Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Surgical Management of Craniospinal Axis Solitary Fibrous Tumors: A Single-Institution Case Series and Comprehensive Review of the Literature

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Meningeal solitary fibrous tumors (SFTs) comprise 0.4% of primary central nervous system neoplasms and carry metastatic potential. Disease course and optimal management are largely unknown, and there is currently no literature rigorously describing neurological outcomes in surgically managed SFTs. We present one of the largest craniospinal SFT series, analyze patient outcomes, and extensively review the associated literature. METHODS: All surgically managed SFTs at our institution between January 2005 and March 2023 were retrospectively reviewed. Patient demographics, tumor and radiographic features, treatment, and clinical outcomes were collected. Neurological function was quantified using Frankel grade and Neurologic Assessment in Neuro-Oncology scores. Descriptive statistics, multivariate analysis, log-rank test, and Kaplan–Meier survival analysis were performed. RESULTS: Twenty-one patients satisfied inclusion criteria. Tumor locations included 15 supratentorial, three infratentorial, and three spinal. All patients underwent surgical resection, and 16 (76.2%) underwent radiation. Six (28.6%) patients had tumor recurrence, and three (14.3%) developed metastasis. Younger age and higher postoperative Frankel grade were significantly associated with increased overall survival (OS) (P = .011, P = .002, respectively). All patients symptomatically improved or stabilized after surgery, and Neurologic Assessment in Neuro-Oncology score (P = .001) and functional status significantly improved postoperatively (Karnofsky Performance Status: 65.2 ± 25.2 vs 91.4 ± 13.5, P = .001). Sex, adjuvant radiation, and extent of resection were not significantly associated with OS. CONCLUSION: SFT of the central nervous system is a rare entity with a variable clinical course. Surgical resection was associated with improved postoperative functional and neurological status. Higher postoperative neurological function was significantly associated with OS. Further studies are warranted to validate a standardized treatment algorithm and investigate the efficacy of adjuvant radiation in SFT.
Cardiac implantable electronic device infections

Abstract With increasing rates of device implantation, there is an increased recognition of device infection. We conducted a retrospective observational study in a tertiary care center in Lebanon, with data collected from medical records of patients presenting with cardiac implantable electronic device (CIED) infection from 2000 to 2017 with the purpose of identifying etiologies, risk factors and other parameters, and comparing them to available data from the rest of the world. We identified a total of 22 CIED infections. The most common microbial etiologies, including involvement in polymicrobial infection, were coagulase-negative staphylococci (45.5%) and Staphylococcus aureus (22.7%). Rare cases of Brucella melitensis, Sphingomonas paucimobilis, and Kytococcus schroeteri device infection were seen. Heart failure was seen in 77.3% of patients, hypertension in 68.2%, and chronic kidney disease in 50%. Skin changes were the most common presenting symptoms (86.4%). Antibiotics were given to all patients and all had their devices removed, with 36.4% undergoing new device implantation. This is the first study of CIED infections in Lebanon and the Middle East. Local epidemiology and occupational exposure must be considered while contemplating the microbial etiology of infection. Close monitoring after device implantation is important in preventing device infection that carries high risk of morbidity and mortality.
Susceptibility to coronary artery disease and diabetes is encoded by distinct , tightly linked SNPs in the ANRIL locus on chromosome 9 p

doi:10.1093/hmg/ddm352 17:806-814, 2008. First published 29 Nov 2007; Hum. Mol. Genet. for the PROCARDIS consortium Grazia Franzosi, Gianni Tognoni, Udo Seedorf, Stephan Rust, Per Eriksson, Anders Hamsten, Martin Farrall, Hugh Watkins and Helen M. Broadbent, John F. Peden, Stefan Lorkowski, Anuj Goel, Halit Ongen, Fiona Green, Robert Clarke, Rory Collins, Maria chromosome 9p Susceptibility to coronary artery disease and diabetes is encoded by distinct, tightly linked SNPs in the ANRIL locus on
Polycomb complex mediated epigenetic reprogramming alters TGF‐β signaling via a novel EZH2/miR‐490/TGIF2 axis thereby inducing migration and EMT potential in glioblastomas

Recent advancement in understanding cancer etiology has highlighted epigenetic deregulation as an important phenomenon leading to poor prognosis in glioblastoma (GBM). Polycomb repressive complex 2 (PRC2) is one such important epigenetic modifier reportedly altered in GBM. However, its defined mechanism in tumorigenesis still remains elusive. In present study, we analyzed our in‐house ChIPseq data for H3k27me3 modified miRNAs and identified miR‐490‐3p to be the most common target in GBM with significantly downregulated expression in glioma patients in both TCGA and GBM patient cohort. Our functional analysis delineates for the first time, a central role of PRC2 catalytic unit EZH2 in directly regulating expression of this miRNA and its host gene CHRM2 in GBM. In accordance, cell line treatment with EZH2 siRNA and 5‐azacytidine also confirmed its coregulation by CpG and histone methylation based epigenetic mechanisms. Furthermore, induced overexpression of miR‐490‐3p in GBM cell lines significantly inhibited key hallmarks including cellular proliferation, colony formation and spheroid formation, as well as epithelial‐to‐mesenchymal transition (EMT), with downregulation of multiple EMT transcription factors and promigratory genes (MMP9, CCL5, PIK3R1, ICAM1, ADAM17 and NOTCH1). We also for the first time report TGFBR1 and TGIF2 as two direct downstream effector targets of miR‐490‐3p that are also deregulated in GBM. TGIF2, a novel target, was shown to promote migration and EMT that could partially be rescued by miR‐490‐3p overexpression. Overall, this stands as a first study that provides a direct link between epigenetic modulator EZH2 and oncogenic TGF‐β signaling involving novel miR‐490‐3p/TGIF2/TGFBR1 axis, that being targetable might be promising in developing new therapeutic intervention strategies for GBM.
MicroRNA identification based on sequence and structure alignment

MOTIVATION MicroRNAs (miRNA) are approximately 22 nt long non-coding RNAs that are derived from larger hairpin RNA precursors and play important regulatory roles in both animals and plants. The short length of the miRNA sequences and relatively low conservation of pre-miRNA sequences restrict the conventional sequence-alignment-based methods to finding only relatively close homologs. On the other hand, it has been reported that miRNA genes are more conserved in the secondary structure rather than in primary sequences. Therefore, secondary structural features should be more fully exploited in the homologue search for new miRNA genes. RESULTS In this paper, we present a novel genome-wide computational approach to detect miRNAs in animals based on both sequence and structure alignment. Experiments show this approach has higher sensitivity and comparable specificity than other reported homologue searching methods. We applied this method on Anopheles gambiae and detected 59 new miRNA genes. AVAILABILITY This program is available at http://bioinfo.au. tsinghua.edu. cn/miralign. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION Supplementary information is available at http://bioinfo.au. tsinghua.edu. cn/miralign/supplementary.htm.
Rapid and accurate detection of Helicobacter pylori from biopsy specimens using loop‐mediated isothermal amplification

Loop‐mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) is a promising nucleic acid‐based assay for quick, accurate and cost‐effective diagnosis of many infectious agents. The purpose of this study was to assess the diagnostic value of LAMP for rapid and accurate detection of Helicobacter pylori in biopsy specimens. Patients suffering from one or several gastroduodenal disorders were enrolled in the study. Specificity, sensitivity, and the positive and negative predictive values of LAMP were compared with the gold standard result, which was the assembled result of culture, rapid urease test and polymerase chain reaction. Sensitivity, specificity, and the positive and negative predictive values of LAMP in comparison with the gold standard result were 100%, 30.76%, and 87.67% and 100% respectively [%95 CI]. As the diagnostic value of LAMP is favourable, the method is an optimum technique for diagnosis the presence of H. pylori in different clinical and environmental samples.
Adhesion Mechanisms in Platelet Function

Platelet adhesion is an essential function in response to vascular injury and is generally viewed as the first step during which single platelets bind through specific membrane receptors to cellular and extracellular matrix constituents of the vessel wall and tissues. This response initiates thrombus formation that arrests hemorrhage and permits wound healing. Pathological conditions that cause vascular alterations and blood flow disturbances may turn this beneficial process into a disease mechanism that results in arterial occlusion, most frequently in atherosclerotic vessels of the heart and brain. Besides their relevant role in hemostasis and thrombosis, platelet adhesive properties are central to a variety of pathophysiological processes that extend from inflammation to immune-mediated host defense and pathogenic mechanisms as well as cancer metastasis. All of these activities depend on the ability of platelets to circulate in blood as sentinels of vascular integrity, adhere where alterations are detected, and signal the abnormality to other platelets and blood cells. In this respect, therefore, platelet adhesion to vascular wall structures, to one another (aggregation), or to other blood cells, represent different aspects of the same fundamental biological process. Detailed studies by many investigators over the past several years have been aimed to dissect the complexity of these functions, and the results obtained now permit an attempt to integrate all the available information into a picture that highlights the balanced diversity and synergy of distinct platelet adhesive interactions. (Circ Res. 2007;100:1673-1685.)
IrisNet: An Architecture for a Worldwide Sensor Web

We discuss about the IrisNet (Internet-scale resource-intensive sensor network services) project at Intel Research, we design an architecture and build a system that enable easy deployment of such wide-area sensing services. We aim to provide the missing software components for realizing a worldwide sensor Web. Wide-area architectures for pervasive sensing enable a new generation of powerful distributed sensing services. A worldwide sensor Web, in which users can query, as a single unit, vast quantities of data from thousands or even millions of widely distributed, heterogeneous sensors. Internet-connected PCs that source sensor feeds and cooperate to answer users' queries will form the global sensor Web's backbone. Developers of wide-area sensing services (service authors) deploy the services on this distributed infrastructure.
Representing Africa in Children's Literature: Old and New Ways of Seeing

Introduction: Children's Literature and Africa Section 1: Image-making and Children's Books Chapter 1 Images of West Africa in Children's Books: Replacing Old Stereotypes with New Ones? Chapter 2 Illustrations and the Messages they convey: African Culture in Picture Books. Chapter 3 The Typical West African Village Stories. Section 2: Growing Up African and Female in Children's Books Chapter 4 Religion and Childhood in Two African Communities: Ogot's "The Rain Came" and Adichie's Purple Hibiscus. Chapter 5 Revising Traditional Cultural Practices in Two Picture Book Versions of African Folktales. Chapter 6 African Girls' Sexuality in Selected Fiction for Young Adults Chapter 7 Individual Healing vs. Communal Healing: Three African Females' Attempts at Constructing Unique Identities. Section 3: Reading African Cultural Survival in Children's Books Chapter 8 Reading Images of Resistance in Tom Feelings' The Middle Passage. Chapter 9 African Sites of Memory in Diasporic Children's Literature. Afterword Chapter 10 When Illustrations by Africans Lack Visual Appeal, How Should African Readers React? Chapter 11 Authenticity, Hybridity and Literature about African Children
Hierarchical Matching Network for Heterogeneous Entity Resolution

Entity resolution (ER) aims to identify data records referring to the same real-world entity. Most existing ER approaches rely on the assumption that the entity records to be resolved are homogeneous, i.e., their attributes are aligned. Unfortunately, entities in real-world datasets are often heterogeneous, usually coming from different sources and being represented using different attributes. Furthermore, the entities’ attribute values may be redundant, noisy, missing, misplaced, or misspelled—we refer to it as the dirty data problem. To resolve the above problems, this paper proposes an end-to-end hierarchical matching network (HierMatcher) for entity resolution, which can jointly match entities in three levels—token, attribute, and entity. At the token level, a cross-attribute token alignment and comparison layer is designed to adaptively compare heterogeneous entities. At the attribute level, an attribute-aware attention mechanism is proposed to denoise dirty attribute values. Finally, the entity level matching layer effectively aggregates all matching evidence for the final ER decisions. Experimental results show that our method significantly outperforms previous ER methods on homogeneous, heterogeneous and dirty datasets.
Mortality in First 5 Years in Infants With Functional Single Ventricle Born in Texas, 1996 to 2003

Background— Infants with functional single ventricle have a high risk of death during the early years of life. Studies have reported improvement in postoperative survival, but they do not include preoperative deaths or those occurring before transfer. The purpose of this population-based study was to estimate 5-year survival in infants with functional single ventricle, to define factors associated with survival, and to estimate improvement in outcome. Methods and Results— Patients with hypoplastic left heart syndrome, pulmonary atresia intact ventricular septum, single ventricle, and tricuspid atresia born in 1996 to 2003 were identified from the Texas Birth Defects Registry and linked to state and national birth and death vital records. We examined the effects of defect type, birth era, birth weight, gestational age, maternal race/ethnicity, extracardiac anomalies, sex, and maternal age and education on survival. Five-year survival varied by defect type: hypoplastic left heart syndrome, 38.0% (95% confidence interval, 32.6 to 43.5); single ventricle, 56.1% (95% confidence interval, 49.9 to 61.7); pulmonary atresia intact ventricular septum, 55.7% (95% confidence interval, 45.8 to 64.4); and tricuspid atresia, 74.6% (95% confidence interval, 62.4 to 83.4). The presence of extracardiac defects increased the adjusted risk of death by 84%. Non-Hispanic blacks had an adjusted risk of death that was 41% higher than that for non-Hispanic whites, and Hispanics had a 26% higher risk. Patients born in 2001 to 2003 had a 47% lower risk than those born in 1996 to 2000. Conclusions— This population-based study demonstrates significant improvement in overall 5-year survival, particularly in cases of hypoplastic left heart syndrome and single ventricle. Additional studies are needed to determine the factors causing racial/ethnic and regional differences in outcome.
A Composite Likelihood Method for the Analysis of Multivariate Survival Data: An Application to a PBDE Study

When dealing with multivariate survival data, featuring the association structure is a key difference from the univariate survival analysis. In this paper, we explore to use the composite likelihood framework to handle multivariate survival data, where only the lower dimensional survival distributions need to be specified. The development allows us to use available modeling schemes for bivariate survival data to characterize association structures of correlated survival times. The inference procedure is based on the pseudolikelihood which is the product of the lower dimensional bivariate distributions. The proposed estimation procedure is assessed through simulation studies. As a genuine application, we apply the composite likelihood inference procedure to analyze the data from the polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) study, where four types of PBDE congeners are available. The associations among the four PBDE congeners, and the relationships between the covariates and the PBDE congeners are of interest. The result shows that there is strong association among the concentrations of the four PBDE congeners, and statistically significant predictors on the concentrations of the four PBDE congeners are identified.
Cooperative Spectrum Sensing for Cognitive Radios Using Distributed Q-Learning

In cognitive radios systems, the sparse assigned frequency bands are opened to secondary users. We consider the sensing of the frequency spectrum for cognitive radios, based on energy detection. It has been shown that the sensing reliability can be improved by using several cooperating cognitive radios that exchange their individual sensing information to a coordinator node. The coordinator node combines the received information in order to make a decision about the primary network presence. In this paper, we propose a decentralized Q-learning algorithm to share the sensing time among the cognitive radios in a way that maximize the throughputs of the radios. Numerical results show the convergence of the proposed algorithm and allow to discuss the exploration strategy, the choice of the cost function and the frequency of execution of the algorithm.
Differences in linguistic and psychological characteristics between suicide notes and diaries

Abstract The objective of this study was to explore linguistic and psychological differences in suicide notes and the diaries of non-suicidal people. Fifty-six suicide notes and 56 personal diary entries were analyzed to provide basic descriptive data on linguistic and psychological variables using the Korean Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count Program. The results revealed that the two groups noticeably differed—suicide notes had more words or phrases per sentence; fewer modifiers, numerals, and affixes/suffixes associated with logically elaborated sentences; and more first- and second-person pronouns than the diaries of non-suicidal individuals. Suicide notes also used fewer positive words and future tense verbs, as well as more negative, sadness/depression-related words. Inter-correlations between the linguistic and psychological domains revealed some heterogeneity between the groups. Further research is needed on the practical applications of this study.
Expression of SREBP-1c Requires SREBP-2-mediated Generation of a Sterol Ligand for LXR in Livers of Mice

The synthesis of cholesterol and fatty acids (FA) in the liver is independently regulated by SREBP-2 and SREBP-1c, respectively. Here, we genetically deleted Srebf-2 from hepatocytes and confirmed that SREBP-2 regulates all genes involved in cholesterol biosynthesis, the LDL receptor, and PCSK9; a secreted protein that degrades LDL receptors in the liver. Surprisingly, we found that elimination of Srebf-2 in hepatocytes of mice also markedly reduced SREBP-1c and the expression of all genes involved in FA and triglyceride synthesis that are normally regulated by SREBP-1c. The nuclear receptor LXR is necessary for Srebf-1c transcription. The deletion of Srebf-2 and subsequent lower sterol synthesis in hepatocytes eliminated the production of an endogenous sterol ligand required for LXR activity and SREBP-1c expression. These studies demonstrate that cholesterol and FA synthesis in hepatocytes are coupled and that flux through the cholesterol biosynthetic pathway is required for the maximal SREBP-1c expression and high rates of FA synthesis. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.7554/eLife.25015. 001
Calibration of the paediatric index of mortality in UK paediatric intensive care units

AIM To test a paediatric intensive care mortality prediction model for UK use. METHOD Prospective collection of data from consecutive admissions to five UK paediatric intensive care units (PICUs), representing a broad cross section of paediatric intensive care activity. A total of 7253 admissions were analysed using tests of the discrimination and calibration of the logistic regression equation. RESULTS The model discriminated and calibrated well. The area under the ROC plot was 0.84 (95% CI 0.819 to 0.853). The standardised mortality ratio was 0.87 (95% CI 0.81 to 0.94). There was remarkable concordance in the performance of the paediatric index of mortality (PIM) within each PICU, and in the performance of the PICUs as assessed by PIM. Variation in the proportion of admissions that were ventilated or transported from another hospital did not affect the results. CONCLUSION We recommend that UK PICUs use PIM for their routine audit needs. PIM is not affected by the standard of therapy after admission to PICU, the information needed to calculate PIM is easy to collect, and the model is free.
Differences of Psychological and Physiological Responses between Mono- and Multi-sensory Information on Clothing Pressure Sensation

: The purpose of our study is to investigate the effect of clothing pressure on physiological and psychological responses in order to create a method for evaluation of clothing comfort. We get much information through visual sensation, so studies on the influences of visual information on clothing pressure sensation is very important. In this paper, we have measured physiological and psychological responses in the clothing pressure sensation under 3 visual conditions; Condition 1 was that the subjects had their eyes open and looked forward, Condition 2 was that the subjects looked at themselves in a mirror, and Condition 3 was that the subjects without a waist belt look at other subjects who wore a fastened waist belt. We concluded that it is important to consider the effects of visual information as well as the effect of clothing pressure sensation in the evaluation of clothing comfort sensation.
Summer Temperatures of Late Eocene to Early Oligocene Freshwaters: a Multi-proxy Approach

The marine foraminiferal isotope record displays a positive δ18O shift early in the Oligocene, which has been identified as the onset of the Antarctic Oi-1 glaciation. Reported here are the first oxygen isotope–derived summer paleotemperatures for continental freshwater in the Northern Hemisphere (Hampshire Basin, Isle of Wight, UK) leading up to and across this event. These paleotemperatures are derived from multiple paleoproxies (rodent tooth enamel, gastropod shells, charophyte gyrogonites, and fish otoliths) and are independent of freshwater evaporation effects and changes in ice volume. We conclude that a fluctuating mesothermal climate existed, but that there was no significant decrease in summer temperatures across the Oi-1 glaciation. This result is concordant with several other studies in suggesting that the majority of the isotopic shift in the marine realm across the Oi-1 glaciation is linked to changes in Antarctic ice volume and not to global temperature change. Our new approach has allowed us to derive numerical values for summer temperatures as well as to reconstruct relative temperature change across this key interval of the Eocene-Oligocene transition.