Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Surgery for idiopathic intracranial hypertension.

Idiopathic intracranial hypertension (IIH), a condition in which the intracranial pressure rises without explanation, is usually successfully treated with weight reduction or medications designed to reduce intracranial pressure. However, there are instances when surgical intervention, consisting usually of lumboperitoneal shunt (LPS), ventriculoperitoneal shunt (VPS), or optic nerve sheath fenestration (ONSF), is indicated. Dural venous sinus stenting has also been successfully used in some patients (1–7). In this issue of the Journal of Neuro-Ophthalmology, Wilkes and Siatkowski (8) report a patient with IIH whose vision deteriorated after medical therapy and ONSF and perhaps even after VPS. The authors caution that patients who appear to have further visual loss after ONSF should be considered promptly for VPS. Also in this issue, Gellrich et al (9) report experimental evidence that ONSF may cause a significant reduction in the number and size of retinal ganglion cells and amacrine cells in rats. On that basis, they caution clinicians against using ONSF. Yet there is extensive anecdotal evidence that ONSF and shunt procedures seem to arrest and sometimes even reverse optic neuropathy in IIH. Whether one type of procedure is more effective than the other is unknown, as no trial has ever compared them. I will summarize the evidence, such as it is.
In vitro Evaluation of the Effect of Combination of Hydrophilic and Hydrophobic Polymers on Controlled Release Zidovudine Matrix Tablets

The aim of the present study was to prepare and characterize controlled-release matrix tablets of zidovudine using hydrophilic HPMC K4 M or Carbopol 934 alone or in combination with hydrophobic ethyl cellulose. Release kinetics was evaluated by using USP XXIV dissolution apparatus No.2 (paddle) type. Scanning electron microscopy was used to visualize the effect of dissolution medium on matrix tablet surface. The in vitro results of controlled – release zidovudine tablets were compared with conventional marketed tablet Zidovir. The in vitro drug release study revealed that HPMC K4 M or Carbopol 934 preparation was able to sustain the drug release near to 6 hours. Combining HPMC K4 M or Carbopol 934 with ethyl cellulose sustained the drug release for nearly 12 h. The in vitro evaluation showed that the drug release may be by diffusion along with erosion. Results suggest that the developed controlled-release tablets of zidovudine could perform therapeutically better than marketed dosage forms, leading to improve efficacy, controlling the release and better patient compliance.
An assistive system based on ultrasonic sensors for brain-controlled wheelchair to avoid obstacles

An assistive obstacle avoidance method based on ultrasonic sensor is proposed to solve the problem of safe navigation of a brain-controlled wheelchair. A multi-channel ultrasonic sensor-based obstacle avoidance system including a feedback interface is designed. With the help of the prompt message provided by the feedback interface, the user may make an effective decision to avoid the obstacle. Once the wheelchair can't avoid obstacle successfully based on the user's EEG control signal, the obstacle avoidance system will send an instruction to stop the wheelchair immediately. In this way, the collision with an obstacle can be avoided and the safety of the wheelchair and its user can be ensured.
The results of Phase III clinical trials with telaprevir and boceprevir presented at the Liver Meeting 2010: a new standard of care for hepatitis C virus genotype 1 infection, but with issues still pending.

a a r t u u The Liver Meeting 2010 was held in Boston, Massachusetts, from October 29 to November 2, 2010. At his meeting, the results of Phase III trials with 2 hepaitis C virus (HCV) protease inhibitors, telaprevir and oceprevir, in combination with pegylated interferon IFN)and ribavirin in both treatment-naïve patients nd nonresponders to a first course of pegylated IFNand ribavirin, were presented to a large audience and received extensive coverage by the media. Two Phase III trials have been performed with boceprevir, including SPRINT-2 in treatment-naïve patients and RESPOND-2 in treatment-experienced patients.1,2 Three Phase III trils have been performed with telaprevir, including DVANCE and ILLUMINATE in treatment-naïve patients,3,4 and REALIZE in nonresponder patients. Results from the latter trial were not presented at The Liver Meeting, but a press release was issued a few weeks before the meeting reporting selected, non–peer-reviewed or otherwise filtered results (available: http://investors.vrtx.com/releasedetail. cfm? ReleaseID 505239). The results of these 5 trials raise hope that better cure rates will be achieved in patients infected with HCV genotype 1 when these combinations reach the market. They also raise a number of questions and several concerns. Here, the results of Phase III trials presented at The Liver Meeting will be summarized and the introduction of these new therapies into current clinical practice as well as a number of unresolved issues raised by these results will be discussed.
Back to School: Federal Student Aid Policy and Adult College Enrollment

Much of the research examining the question of how federal financial aid affects decisions to enroll in college has focused on the behavior of students in the relatively narrow range immediately following high school graduation, leaving unanswered the question of how changes in the availability of aid affect the behavior of older students. This analysis examines the question of how changes in the means-tested federal Pell grant program affects enrollment decisions of potential students in their twenties and thirties. Our results indicate sizable effects of the introduction of the Pell grant program on college enrollment decisions for older students.
Mechanisms of Regulating Cell Topology in Proliferating Epithelia: Impact of Division Plane, Mechanical Forces, and Cell Memory

Regulation of cell growth and cell division has a fundamental role in tissue formation, organ development, and cancer progression. Remarkable similarities in the topological distributions were found in a variety of proliferating epithelia in both animals and plants. At the same time, there are species with significantly varied frequency of hexagonal cells. Moreover, local topology has been shown to be disturbed on the boundary between proliferating and quiescent cells, where cells have fewer sides than natural proliferating epithelia. The mechanisms of regulating these topological changes remain poorly understood. In this study, we use a mechanical model to examine the effects of orientation of division plane, differential proliferation, and mechanical forces on animal epithelial cells. We find that regardless of orientation of division plane, our model can reproduce the commonly observed topological distributions of cells in natural proliferating animal epithelia with the consideration of cell rearrangements. In addition, with different schemes of division plane, we are able to generate different frequency of hexagonal cells, which is consistent with experimental observations. In proliferating cells interfacing quiescent cells, our results show that differential proliferation alone is insufficient to reproduce the local changes in cell topology. Rather, increased tension on the boundary, in conjunction with differential proliferation, can reproduce the observed topological changes. We conclude that both division plane orientation and mechanical forces play important roles in cell topology in animal proliferating epithelia. Moreover, cell memory is also essential for generating specific topological distributions.
Design and preliminary performance of a readout ASIC for CZT based high resolution PET

Position emission tomography based brain imaging of small mice requires detection systems with very high spatial resolution, which is conditioned by pixel size. Cutting and polishing scintillating crystals into small pixels is not straightforward. CZT detectors can operate at room temperature, and their manufacturing processes permit detectors with small pixel sizes. The high charge yield favors an improvement in energy resolution when compared with scintillating crystals.
Comparative study of the corrosion behavior of peripheral stents in an accelerated corrosion model: experimental in vitro study of 28 metallic vascular endoprostheses.

PURPOSE Clinical cases of stent-fractures show that corrosion behavior might play a role in these fractures. Implanted in vivo, especially in combination with other implanted foreign materials, these metallic products are exposed to special conditions, which can cause a process of corrosion. Here, we aimed to test the corrosion potential of stents made of different materials in an in vitro setting. METHODS A total of 28 peripheral stents of different materials (nitinol, cobalt-chromium-nickel, tantalum, V4A) and surface treatments (electropolish, mechanical polish, no polish) were tested in vitro. Corrosion was accelerated by applying a constant voltage of 3.5 V and amperage of 1.16 mA in 0.9% NaCl. RESULTS Nitinol stents showed the lowest susceptibility to corrosion and the longest period without damage. The Memotherm II® (BARD Angiomed®) was the only stent that showed neither macroscopic nor microscopic damages. The worst performing material was cobalt-chromium-nickel, which showed corrosion damages about ten times earlier compared to nitinol. Considering the reasons for termination of the test, nitinol stents primarily showed length deficits, while V4A and tantalum stents showed fractures. Cobalt-chromium-nickel stents had multiple fractures or a complete lysis in equal proportions. When placed in direct contact, nitinol stents showed best corrosion resistance, regardless of what material they were combined with. In terms of polishing treatments, electropolished stents performed the best, mechanical-polished stents and those without polishing treatment followed. CONCLUSION The analysis of corrosion behavior may be useful to select the right stent fulfilling the individual needs of the patient within a large number of different stents.
Estimating interference in the QPRP for subtopic retrieval

The Quantum Probability Ranking Principle (QPRP) has been recently proposed, and accounts for interdependent document relevance when ranking. However, to be instantiated, the QPRP requires a method to approximate the "interference" between two documents. In this poster, we empirically evaluate a number of different methods of approximation on two TREC test collections for subtopic retrieval. It is shown that these approximations can lead to significantly better retrieval performance over the state of the art.
Effects of Using Case-Study Method in Social Studies on Students' Attitudes Towards Environment

This study has aimed to inquired whether there was a significant difference between academic achievement and attitudes of 6th grade students who learned “The Resources of Our Country” unit of social studies through case studies and students who learned this unit with teaching based on existing unit. Besides it was aimed to present thoughts and feelings of the students about the case study method aided learningteaching process. Pretest-posttest control group design was used in this study and 30 students selected as experimental group while 30 students formed the control group who were from 6th grade from a primary school in 2008-2009 teaching year. During the study, pre-achievement test and pre-attitude scale were applied to the experimental and control group initially and the implementation process was began after it. In this process it was determined that there weren’t any significant difference groups in regards to pre-test and pre-attitude tests scores.
National and sub-national prevalence, trend, and burden of cardiometabolic risk factors in Iranian children and adolescents, 1990 - 2013.

BACKGROUND Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and their risk factors are a major health threat at the global level, notably for developing countries. The tracking of cardiometabolic risk factors from childhood to adulthood is well documented. Therefore, more attention needs to be directed at primordial and primary prevention of NCDs. Given the high prevalence of NCDs and their risk factors in Iranian population, a study was designed to determine the attributable burden of cardiometabolic risk factors in Iranian pediatric population during past decades. METHODS This paper explains the definitions, organization, data sources, methods of data gathering or generating, data analyses, and the trend analysis of the study. A national expert working group addressed unmet needs and offered consultations on the selection of risk factors and the practical definition of disease. In the later stages, during the course of the study, they will supervise the statistical modeling methods, the interpretation of results, and the publication strategy. Also an international expert advisory group will collaborate with the project team. CONCLUSION The findings of this study could provide basic information regarding NCD related risk factors, and their burden and trends in children, which is necessary for health policy decisions to reduce the burden of disease and to plan cost-effective preventive strategies.
Investigation of Multiple Imputation in Low-Quality Questionnaire Data

The performance of multiple imputation in questionnaire data has been studied in various simulation studies. However, in practice, questionnaire data are usually more complex than simulated data. For example, items may be counterindicative or may have unacceptably low factor loadings on every subscale, or completely missing subscales may complicate computations. In this article, it was studied how well multiple imputation recovered the results of several psychometrically important statistics in a data set with such properties. Analysis of this data set revealed that multiple imputation was able to recover the results of these analyses well. Also, a simulation study showed that multiple imputation produced small bias in these statistics for simulated data sets with the same properties.
Acquisition of factor H by a novel surface protein on group B Streptococcus promotes complement degradation

Binding of the host complement regulator, factor H (FH), by some pathogenic microbes constitutes an important virulence mechanism, whereby complement is broken down to help microbes survive in the host. Although it has been hypothesized for the past two decades that GBS type III binds FH via sialic acid present on its capsule, neither the binding of FH to GBS has been demonstrated nor the mechanism of interaction identified. We observed that FH bound to both wild‐type and capsule or sialic acid‐deficient GBS that were used as negative controls. Wild‐type and acapsular GBS were incubated with serum or pure FH degraded almost 90% of C3b, suggesting that the GBS‐bound FH maintained cofactor activity. In addition, dot‐blot analysis showed ̃5–10% of C5 and C9 formation, as compared to an Escherichia coli control, suggesting breakdown at the C3b level. Protease treatment of the bacteria completely abolished binding of FH. Using overlay assays and mass spectroscopic analysis, we identified the FH receptor as the streptococcal histidine triad (SHT) surface protein. The ability of binding FH to SHT was further confirmed by using recombinant SHT. This report describes the identification of the SHT as an FH‐binding protein on the surface of GBS type III, revealing a novel mechanism by which the bacterium acquires FH to evade complement opsonization. —Maruvada, R. , Prasadarao, N. V. , Rubens, C. E. Acquisition of factor H by a novel surface protein on group B Streptococcus promotes complement degradation. FASEB J. 23, 3967–3977 (2009). www.fasebj. org
The Relative Influence of the Family, Peer Group, and School in the Development of Political Efficacy

~ INCREASING amount of research is being devoted to the respective roles of the family, school, and peer group in the political socialization process. ' This research, however, has confined itself almost exclusively to single agency analysis. We have generally avoided the larger question of the relative importance of each of these agencies. Attempts to map the political development of individuals must inevitably become involved with the relative contribution of different social institutions throughout the life cycle. It is this question as much as any other which represents the substantive and methodological frontier of political socialization research. Another question given little consideration in the socialization literature is that the influence of an agency may be concentrated within a particular level of the dependent variable. That is, the family or school could play an important role in moving children from low to medium efficacy while the peer group's influence is concentrated in the medium-to-high efficacy range. In order to gain some insight into both problems we will utilize a causal modeling technique (1) to estimate the relative role of the family, peer group, and school in the development of political efficacy, and (2) to determine how the different agencies affect each level of the dependent variable. While these questions are of sufficient theoretical interest to be amenable to empirical testing in any political culture in which the agencies exist, the primary source of data for this study is a national sample of 1,287 students in government aided secondary schools in Jamaica, W.I. 2
Effect of Extraction Solvent on Tannin-Formaldehyde Adhesives for Plywood Production

Pine bark is a good source of natural polyphenolic compounds for wood adhesives. The objective of this study was to obtain the most suitable solvent for extracting pine tannins in the preparation of tannin-formaldehyde plywood adhesives. Aqueous acetone, aqueous ethanol, aqueous NaOH and water as solvents were used to obtain crude tannins from pine bark. The tannin content, sugar content and Stiasny number of the extracts were determined. Using the extracts from the solvent extractions, synthesis of tannin-formaldehyde resin was carried out. Plywood panels were made using the synthesized resins and the quality of the resins in plywood application determined. The quality of tannin-formaldehyde resins produced from the tannins were generally in close agreement with the chemical characteristics of the extracts obtained from the various solvent extractions. The aqueous NaOH extraction although gave very high tannin yield (16.1%), its associated high sugar content (33.8%) and very low Stiasny number (49) resulted in poor quality resin. Similarly, although aqueous extraction gave a very high Stiasny number (91), its low tannin yield (8.7%) might not be of commercial interest. The extraction process that gave a high tannin yield (12.9%) and a very good Stiasny number (81.5) with a corresponding good quality resin (shear strength = 1.9 MPa, 22% delamination) was found for 60% aqueous ethanol extraction.
Activation of Metabotropic Glutamate Receptor 5 Has Direct Excitatory Effects and Potentiates NMDA Receptor Currents in Neurons of the Subthalamic Nucleus

The subthalamic nucleus (STN) is a key nucleus in the basal ganglia motor circuit that provides the major glutamatergic excitatory input to the basal ganglia output nuclei. The STN plays an important role in normal motor function, as well as in pathological conditions such as Parkinson's disease (PD) and related disorders. Development of a complete understanding of the roles of the STN in motor control and the pathophysiological changes in STN that underlie PD will require a detailed understanding of the mechanisms involved in regulation of excitability of STN neurons. Here, we report that activation of group I metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluRs) induces a direct excitation of STN neurons that is characterized by depolarization, increased firing frequency, and increased burst-firing activity. In addition, activation of group I mGluRs induces a selective potentiation of NMDA-evoked currents. Immunohistochemical studies at the light and electron microscopic levels indicate that both subtypes of group I mGluRs (mGluR1a and mGluR5) are localized postsynaptically in the dendrites of STN neurons. Interestingly, pharmacological studies suggest that each of the mGluR-mediated effects is attributable to activation of mGluR5, not mGluR1, despite the presence of both subtypes in STN neurons. These results suggest that mGluR5 may play an important role in the net excitatory drive to the STN from glutamatergic afferents. Furthermore, these studies raise the exciting possibility that selective ligands for mGluR5 may provide a novel approach for the treatment of a variety of movement disorders that involve changes in STN activity.
Racism in Central and Eastern Europe and beyond: origins, responses, strategies

In recent years, the continent-wide debate about racism, racial discrimination, and ethnic intolerance in Europe has grown wider, deeper and more inclusive. This report reflects, and is offered as a contribution to, this continuing evolution. Part one is a synthesis, which seeks to gather the principal strands of thought and place the meeting in a broader context. Part two consists of transcriptions of the presentations and portions of the more informal exchanges. Part three gives the texts of two recent and significant legal developments at European level, and a list of participants is also included.
Examining Corpus Of 2. 3. and 4. Grades’ Turkish Language Texbooks In Terms Of Vocabulary Teaching

Corpus is a body of written or spoken language materials upon which a linguistic analysis is based. Due to the nature of language teaching textbooks used in language courses have literary and informational content. For both content, the student must have a adequate vocabulary, and comprehension strategies. Hence this study examined primary 2, 3 and 4. grades Turkish textbooks used in primary schools by looking by the lenses of systematic teaching of vocabulary and new words. The study has been designed in the form of case study research. Case studies require in-depth analysis of the current situation. The texts in Turkish language textbooks published by private publishers were converted into Microsoft Office Word files then pre analyzed with Textmaster program. The word list obtained from this analysis was put into Microsoft Office Excel for sorting out private names and numbers. Then it is analyzed again in Textmaster program with working of affixes and root words were founded and listed. Even if a arise in numbers of different words by grades, the numbers of those words decreases in total because of repeated words in two or more grades. The books examined in the study are insufficient in encountering students with new words, are also inadequate in quantity of root words. Some suggestions are given for developing vocabulary skills and teaching new words.