Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Preexposure prophylaxis (PrEP) of HIV infection in France: A nationwide cross-sectional study (PREVIC study)

Although preliminary studies showed that preexposure prophylaxis (PrEP) lowers the HIV transmission in individuals with HIV, confirmative trials are ongoing and PrEP is not routinely recommended. The aim of this study was to assess whether individuals with HIV share antiretroviral (ARV) drugs for PrEP and to describe awareness and discussion on PrEP in this population. A cross-sectional survey was conducted in France in 23 representative departments of infectious diseases and internal medicine. Physicians administered an anonymous standardized questionnaire to all individuals with HIV receiving ARVs and followed between 24 and 31 October 2011. The questionnaire included items regarding PrEP (awareness; discussion with their close circle, physician or patients' association; experience), personal sociodemographic characteristics, risk behaviors and HIV status of the participants. Five hundred and ninety three participants were recruited: male 74.2% (men who have sex with men 52.4%, heterosexuals 21.6%), member of patient's association 9.8%. Half of them (50.6%) lived with a stable partner and 35.2% with an HIV-negative partner. Almost half (41.8%) were aware and 29.5% had had discussion about PrEP. In logistic regression, awareness and discussion on PrEP were more frequent: (1) among males, in patients' association members (p< 0.001 for both) and in nonheterosexuals (p=0.023 and 0.057, respectively); (2) among women, in those not living with a stable partner (p=0.035 and p=0.03, respectively) or living with an HIV-negative partner (p=0.049 and p=0.083, respectively). One percent of the participants declared having shared ARVs with someone and 8.3% reported PrEP in their close circle. Men reporting PrEP in their close circle shared ARVs more frequently than those who did not (10.3% vs. 0.2%, p < 0.001). Today, individuals with HIV do not seem to widely share personal ARVs for PrEP with seronegative people. A significant number of individuals with HIV are aware of and commonly discuss PrEP.
Occult papillary carcinoma of the thyroid with distant metastases

It is well established that small clinically undetected thyroid carcinomas can produce extensive lymphatic metastases. However, occult papillary carcinoma of the thyroid presenting as a large blood‐borne metastasis and occult papillary carcinoma of the thyroid leading to death are both uncommon. The authors report two unusual cases of clinically occult carcinoma of the thyroid. The first case is a 2.4 mm microscopic carcinoma presenting as a large solitary pulmonary metastasis, and is one of the smallest reported primary papillary thyroid carcinomas presenting as a distant hematogenous metastasis. The second case represents a lethal carcinoma with extensive metastases not diagnosed until autopsy. These two cases effectively illustrate that the absence of a clinically detectable thyroid abnormality does not exclude the possibility of extensive hematogenous and lymphatic metastases from a minute or undetected carcinoma of the thyroid.
A psychometric study of patients with nail dystrophies.

BACKGROUND Survey studies suggest that patients with various dermatologic conditions experience concomitant psychologic distress. OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to determine which types of psychologic distress may be correlated with dystrophic disease of the nail in nonpsychiatric patients. METHODS Fifty-seven adult subjects presenting for treatment of nail dystrophies completed a survey instrument, which included 5 psychometric measures. RESULTS On average, patients rated the severity of their nail dystrophy and functional deficit higher (7.40/10 and 6.00, respectively) than investigators (6.15 and 3.75, respectively). Compared with age- and sex-matched nonpsychiatric patients, subjects in the study were moderately more anxious and minimally to mildly more depressed. Subjects had moderately depressed total self-concept, but their body image was approximately normal. Overall, subjects exhibited markedly more severe psychologic symptoms (84th percentile) than the normal sample, with the scores on the psychoticism, obsessive-compulsive, and paranoid ideation subscales being the most elevated. CONCLUSION The subjects with nail dystrophy had markedly exacerbated psychologic symptoms compared with age- and sex-matched nonpsychiatric patients.
Scintigraphic Assessment of the Oropharyngeal and Nasal Depositions of Fusafungine from a Pressurized Inhaler and from a Novel Pump Spray Device

The distributions of fusafungine (Locabiotal, Servier) radiolabelled with 99mTc, and delivered either orally or intranasally, have been assessed in healthy volunteers from a pressurized metered‐dose aerosol inhaler (125 μg per dose) and from a novel mechanical pump spray device (500 μg per dose).
Characterization of human herpesvirus-8 K8.1A/B glycoproteins by monoclonal antibodies.

Human herpesvirus-8 K8.1 gene encodes for two immunogenic class I glycoproteins, K8.1A and B, originating from spliced messages [(1998) Virology 243, 208-217]. The 228-amino-acid-long K8.1A open reading frame (ORF) contains four N-glycosylation sites and the 167-amino-acid-long K8.1B ORF contains three N-glycosylation sites, sharing similar amino- and carboxyl-termini with ORF K8.1A but with an in-frame deletion [(1998) Virology 249, 140-149]. To characterize the K8.1A and B glycoproteins in the infected body cavity-based B cell lymphoma (BCBL-1) cells and in the virion envelopes, monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) recognizing only K8.1A protein or both K8.1A and B proteins were generated. These antibodies reacted with the infected cell membranes and virion envelopes. Stable COS-1 transformant cells expressed the K8.1A and B proteins independently on the plasma membranes. MAbs recognized multiple proteins with molecular weights ranging from 23 to 72 kDa from the BCBL-1 cells and COS-1 cells and the 72 to 68 kDa molecular-weight proteins from the virion particles. The K8.1A is the predominant protein affinity purified from the infected BCBL-1 cells. Digestion with glycosidases show that these proteins contain both N- and O-linked sugars, suggesting that the multiple proteins recognized by the MAbs represent the precursor and product forms of K8.1A and B proteins, and the 72 to 68 kDa molecular-weight proteins represent the virion particle-associated mature forms of these glycoproteins.
Third harmonic elimination by SPWM for filter reduction in a over-modulated single-phase inverter

In the single-phase grid-connected inverter systems the high quality Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) factor must always be considered. In cases, when the supplying voltage is reduced, the output voltage can still be assured constant in the limited range by using the over-modulation strategy that also enables better utilization of dc bus. Unfortunately, this operation incurs high order harmonics' force into the inverter output voltage, which is a huge drawback in almost all industrial applications. This paper provides a comprehensive spectrum analysis of three-level output voltage in a single-phase inverter in an over-modulation working regime. The output voltage is generated by triangular Sinusoidal Pulse-Width Modulation (SPWM) and, based on the analytical results of a frequency spectrum evaluation the dominant 3rd harmonic could be eliminated while the rest higher harmonics can be easier attenuated by using smaller output filter and the THD is lower in the wide range.
Differences in Gamma Interferon Production Induced by Listeriolysin O and Ivanolysin O Result in Different Levels of Protective Immunity in Mice Infected with Listeria monocytogenes and Listeria ivanovii

ABSTRACT Two pathogenic species in the genus Listeria, Listeria monocytogenes and Listeria ivanovii, are characterized by the production of hemolysins belonging to cholesterol-dependent cytolysins, listeriolysin O (LLO) and ivanolysin O (ILO), respectively. LLO, produced by L. monocytogenes, is able to induce gamma interferon (IFN-γ) production and contributes to the generation of Th1-dependent protective immunity. On the other hand, nothing is known about the role of ILO, produced by L. ivanovii, in this regard. In this study, we immunized mice with 0.1 50% lethal dose (LD50) of L. monocytogenes and L. ivanovii. Protective immunity against a challenge with 10 LD50 was generated in mice infected with L. monocytogenes, whereas L. ivanovii infection did not induce protection. After immunization, the level of IFN-γ in serum samples was increased in mice given L. monocytogenes but not in those given L. ivanovii. To determine the IFN-γ-inducing activity of cytolysins, recombinant protein was constructed. Recombinant ILO exhibited significantly lower IFN-γ-inducing activity than LLO. By comparing the IFN-γ-inducing activity of a chimera incorporating LLO and ILO, it was found that domains 1 to 3 of LLO were critical for IFN-γ-inducing activity while the counterpart in ILO was unable to induce cytokine production. These results suggested that the weak ability of ILO to induce IFN-γ production is responsible for the failure of L. ivanovii to generate effective protective immunity.
Pollination ecology in the 21st Century: Key questions for future research

To inspire new ideas in research on pollination ecology, we list the most important unanswered questions in the field. This list was drawn up by contacting 170 scientists from different areas of pollination ecology and asking them to contribute their opinion on the greatest knowledge gaps that need to be addressed. Almost 40% of them took part in our email poll and we received more than 650 questions and comments, which we classified into different categories representing various aspects of pollination research. The original questions were merged and synthesised, and a final vote and ranking led to the resultant list. The categories cover plant sexual reproduction, pollen and stigma biology, abiotic pollination, evolution of animal-mediated pollination, interactions of pollinators and floral antagonists, pollinator behaviour, taxonomy, plant-pollinator assemblages, geographical trends in diversity, drivers of pollinator loss, ecosystem services, management of pollination, and conservation issues such as the implementation of pollinator conservation. We focused on questions that were of a broad scope rather than case-specific; thus, addressing some questions may not be feasible within single research projects but constitute a general guide for future directions. With this compilation we hope to raise awareness of pollination-related topics not only among researchers but also among non-specialists including policy makers, funding agencies and the public at large.
Be cautious when using the FIR channel model with the OFDM-based communication systems

Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) can be used to support high data rate transmission over time-dispersive fading channels. Many OFDM-based communication systems use packet-based transmission, where channel estimation is needed for the detection of the information-carrying symbols. The finite impulse response (FIR) channel model is simple and effective for some simulations of the OFDM-based communication systems over the time-dispersive channels; yet, it is only an approximate channel model which cannot be used in the case of accurate channel estimation. Unfortunately, many researchers have overlooked this issue and have been devising channel estimation algorithms squarely based on the FIR channel model. While the channel estimation results from these algorithms can be impressive for the FIR channels, the algorithms can hardly be applied in real-world applications. This paper explains in detail the reason why the FIR channel model is only an approximate one for the OFDM-based systems, trying to discourage the inappropriate usage of this model, which can lead to fruitless efforts. This paper also presents a realistic channel model for the OFDM-based communication systems, which can be used to access the channel parameter estimation algorithms realistically.
An Approximate Soft Error Reliability Sorting Approach Based on State Analysis of Sequential Circuits

Soft errors have become a critical challenge as a result of technology scaling. Existing hardening techniques commonly associate prohibitive overhead of performance, area and power. To reach a reliability target at acceptable cost, soft error reliability evaluation of components (gates and flip-flops(FFs)) in a circuit is crucial. In this work, the correlation between the state space of sequential circuits and the soft error vulnerability are analyzed theoretically. And an approximate FF reliability sorting approach based on the circuit state analysis is proposed. It combines the advantage of formal techniques based approaches in completeness and the advantage of simulation based approach in differentiating vulnerability of components, which can help engineers make preliminary vulnerability estimation even when a good workload estimation of the design is unavailable. Experimental results on an implementation of a Space wire end node and several ISCAS’89 benchmark sequential circuits indicate the feasibility and potential scalability of our approach.
Using Anytime Planning for Centralized Coordination of Multiple Robots in Real-Time Dynamic Environments

tions. Our approach initially limits replanning to the part of the plan that failed, while leaving the rest of the plan alone. This constrains the amount of search that the planner must conduct. Once that is done, the amount of the plan to be replanned is enlarged. This allows the planner to search a larger space. This process of iteratively enlarging the part of the plan to be replanned continues until either the planner is interrupted or the scope of replanning has grown to the point that it encompasses the entire plan. The smaller search space of the early phase of the replanning algorithm ensures that there is a new plan available quickly, while the larger spaces searched in the later phases enable plans of higher potential quality to be considered. Our system currently uses a geometric measure of locality when replanning. That is, it replans for security robots that are within a progressively increasing radius of the plan failure point. Some of the research questions we are investigating include: How can we generalize the concept of locality for replanning in other domains? If the intermediate data structures (e.g. partial plans and world states) of the planning algorithm are preserved, can we use locality as an indexing device to enable us to find partial plans quickly that we can use as starting points for replanning? How should we progress locality when two or more plan failures occur?
An single speech enhancement based on complexity indicators and EMD

Speech enhancement is performed in a wide and varied communication system. The ensemble empirical mode decomposition and noise-assisted multivariate empirical mode decomposition have been proposed to improve the empirical mode decomposition more suitable for processing non-linear and non-stationary signals. In this paper, we applied the ensemble empirical mode decomposition and noise-assisted multivariate empirical mode decomposition algorithms on a single speech enhancement system and selected the significant intrinsic mode functions by the complexity indicator. The results demonstrated that the complexity indicator could choose intrinsic mode functions properly and achieve significantly improved speech quality.
Text mining for precision medicine: automating disease-mutation relationship extraction from biomedical literature

OBJECTIVE Identifying disease-mutation relationships is a significant challenge in the advancement of precision medicine. The aim of this work is to design a tool that automates the extraction of disease-related mutations from biomedical text to advance database curation for the support of precision medicine. MATERIALS AND METHODS We developed a machine-learning (ML) based method to automatically identify the mutations mentioned in the biomedical literature related to a particular disease. In order to predict a relationship between the mutation and the target disease, several features, such as statistical features, distance features, and sentiment features, were constructed. Our ML model was trained with a pre-labeled dataset consisting of manually curated information about mutation-disease associations. The model was subsequently used to extract disease-related mutations from larger biomedical literature corpora. RESULTS The performance of the proposed approach was assessed using a benchmarking dataset. Results show that our proposed approach gains significant improvement over the previous state of the art and obtains F-measures of 0.880 and 0.845 for prostate and breast cancer mutations, respectively. DISCUSSION To demonstrate its utility, we applied our approach to all abstracts in PubMed for 3 diseases (including a non-cancer disease). The mutations extracted were then manually validated against human-curated databases. The validation results show that the proposed approach is useful in a real-world setting to extract uncurated disease mutations from the biomedical literature. CONCLUSIONS The proposed approach improves the state of the art for mutation-disease extraction from text. It is scalable and generalizable to identify mutations for any disease at a PubMed scale.
Draft Genome Sequence of Gordonia alkanivorans Strain CGMCC6845, a Halotolerant Hydrocarbon-Degrading Bacterium

ABSTRACT Gordonia alkanivorans strain CGMCC6845 is a halotolerant hydrocarbon-degrading bacterium isolated from petroleum-contaminated saline soil. Here we present the 5.0-Mb draft genome sequence of this strain, which will improve our understanding of the diversity of G. alkanivorans and the mechanisms of microbial hydrocarbon degradation in saline environment.
Dynamic Mix-Zone for Location Privacy in Vehicular Networks

Location privacy is an important issue in vehicular networks since knowledge of a vehicle's location can result in leakage of sensitive information. In this paper, we propose a method, named Dynamic Mix-zone for Location Privacy (DMLP). With DMLP, a vehicle' s mix-zone is dynamically formed at the time the vehicle requests it. The size of the mix-zone is determined by the vehicle's predicted location, the traffic statistics and the level of vehicle's privacy requirement. In order to provide unlinkability of new and old pseudonyms and locations, DMLP encrypts messages when transmitted while the vehicle is within the mix-zone. Simulation based analysis shows that DMLP offers a high level of location privacy and can be used regardless of the nature of the road at the location of the vehicle,e.g. highway, rural road or street in the downtown area of a city.
Subtle CD20 positivity in the bone marrow of a patient who has a mucosa‐associated lymphoid tissue lymphoma should not be regarded as evidence of involvement in the bone marrow

Aims: Bone marrow (BM) biopsies of some mucosa‐associated lymphoid tissue (MALT) lymphoma patients show scattered or small clusters of CD20+ cells without definite lesions (subtle CD20 positivity). The aim of this study was to evaluate the clinical significance of BM involvement and subtle CD20 positivity in 122 patients diagnosed with MALT lymphoma.
Co-existent expression of GABAA receptor beta 2, beta 3 and gamma 2 subunit messenger RNAs during embryogenesis and early postnatal development of the rat central nervous system.

The expression of beta 1, beta 2, beta 3, gamma 2 and delta subunit messenger RNAs of the GABAA receptor was followed by in situ hybridization histochemistry using radiolabeled oligodeoxynucleotide probes in sections of embryonic (E12-21) and early postnatal (P1-5) rat. beta 2, beta 3 and gamma 2 subunit messenger RNAs were first detectable at E15 in the spinal cord (ventral > dorsal) and lower central nervous system regions (e.g. pons, medulla and thalamus). beta 3 subunit messenger RNA was abundantly expressed in olfactory bulb neurons at E15. At E17, the expression pattern of these subunit messenger RNAs continued in the lower central nervous system. In the upper central nervous system, beta 2, beta 3, and gamma 2 subunit messenger RNAs were first detectable in the outer layer of the hippocampal and entire cortical neuroepithelium. The expression for both beta 3 and gamma 2 subunit messenger RNAs increased significantly over that observed at E15, whereas beta 2 subunit messenger RNA increased to a lesser extent and was more discretely expressed in inferior colliculus, cerebellar neuroepithelium and spinal cord (ventral = dorsal). By E19, messenger RNAs for beta 2, beta 3 and gamma 2 subunits a widespread and abundant co-existent distribution throughout the central nervous system. Exceptions to this co-expression were the absence of beta 2 messenger RNA in the dentate gyrus and beta 3 messenger RNA in entorhinal cortex, areas in which they are present in adult. There was also a differential distribution of subunit messenger RNAs in developing olfactory bulb at E19-20: the glomerular cells preferentially expressed beta 3 and gamma 2 subunit messenger RNAs; the mitral cells preferentially expressed beta 2 subunit messenger RNA; inner granule cells expressed moderate levels of beta 2, beta 3 and gamma 2 subunit messenger RNAs. Expression of beta 2, beta 3 and gamma 2 messenger RNAs was also anatomically co-existent at P5. In addition, significant expression of beta 1 and delta subunit messenger RNAs was apparent in hippocampus and entorhinal cortex. The identity of the gamma 2 expressed between E15 and E21 was shown to be mostly the short isoform of gamma 2 subunit messenger RNA. Expression of both forms was evident beginning around P3-5. These results indicate that during the late embryonic and early postnatal period of development, beta 2, beta 3 and gamma 2 subunit messenger RNAs are abundantly expressed and co-localized to most central nervous system regions. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
Status of Exosphaeroma amplicauda (Stimpson, 1857), E. aphrodita (Boone, 1923) and description of three new species (Crustacea, Isopoda, Sphaeromatidae) from the north-eastern Pacific

Abstract Exosphaeroma amplicauda (Stimpson, 1857) from the west coast of North America is reviewed and redescribed and revealed to be a group of closely related species. A neotype is designated and the species redescribed based on the neotype and topotypic specimens. Exosphaeroma amplicauda is known only from the coast of California, at Marin, Sonoma and San Mateo Counties. Exosphaeroma aphrodita (Boone, 1923), type locality La Jolla, California and previously considered nomen dubium is taken out of synonymy and re-validated. A further three species: Exosphaeroma paydenae sp. n. , Exosphaeroma russellhansoni sp. n. , and Exosphaeroma pentcheffi sp. n. are described herein. Sphaeroma octonctum Richardson, 1899 is placed into junior synonymy with Exosphaeroma amplicauda. A key to the Pacific West Coast Exosphaeroma is provided.