Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Belatacept Rescue Therapy in Kidney Transplant Recipients With Vascular Lesions: A Case Control Study

Immunosuppression in kidney transplant recipients with decreased graft function and severe histological vascular changes can be particularly challenging. Belatacept could be a valuable option, as a rescue therapy in this context. We report a retrospective case control study comparing a CNI to belatacept switch in 17 patients with vascular damage and low eGFR to a control group of 18 matched patients with CNI continuation. Belatacept switch was performed on average 51.5 months after kidney transplantation (6.2–198 months). There was no difference between the two groups regarding eGFR at inclusion, and 3 months before inclusion. In the “CNI to belatacept switch group,” mean eGFR increased significantly from 23.5 ± 6.7 mL/min/1.73m2 on day 0, to 30.4 ± 9.1 mL/min/1.73 m2 on month 6 (p < 0.001) compared to the control group, in which no improvement was observed. These results were still significant on month 12. Two patients experienced biopsy‐proven acute rejection. One was effectively treated without belatacept discontinuation. Two patients needed belatacept discontinuation for infection. In conclusion, the remplacement of CNI with belatacept in patients with decreased allograft function and vascular lesions is associated with an improvement in eGFR.
MutSα’s Multi-Domain Allosteric Response to Three DNA Damage Types Revealed by Machine Learning

MutSα is a key component in the mismatch repair (MMR) pathway. This protein is responsible for initiating the signaling pathways for DNA repair or cell death. Herein we investigate this heterodimer’s post-recognition, post-binding response to three types of DNA damage involving cytotoxic, anti-cancer agents—carboplatin, cisplatin, and FdU. Through a combination of supervised and unsupervised machine learning techniques along with more traditional structural and kinetic analysis applied to all-atom molecular dynamics (MD) calculations, we predict that MutSα has a distinct response to each of the three damage types. Via a binary classification tree (a supervised machine learning technique), we identify key hydrogen bond motifs unique to each type of damage and suggest residues for experimental mutation studies. Through a combination of a recently developed clustering (unsupervised learning) algorithm, RMSF calculations, PCA, and correlated motions we predict that each type of damage causes MutSα to explore a specific region of conformation space. Detailed analysis suggests a short range effect for carboplatin—primarily altering the structures and kinetics of residues within 10 angstroms of the damaged DNA—and distinct longer-range effects for cisplatin and FdU. In our simulations, we also observe that a key phenylalanine residue—known to stack with a mismatched or unmatched bases in MMR—stacks with the base complementary to the damaged base in 88.61% of MD frames containing carboplatinated DNA. Similarly, this Phe71 stacks with the base complementary to damage in 91.73% of frames with cisplatinated DNA. This residue, however, stacks with the damaged base itself in 62.18% of trajectory frames with FdU-substituted DNA and has no stacking interaction at all in 30.72% of these frames. Each drug investigated here induces a unique perturbation in the MutSα complex, indicating the possibility of a distinct signaling event and specific repair or death pathway (or set of pathways) for a given type of damage.
Incidence and prediction of major cardiovascular complications in head and neck surgery

Patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) usually have a history of tobacco and alcohol abuse. These 2 intoxications not only are main oncologic risk factors but also show a strong causal relationship with certain comorbid conditions. Examples are coronary artery disease, stroke, renal dysfunction, and heart failure, which are all proven major risk factors for an adverse postoperative outcome after stressful noncardiac surgery. Preoperative identification of these conditions could lead to preventive measures in patients with HNSCC that undergo extensive surgery. Preventing morbidity and mortality is of medical and economical importance.
Transcriptional Regulation of the Human Polymeric Ig Receptor Gene: Analysis of Basal Promoter Elements1

Secretory Igs provide the first line of adaptive immune defense against ingested, inhaled, and sexually transmitted pathogens at mucosal surfaces. The polymeric Ig receptor regulates transport of dimeric IgA and pentameric IgM into external secretions. The level of expression of polymeric Ig receptor is controlled to a large extent by transcription of the PIGR gene in mucosal epithelial cells. Here we present a detailed analysis of the promoter of the PIGR gene by transient transfection of luciferase reporter plasmids into cultured cell lines. Comparisons of the human and mouse PIGR promoters in human and mouse intestinal and liver cell lines demonstrated that the human PIGR promoter was 4- to 5-fold more active than the mouse PIGR promoter in all cell types, and that both the human and mouse PIGR promoters were more active in intestinal than in liver cell lines. Targeted deletions of 22-bp segments of the human PIGR promoter revealed that the region from nt −63 to −84 is crucial for basal transcription, and that two upstream regions can act as positive or negative regulators. Point mutations within the region from nt −63 to −84 demonstrated that an E box motif, which binds the basic helix-loop-helix protein upstream stimulatory factor, is required for PIGR promoter activity. Two additional regulatory motifs were identified in the proximal promoter region: a binding site for AP2, and an inverted repeat motif that binds an unidentified protein. These findings suggest that cooperative binding of multiple transcription factors regulates basal activity of the human PIGR promoter.
Distribution of mitochondrial haplotypes (cytb) in Polish populations of Emys orbicularis (L., 1758)

The European pond turtle, Emys orbicularis, inhabits a wide distribution area in the western Palaearctic. Polish populations of pond turtle represent the nominotypical subspecies Emys orbicularis orbicularis. The mitochondrial DNA haplotype (cytb gene) variation among 131 turtles from 26 locations in five regions of Poland was investigated. Five haplotypes belonging to three distinct lineages were identified. Two clades (I and II) were represented by two haplotypes each, while the other clade (IV) was represented by one haplotype. Three haplotypes were reported for the first time in E. orbicularis. The eastern part of Poland is inhabited exclusively by turtles bearing haplotype Ia. The remaining four sequence variants were recorded in western Poland where only the IIb haplotype is considered endemic. The distribution of the other haplotypes in western Poland could thus reflect past introductions or accidental releases. The authors regarded the two locations (Drzeczkowo and Karpicko) that were first included in the western Poland populations as autochthonous catchment areas of haplotype Ia.
Detection and recognition of road signs

In this paper, w e present a n application for t h e detection and recognition of Moroccan road signs together with their positions in video sequences taken by a mobile scanning vehicle in rural areas. Our approach is based on processing t h e operations of pictures: morphology, segmentation, edge detection and object recognition. The application runs on an algorithm which consists of five main steps: input (pre-recording video stream), processing of video keyframes, edge detection, detection of geometric shapes known panels, recognizing the meaning and the position of the panel detected.
Picking Winners : How to Identify Genes Important for Neonatal Growth

• An antibody, SIgA, found in breast milk alters the kinds of bacteria that colonize the infant gut. • The SIgA antibody also appears to change “turn on” and “turn off” genes involved in the rapid growth of the intestines that is normal in early life, as well as genes specifically linked to intestinal bowel disease. • These findings suggest a potential new role for the antibody in treating bowel inflammation, even in adults.
The Association of Level of Internet Use with Suicidal Ideation and Suicide Attempts in South Korean Adolescents: A Focus on Family Structure and Household Economic Status

Objective: To examine the association between the level of Internet addiction and suicidal ideation and suicide attempts in South Korean adolescents, focusing on the roles of family structure and household economic status. Methods: Data from 221 265 middle and high school students taken from the 2008–2010 Korea Youth Risk Behavior Web-based Survey were used in this study. To identify factors associated with suicidal ideation/attempts, multiple logistic regression analysis was performed. The level of Internet use was measured using the simplified Korean Internet Addiction Self-assessment Tool. Results: Compared with mild users of the Internet, high-risk users and potential-risk users were more likely to report suicidal ideation (nonuser, odds ratio [OR] 1.10, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.05 to 1.15; potential risk, OR 1.49, 95% CI: 1.36 to 1.63; high risk OR 1.94, 95% CI 1.79 to 2.10) or attempts (nonuser, OR 1.33, 95% CI 1.25 to 1.42; potential risk, OR 1.20, 95% CI 1.04 to 1.38; high risk, OR 1.91, 95% CI 1.71 to 2.14). The nonuser group also had a slightly higher risk of suicidal ideation/attempts compared with mild users. This association appeared to vary by perceived economic status and family structure. Conclusions: Our study suggests that it is important to attend to adolescents who are at high risk for Internet addiction, especially when they do not have parents, have stepparents, or perceive their economic status as either very low or very high.
Real Time Edit Propagation by Efficient Sampling

It is popular to edit the appearance of images using strokes, owing to their ease of use and convenience of conveying the user's intention. However, propagating the user inputs to the rest of the images requires solving an enormous optimization problem, which is very time consuming, thus preventing its practical use. In this paper, a two‐step edit propagation scheme is proposed, first to solve edits on clusters of similar pixels and then to interpolate individual pixel edits from cluster edits. The key in our scheme is that we use efficient stroke sampling to compute the affinity between image pixels and strokes. Based on this, our clustering does not need to be stroke‐adaptive and thus the number of clusters is greatly reduced, resulting in a significant speedup. The proposed method has been tested on various images, and the results show that it is more than one order of magnitude faster than existing methods, while still achieving precise results compared with the ground truth. Moreover, its efficiency is not sensitive to the number of strokes, making it suitable for performing dense edits in practice.
Genetic investigation of patients with hypercholesterolemia type IIa

To the Editor: Hypercholesterolemia is one of the most frequent disorders in Hungary with a complex, mostly unknown genetic background. Several factors can influence cholesterol levels. Three important genetic factors are polymorphisms in the apolipoprotein (apo) E gene, mutations in the apoB and low density lipoprotein (LDL) receptor genes. In our study we investigated the apoE, apoB and LDL receptor genes in 210 (100 male, 110 female, age 12–65 (52.5918.6) years) unrelated Hungarian hypercholesterolemic patients with hypercholesterolemia type IIa. Isotypings of apoE were carried out by DNA amplification and digestion with HhaI as proposed by Hixson (1). The receptor binding domain of apoB-100 was investigated by allele-specific and asymmetric polymerase chain reaction (PCR) as proposed by Schuster (2). Exon 4a of the LDL receptor gene was amplified by PCR with the oligonucleotide primers proposed by Hobbs (3). The single strand conformation polymorphism (SSCP) analysis of the exon 4a of the LDL receptor gene and the amplified apoB fragments was carried out in the PhastSystemTM automated electrophoresis system (Pharmacia LKB, Uppsala, Sweden). The samples were screened for familial hypercholesterolemia (FH)Elverum and FH-Helsinki as proposed by Leren (4) and Aalto-Setälä (5), respectively. Calculated allele frequencies of 6.4 for apoE2, 79.3 for apoE3, and 14.3% for apoE4 were seen with no significant difference between the frequency of apoE genotypes in patients with hypercholesterolemia and in the general population in Hungary (6). The apoE genotype distribution was in Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium. The total cholesterol values did not vary significantly among the genotype groups. These findings suggest that apoE isoforms do not play an important role in hypercholesterolemia type IIa and do not influence sig-
Structured interviews examining the burden, coping, self-efficacy, and quality of life among family caregivers of persons with dementia in Singapore

Dementia is a global health issue and the effects on caregivers are substantial. The study aimed to examine the associations of burden, coping, self-efficacy with quality of life among family caregivers of persons with dementia in Singapore. Structured interviews were conducted in a convenience sample of 84 family caregivers caring and seeking clinical care for the persons with dementia in an outpatient clinic of a public hospital in Singapore. The outcome measures included the Family Burden Interview Schedule, Family Crisis Oriented Personal Evaluation Scale, General Perceived Self-Efficacy Scale, and World Health Organization Quality of Life Scale – Brief Version. In general, significant correlations were observed between the quality of life scores with coping strategy and family burden scores, but not between the coping strategy and family burden scores. Compared to demographic factors such as caregiver age and household income, psychosocial factors including family burden, coping strategies, and self-efficacy demonstrated greater association with quality of life in the participants. However, the dynamics of these associations will change with an increasing population of persons with dementia, decreasing nuclear family size, and predicted changes in family living arrangements for the persons with dementia in future. As such, it necessitates continuous study examining the needs and concerns of family caregivers and the relevance of ongoing interventions specific to caregivers of persons with dementia.
Active methods for enhancing ( trans ) dermal drug delivery

Human skin serves a protective function by imposing physicochemical limitations to the type of permeant that can traverse the barrier. For a drug to be delivered passively via the skin it needs to have a suitable lipophilicity and a molecular weight <500 Da. The number of commercially available products based on transdermal or dermal delivery has been limited by these requirements. In recent years various passive and active strategies have emerged to optimize delivery. The passive approach entails the optimization of formulation or drug carrying vehicle to increase skin permeability. However passive methods do not greatly improve the permeation of drugs with molecular weights >500 Da. In contrast active methods, normally involving physical or mechanical methods of enhancing delivery have been shown to be generally superior. The delivery of drugs of differing lipophilicity and molecular weight including proteins, peptides, and oligonucletides has been shown to be improved by active methods such as iontophoresis, electroporation, mechanical perturbation, and other energy-related techniques such as ultrasound and needless injection. This chapter details one practical example of an active skin abrasion device to demonstrate the success of such active methods. The enhanced in vitro permeation of acyclovir through human epidermal membrane using a rotating brush abrasion device was compared to acyclovir delivery using iontophoresis. It was found that application of brush treatment for 10 seconds at a pressure of 300Nm -2 was comparable to 10 minutes of iontophoresis. The observed enhancement of permeability observed using the rotating brush was as a result of disruption of the cells of the stratum corneum causing a reduction of the barrier function of the skin. However, for these novel delivery methods to succeed and compete with those already on the market, the prime issues that require consideration include device design and safety, efficacy, ease of handling, and cost-effectiveness. This chapter provides a detailed review of the next generation of active delivery technologies.
Neutralization of Staphylococcal enterotoxin B by aptamer 1 antagonist 2

12 Staphylococcal enterotoxin B (SEB) is a major virulence factor for 13 Staphylococcal toxic shock syndrome (TSS). SEB activates a large subset of the T 14 lymphocytic population, releasing pro-inflammatory cytokines. Blocking 15 SEB-initiated toxicity may be an effective strategy for treating TSS. Using a 16 systematic evolution of ligands by exponential enrichment (SELEX) process, we 17 identified an aptamer that can antagonize SEB with nanomolar binding affinity (Kd = 18 64 nM). The aptamer antagonist effectively inhibits SEB-mediated proliferation and 19 cytokine secretion in human peripheral blood mononuclear cells. Moreover, a 20 PEGlyated aptamer antagonist significantly reduced mortality in a “double-hit” mouse 21 model of SEB-induced TSS, established via sensitization with D-galactosamine 22 followed by SEB challenge. Therefore, our novel aptamer antagonist may offer 23 potential therapeutic efficacy against SEB-mediated TSS. 24
The Balance between NRTI Discrimination and Excision Drives the Susceptibility of HIV-1 RT Mutants K65R, M184V and K65R+M184V

The HIV-1 reverse transcriptase (RT) resistance mutations K65R and M184V occur individually and in combination, and can contribute to decreased treatment responses in patients. In order to understand how these mutations interact with one another to confer drug resistance, the susceptibilities and underlying resistance mechanisms of these mutants to nucleoside RT inhibitors (NRTIs) were determined. Virus carrying K65R have reduced susceptibility to most NRTIs, but retain full susceptibility to zidovudine (AZT). M184V mutants have reduced susceptibility to lamivudine (3TC), emtricitabine (FTC) and didanosine (ddI), and contribute to reduced susceptibility to abacavir; however, they remain fully susceptible to tenofovir (TFV), AZT and stavudine (d4T). In cell culture, the K65R+M184V virus showed slightly increased susceptibility to TFV, AZT and d4T compared with K65R alone, but showed further decreases in susceptibility to 3TC, FTC, ddI and abacavir. There are two major biochemical mechanisms of resistance: altered NRTI binding/incorporation and altered NRTI excision after incorporation. For most NRTIs, the primary mechanism of resistance by K65R, M184V and K65R+M184V mutant RTs is to disrupt the NRTI- binding/incorporation steps. In the case of AZT, however, decreased binding/incorporation by K65R and K65R+M184V was counteracted by decreased AZT excision resulting in wild-type susceptibility. For TFV, decreased excision by K65R and K65R+M184V may partially counteract the K65R-driven decrease in incorporation relative to wild-type resulting in only low levels of TFV resistance. The K65R-mediated effect on decreasing NRTI excision was stronger than for M184V. These studies show that both mechanisms of resistance (binding/incorporation and excision) must be considered when defining resistance mechanisms.
Specification-based component retrieval by means of examples

Software components such as functions, modules and classes should be reused in order to reduce development cost of the application. The situation is essentially the same for databases. Reuse of such components requires a retrieval facility based on its specification. We represent the specification of a component using a set, and propose a retrieval mechanism using a sample containing positive and negative entities. The mechanism enables polynomial time retrieval. Moreover the mechanism provides user assistance for sample construction. We have proposed the notion of element dictionary in our recent paper. A sample which identifies the target set can always be constructed using the element dictionary. We propose two methods to minimize the sample size which corresponds to the sample construction cost. The first one is to retrieve entities from the element dictionary using a user specified query. Another one is based on the weight of each entity. The user selects an appropriate entity from the entity list presented by the system. These two methods can be combined to retrieve the target set using a log n size sample among n sets in most cases.
Local Synthesis of Single-walled Carbon Nanotubes on Zeolite-covered Silicon Substrate by Laser-heating Chemical Vapor Depositon

Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) have been locally synthesized on zeolite-covered silicon substrates by laser-heating chemical vapor deposition (CVD). We used laser irradiation as a heat source, Fe/Co nanoparticles supported on zeolite as catalysts, and ethanol vapor as a carbon source. We heated the zeolite catalysts using a Nd:YAG laser at 50 mW with a spot size of about 5mum diameter and synthesized SWNTs in a local area of about 20mum diameter at the irradiation point. We also synthesized SWNTs in a line by scanning the laser irradiation at 800mW at an average speed of 10mum/s. The synthesized SWNTs were characterized by scanning electron microscopy and Raman spectroscopy. To investigate the effect of heating SWNTs by the laser, we irradiated pure SWNTs synthesized by standard CVD in a vacuum furnace using the laser. Furthermore, we succeeded in bridging zeolite islands using SWNTs by laser-irradiating one side of the islands.
New Method for Solving Substation Expansion Planning Problem Using Fuzzy Clustering Algorithms

Abstract- This paper presents a new method for solving Substation Expansion Planning (SEP) problem using three basic algorithms in fuzzy clustering. Clustering algorithms are mainly associated with distance functions and measure dissimilarities of data set in different clusters. It is equivalent to measure similarities of data in a cluster. That is, a lot of varieties exist to find and create such arranged clusters. The proposed clustering algorithms are Hard C-Means (HCM), Fuzzy C-Means and Possibilistic C-Means. At first, each algorithm is introduced and the differences are characterized. Objective function and optimization procedure of each algorithm are described afterward. Proper evaluation was done by simulating each algorithm. On the other hand, one of the complex and difficult issues in power systems is to find an appropriate response for substation expansion planning. By inspiring from HCM clustering method and by adding some necessary constraints, a new method was developed for solving SEP problem.The proposed method was applied to a typical network and good results were obtained. The results showed that the proposed method was highly effective in dealing with large networks. One of the features of this method is the possibility of introducing the location of new substations during the substation expansion planning. The fast convergence, conformity of solution with engineering perspectives, consideration of real-world networks limitations as problem constraints and simplicity in applying to real networks are the other features of the proposed method.