Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Surgical excision of cerebral arteriovenous malformations: late results.

A follow-up study of 153 consecutive patients who underwent complete excision of an angiographically visualized intracerebral arteriovenous malformation was conducted. The follow-up period ranged from 0.5 to 10.6 years, with a mean of 3.8 years. The presenting clinical event was hemorrhage in about one-half of the patients and seizure in about one-third. There was a marked tendency for postoperative neurological deficits to improve with time, so that whereas the immediate postoperative rate of serious morbidity was 24.2%, only 7.8% of the patients were found to have serious morbidity at follow-up. An additional 3 patients had died, one of an unrelated carcinoma, making the mortality related to arteriovenous malformation 1.3%. The classification of Spetzler and Martin (43) was used retrospectively; the percentages of Grade I (easiest) through Grade V (most difficult) lesions were 7.8%, 22.9%, 28.8%, 26.8%, and 13.8%, respectively. The early result was well correlated to grade, with good or excellent results in 100%, 94.3%, 88.6%, 61%, and 28.6% of the patients in Grades I through V, respectively. At follow-up, 98.7% of the patients with arteriovenous malformations of Grades I, II, and III were in good or excellent condition. The late morbidity and mortality rates for the patients in Grades IV and V were 12.2% and 38.4%, respectively. Of the patients who did not have seizures before surgery, 8.2% had only one or two seizures during the immediate postoperative period, and 7.1% had late seizures that were well controlled with medication in all. Of the patients who had seizures before surgery, over half were either cured or greatly improved with respect to the seizures. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Parallel Signaling Pathways in Endothelin-1–Induced Proliferation of U373MG Astrocytoma Cells

Endothelin-1 (ET-1) is a potent mitogen for many cells, especially when its levels are elevated under pathological conditions, as seen in tumor cell progression and astroglial activation in neuropathies. While ET-1 is known to cause astroglial proliferation, in the present study, multiple signaling pathways involved in ET-1–mediated astrocyte proliferation were characterized. Treatment with PD98059 and U0126 (MEK inhibitors) inhibited not only ET-1–induced cell proliferation but also ET-1–activated phosphorylation of extracellular signal–regulated protein kinase 1/2 (ERK1/2) in U373MG astrocytoma cells. Whereas the nonselective protein kinase C (PKC) inhibitor chelerythrine attenuated ET-1–induced cell proliferation, it was unable to block ET-1–induced ERK phosphorylation. However, ET-1 did not activate conventional or novel PKCs and did not elevate intracellular calcium. In addition, U73122 (a selective phospholipase C inhibitor), FTI-277 (an H-Ras inhibitor), as well as protein tyrosine kinase inhibitors also did not abolish ET-1–induced ERK1/2 phosphorylation. ET-1 treatment increased the activity of total Ras but not H-Ras. The phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K) pathway appeared to be involved in signal transduction induced by ET-1, but it did not appear to participate in cross talk with the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway. Activated ET receptors did not propagate signals either through protein tyrosine kinases or transactivation of EGF receptor tyrosine kinases, which typically trigger Ras-Raf-MAPK pathways. The results indicate that ET-1 stimulates cell proliferation by the activation of MAPK-, PKC-, and PI3K-dependent pathways that appear to function in a parallel manner. There is no apparent, direct “cross talk” between these pathways in U373MG cells, but rather, they might act on the independent but necessary components of the mitogenic effects of ET-1.
A comparative study of text classification approaches for personalized retrieval in PubMed

Retrieval of the information relevant to one's need from PubMed is becoming increasingly challenging due to its large volume and rapid growth. The traditional information search techniques based on keyword matching are insufficient for large databases such as PubMed. A personalized article retrieval system that is tailored to individual researcher's specific interests and selects only highly relevant articles can be a helpful tool in the field of Bioinformatics. The text classification methods developed in the text mining community have shown good results in differentiating relevant articles from the irrelevant ones. This study compares two text classification methods, Naïve Bayes and Support Vector Machines, in order to study the effectiveness of the two methods on classifying full text articles in the case when only a small set of training data is available. The comparison results show that the Naïve Bayes method is a better choice than Support Vector Machines in building a personalized article retrieval system which can learn (train) from a small set of full text articles.
Autoimmune Polyendocrinopathy-Candidiasis-Ectodermal-Dystrophy (APECED) in Sicily: confirmation that R203X is the peculiar AIRE gene mutation

Background: Autoimmune polyendocrinopathy-candidiasis-ectodermal-dystrophy (APECED), also known as autoimmune polyendocrine syndrome type 1 (APS-1) (OMIM 240300), is a very rare disease. Accepted criteria for diagnosis require the presence of at least 2 of 3 major clinical features: chronic mucocutaneous candidiasis (CMC), chronic hypoparathyroidism (CH), and Addison’s disease (AD). Aim: We analyzed AIRE gene mutations and genotype-phenotype correlation in APECED patients originating from Sicily and in their relatives. Subjects and methods: In 4 patients, clinical evaluations, genetic analysis of AIRE, and APECED-related autoantibodies were performed. Results: Two patients carried the mutation R203X in homozygosis on exon 5. One had the mutation R203X combined with R139X. The fourth had the R203X mutation in heterozygosis with R257X. Expression of the disease showed wide variability of clinical manifestations. Analysis of relatives allowed the identification of 10 heterozygotes for AIRE gene mutations. None of these subjects presented major findings of APECED. Three of the 4 patients were positive for autoantibodies to interferon-ω. Conclusions: In Sicily, R203X is confirmed to be the typical recessive and prevalent AIRE gene mutation on exon 5. Genotype-phenotype correlation failed to reveal a relationship between detected mutations and clinical expression. Mutations in heterozygosity in AIRE gene are not associated with major findings of APECED.
A new information-theoretic approach to detect gene-gene interactions in case-control studies

Gene-gene interaction is an important factor to consider in selecting genes in genotype data or microarray expression data for association with diseases. However current definitions of gene-gene interaction are not very clear and accurate. An inequality is proved in this paper and a new definition of gene-gene interaction: conditional independence and redundancy based definition of gene-gene interaction (CIR), together with a definition of interaction group are proposed according to this inequality. A new algorithm to detect gene-gene interaction with order greater than two is also proposed based on these new definitions and a theorem. Experimental results show the usefulness of these new definitions and the effectiveness and efficiency of this new algorithm.
Procalcitonin: A useful biomarker to discriminate infection after cardiopulmonary bypass in children

Objective: To determine whether procalcitonin discriminates between postcardiopulmonary bypass inflammatory syndrome and infectious complication in children better than does C-reactive protein. Design: Prospective study of children admitted to the intensive care unit after cardiopulmonary bypass. Patients: Classified according to a diagnosis of systemic inflammatory response syndrome and bacterial infection or systemic inflammatory response syndrome but no bacterial infection. Two hundred thirty-one cases were recruited. Measurement and Main Results: Procalcitonin, C-reactive protein, and leukocyte count were measured daily from surgery until day 3. Twenty-two patients were infected (9.5%). Significant differences were detected in the procalcitonin values of the infected group vs. the noninfected group, especially at day 2 (p = .000). There were no differences in the C-reactive protein values. The optimal cutoff for procalcitonin was >2 ng/mL at day 1 and above 4 ng/mL at the day 2. There was a greater sensitivity and specificity than with C-reactive protein as an infection predictor. Conclusion: Procalcitonin is useful in the diagnosis of bacterial infection after cardiopulmonary bypass. Because procalcitonin kinetics are different in postcardiopulmonary bypass patients, the cutoff to diagnose infection should be different from the normal cutoff.
Anämie und Thrombozytopenie in der Schwangerschaft

Eine leichtgradige Anämie ist in der Schwangerschaft physiologisch. Sie ist Folge einer Hydrämie und Hämodilution mit einer disproportionalen Zunahme des Plasmavolumens. In der Gravidität nimmt die Erythrozytenmasse um 30%, das Plasmavolumen jedoch um 50% zu; dadurch vermindert sich das Hämoglobin um 2–4 g/dl. Der auf diesem Pathomechanismus beruhende Hb-Abfall geht nicht unter 11 g/dl. Die physiologische Schwangerschaftsanämie ist normochrom und normozytär. Von einer Anämie spricht man in der Schwangerschaft bei einem Hb < 11 g/dl im 1. und 3. Trimenon sowie < 10,5 g/dl im 2. Trimenon. Der Grenzwert einer postpartalen Anämie liegt bei < 10 g/dl.
An ant colony optimization approach for reputation and quality-of-service-based security in wireless sensor networks

In wireless sensor networks (WSN), message security is an important concern. The protection of integrity and confidentiality of information and the protection from unauthorized access are important issues. However, due to factors such as resource limitations, absence of centralized access points, open wireless medium and small size of the sensor nodes, the implementation of security in WSN is a challenging task. In this paper, we propose a protocol, quality-based distance vector routing (QDV), for securing WSN using concepts based on Ant colony optimization ACO [1]. Two fundamental parameters—quality-of-service (QoS) and reputation [2]—are used. The high value of reputation of a node signifies that the node is trusted and is more reliable for data communication purposes. As a node shows signs of misbehavior, its reputation decreases, which, in turn, affects its quality-of-security QSec [2], thereby disabling the malicious nodes from gaining access to the network. By incorporating these two factors, we are able to distinguish the nodes present in the network. We, then, present a method to achieve “equilibrium” where the node is able to guarantee that its neighbors are secure. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
The Study of EEG Dynamics During Anesthesia with Cross-Recurrence Rate

Introduction Intra-operative awareness has a reported incidence of approximately 0.1-0.8%. Anesthetic-induced changes in the patient electrical brain activity (EEG) can be monitored in order to avoid intra-operative awareness cases. In this work we investigate the effect of anesthetic administration on the observed patterns of nonlinear dynamic coupling between different brain areas.
Confirmation of the origin of NISCH syndrome

Neonatal ichthyosis‐sclerosing cholangitis (NISCH) syndrome, a rare autosomal recessive ichthyosis syndrome characterized by scalp hypotrichosis, scarring alopecia, ichthyosis, and sclerosing cholangitis, was described for the first time in 2002. It is caused by a mutation in the gene coding for the tight junction protein claudin‐1. Only four patients carrying the same mutation of the CLDN1 gene have been described until now. We report a patient presenting with the clinical characteristics of NISCH syndrome and carrying a novel mutation in the CLDN1 gene. Hum Mutat 27(5), 408–410, 2006. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Detecting Image Spam Using Image Texture Features

Filtering image email spam is considered to be a challenging problem because spammers keep modifying the images being used in their campaigns by employing different obfuscation techniques. Therefore, preventing text recognition using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) tools and imposing additional challenges in filtering such type of spam. In this paper, we propose an image spam filtering technique, called Image Texture Analysis-Based Image Spam Filtering (ITA-ISF), that makes use of low-level image features for image characterization. We evaluate the performance of several machine learning-based classifiers and compare their performance in filtering image spam based on lowlevel image texture features. These classifiers are: C4.5 Decision Tree (DT), Support Vector Machine (SVM), Multilayer Perception (MP), Naïve Bays (NB), Bayesian Network (BN), and Random Forest (RF). Our experimental studies based on two publicly available datasets show that the RF classifier outperforms all other classifiers with an average precision, recall, accuracy, and F-measure of 98.6%.
Monitoring Neural Activity and [Ca2+] with Genetically Encoded Ca2+ Indicators

Genetically encoded Ca2+ indicators (GECIs) based on fluorescent proteins (XFPs) and Ca2+-binding proteins [like calmodulin (CaM)] have great potential for the study of subcellular Ca2+ signaling and for monitoring activity in populations of neurons. However, interpreting GECI fluorescence in terms of neural activity and cytoplasmic-free Ca2+ concentration ([Ca2+]) is complicated by the nonlinear interactions between Ca2+ binding and GECI fluorescence. We have characterized GECIs in pyramidal neurons in cultured hippocampal brain slices, focusing on indicators based on circularly permuted XFPs [GCaMP (Nakai et al., 2001), Camgaroo2 (Griesbeck et al., 2001), and Inverse Pericam (Nagai et al., 2001)]. Measurements of fluorescence changes evoked by trains of action potentials revealed that GECIs have little sensitivity at low action potential frequencies compared with synthetic [Ca2+] indicators with similar affinities for Ca2+. The sensitivity of GECIs improved for high-frequency trains of action potentials, indicating that GECIs are supralinear indicators of neural activity. Simultaneous measurement of GECI fluorescence and [Ca2+] revealed supralinear relationships. We compared GECI fluorescence saturation with CaM Ca2+-dependent structural transitions. Our data suggest that GCaMP and Camgaroo2 report CaM structural transitions in the presence and absence of CaM-binding peptide, respectively.
Pharmacodynamic enhancement of the anti-platelet antibody Fab abciximab by site-specific pegylation

Monoclonal antibodies have been firmly established as human therapeutics. Their high affinity and specificity for target antigens minimize adverse reactions and their molecular size results in extended circulation times relative to small molecule pharmaceuticals. The ability to customize the pharmacokinetics in a rational manner can enhance the potential for these and other classes of biologicals. We have systematically studied the effect of site-specific pegylation of the Fab‵ fragment of the anti-GPIIb/IIIa, αVβ3 antibody c7E3. Regardless of the molecular weight of the PEG molecules, the intrinsic affinity of the resulting constructs remained unchanged. However, in functional assays measuring inhibition of platelet aggregation, the calculated IC50 values of the conjugates decreased with increasing molecular weight of the conjugated PEG. It was determined that the molecular size of the conjugates affects antigen accessibility and whereas high levels of binding to antigen molecules on cells with high antigen density can be demonstrated with the Fab fragment, comparable levels are not achievable with large molecular weight conjugates. In spite of the inability of the larger PEG constructs to achieve saturation binding, functional inhibition of platelet aggregation consistent with saturation binding was demonstrated and the increased molecular size of the conjugates led to predictably prolonged inhibition of platelet aggregation.
Automated image analysis for monitoring oxidative burst in macrophages.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate oxidative bursts induced by phorbol myristate acetate in phagocytes at the single-cell level by automated image analysis. STUDY DESIGN The generation of reactive oxygen species was quantitatively expressed by means of histograms displaying the percentage of cells corresponding to each of the total optical densities measured. RESULTS Macrophage subpopulations were quantitatively defined. This method allows detailed analysis of the amount of formazan per cell and the sites of deposition of blue precipitate in each cell. CONCLUSION Image analysis is a reliable quantitative, single-cell assay for studying various cellular characteristics associated with macrophage functions.
Single layer versus double layer suture anastomosis of the gastrointestinal tract.

BACKGROUND Gastrointestinal anastomosis (GIA) is an essential step to maintain the continuity of gastrointestinal tract following intestinal resection. GIA is still a source of significant controversy among surgeons due to the use of variety of approaches. Adequate apposition by single layer or double layer anastomosis may affect outcome after GIA OBJECTIVES: The objective of this review is to compare the effectiveness of single layer GIA (SGIA) versus double layer GIA (DGIA) being used in general surgery. The particular question we would attempt to answer will be; is single layer hand made GIA in surgical patients is as effective as double layer? SEARCH METHODS The CCCG (Colorectal Cancer Cochrane Group) Controlled Trials Register, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) on The Cochrane Library (Issue 1, 2011), MEDLINE (until April 2011) , EMBASE ( The Intelligent Gateway to Biomedical & Pharmacological Information until April 2011), LILACS (The Latin American and Caribbean Health Sciences Library until April 2011 ) and Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-E until April 2011) using the medical subject headings (MeSH) terms were searched without date, language or age restrictions. SELECTION CRITERIA Randomised, controlled trials comparing the effectiveness of SGIA versus DGIA DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS: At least two review authors independently scrutinised search results, selected eligible studies and extracted data. MAIN RESULTS Seven randomised, controlled trials encompassing 842 patients undergoing SGIA versus DGIA were retrieved from the electronic databases. There were 408 patients in the SGIA group and 432 patients in the DGIA group. All included studies were small, with sample sizes ranging from 60 to 172. There was no heterogeneity among the included trials. Therefore, in the fixed effects model, incidence of anastomotic dehiscence, peri-operative complications and mortality was statistically equivalent between two techniques of GIA. Average hospital stay following SGIA and DGIA was also comparable. However, SGIA was superior in terms of shorter operative time. Sensitivity analysis of relatively good quality and poor quality trials supported same conclusion. AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS SGIA can be performed quicker as compared to double layer GIA. SGIA is comparable to DGIA in terms of anastomotic leak, peri-operative complications, mortality and hospital stay. SGIA may routinely be used for GIA following bowel resection. However, since this conclusion is derived from smaller number of patients recruited in relatively moderate quality trials, further trials should be aimed to reduce the limitations of this review.
Health‐related quality of life and health care use in cancer survivors compared with patients with chronic diseases

The number of cancer survivors is steadily increasing and these patients often experience long‐lasting health problems. To make care for cancer survivors sustainable for the future, it would be relevant to put the effects of cancer in this phase into perspective. Therefore, the authors compared health‐related quality of life (HRQOL) and health care use among cancer survivors with that of patients with chronic diseases.
A Comparison of Four Glucose Monitors in a Hospital Medical Surgical Setting

FOUR BEDSIDE GLUCOSE monitors were evaluated and compared for accuracy in correlation with concomitant laboratory glucose values. Of these four monitors Diascan, Glucometer Q.A. , Accucheck, and One Touch—two bedside glucose monitors were comparable with a correlation coefficient of 0.91 for Glucometer Q.A. and 0.90 for One Touch. These two machines were then evaluated for precision and linearity. Although the Glucometer Q.A. was more precise for all three levels of glucose, the One Touch linearity was almost perfect. Lastly, in asking nursing staff for an evaluation of One Touch and Glucometer Q.A. , 15 of 16 staff members preferred One Touch.
Oxidation of palmitic acid by Mycobacterium leprae in an axenic medium

The ability of Mycobacterium leprae to oxidize palmitic acid during incubation in an axenic medium was studied. By using a Buddemeyer-type detection system, partially purified nude-mouse-derived M. leprae was found to produce 14CO2 from 14C-labeled palmitic acid in a linear fashion for at least 1 week. Procedures known to remove residual host tissue did not diminish the rate of 14CO2 evolution, indicating that bacterial metabolism was being measured. Palmitate oxidation was temperature sensitive, with an apparent optimum of 33 degrees C, but pH insensitive. Bacilli exposed to a variety of antileprosy drugs for 1 or 2 weeks displayed significantly reduced rates of 14CO2 evolution upon subsequent addition of 14C-labeled palmitic acid. This activity could be readily detected with 10(6) bacilli, thus indicating its potential for use in clinical susceptibility testing.
High-performance and low-power magnetic material memory based cache design

Magnetic memory technologies are very promising candidates to be universal memory due to its good scalability, zero standby power and radiation hardness. Having a cell area much smaller than SRAM, magnetic memory can be used to construct much larger cache with the same die footprint, leading to significant improvement of overall system performance and power consumption especially in this multi-core era. However, magnetic memories have their own drawbacks such as slow write, read disturbance and scaling limitation, making its usage as caches challenging. This dissertation comprehensively studied these two most popular magnetic memory technologies. Design exploration and optimization for the cache design from different design layers including the memory devices, peripheral circuit, memory array structure and micro-architecture are presented. By leveraging device features, two major micro-architectures - multi-retention cache hierarchy and process-variation-aware cache are presented to improve the write performance of STT-RAM. The enhancement in write performance results in the degradation of read operations, in terms of both speed and data reliability. This dissertation also presents an architecture to resolve STT-RAM read disturbance issue. Furthermore, the scaling of STT-RAM is hindered due to the required size of switching transistor. To break the cell area limitation of STT-RAM, racetrack memory is studied to achieve an even higher memory density and better performance and lower energy consumption. With dedicated elaboration, racetrack memory based cache design can achieve a significant area reduction and energy saving when compared to optimized STT-RAM.