Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Response assessment in gastrointestinal stromal tumor

Imatinib is standard first‐line treatment for patients with advanced gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST). Initial responses are not always accompanied by reductions in tumor size; consequently, other parameters should be considered in response assessments. Conventional size‐based criteria such as Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors (RECIST) may underestimate responses to imatinib and have poor predictive value for outcome. Imatinib‐responding tumors demonstrate decreased metabolic activity on positron emission tomography within the first weeks of treatment, often showing reduced density and greater homogeneity on computed tomography (CT) scans regardless of initial changes in tumor size. New criteria, based on reductions in tumor size or in tumor density on CT, seem more sensitive and specific for detecting early responses to imatinib, and more predictive of time to tumor progression and disease‐specific survival. Compared with conventional size‐based criteria, new CT‐based criteria may potentially offer improved response assessment and be predictive of outcome in GIST. However, such emerging criteria should be further explored and validated in large, multicenter trials with imatinib and other kinase inhibitors in GIST and in other solid tumors.
Effect of Farnesol on Staphylococcus aureus Biofilm Formation and Antimicrobial Susceptibility

ABSTRACT Staphylococcus aureus is among the leading pathogens causing bloodstream infections able to form biofilms on host tissue and indwelling medical devices and to persist and cause disease. Infections caused by S. aureus are becoming more difficult to treat because of increasing resistance to antibiotics. In a biofilm environment particularly, microbes exhibit enhanced resistance to antimicrobial agents. Recently, farnesol was described as a quorum-sensing molecule with possible antimicrobial properties. In this study, the effect of farnesol on methicillin-resistant and -susceptible strains of S. aureus was investigated. With viability assays, biofilm formation assessment, and ethidium bromide uptake testing, farnesol was shown to inhibit biofilm formation and compromise cell membrane integrity. The ability of farnesol to sensitize S. aureus to antimicrobials was assessed by agar disk diffusion and broth microdilution methods. For both strains of staphylococci, farnesol was only able to reverse resistance at a high concentration (150 μM). However, it was very successful at enhancing the antimicrobial efficacy of all of the antibiotics to which the strains were somewhat susceptible. Therefore, synergy testing of farnesol and gentamicin was performed with static biofilms exposed to various concentrations of both agents. Plate counts of harvested biofilm cells at 0, 4, and 24 h posttreatment indicated that the combined effect of gentamicin at 2.5 times the MIC and farnesol at 100 μM (22 μg/ml) was able to reduce bacterial populations by more than 2 log units, demonstrating synergy between the two antimicrobial agents. This observed sensitization of resistant strains to antimicrobials and the observed synergistic effect with gentamicin indicate a potential application for farnesol as an adjuvant therapeutic agent for the prevention of biofilm-related infections and promotion of drug resistance reversal.
Breast self-examination among college females.

Self-reported behavior and attitudes toward breast self-examination (BSE) among 230 female college students age 20 and older revealed that less than one in four were compliant with American Cancer Society recommendations of monthly practice. Respondents were classified as examiners (N = 113) if they reported BSE practice at least 6 times a year. A discriminant analysis produced a significant degree of separation between examiners and non-examiners (chi 2(3) = 90.199, p less than . 005) and identified three variables which significantly discriminated the groups. Examiners were more familiar with BSE, more worried about cancer, and more willing to increase their knowledge about BSE. Initial exposure to BSE was from physicians or print media; however, subjects expressed a preference for learning more about the technique in a person-to-person setting with another woman or women. Respondents reported that reminders would be likely to increase BSE frequency.
Steroid Perfusion of the Inner Ear for Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss after Failure of Conventional Therapy: A Pilot Study

The aim of this study was to determine if high-dose delivery of methylprednisolone to the round window can improve hearing after the failure of conventional treatment for sudden sensorineural hearing loss (SSHL). In 6 patients with SSHL an Intraear® microcatheter was placed in the round window niche and methylprednisolone (62.5 mg/ml) was infused at a rate of 10 w l/h for 8-10 days. Audiometric assessments (including measurement of speech discrimination) were made at presentation, either every day or every other day during treatment and 5 days after the completion of perfusion. Perfusion of methylprednisolone was beneficial for all 6 patients, with a 16.25-25 dB improvement in hearing threshold. A dramatic improvement in speech discrimination was also noted in all patients. In conclusion, methylprednisolone perfused at the level of the round window membrane resulted in significant recovery of hearing function after the failure of standard treatment of SSHL.
The Relationship of Torque, Velocity, and Power with Constant Resistive Load During Sagittal Trunk Movement

Strength and fitness studies have been used to determine the predictability of back pain episodes. Tests have demonstrated that isometric strength displays little prognostic value in the development of low-back pain. Static isometric tests have achieved widespread usage due to the simplicity and safety of protocols, the readily available technology, and the low administrative costs. Dynamic lifting models have, however, predicted significantly higher spinal loads than those derived from static models. The objectives of this study were twofold: to investigate the relationship of the torque, velocity, and power to the resistive load during trunk flexion and extension, and to develop predictive models for these relationships for the subject's performance of the 10th, 50th, and 90th percentile distribution. The results of the study found that the flexion/extension torque had a positive linear correlation with the set resistance; the velocity displayed a negative linear correlation, while power had a quadratic relationship with the resistance.
Identification of a region of genetic variability among Bacillus anthracis strains and related species

The identification of a region of sequence variability among individual isolates of Bacillus anthracis as well as the two closely related species, Bacillus cereus and Bacillus mycoides, has made a sequence-based approach for the rapid differentiation among members of this group possible. We have identified this region of sequence divergence by comparison of arbitrarily primed (AP)-PCR "fingerprints" generated by an M13 bacteriophage-derived primer and sequencing the respective forms of the only polymorphic fragment observed. The 1,480-bp fragment derived from genomic DNA of the Sterne strain of B. anthracis contained four consecutive repeats of CAATATCAACAA. The same fragment from the Vollum strain was identical except that two of these repeats were deleted. The Ames strain of B. anthracis differed from the Sterne strain by a single-nucleotide deletion. More than 150 nucleotide differences separated B. cereus and B. mycoides from B. anthracis in pairwise comparisons. The nucleotide sequence of the variable fragment from each species contained one complete open reading frame (ORF) (designated vrrA, for variable region with repetitive sequence), encoding a potential 30-kDa protein located between the carboxy terminus of an upstream ORF (designated orf1) and the amino terminus of a downstream ORF (designated lytB). The sequence variation was primarily in vrrA, which was glutamine- and proline-rich (30% of total) and contained repetitive regions. A large proportion of the nucleotide substitutions between species were synonymous. vrrA has 35% identity with the microfilarial sheath protein shp2 of the parasitic worm Litomosoides carinii.
An evaluation of the paediatric acquired brain injury community outreach programme (PABICOP)

Primary objective: To examine the utility of a coordinated, family/community-focused programme (PABICOP) vs. a standard approach for improving outcomes for children with ABI and their families. Research design: Pre-test–post-test design, with comparison group and follow-up. Methods and procedures: Ninety-six children (64 children receiving PABICOP services and 32 children receiving standard care) participated in the study. Measures were completed at baseline and 3 and 12 months later. Main outcomes and results: Parents/caregivers with more than 10 contacts with PABICOP scored significantly higher on an ABI knowledge quiz than either parents/caregivers with 10 contacts or less or the comparison group at post-test and follow-up. Parents/caregivers with 10 contacts or less with PABICOP reported significantly greater improvements in children's school and total competence on the CBCL than either parents/caregivers with more than 10 contacts or the comparison group at post-test and follow-up. Conclusions: PABICOP may be more useful for enhancing knowledge of ABI for parents/caregivers and for integrating children into the community over a 1-year period than a standard approach. The amount of service received appears to influence outcomes.
Enhanced Modulation Strategy for a Three-Phase Dual Active Bridge—Boosting Efficiency of an Electric Vehicle Converter

Three-phase dual active bridge (3p-DAB) dc-to-dc converters are typically avoided in low-power applications especially for wide voltage and power ranges. Even so, the 3p-DAB do offer a means to reduce filter costs and volume. The aim of this study is to propose the triangular and trapezoidal modulation for the 3p-DAB to address the problem of poor partial load efficiency. The proposed modulation schemes were compared with two conventional DAB concepts. It was found that the efficiency of the 3p-DAB increased substantially. Moreover, the 3p-DAB showed a considerably lower filter volume than that of the single-phase dual active bridge converter (1p-DAB). In conclusion, a modulation strategy combining the two proposed modulation schemes with the phase-shift modulation is ideal, because they boost efficiency and take most benefit from the inherent low filter volume. Ultimately, the three-phase dual active bridge may offer a promising solution to miniaturize galvanically isolated dc-to-dc converters for electric vehicles.
Different predictivity of fluid responsiveness by pulse pressure variation in children after surgical repair of ventricular septal defect or tetralogy of Fallot

Pulse pressure variation derived from the varied pulse contour method is based on heart‐lung interaction during mechanical ventilation. It has been shown that pulse pressure variation is predictive of fluid responsiveness in children undergoing surgical repair of ventricular septal defect. Right ventricle compliance and pulmonary vascular capacitance in children with tetralogy of Fallot are underdeveloped as compared to those in ventricular septal defect. We hypothesized that the difference in the right ventricle‐pulmonary circulation in the two groups of children would affect the heart‐lung interaction and therefore pulse pressure variation predictivity of fluid responsiveness following cardiac surgery.
Effects of pyridoxine on a high‐fat diet‐induced reduction of cell proliferation and neuroblast differentiation depend on cyclic adenosine monophosphate response element binding protein in the mouse dentate gyrus

In this study, we challenged pyridoxine to mice fed a high‐fat diet (HFD) and investigated the effects of pyridoxine on HFD‐induced phenotypes such as blood glucose, reduction of cell proliferation and neuroblast differentiation in the dentate gyrus using Ki67 and doublecortin (DCX), respectively. Mice were fed a commercially available low‐fat diet (LFD) as control diet or HFD (60% fat) for 8 weeks. After 5 weeks of LFD or HFD treatment, 350 mg/kg pyridoxine was administered for 3 weeks. The administration of pyridoxine significantly decreased body weight in the HFD‐treated group. In addition, there were no significant differences in hepatic histology and pancreatic insulin‐immunoreactive (‐ir) and glucagon‐ir cells of the HFD‐treated group after pyridoxine treatment. In the HFD‐fed group, Ki67‐positive nuclei and DCX‐ir neuroblasts were significantly decreased in the dentate gyrus compared with those in the LFD‐fed mice. However, the administration of pyridoxine significantly increased Ki67‐positive nuclei and DCX‐ir neuroblasts in the dentate gyrus in both LFD‐ and HFD‐fed mice. In addition, the administration of pyridoxine significantly increased the protein levels of glutamic acid decarboxylase 67 (GAD67) and brain‐derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and the immunoreactivity of phosphorylated cyclic AMP response element binding protein (pCREB) compared with the vehicle‐treated LFD‐ and HFD‐fed mice. In contrast, the administration of pyridoxine significantly decreased HFD‐induced malondialdehyde (MDA) levels in the hippocampus. These results showed that pyridoxine supplement reduced the HFD‐induced reduction of cell proliferation and neuroblast differentiation in the dentate gyrus via controlling the levels of GAD67, pCREB, BDNF, and MDA. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
The discharge behavior of lithium-ion batteries using the Dual-Potential Multi-Scale Multi-Dimensional (MSMD) Battery Model

This paper gives insight into the discharge behavior of lithium-ion batteries based on the investigations, which have been done by the researchers [1– 19]. In this article, the battery's discharge behaviour at various discharge rates is studied and surface monitor, discharge curve, volume monitor plot of maximum temperature in the domain and maximum temperature in the area are illustrated. Additionally, an external and internal short-circuit treatment for three cases have been studied. The Dual-Potential Multi-Scale Multi-Dimensional (MSMD) Battery Model (BM) was used by ANSYS FLUENT software to analysis the discharge behaviour of lithium-ion batteries. The results show that surface monitor plot of discharge curve at 1 C has a decreasing trend and volume monitor plot of maximum temperature in the domain has slightly increasing pattern over the simulation time. For the curves of discharge and maximum temperature in the domain, lowest and the highest rate of changes were seen for 0.5C and 5C respectively.
Childhood molluscum contagiosum

Molluscum contagiosum is a poxvirus infection of the skin that affects healthy school aged as well as immunocompromised children. The infection is a vexing one, because of the difficulty of treatment. This article reviews the most current pathophysiology of this viral illness and available therapeutic options. Molluscum contagiosum is a highly contagious viral infection of the mucous membranes and skin, commonly seen in children. Incidence has increased by up to 20% worldwide with the trend increasing in the United States. 1–5 Immunocompromised children ages 2–11 years are most commonly infected, 5,6 while those with immunodeficiency, including acquired immunodeficiency syndrome and leukemia, may be more likely to develop extensive disease. 7–9 In human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) patients, the disseminated form can be indicative of advanced immunodeficiency state. 3,9
Plant proton pumps as markers of biostimulant action

A standard protocol to evaluate the effects of biostimulants on plant physiology is still lacking. The proton pumps present in the vacuolar and plasma membranes are the primary agents responsible for the regulation of the electrochemical gradient that energizes the nutrient uptake system and acid growth mechanism of plant cells. In this study, two of these enzymes were characterized as biochemical markers of biostimulant activity. A simple and fast protocol based on the degree of root acidification using a pH sensitive dye and the Micro-Tom tomato as a plant model is proposed as an efficient methodology to prove the efficacy of biostimulants that are claimed to improve nutrient acquisition and root growth. The results agree with the data from more conventional, expensive and time-consuming proton pump assays. A direct correlation was found between plasmalemma proton-adenosine triphosphatase (H+-ATPase) activation and the amount of rhizosphere acidification observed in the bromocresol gel. Moreover, roots of the diageotropica (dgt) Micro-Tom plants, defective in auxin responses, barely acidify bromocresol purple gel even in the presence of indole-3-acetic acid (IAA, 1 μM). The biostimulant TEA (vermicompost water extract, 25 %) enhances proton extrusion by 40 % in wild type (WT) plants, but no effect was induced in dgt plants. These results reinforce the notion that the class of biostimulant known as humic substances stimulates plant proton pumps and promotes root growth by exerting an auxin-like bioactivity and establish the usefulness of an economically and technically feasible assay to certify this kind of biostimulant.
An Interactive Approach to Learning and Teaching in Visual Arts Education

The present research focuses on modernising the approach to learning and teaching the visual arts in teaching practice, as well as examining the performance of an interactive approach to learning and teaching in visual arts classes with the use of a combination of general and specific (visual arts) teaching methods. The study uses quantitative analysis of data on the basis of results obtained from a pedagogical experiment. The subjects of the research were 285 second- and fourth-grade students from four primary schools in the city of Rijeka, Croatia. Paintings made by the students in the initial and final stage of the pedagogical experiment were evaluated. The research results confirmed the hypotheses about the positive effect of interactive approaches to learning and teaching on the following variables: (1) knowledge and understanding of visual arts terms, (2) abilities and skills in the use of art materials and techniques within the framework of planned painting tasks, and (3) creativity in solving visual arts problems. The research results can help shape an optimised model for the planning and performance of visual arts education, and provide guidelines for planning professional development and the further professional education of teachers, with the aim of establishing more efficient learning and teaching of the visual arts in primary school.
Local Similarity based Discriminant Analysis for Face Recognition

Fisher linear discriminant analysis (LDA) is one of the most popular projection techniques for feature extraction and has been widely applied in face recognition. However, it cannot be used when encountering the single sample per person problem (SSPP) because the intra-class variations cannot be evaluated. In this paper, we propose a novel method called local similarity based linear discriminant analysis (LS_LDA) to solve this problem. Motivated by the “divide-conquer” strategy, we first divide the face into local blocks, and classify each local block, and then integrate all the classification results to make final decision. To make LDA feasible for SSPP problem, we further divide each block into overlapped patches and assume that these patches are from the same class. To improve the robustness of LS_LDA to outliers, we further propose local similarity based median discriminant analysis (LS_MDA), which uses class median vector to estimate the class population mean in LDA modeling. Experimental results on three popular databases show that our methods not only generalize well SSPP problem but also have strong robustness to expression, illumination, occlusion and time variation.
ARAP1 Regulates EGF Receptor Trafficking and Signalling

The activation state of the EGF receptor (EGF‐R) is tightly controlled in the cell so as to prevent excessive signalling, with the dangerous consequences that this would have on cell growth and proliferation. This control occurs at different levels, with a key level being the trafficking and degradation of the EGF‐R itself. Multiple guanosine triphosphatases belonging to the Arf, Rab and Rho families and their accessory proteins have key roles in these processes. In this study, we have identified ARAP1, a multidomain protein with both Arf GTPase‐activating protein (GAP) and Rho GAP activities, as a novel component of the machinery that controls the trafficking and signalling of the EGF‐R. We show that ARAP1 localizes to multiple cell compartments, including the Golgi complex, as previously reported, and endosomal compartments, where it is enriched in the internal membranes of multivesicular bodies. ARAP1 distribution is controlled by its phosphorylation and by its interactions with the 3‐ and 4‐phosphorylated phosphoinositides through its five PH domains. We provide evidence that ARAP1 controls the late steps of the endocytic trafficking of the EGF‐R, with ARAP1 knockdown leading to EGF‐R accumulation in a sorting/late endosomal compartment and to the inhibition of EGF‐R degradation that is accompanied by prolonged signalling.
Quality of life in Brazilian women with endometriosis assessed through a medical outcome questionnaire.

OBJECTIVE To assess the quality of life in women with pelvic pain associated with endometriosis through the 36-item Short Form Health Survey (SF-36). STUDY DESIGN The study was cross-sectional and conducted at a tertiary care center. Sixty women diagnosed surgically with endometriosis were interviewed during the first half of 2001. RESULTS In general, a poor quality of life was observed among the women interviewed. No correlation was found between the quality of life and intensity of pain, use of medications and/or living with a partner. Women with moderate or severe endometriosis scored better on the emotional aspects of the questionnaire. Among those who exercised regularly, better scores on mental health were observed. CONCLUSION According to the SF-36 questionnaire, this cohort study of Brazilian women with endometriosis showed a poor quality of life.
Trends in Performance Improvements of a Coaxial Gas-Fed Pulsed Plasma Thruster ∗

The performance of a coaxial gas-fed pulsed plasma thruster is shown to improve with increasing capacitance. We report experimental results which show that raising the capacitance from 94 μF to 180 μF at a pulse energy of 5 J has uniformly increased the thrust efficiency over all specific impulses by a factor of 1.2. Thrust efficiencies as high as 69% were attained. This increase, however, is below the predicted trend from a simple analytical impulse model. To understand this discrepancy and explore other trends, a more detailed one-dimensional numerical model was developed. This model uses an RLC circuit potential equation for the discharge electrical characteristics and a snow-plow model for mass accumulation. From this analysis it is clear that the dynamic efficiency of the gas sweeping process plays an important role in determining the effect of increasing capacitance on performance. By comparing the trends predicted by the one-dimensional numerical model with the measured data it was possible to infer that the limited performance improvement may be blamed on the increased capacitance causing the discharge to reach the edge of the electrodes before the capacitor is fully discharged. ∗Research supported by Science Research Laboratory Inc. through a NASA-JPL SBIR. Portion of the work was also supported by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, grant number: F49620-95-1-0291. †Graduate Student, Research Assistant. Member AIAA. ‡Chief Scientist at EPPDyL. Assistant Professor, Applied Physics Group. Senior Member AIAA. §Presented at the 25 International Electric Propulsion Conference, Cleveland, OH, August 24-28, 1997.