Product

We investigate a multi-brands sustainable channel coordination problem where a national brand manufacturer sells a product through two local retailers competing against their own store brand product, respectively. We shows how the retailers strategically optimize the price and quality of private brands given the customer tastes and the production costs of the store brands in order to make their store brands sustainable. We identify two underlying strategic forces; a competitive force, and a quality force. First, we find that retailers have an incentive to position their store brand far away from the national brand in order to maximize monopolistic power. This strategic force attenuate the incentives for customer to switch to other retailer’s store brands. One the other hand, we show that the retailers prefer increasing the store brand’s quality to get more profit margin when the production cost is relatively high as well.
Development of an automated MODS plate reader to detect early growth of Mycobacterium tuberculosis

In this work, an automated microscopic observation drug susceptibility (MODS) plate reader has been developed. The reader automatically handles MODS plates and after autofocussing digital images are acquired of the characteristic microscopic cording structures of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which are the identification method utilized in the MODS technique to detect tuberculosis and multidrug resistant tuberculosis. In conventional MODS, trained technicians manually move the MODS plate on the stage of an inverted microscope while trying to locate and focus upon the characteristic microscopic cording colonies. In centres with high tuberculosis diagnostic demand, sufficient time may not be available to adequately examine all cultures. An automated reader would reduce labour time and the handling of M. tuberculosis cultures by laboratory personnel. Two hundred MODS culture images (100 from tuberculosis positive and 100 from tuberculosis negative sputum samples confirmed by a standard MODS reading using a commercial microscope) were acquired randomly using the automated MODS plate reader. A specialist analysed these digital images with the help of a personal computer and designated them as M. tuberculosis present or absent. The specialist considered four images insufficiently clear to permit a definitive reading. The readings from the 196 valid images resulted in a 100% agreement with the conventional nonautomated standard reading. The automated MODS plate reader combined with open‐source MODS pattern recognition software provides a novel platform for high throughput automated tuberculosis diagnosis.
Enzymatic digestion of liquid hot water pretreated hybrid poplar

Liquid hot (LHW) water pretreatment (LHW) of lignocellulosic material enhances enzymatic conversion of cellulose to glucose by solubilizing hemicellulose fraction of the biomass, while leaving the cellulose more reactive and accessible to cellulase enzymes. Within the range of pretreatment conditions tested in this study, the optimized LHW pretreatment conditions for a 15% (wt/vol) slurry of hybrid poplar were found to be 200oC, 10 min, which resulted in the highest fermentable sugar yield with minimal formation of sugar decomposition products during the pretreatment. The LHW pretreatment solubilized 62% of hemicellulose as soluble oligomers. Hot‐washing of the pretreated poplar slurry increased the efficiency of hydrolysis by doubling the yield of glucose for a given enzyme dose. The 15% (wt/vol) slurry of hybrid poplar, pretreated at the optimal conditions and hot‐washed, resulted in 54% glucose yield by 15 FPU cellulase per gram glucan after 120 h. The hydrolysate contained 56 g/L glucose and 12 g/L xylose. The effect of cellulase loading on the enzymatic digestibility of the pretreated poplar is also reported. Total monomeric sugar yield (glucose and xylose) reached 67% after 72 h of hydrolysis when 40 FPU cellulase per gram glucan were used. An overall mass balance of the poplar‐to‐ethanol process was established based on the experimentally determined composition and hydrolysis efficiencies of the liquid hot water pretreated poplar. © 2009 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Biotechnol. Prog. , 2009
Management of Geniculate Ganglion Hemangiomas: Case Series and Systematic Review of the Literature

Objective: To analyze facial nerve (FN) outcomes based on duration of FN palsy and surgical strategy in patients with geniculate ganglion hemangiomas (GGH). Study Design: Case series and systematic review of the literature. Setting: Tertiary care center. Subjects and Methods: All patients undergoing surgical resection of GGH from 1992 to 2014 were studied and a review of the English literature was performed. Results: One hundred twenty unique patients (mean age 41.4 yrs, 44% female) were identified with GGH: 8 in the current series and 112 from the literature review. Of these patients, 94% presented with FN weakness, 18% reported hemifacial spasm, and 16% had hearing loss at presentation. Eleven patients underwent an initial period of observation, 6 of which experienced either growth or progression of FN dysfunction. One hundred fourteen subjects ultimately underwent surgical intervention. The average preoperative House–Brackmann (HB) score was 4.6 and the mean duration of preoperative FN palsy was 27 months (range, 1–132). The average postoperative HB score was 3.5 at the last follow-up. Anatomical FN preservation was reported in 44% of patients. Duration of FN palsy ⩽12 months was associated with better pre- and postoperative FN outcome (HB 4.1 vs 5.1, p = 0.01 and 2.9 vs 4.0, p < 0.001, respectively). FN preservation was also associated with better postoperative FN outcome compared with interposition grafting (HB 2.6 vs 3.9, p < 0.001). Conclusion: GGHs are rare benign vascular malformations that present with progressive FN palsy. In most patients, early surgical intervention should be considered since shorter duration of FN paralysis and anatomical preservation of the FN are significant predictors of final FN outcome.
Explaining tourists´ attitudes to environmental support: a multilevel approach

ABSTRACT This article contributes to a better understanding of tourists’ attitudes to environmental support when they make their holiday plans. Modelling these decisions is a challenge because although environmental concerns are heterogeneous across countries, they also depend on the individual characteristics of the tourists from each country. This article uses a multilevel approach, using a two-level structure, in which individuals are nested into countries. This approach may be helpful for understanding the contextual and compositional effects simultaneously. The estimates from a two-level random intercept logistic model and the post-estimation analysis, based on non-parametric techniques, demonstrate that the effects of country vary randomly, and that there is significant variance in the level of tourists´ environmental support within and between countries. Regarding the contextual effect, the post-materialist hypothesis explained most of the heterogeneity between the EU-27 countries. The affluence hypothesis was rejected and the challenge response hypothesis was only partially supported. The results from the compositional effect support the attribution hypothesis, demonstrating that the environmental concern of tourists is higher when travelling domestically than abroad.
Sequencing and analysis of the complete mitochondrial genome of Aedes albopictus (Diptera: Culicidae) in China

Abstract The complete sequence of the mitochondrial genome of the Aedes albopictus (Diptera: Culicidae) is presented using traditional Sanger sequencing. Its mitogenome are 16,660 bp in length, consisting of 13 protein-coding genes, 22 transfer RNA (tRNA) genes, 2 ribosomal RNA (rRNA) genes and a non-coding A + T rich region. As in other insects, most mitochondrial genes are encoded on the heavy strand, except for ND5, ND4, ND4L, ND1, two rRNA and eight tRNA genes, which are encoded on the light strand. The overall base composition on heavy strand was as follows – A: 40.1%, G: 8.2%, C: 11.9%, T: 39.8% and the A + T content 79.9%. The results of phylogenetic analyzes showed that the Ae. albopictus has closed relationship with the family Culicidae and order Diptera.
A Mutant of Francisella tularensis Strain SCHU S4 Lacking the Ability To Express a 58-Kilodalton Protein Is Attenuated for Virulence and Is an Effective Live Vaccine

ABSTRACT Francisella tularensis subsp. tularensis (type A) strain SCHU S4 is a prototypic strain of the pathogen that is highly virulent for humans and other mammals. Its intradermal (i.d.) 50% lethal dose (LD50) for mice is <10 CFU. We discovered a spontaneous mutant, designated FSC043, of SCHU S4 with an i.d. LD50 of >108 CFU. FSC043 effectively vaccinated mice against challenge with a highly virulent type A strain, and the protective efficacy was at least as good as that of F. tularensis LVS, an empirically attenuated strain which has been used as an efficacious human vaccine. Comparative proteomics was used to identify two proteins of unknown function that were identified as defective in LVS and FSC043, and deletion mutants of SCHU S4 were created for each of the two encoding genes. One mutant, the ΔFTT0918 strain, failed to express a 58-kDa protein, had an i.d. LD50 of ∼105 CFU, and was found to be less capable than SCHU S4 of growing in peritoneal mouse macrophages. Mice that recovered from sublethal infection with the ΔFTT0918 mutant survived when challenged 2 months later with >100 LD50s of the highly virulent type A strain FSC033. This is the first report of the generation of defined mutants of F. tularensis subsp. tularensis and their use as live vaccines.
Association between dietary fat intake and insulin resistance in Chinese child twins

Abstract Dietary fat intake is correlated with increased insulin resistance (IR). However, it is unknown whether gene–diet interaction modulates the association. This study estimated heritability of IR measures and the related genetic correlations with fat intake, and tested whether dietary fat intake modifies the genetic influence on type 2 diabetes (T2D)-related traits in Chinese child twins. We included 622 twins aged 7–15 years (n 311 pairs, 162 monozygotic (MZ), 149 dizygotic (DZ)) from south-eastern China. Dietary factors were measured using FFQ. Structural equation models were fit using Mx statistical package. The intra-class correlation coefficients for all traits related to T2D were higher for MZ twins than for DZ twins. Dietary fat and fasting serum insulin (additive genetic correlation (r A) 0·20; 95 % CI 0·08, 0·43), glucose (r A 0·12; 95 % CI 0·01, 0·40), homoeostasis model of assessment-insulin resistance (Homa-IR) (r A 0·22; 95 % CI 0·10, 0·50) and the quantitative insulin sensitivity check index (Quicki) (r A −0·22; 95 % CI −0·40, 0·04) showed strong genetic correlations. Heritabilities of dietary fat intake, fasting glucose and insulin were estimated to be 52, 70 and 70 %, respectively. More than 70 % of the phenotypic correlations between dietary fat and insulin, glucose, Homa-IR and the Quicki index appeared to be mediated by shared genetic influence. Dietary fat significantly modified additive genetic effects on these quantitative traits associated with T2D. Analysis of Chinese twins yielded high estimates of heritability of dietary fat intake and IR. Genetic factors appear to contribute to a high proportion of the variance for both insulin sensitivity and IR. Dietary fat intake modifies the genetic influence on blood levels of insulin and glucose, Homa-IR and the Quicki index.