Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Chapter 3 Anticancer Properties of Cardiac Glycosides

Cardiac glycosides comprise a large family of naturally derived compounds, the core struc‐ tures of which contain a steroid nucleus with a five-membered lactone ring (cardenolides) or a six-membered lactone ring (bufadienolides) and sugar moieties [1]. A few widely recognized examples of cardiac glycosides are digoxin, digitoxin, ouabain, and oleandrin. The cardeno‐ lides digitoxin and digoxin, two well-known cardiac glycosides, are inhibitors of the plasma membrane Na+/K+-ATPase that are clinically used for the treatment of heart failure. Their positive inotropic effects help suppress the active counter-transportation of Na+ and K+ across the cell membrane, leading to an increase in the intracellular Na+ concentration, a decrease in the intracellular K+ concentration, and a consequent increase in cardiac contraction [2]. Epidemiologic evidence suggests that breast cancer patients who were treated with digitalis have a significantly lower mortality rate, and their cancer cells had more benign characteristics than those from patients not treated with digitalis [3,4]. Interestingly, the concentrations of cardiac glycosides used for cancer treatment are extremely close to those found in the plasma of cardiac patients treated with the same drugs, suggesting that the anticancer effects of these drugs are exerted at non-toxic concentrations [5]. Furthermore, studies have suggested that cardiac glycosides target cancer cells selectively [6]. These encouraging findings have gained considerable attention in the field of anticancer research, and subsequent studies on the anticancer properties of these compounds have been conducted. These studies investigated not only digoxin and digitoxin but also other related cardiac glycosides, such as ouabain, oleandrin, proscillaridin A, and bufalin [7-10]. Several mechanisms of action, including the inhibition of cancer cell proliferation, the induction of apoptosis, and chemotherapy sensiti‐ zation, have been reported in a large number of published articles that support the potential use of these compounds for cancer treatment [11-14]. However, further clinical studies are still ongoing to better characterize the pharmacological and safety issues associated with these compounds. This chapter provides an overview of the anticancer activities of cardiac glyco‐
Amygdala activation in maltreated children during pre-attentive emotional processing

Background Childhood adversity is associated with significantly increased risk of psychiatric disorder. To date, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies of children have mainly focused on institutionalisation and investigated conscious processing of affect. Aims To investigate neural response to pre-attentively presented affect cues in a community sample of children with documented experiences of maltreatment in the home. Method A masked dot-probe paradigm involving pre-attentive presentation of angry, happy and neutral facial expressions was employed. Eighteen maltreated children were compared with 23 carefully matched non-maltreated peers. Results Increased neural response was observed in the right amygdala for pre-attentively presented angry and happy faces in maltreated v. non-maltreated children. Level of amygdala activation was negatively associated with age at onset for several abuse subtypes. Conclusions Maltreatment is associated with heightened neural response to positive and negative facial affect, even to stimuli outside awareness. This may represent a latent neural risk factor for future psychiatric disorder.
Idiosyncratic nutrient requirements of cats appear to be diet-induced evolutionary adaptations*

Cats have obligatory requirements for dietary nutrients that are not essential for other mammals. The present review relates these idiosyncratic nutritional requirements to activities of enzymes involved in the metabolic pathways of these nutrients. The high protein requirement of cats is a consequence of the lack of regulation of the aminotransferases of dispensable N metabolism and of the urea cycle enzymes. The dietary requirements for taurine and arginine are consequences of low activities of two enzymes in the pathways of synthesis that have a negative multiplicative effect on the rate of synthesis. Cats have obligatory dietary requirements for vitamin D and niacin which are the result of high activities of enzymes that catabolise precursors of these vitamins to other compounds. The dietary requirement for pre-formed vitamin A appears to result from deletion of enzymes required for cleavage and oxidation of carotenoids. The n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) requirements have not been defined but low activities of desaturase enzymes indicate that cats may have a dietary need for pre-formed PUFA in addition to those needed by other animals to maintain normal plasma concentrations. The nutrient requirements of domestic cats support the thesis that their idiosyncratic requirements arose from evolutionary pressures arising from a rigorous diet of animal tissue. These pressures may have favoured energy conservation through deletion of redundant enzymes and modification of enzyme activities to result in metabolites more suited to the cat's metabolism. However, this retrospective viewpoint allows only recognition of association rather than cause and effect.
Secure workload management for cloud server

Cloud storage service is an influential application now days to serve the need of data sharing between multiple entities. Data owners are encouraged to encrypt the data before hosting it over server, to ensure data privacy. Searching over encrypted data has its own limitations and additional computational load at server side. Here we focus over the additional burden at Cloud server while dealing with multiple users requests over encrypted data. Our solution reduces the load over server, by introducing a Manager. Dealing with third party manager has its own data privacy problems, which includes potential breach of privacy while processing the searching request. Our proposed solution maintains the security and privacy goals, even when request is processed by third party manager. We have given security proof for different security models. The results indicates the practical and secure nature of proposed scheme, with reduced burden at cloud server.
The association between choice stepping reaction time and falls in older adults--a path analysis model.

BACKGROUND choice stepping reaction time (CSRT) is a functional measure that has been shown to significantly discriminate older fallers from non-fallers. OBJECTIVE to investigate how physiological and cognitive factors mediate the association between CSRT performance and multiple falls by use of path analysis. METHODS 294 retirement-village residents, aged 62-95 years, undertook CSRT tests, requiring them to step onto one of four randomly illuminated panels, in addition to physiological and cognitive tests. Number of falls was collected during 1-year follow-up. RESULTS 79 participants (27%) reported two or more falls during the follow-up period. Regression analyses indicated CSRT was able to predict multiple falls by a factor of 1.76 for each SD change. The path analysis model revealed that the association between CSRT and multiple falls was mediated entirely by the physiological parameters reaction time and balance (postural sway) performance. These two parameters were in turn mediated over a physiological path (by quadriceps strength and visual contrast sensitivity) and a cognitive path (cognitive processing). CONCLUSIONS this study provides an example of how path analysis can reveal mediators for the association between a functional measure and falls. Our model identified inter-relationships (with relative weights) between physiological and cognitive factors, CSRT and multiple falls.
Trust and Reputation Management in Healthcare Systems: Taxonomy, Requirements and Open Issues

Trust is a salient feature in the context of health care, which is characterized by uncertainty and an element of risk. It is a fundamental requirement for the acceptance and adoption of new services related to health care. Soft trust, based on social control mechanisms, has yielded to evidence-based trust management, where the level of trust is explicitly computed by a trust engine termed the trust and reputation system (TRS). In e-health, soft trust can be used for access control, for assessing the quality of data represented in electronic health records, to address privacy and security requirements of healthcare systems, and to compute the credibility of an entity in the presence of unknown, possibly harmful entities. Despite the importance of soft trust in healthcare, related literature that explore soft trust issues, associated challenges and requirements are largely missing. To address this deficiency, the main contributions of this paper include: (i) taxonomy related to the soft trust in healthcare systems; (ii) reference model for measuring the performance and features of TRSs; and (iii) future areas of research related to the soft trust in healthcare.
Long-term maternal high-fat feeding from weaning through pregnancy and lactation predisposes offspring to hypertension, raised plasma lipids and fatty liver in mice

In rodents, adverse prenatal nutrition, such as a maternal diet rich in fat during pregnancy, enhances susceptibility of the offspring to hypertension, type 2 diabetes and other features of the human metabolic syndrome in adulthood. However, previous experimental studies were confined to short-term modifications of the maternal diet during pregnancy and/or lactation periods, a situation uncommon in humans. Moreover in humans, the offspring may also consume a high-fat diet, which may take them beyond the range to which their development has adapted them to respond healthily. We examined in C57 mice the effects on offspring of feeding their mothers a high-fat (HF) or standard chow (C) diet from weaning through pregnancy and lactation, and whether there are additive phenotypic effects of feeding the offspring an HF diet from weaning to adulthood (dam–offspring dietary group HF-HF). This group was compared with offspring from HF-fed dams fed a C diet from weaning to adulthood (HF-C) and offspring from C-fed mothers fed the C or HF diet (C-C and HF-C, respectively). HF-HF, HF-C and C-HF adult female offspring were heavier, fatter, and had raised serum cholesterol and blood pressure compared with C-C female offspring. We observed a similar trend in male offspring except for the HF-C group which was not heavier or fatter than male C-C offspring. Histology showed lipid vacuoles within hepatocytes in the HF-HF, HF-C and C-HF but not the CC offspring. Serum C-reactive protein was elevated in female (C-HF and HF-HF) but not in male offspring. Elevated blood pressure in the HF-C and C-HF groups was attenuated in the HF-HF group in males but not in females. These findings indicate that long-term consumption of an HF diet by the mother predisposes her offspring to developing a metabolic syndrome-like phenotype in adult life, although cardiovascular effects of an HF diet are related to sex specificity in the HF-HF group.
How Do Chemical Signals Work in Plants that Grow in Drying Soil?

We have known for many years that the dehydration of plant cells can lead to accumulation of the plant growth regulator ABA. Application of this compound to well-watered plants mimics many of the effects of soil drymg on gene expression, physiology, growth, and development, making this compound a strong candidate for a role in the droughted plant. Dehydration of leaves can result in massive accumulations of ABA, and roots also synthesize the compound in increased amounts as they are exposed to drier and drier soil. Davies and Zhang (1991) argued that an important component of the drought responses of many plants can be an ABA signal moving from the roots to the shoots to regulate physiology and development as a function of soil water status/availability. Many recent reports show relationships between stomatal conductance and soil water status or xylem ABA concentration, which seem to support this view. Nevertheless, critica1 examination of the ABA-signaling hypothesis must show that enough extra ABA moves in the transpiration stream to the shoots to account for the changes in functioning that are recorded. Many other chemicals moving in the xylem to shoots can also provide shoots with 'information" conceming root functioning, and we must consider the nature of such signals. We should also be concemed with the nature of the information that might be transmitted by a root signal (eg. a measure of soil water status or soil water availability) and the form that such a chemical signal might take (e.g. the concentration of the signal molecule in the transpiration stream or the flux of signal molecules to the site of action in the leaf).
The evaluation of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) in breast cancer: recommendations by an International TILs Working Group 2014.

BACKGROUND The morphological evaluation of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) in breast cancer (BC) is gaining momentum as evidence strengthens for the clinical relevance of this immunological biomarker. Accumulating evidence suggests that the extent of lymphocytic infiltration in tumor tissue can be assessed as a major parameter by evaluation of hematoxylin and eosin (H&E)-stained tumor sections. TILs have been shown to provide prognostic and potentially predictive value, particularly in triple-negative and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2-overexpressing BC. DESIGN A standardized methodology for evaluating TILs is now needed as a prerequisite for integrating this parameter in standard histopathological practice, in a research setting as well as in clinical trials. This article reviews current data on the clinical validity and utility of TILs in BC in an effort to foster better knowledge and insight in this rapidly evolving field, and to develop a standardized methodology for visual assessment on H&E sections, acknowledging the future potential of molecular/multiplexed approaches. CONCLUSIONS The methodology provided is sufficiently detailed to offer a uniformly applied, pragmatic starting point and improve consistency and reproducibility in the measurement of TILs for future studies.
Assessment of psychotropic-like properties of a probiotic formulation (Lactobacillus helveticus R0052 and Bifidobacterium longum R0175) in rats and human subjects

In a previous clinical study, a probiotic formulation (PF) consisting of Lactobacillus helveticus R0052 and Bifidobacterium longum R0175 (PF) decreased stress-induced gastrointestinal discomfort. Emerging evidence of a role for gut microbiota on central nervous system functions therefore suggests that oral intake of probiotics may have beneficial consequences on mood and psychological distress. The aim of the present study was to investigate the anxiolytic-like activity of PF in rats, and its possible effects on anxiety, depression, stress and coping strategies in healthy human volunteers. In the preclinical study, rats were daily administered PF for 2 weeks and subsequently tested in the conditioned defensive burying test, a screening model for anti-anxiety agents. In the clinical trial, volunteers participated in a double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomised parallel group study with PF administered for 30 d and assessed with the Hopkins Symptom Checklist (HSCL-90), the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), the Perceived Stress Scale, the Coping Checklist (CCL) and 24 h urinary free cortisol (UFC). Daily subchronic administration of PF significantly reduced anxiety-like behaviour in rats (P < 0·05) and alleviated psychological distress in volunteers, as measured particularly by the HSCL-90 scale (global severity index, P < 0·05; somatisation, P < 0·05; depression, P < 0·05; and anger–hostility, P < 0·05), the HADS (HADS global score, P < 0·05; and HADS-anxiety, P < 0·06), and by the CCL (problem solving, P < 0·05) and the UFC level (P < 0·05). L. helveticus R0052 and B. longum R0175 taken in combination display anxiolytic-like activity in rats and beneficial psychological effects in healthy human volunteers.
Patient Groups and the Construction of the Patient-Consumer in Britain: An Historical Overview

Abstract This article presents an historical overview of the changing meaning of the patient-consumer, and specifically the role played by patient groups in constructing the patient as consumer. It is argued that patient groups were central to the formation of the patient-consumer, but as health consumerism was taken on by the state, they lost control of this figure. Competing understandings of what it meant to be a patient-consumer developed, a shift that raises further questions about the unity of claims made in the name of the patient-consumer.
Efficacy of Fluoride Varnish and Casein Phosphopeptide-Amorphous Calcium Phosphate for Remineralization of Primary Teeth: A Randomized Clinical Trial

Objective: We aimed to evaluate the efficacy of oral hygiene instruction, fluoride varnish and casein phosphopeptide-amorphous calcium phosphate (CPP-ACP) for remineralizing white spot lesions (WSL), and the effect of these on the dmft index in primary teeth. Subjects and Methods: In this 1-year, randomized clinical trial, 140 children aged 12-36 months with WSL in the anterior maxillary teeth were selected and randomly divided into 4 groups of 35 children each. Group 1 (control) received no preventive intervention. In group 2, there was oral hygiene and dietary counseling. In group 3, there was oral hygiene and the application of fluoride varnish at 4, 8 and 12 months after baseline. In group 4, there was oral hygiene and tooth mousse was applied by the parents twice a day over a 12-month period. At baseline and 4, 8 and 12 months after the intervention, the size of WSL in millimeters and the dmft index were recorded. One hundred and twenty-two children completed the study. Data were analyzed using the repeated-measures ANOVA test. Results: In group 1, the mean percent WSL area and dmft index values had increased significantly at 12 months after baseline (p < 0.001). The interventions led to significant decreases in the size of the WSL; the greatest reduction was in group 4 (63%) followed by group 3 (51%) and group 2 (10%) after 12 months. The smallest increase in the dmft index was in group 4 (0.17), followed by groups 3 (0.3) and 2 (0.42). However, there were no significant differences between the groups (p < 0.001). Conclusions: Oral hygiene along with four fluoride varnish applications or constant CPP-ACP during the 12- month period reduced the size of WSL in the anterior primary teeth and caused a small increase in dmft index values.
The Population Structure of Vibrio cholerae from the Chandigarh Region of Northern India

Background Cholera infection continues to be a threat to global public health. The current cholera pandemic associated with Vibrio cholerae El Tor has now been ongoing for over half a century. Methodology/Principal Findings Thirty-eight V. cholerae El Tor isolates associated with a cholera outbreak in 2009 from the Chandigarh region of India were characterised by a combination of microbiology, molecular typing and whole-genome sequencing. The genomic analysis indicated that two clones of V. cholera circulated in the region and caused disease during this time. These clones fell into two distinct sub-clades that map independently onto wave 3 of the phylogenetic tree of seventh pandemic V. cholerae El Tor. Sequence analyses of the cholera toxin gene, the Vibrio seventh Pandemic Island II (VSPII) and SXT element correlated with this phylogenetic position of the two clades on the El Tor tree. The clade 2 isolates, characterized by a drug-resistant profile and the expression of a distinct cholera toxin, are closely related to the recent V. cholerae isolated elsewhere, including Haiti, but fell on a distinct branch of the tree, showing they were independent outbreaks. Multi-Locus Sequence Typing (MLST) distinguishes two sequence types among the 38 isolates, that did not correspond to the clades defined by whole-genome sequencing. Multi-Locus Variable-length tandem-nucleotide repeat Analysis (MLVA) identified 16 distinct clusters. Conclusions/Significance The use of whole-genome sequencing enabled the identification of two clones of V. cholerae that circulated during the 2009 Chandigarh outbreak. These clones harboured a similar structure of ICEVchHai1 but differed mainly in the structure of CTX phage and VSPII. The limited capacity of MLST and MLVA to discriminate between the clones that circulated in the 2009 Chandigarh outbreak highlights the value of whole-genome sequencing as a route to the identification of further genetic markers to subtype V. cholerae isolates.
Assessment of dehydrothermally cross‐linked collagen membrane for guided bone regeneration around peri-implant dehiscence defects: a randomized single-blinded clinical trial

Purpose The aim of this study was to determine the clinical feasibility of using dehydrothermally cross‐linked collagen membrane (DCM) for bone regeneration around peri-implant dehiscence defects, and compare it with non-cross-linked native collagen membrane (NCM). Methods Dehiscence defects were investigated in twenty-eight patients. Defect width and height were measured by periodontal probe immediately following implant placement (baseline) and 16 weeks afterward. Membrane manipulation and maintenance were clinically assessed by means of the visual analogue scale score at baseline. Changes in horizontal thickness at 1 mm, 2 mm, and 3 mm below the top of the implant platform and the average bone density were assessed by cone-beam computed tomography at 16 weeks. Degradation of membrane was histologically observed in the soft tissue around the implant prior to re-entry surgery. Results Five defect sites (two sites in the NCM group and three sites in the DCM group) showed soft-tissue dehiscence defects and membrane exposure during the early healing period, but there were no symptoms or signs of severe complications during the experimental postoperative period. Significant clinical and radiological improvements were found in all parameters with both types of collagen membrane. Partially resorbed membrane leaflets were only observed histologically in the DCM group. Conclusions These findings suggest that, compared with NCM, DCM has a similar clinical expediency and possesses more stable maintenance properties. Therefore, it could be used effectively in guided bone regeneration around dehiscence-type defects.
Asynchronous State Estimation for Discrete-Time Switched Complex Networks With Communication Constraints

This paper is concerned with the asynchronous state estimation for a class of discrete-time switched complex networks with communication constraints. An asynchronous estimator is designed to overcome the difficulty that each node cannot access to the topology/coupling information. Also, the event-based communication, signal quantization, and the random packet dropout problems are studied due to the limited communication resource. With the help of switched system theory and by resorting to some stochastic system analysis method, a sufficient condition is proposed to guarantee the exponential stability of estimation error system in the mean-square sense and a prescribed $H_{\infty }$ performance level is also ensured. The characterization of the desired estimator gains is derived in terms of the solution to a convex optimization problem. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed design approach is demonstrated by a simulation example.