Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Leptin is a potent anti-diabetic in mice with lipodystrophy and insulin resistance.

Obesity is associated with insulin resistance. However, insulin sensitivity can be even more attenuated in individuals with hardly any fat cells at all. Patients with Berardinelli-Seip congenital lipodystrophy (BSCL) have insulin resistance with secondary hyperinsulinaemia, and insulin-resistant diabetes mellitus (1). They may also have hyperlipidaemia, hepatomegaly, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, acanthosis nigricans, elevated basal metabolic rate and an excessive food intake. The syndrome is thought to be autosomal recessive, and linkage studies have indicated a locus at chromosome 9q34 (2), whereas 1q21‐22 is the locus in a similar syndrome with partial lipodystrophy (3). The region on chromosome 9 harbours the retinoid X receptor a gene (RXRA), which is a potential candidate gene and important for adipocyte differentiation. Recently, three transgenic mouse models of generalised lipodystrophy have been developed. In all of them the expression of specific genes was directed to white and brown fat cells through use of a vector with a regulatory sequence found in the aP2 gene, which is adipocyte-specific. A delayed-onset form of lipodystrophy was induced in mice by Burant et al. (4), who used the aP2 enhancer/ promoter to target the expression of the diphtheria toxin A gene to adipocytes. These mice gradually lost their fat, but did not show any sign of lipodystrophy until 5‐6 months of age. At 8‐10 months no white adipose tissue was visible, and they developed insulin resistance, diabetes, fatty liver and hypertriglyceridaemia. A mouse model developed by Moitra et al. (5) was lipodystrophic from birth. They directed the expression of an artificial transcription factor designated A-ZIP/F to white and brown fat cells. The transcription factor was constructed so that it made stable promiscuous dimerisation with all members of the Jun and CCAAT/ enhancer-binding protein (C/EBP) family and attenuated their activity. Previous studies have shown that these proteins are essential for terminal adipocyte differentiation. The mice had no fat tissue at birth and developed diabetes with increased serum glucose and insulin levels. The liver was filled with lipid and the internal organs were enlarged as in humans with BSCL.
Occupational Value among Individuals with Long-Term Mental Illness

Purpose. The study compared the perceived value of occupation among a sample of individuals with long-term mental illness to a sample of people not diagnosed with mental illness. As well, it investigated whether diagnostic and demographic factors were related to perceived occupational value among the individuals with mental illness. Finally, the study examined the relationship between occupational value and ratings of health and well-being. Method. One hundred and three individuals with mental illness and 28 healthy individuals were recruited for the study. Results. Overall occupational value among the individuals diagnosed with mental illness differed only marginally from the healthy group, indicating that perceived occupational value was by and large not related to mental illness. Among the individuals with mental illness, having children living at home was related to occupational value. There were moderate to strong associations between occupational value and measures of health and well-being. Practice Implications. This study provides important insights into occupational value among individuals with persistent mental health problems and provides some preliminary evidence in support of the Value, Meaning and Occupation Model.
Determination of Tritium and 14C Concentration in Two Hydrostratigraphic Units Below the University of California, Davis, Waste Burial Holes at the Laboratory for Energy-Related Health Research/South Campus Disposal Site (LEHR/SCDS)

The Laboratory for Energy-Related Health Research site at the University of California at Davis was used as a disposal site for tritium and 14C waste generated by campus related research. This low-level radioactive waste was disposed of by shallow land burial from 1956 to 1974 in waste burial holes and resulted in extensive contamination of soils and groundwater at the LEHR/SCDS. In part, due to this contamination, the LEHR/SCDS was placed on the National Priority List in May of 1994. In 1999, soils in the vicinity of the waste burial holes were subject to a CERCLA Removal Action. To this day elevated tritium and 14C concentrations are found in two groundwater monitoring wells that are located down gradient from the waste burial holes. The Bioscreen, Natural Attenuation Decision Support System software program was used, along with site-specific hydrogeologic conditions, to estimate the maximum source zone concentrations in the water bearing intervals below the waste burial holes. The first order decay process, and assumptions of horizontal flow provided reasonably accurate estimates of contaminant concentrations in the unconfined portion of the water bearing interval, but results for the confined portion of the water bearing intervals were mixed. Dose estimates for the time period of maximum contaminant concentration in the aquifer below the waste burial holes, predicted by modeling, suggested that the 4 mrem drinking water standard had not been exceeded at this site.
Transcriptional activation of Cu/Zn superoxide dismutase and catalase genes by panaxadiol ginsenosides extracted from Panax ginseng

Superoxide dismutase (SOD) converts superoxide radical to H2O2, which is in turn broken down to water and oxygen by catalase. Thus, SOD and catalase constitute the first coordinated unit of defence against reactive oxygen species. A wide variety of chemical and environmental factors are known to induce these antioxidant enzymes. Here, we examined the effect of ginseng saponins on the induction of SOD and catalase gene expression. To explore this possibility, the upstream regulatory promoter region of Cu/Zn superoxide dismutase (SOD1) and catalase genes were linked to the chloramphenicol acetyltransferase (CAT) structural gene and introduced into human hepatoma HepG2 cells. Total saponin and panaxatriol did not activate the transcription of SOD1 and catalase genes but panaxadiol increased the transcription of these genes about 2–3 fold. Among the panaxadiol ginsenosides, the Rb2 subfraction appeared to be a major inducer of SOD1 and catalase genes. The specificity of the Rb2 effect was further confirmed by time course‐ and dose‐dependent induction experiments. These results suggest that the panaxadiol fraction and its ginsenosides could induce the antioxidant enzymes which are important for maintaining cell viability by lowering the level of oxygen radical generated from intracellular metabolism. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Automated determination of distance visual acuity: towards teleophthalmology services

Purpose: The aim of this study was to evaluate the visual acuity scores of a computer‐based visual function testing (CVFT) system. The automated chart uses logMAR notation (logarithm of the minimum angle of resolution) and randomised tilting E as optotype. The test was conducted using a laptop computer.
Multi-LDA hybrid topic model with boosting strategy and its application in text classification

Topic modeling, especially Latent Dirichlet Allocation is an efficacious algorithm for feature selection and dimension reduction in text categorization tasks. Unlike the traditional Vector Space Model, LDA can easily overcome the curse of dimensionality and feature sparse problems. With the mapping from word space to the topic space, there are more benefits, but at the same time, the determination of model parameters turn into a new trouble. This article proposed a novel classification algorithm that combined different models with different parameters together via boosting strategy. Moreover, Naïve Bayes and Support Vector Machine are employed as weak classifier and a weighted method is proposed for improving the accuracy by integrating weak classifiers into strong classifier in a more ration way. Experiment results show our method well perform both in accuracy and generalization.
A novel CCSC for circulating current suppression in modular multilevel converters

Aiming at the problem of circulating current in MMCs, a novel circulating current suppressing controller (CCSC) is proposed based on the internal-model principle in stationary αβ0 frame in dc-loop control, with the proportional-resonant (PR) regulator adopted. Compared with the existing one, the proposed CCSC seems better, since it does not need the massive amount of computation for estimating the sub-module(SM) capacitor voltages, and is capable of suppressing the 2nd harmonics in circulating currents under both balanced and unbalanced AC system as well. The implementation, steady-state and dynamic performance of the two dc-loop controllers are elaborated in this paper. Simulations prove the feasibility of the new CCSC dc-loop controller, and show good dynamic performance superior to the existing ones.
Detection of restoration faults under fillings in human tooth using ultrasound

An ultrasound contact imaging technique for detecting the restoration faults under the fillings in human tooth is proposed. A linear frequency modulated chirp signal is used to improve the signal-to-noise ratio and increase the penetration depth to allow the detection of the echoes from restoration-tooth boundary at 200 kPa acoustic pressure. Although the detection threshold is improved, it is observed that the duration of the excitation signal is longer than the duration of time of flight in the restoration, which causes signal overlapping between consecutive internal reflections. Due to these reverberations, the applied chirp signals interfere arbitrarily with the successive reflections, where the received echoes are not identifiable in the time domain. Separation in the frequency domain is not possible, since all reflections have the same bandwidth and the center frequency. In this work, the fractional Fourier transform (FrFT) is employed to separate chirp signals overlapping in both time and frequency domains. By analyzing the received echoes with FrFT, this work presents the ultrasonic non-destructive evaluation of dental restorations in human teeth.
Endoscopic Endonasal Transsphenoidal Surgery in Recurrent and Residual Pituitary Adenomas: Technical Note1

Despite a good cure rate after surgery, the recurrence rate in pituitary adenomas is globally high. The decision making in such cases can be problematic for the nature of the lesion, for the anatomic structures involved, for the different pharmacological, surgical, radiotherapeutic and radiosurgical options nowadays available. In the perspective of an improvement and refinement of the surgical procedure an endoscopic endonasal transsphenoidal approach to the pituitary was recently adopted in the Neurosurgical Department of the University of Naples. Its minimal invasiveness and its wider and direct anatomic control of the operative field has allowed a faster, greater and safer potential of tumour excision, with respect of the sphenoid, sellar and parasellar structures. The authors have examined the advantages provided by this technique in 12 patients with recurrent pituitary adenomas and in 2 craniopharyngiomas already treated via a transnasal transsphenoidal approach (TTA), where the anatomy of surgical field had been distorted by the first operation or the radiation therapy. They conclude that the endoscopic transsphenoidal re-operation might be considered the procedure of choice in case of recurrences and its easiness in such conditions could favour its larger use, before other more aggressive therapeutic solutions.
Microbiology of otitis media in Costa Rican children, 1999 through 2001

Background. Because of the increasing number of resistant middle ear pathogens and the impact of the new conjugate Streptococcus pneumoniae vaccine, an active surveillance of the microbiology and susceptibility pattern of middle ear pathogens is required. Objective. To study the microbiology and susceptibility pattern of middle ear pathogens obtained from Costa Rican children with acute otitis media (AOM), recurrent otitis media (ROM) and therapeutic failure otitis media (FOM). Methods. Between 1999 and 2001 middle ear fluid (MEF) was collected from 276 Costa Rican patients. S. pneumoniae serotyping and pulsed field gel electrophoresis analysis was done on available strains. Results. Among the total study population, 102 were AOM patients, 98 were ROM patients and 76 were FOM patients. Overall S. pneumoniae (88 strains) was the most common pathogen isolated followed by Haemophilus influenzae (41 strains) and Streptococcus pyogenes (10 strains) . H. influenzae was the most common agent in FOM patients (P = 0.015). Beta-lactamase production was observed in 3 of 41 (7%) H. influenzae strains and 3 of 3 (100%) Moraxella catarrhalis strains. Penicillin-nonsusceptible S. pneumoniae strains were more common in FOM (64%) and ROM (63%) patients than in AOM (42%) patients (P = 0.05). S. pneumoniae serotype 19F was the most prevalent serotype, mainly within one distinct clone. Conclusions. Overall S. pneumoniae serotype 19F was the most common isolate from the middle ear fluid of Costa Rican children. Beta-lactamase-negative H. influenzae was the most prevalent in the subpopulation of patients with FOM. S. pyogenes was the third most common isolate and M. catarrhalis was uncommon.
Functional CD47/signal regulatory protein alpha (SIRPα) interaction is required for optimal human T- and natural killer- (NK) cell homeostasis in vivo

The homeostatic control mechanisms regulating human leukocyte numbers are poorly understood. Here, we assessed the role of phagocytes in this process using human immune system (HIS) BALB/c Rag2−/−IL-2Rγc−/− mice in which human leukocytes are generated from transplanted hematopoietic progenitor cells. Interactions between signal regulatory protein alpha (SIRPα; expressed on phagocytes) and CD47 (expressed on hematopoietic cells) negatively regulate phagocyte activity of macrophages and other phagocytic cells. We previously showed that B cells develop and survive robustly in HIS mice, whereas T and natural killer (NK) cells survive poorly. Because human CD47 does not interact with BALB/c mouse SIRPα, we introduced functional CD47/SIRPα interactions in HIS mice by transducing mouse CD47 into human progenitor cells. Here, we show that this procedure resulted in a dramatic and selective improvement of progenitor cell engraftment and human T- and NK-cell homeostasis in HIS mouse peripheral lymphoid organs. The amount of engrafted human B cells also increased but much less than that of T and NK cells, and total plasma IgM and IgG concentrations increased 68- and 35-fold, respectively. Whereas T cells exhibit an activated/memory phenotype in the absence of functional CD47/SIRPα interactions, human T cells accumulated as CD4+ or CD8+ single-positive, naive, resting T cells in the presence of functional CD47/SIRPα interactions. Thus, in addition to signals mediated by T cell receptor (TCR)/MHC and/or IL/IL receptor interactions, sensing of cell surface CD47 expression by phagocyte SIRPα is a critical determinant of T- and NK-cell homeostasis under steady-state conditions in vivo.
17β-Estradiol Inhibits Apoptosis in MCF-7 Cells, Inducing bcl-2 Expression via Two Estrogen-Responsive Elements Present in the Coding Sequence

ABSTRACT We have found that 17β-estradiol induces bcl-2transcription in human breast cancer MCF-7 cells. To identifycis-acting elements involved in this regulation, we have analyzed hormone responsiveness of transiently transfected reporter constructs containing the bcl-2 major promoter (P1). Hormone inducibility was observed only when either of two sequences, located within the bcl-2 coding region and showing one and two mutations with respect to the consensus estrogen-responsive element, were inserted downstream from the P1 promoter. Both sequences behaved as enhancers exclusively in cells expressing the estrogen receptor and were able to bind this receptor in in vitro assays. Transfections into MCF-7 cells of plasmids carrying a bcl-2 cDNA fragment which included these two elements revealed that their simultaneous presence resulted in an additive effect on reporter gene activity, whose size resembled the increase of endogenous bcl-2 mRNA level observed in untransfected cells after hormone treatment. Moreover, the identified elements were able to mediate up-regulation ofbcl-2 expression by 17β-estradiol, since exogenousbcl-2 mRNA was induced by hormone challenge of MCF-7 cells transiently transfected with a vector containing the bcl-2coding sequence cloned under the control of a non-estrogen-responsive promoter. Finally, we show that hormone prevention of apoptosis, induced by incubating MCF-7 cells with hydrogen peroxide, was strictly related to bcl-2 up-regulation. Our results indicate that the bcl-2 major promoter does not containcis-acting elements directly involved in transcriptional control by 17β-estradiol and that hormone treatment inhibits programmed cell death in MCF-7 cells, inducing bcl-2expression via two estrogen-responsive elements located within its coding region.
Mental Health Consequences of Childhood Physical Abuse in Chinese Populations

Objective: Childhood physical abuse (CPA) can lead to adverse mental health outcomes in adulthood, but its potential impact on Chinese populations is still unclear. This meta-analysis is the first to examine the association between CPA and mental health outcomes in Chinese populations. Study Design: Studies published before December 31, 2014 were identified from Embase, CINAHL, Scopus, PsycINFO, PubMed, and Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure databases. Studies with data on the association between CPA and mental health outcomes from Chinese subjects were included. Twenty-four studies were initially identified but two were excluded because of poor quality. Two reviewers independently extracted data to generate summary effect sizes using a random-effects meta-analytic model. A priori subgroup and sensitivity analyses were performed to evaluate heterogeneity and bias in these studies. Results: Our meta-analysis of 22 studies found a significant positive association between CPA and overall mental health outcomes among all Chinese subjects (pooled effect size: odds ratio [OR] = 2.16, 95% confidence interval [CI] = [1.87, 2.49]) and among community samples (pooled effect size: OR = 2.06, 95% CI [1.71, 2.48]). Based on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision, diagnostic criteria, CPA was more strongly associated with Axis II (OR = 2.62, 95% CI [2.13, 3.22]) than Axis I disorders (OR = 1.85, 95% CI [1.58, 2.17]). Conclusions: The detrimental effects of CPA on mental health outcomes in Chinese populations were comparable to, if not more than, the West. Contrary to the Chinese belief that physical punishment is a safe way to discipline children, our findings highlight the potential harm to mental health and the need to change this parenting practice.
Aspects of Hypophysectomy *

Inthelastfewyearstheoperation ofhypophysectomy hasbeenusedinthetreatment of certain typesof general disease, particularly malignant disease anddiabetes mellitus. This paperisconcerned withtheuseofhypophysectomyandthedestruction ofthehypophysis by radiation inthetreatment ofmalignant disease, theclinical aspects inoutline only, andconcentrates ontheroleofthechemical pathologist and clinical biochemist intheinvestigation andcareof these patients. Beatson (1896, 1895-96) madethepioneer observations onthecontrol ofmalignant disease by hormones whenhereported thetreatment ofcarcinomaofthebreast byremoval oftheovaries. Itisknownthat manytumours ofthebreast and theprostate arehormone-dependent, fortheir continued growth depends onthepresence inthebody ofactively secreting gonads andadrenal cortex: therationale ofhypophysectomy isprimarily the removal ofthehypophyseal stimulation ofthese secretions. Ithasalsobeendemonstrated that somatotrophin hasadirect stimulant action onthe growth ofatumour(Pearson, Ray,Harrold, West, Li,andMaclean, 1954). Pearson andhiscolleagues administered somatotrophin toa patient whohadhadahypophysectomy: thesecondary deposits inboneextended, andregressed again whensomatotrophin administration wasstopped. Thereisalso someevidence thatluteotrophin has a directly stimulatory action on prostatic growth (Sonenberg, 1952;Scott, 1954;Luft, 1955), and thatthebeneficial results ofhypophysectomy on prostatic carcinoma areduetotheremovalof luteotrophin aswellasofthehormoneslisted above. A sidelight on theroleofthehypophysis in malignant disease istheworkofArcher (1953). He surveyed theworldliterature on casesofcoincident Simmonds's disease andmalignant disease, andfoundeight casesinfemales andone ina * A paperreadat theAnnualGeneralMeeting oftheAssocia
Caveolae are negative regulators of transforming growth factor-beta1 signaling in ureteral smooth muscle cells.

PURPOSE The mechanisms underlying ureteral cell regulation are largely unknown. Previous studies have identified lipid rafts/caveolae as regulators of growth stimulatory signals in ureteral smooth muscle cells (USMCs). In this study we determined whether growth inhibitory signaling by transforming growth factor-beta1 (TGF-beta1) is also regulated by caveolae in USMC. MATERIALS AND METHODS Expression of components of the TGF-beta1 signaling axis in USMCs was determined by immunoblot and mRNA analyses. Growth regulatory activity of TGF-beta1 was assessed by H-thymidine incorporation. In select experiments caveolae were disrupted reversibly by cholesterol depletion and replenishment prior to TGF-beta1 treatment. TGF-beta1-responsive gene expression was evaluated using the TGF-beta1 responsive promoter-reporter construct 3TP-Lux. RESULTS USMCs expressed TGF-beta1, types I and II TGF-beta1 receptors, and the effector Smad-2. TGF-beta1 potently inhibited DNA synthesis in USMCs (IC50 60 pM). TGF-beta1 mediated DNA synthesis inhibition was potentiated following the disruption of caveolae by cholesterol depletion. This effect was reversible with membrane cholesterol restoration. TGF-beta1 stimulated gene activity was augmented by caveolae disruption, while caveolae reformation returned promoter activity to baseline levels. CONCLUSIONS TGF-beta1 is a potent growth inhibitor of USMCs and its activity can be enhanced by caveolae ablation. These findings suggest a role for TGF-beta1 in the growth regulation of normal ureteral cells and implicate caveolar membrane domains in the negative regulation of TGF-beta1 signaling. These studies may be relevant to ureteral pathologies that are characterized by smooth muscle dysplasia.