Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Interaction of a novel form of Pseudomonas aeruginosa alkaline protease (aeruginolysin) with interleukin-6 and interleukin-8

Abstract Pseudomonas aeruginosa secretes several proteases considered as important virulence factors. In this report we present data indicating that two key proinflammatory cytokines, interleukin-6 (IL-6) and IL-8, are substrates for pseudolysin (elastase) and aeruginolysin (alkaline protease). While IL-6 was totally digested by both proteases, a long form of IL-8 (IL-8-77) was first rapidly processed into a 72-residue form with enhanced chemokine activity, then very slowly degraded. Interestingly, aeruginolysin bearing two additional residues at the N-terminus (Leu-Lys-aeruginolysin) in the absence of calcium degraded both IL-6 and IL-8-72 far more efficiently than the shorter form of the enzyme.
The Endocrine Society guidelines: when the confidence cart goes before the evidence horse.

CONTEXT In 2005, the Endocrine Society (TES) adopted the GRADE system of developing clinical practice guidelines. Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluation working group guidance suggests that strong recommendations based on low or very low (L/VL) confidence may often be inappropriate, and has offered a taxonomy of paradigmatic situations in which strong recommendations based on L/VL confidence estimates may be appropriate. OBJECTIVE We sought to characterize strong recommendations of TES based on L/VL confidence evidence. DATA SOURCES AND EXTRACTION We identified all strong recommendations based on L/VL confidence evidence published in TES guidelines between 2005 and 2011. We identified those consistent with one of the paradigmatic situations in the taxonomy. DATA SYNTHESIS Two hundred six of 357 (58%) of the recommendations of TES were strong; of these, 121 (59%) were based on L/VL confidence evidence. Of these 121, 35 (29%) were consistent with one of the paradigmatic situations. The most common situation (13, 11%) was of a strong recommendation against the intervention because of low confidence evidence for benefit and high confidence evidence for harm. The remaining 86 (71%) comprised 43 (36%) "best practice" statements for which sensible alternatives do not exist; 5 (4%) in which recommendations were for "additional research"; 5 (4%) in which greater confidence in the estimates was warranted; and 33 (27%) for which we could not find a compelling explanation for the incongruence. CONCLUSIONS Guideline panels should beware of formulating strong recommendations when confidence in estimates is low. Our taxonomy when such recommendations are appropriate may be helpful.
Vertical distribution of optically active substances (OAS) in the coastal sea off Indian Sundarban during post monsoon

ABSTRACT Optically active substances (i.e. chromophoric dissolved organic matter (CDOM), total suspended matter (TSM), chlorophyll-a (Chl-a)) and other physico-chemical parameters were measured in the coastal sea off Indian Sundarban during October 2016–January 2017. The present study, firstly, portrayed the vertical distribution of optically active substances (OAS) in the study zone. The salinity ranged from 18.2–32.1 and 18.3–30.1 in the surface water as well as bottom water respectively. Higher values of CDOM were observed near the Hugli River confluence in both surface and bottom water and a gradual decrease towards the offshore was observed except in January. The aCDOM(440) varied between 0.1031–0.4321 m−1 and 0.0265–0.4221 m−1 in the surface water and bottom water, respectively, during the study period. Moreover, CDOM decreased towards the bottom of the water column in all three stations throughout the study periods except in October in the inshore sampling station (A1). CDOM also showed a significant temporal variation in the inshore in parity with the dynamics of TSM. Average Chl-a concentration was higher (<2 mg m−3) in the surface water than the bottom water (<1 mg m−3). During January, when favourable conditions for photosynthetic activity prevailed at the water surface, an increase in Chl-a was observed in the offshore along with a concurrent mild increase in CDOM but there was no similar trend in the bottom water. Overall, vertical distribution of OAS variability in this study area is principally dominated by the freshwater flow of the Hugli River.
Liquordiagnostik bei erregerbedingten neurologischen Erkrankungen Cerebrospinal Fluid Diagnostics for Neuroinfectious Diseases

Cerebrospinal fluid analysis is of prime impor-tance to establish an early diagnosis of central nervous system infections. Beside the basic diagnostics containing CSF white cell count, lactate concentration and protein analysis, the targeted search for agents of bacterial, viral or fungal CNS infectious diseases is essential. Decisive methods are bacterial and fungal staining techniques, mi-crobiological culture methods, nucleic acid am-plification and antigen detection methods or indirect identification of pathogens by serologic testings including the determination of patho-gen-specific intrathecal immunoglobulin synthesis. Besides imparting basic principles of cerebrospinal fluid analysis, this article focuses on special aspects of detection of infectious agents. Well-directed questions and a close communica-tion between clinician and laboratory allow optimal diagnostic analysis for successful confirma-tion of the diagnosis and for optimal treatment of the patient.
Defibrillation delivered during the upstroke phase of manual chest compression improves shock success*

Objective:The current standard of manual chest compression during cardiopulmonary resuscitation requires pauses for rhythm analysis and shock delivery. However, interruptions of chest compression greatly decrease the likelihood of successful defibrillations, and significantly better outcomes are reported if this interruption is avoided. We therefore undertook a prospective randomized controlled animal study in an electrically induced ventricular fibrillation pig model to assess the effects of timing of defibrillation on the manual chest compression cycle on the defibrillation threshold. Design:Prospective, randomized, controlled animal study. Setting:University-affiliated research laboratory. Subjects:Yorkshire-X domestic pigs (Sus scrofa). Interventions:In eight domestic male pigs weighing between 24 and 31 kg, ventricular fibrillation was electrically induced and untreated for 10 secs. Manual chest compression was then performed and continued for 25 secs with the protection of an isolation blanket. The depth and frequency of chest compressions were guided by a cardiopulmonary resuscitation prompter. Animals were randomized to receive a biphasic electrical shock in five different compression phases with a predetermined energy setting. A control phase was chosen at a constant 2 secs after discontinued chest compression. A grouped up–down defibrillation threshold testing protocol was used to compare the success rate at different coupling phases. After a recovery interval of 4 mins, the sequence was repeated for a total of 60 test shocks for each animal. Measurements and Main Results:No difference in coronary perfusion pressure before delivering of the shock was observed among the six study phases. The defibrillation success rate, however, was significantly higher when shocks were delivered in the upstroke phase of manual chest compression. Conclusion:Defibrillation efficacy is maximal when electrical shock is delivered during the upstroke phase of manual chest compression.
Reputation Sells -Compensation Payments in the Political Sphere

Bargaining between different groups, which differ in objectives, preferences and interests, is at the core of political decision-making. Yet, it is logical to presume that negotiations involving more parties will lead to inertia and a slow pace in the legislative process. According to this hypothesis, political systems involving many veto-players such as federal countries or international organisations must be prone to a low activity. Oddly enough, a closer look on the European Unions‟ and Germany‟s legislation activity level shows that these are fairly high, although in both systems exist a considerably amount of opportunities to block or delay reforms. Decision-making in this framework is mostly brought about by side-payments, which are usually not reported to the public. This poses a question. If compensation payments are able to fuel the decision process by balancing interest and help to avoid reform deadlocks why are they frequently disguised? This paper addresses this question by suggesting that politicians do avoid openly paid compensation payments out of concerns over their reputation and that decision-making is rather a strategically action than showing majorities for a certain topic.
Estimating DoA From Radio Frequency RSSI Measurements Using Multi-Element Femtocell Configuration

In this paper, a method to estimate the direction of arrival (DoA) of a radio signal using a multi-element antenna based femtocell device is presented. The femtocell estimates the DoA by identifying the peak of received signal strength indicator (RSSI) measurement using multi-element microstrip antenna. This paper is a modified version of a previously reported work titled as estimation of DoA from radio frequency RSSI measurements using an actuator reflector. In long term evaluation, ultradense deployment of the femtocell device is mainly supported by the intelligent beam forming that translates directly to the constraint of DoA estimation. Use of multi-element antenna over omnidirectional antenna in femtocell is mandated by coverage optimization and reduction of cell overshooting. DoA estimation using microstrip antenna alone is a challenging problem, but it is easier with a multiple number of directive antennas covering the whole plane. Other DoA estimation methods, such as phase arrays, are unsuitable for a small device like femtocell due to the complexity and cost limitations. The proposed method to estimate the DoA is simple enough to be applicable for femtocell indoor applications. Both simulation and experimental results are analyzed to evaluate the performance of the method. Results show that the error in estimated DoA has a mean <;7° and standard deviation <;4°.
CLASSROOM EFFECTS ON THE EFFECTIVENESS OF A SCHOOL

This study aims to assess the effects of classroom environment on the overall effectiveness of a school. Whether steps towards effective schools should be taken from top-down, that is from leaders, or bottom-up, that is from other members of school has been a matter of discussion. The truth is that a leadership that cannot reach classes cannot be considered to be an effective leadership. Among many factors leading up to effective schools, classroom environment is one of the most significant. Quality of classroom teaching and learning, teachers’ characteristics, nature of teacher-student, student-teacher and student-student interactions, the way conflicts are resolved in class, learning habits, attitudes towards learning and how these factors are reflected on students’ academic success and their social and cognitive attitudes play a role in increasing effectiveness of schools.
Substrate-induced conformational changes of the mitochondrial oxoglutarate carrier: a spectroscopic and molecular modelling study

The structural and dynamic properties of the oxoglutarate carrier were investigated by introducing a single tryptophan in the Trp-devoid carrier in position 184, 190 or 199 and by monitoring the fluorescence spectra in the presence and absence of the substrate oxoglutarate. In the absence of substrate, the emission maxima of Arg190Trp, Cys184Trp and Leu199Trp are centered at 342, 345 and 348 nm, respectively, indicating that these residues have an increasing degree of solvent exposure. The emission intensity of the Arg190Trp and Cys184Trp mutants is higher than that of Leu199Trp. Addition of substrate increases the emission intensity of Leu199Trp, but not that of Cys184Trp and Arg190Trp. A 3D model of the oxoglutarate carrier was built using the structure of the ADP/ATP carrier as a template and was validated with the experimental results available in the literature. The model identifies Lys122 as the most likely candidate for the quenching of Trp199. Consistently, the double mutant Lys122Ala-Leu199Trp exhibits a higher emission intensity than Leu199Trp and does not display further fluorescence enhancement in response to substrate addition. Substitution of Lys122 with Cys and evaluation of its reactivity with a sulphydryl reagent in the presence and absence of substrate confirms that residue 122 is masked by the substrate, likely through a substrate-induced conformational change.
Benefits of smoking cessation with focus on cardiovascular and respiratory comorbidities

Smoking cessation is crucial in preventing premature morbidity, disability and mortality worldwide. The effectiveness of quitting tobacco use surpasses any other intervention to minimise the risk for chronic cardiac and respiratory conditions. The overall health benefits of smoking cessation have been recognised for decades but as tobacco legislation has been changing in recent years, new evidence particularly concerning the effect of less smoke exposure on the vascular system has emerged. Recently, much research in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) has concerned the ongoing inflammation – also in former smokers – and disease heterogeneity, which provides new knowledge regarding current and ex‐smokers with COPD. Many other cardiovascular and respiratory diseases are associated with smoking, and the course of these diseases is not always studied in the context of smoking cessation versus continued smoking. This review summarises the latest available data on health benefits of smoking cessation with focus on both common and infrequent cardiovascular and respiratory diseases.
Linguistic analysis of datasets for semantic textual similarity

Semantic Textual Similarity (STS), which measures the equivalence of meanings between two textual segments, is an important and useful task in Natural Language Processing. In this article, we have analyzed the datasets provided by the Semantic Evaluation (SemEval) 2012–2014 campaigns for this task in order to find out appropriate linguistic features for each dataset, taking into account the influence that linguistic features at different levels (e.g. syntactic constituents and lexical semantics) might have on the sentence similarity. Results indicate that a linguistic feature may have a different effect on different corpus due to the great difference in sentence structure and vocabulary between datasets. Thus, we conclude that the selection of linguistic features according to the genre of the text might be a good strategy for obtaining better results in the STS task. This analysis could be a useful reference for measuring system building and linguistic feature tuning.
Participation of Chromosome Segregation Protein ParAI of Vibrio cholerae in Chromosome Replication

ABSTRACT Vibrio cholerae carries homologs of plasmid-borne parA and parB genes on both of its chromosomes. The par genes help to segregate many plasmids and chromosomes. Here we have studied the par genes of V. cholerae chromosome I. Earlier studies suggested that ParBI binds to the centromeric site parSI near the origin of replication (oriI), and parSI-ParBI complexes are placed at the cell poles by ParAI. Deletion of parAI and parSI caused the origin-proximal DNA to be less polar. Here we found that deletion of parBI also resulted in a less polar localization of oriI. However, unlike the deletion of parAI, the deletion of parBI increased the oriI number. Replication was normal when both parAI and parBI were deleted, suggesting that ParBI mediates its action through ParAI. Overexpression of ParAI in a parABI-deleted strain also increased the DNA content. The results are similar to those found for Bacillus subtilis, where ParA (Soj) stimulates replication and this activity is repressed by ParB (SpoOJ). As in B. subtilis, the stimulation of replication most likely involves the replication initiator DnaA. Our results indicate that control of chromosomal DNA replication is an additional function of chromosomal par genes conserved across the Gram-positive/Gram-negative divide.
Low Human Immunodeficiency Virus Envelope Diversity Correlates with Low In Vitro Replication Capacity and Predicts Spontaneous Control of Plasma Viremia after Treatment Interruptions

ABSTRACT Genetic diversity of viral isolates in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected individuals varies substantially. However, it remains unclear whether HIV-related disease progresses more rapidly in patients harboring virus swarms with low or high diversity and, in the same context, whether high or low diversity is required to induce potent humoral and cellular immune responses. To explore whether viral diversity predicts virologic control, we studied HIV-infected patients who received antiretroviral therapy (ART) for years before undergoing structured treatment interruptions (STI). Viral diversity before initiation of ART and the ability of the patients to contain viremia after STI and final cessation of treatment was evaluated. Seven out of 21 patients contained plasma viremia at low levels after the final treatment cessation. Clonal sequences encompassing the envelope C2V3C3 domain derived from plasma prior to treatment, exhibited significantly lower diversity in these patients compared to those derived from patients with poor control of viremia. Viral diversity pre-ART correlated with the viral replication capacity of rebounding virus isolates during STI. Neutralizing antibody activity against autologous virus was significantly higher in patients who controlled viremia and was associated with lower pretreatment diversity. No such association was found with binding antibodies directed to gp120. In summary, lower pretreatment viral diversity was associated with spontaneous control of viremia, reduced viral replication capacity and higher neutralizing antibody titers, suggesting a link between viral diversity, replication capacity, and neutralizing antibody activity.
Changes in Immune Cell Distribution and IL‐10 Production are Regulated through Endometrial IP‐10 Expression in the Goat Uterus

Problem: Changes in distribution or redistribution of immune cells are required for the establishment and maintenance of pregnancy, but these changes during early pregnancy have been poorly understood in the ruminant ungulates. Expression of a chemokine, interferon‐γ (IFN‐γ)‐inducible protein 10 kDa (IP‐10, CXCL10), was identified in the endometrium of pregnant goats. Population and/or distribution of endometrial immune cells and their cytokine productions could be regulated by IP‐10 during the period of pregnancy establishment.
New Anti-Infective Coatings of Medical Implants

ABSTRACT Implantable devices are highly susceptible to infection and are therefore a major risk in surgery. The present work presents a novel strategy to prevent the formation of a biofilm on polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) grafts. PTFE grafts were coated with gentamicin and teicoplanin incorporated into different lipid-like carriers under aseptic conditions in a dipping process. Poly-d,l-lactic acid, tocopherol acetate, the diglyceride Softisan 649, and the triglyceride Dynasan 118 were used as drug carriers. The drug release kinetics, anti-infective characteristics, biocompatibility, and hemocompatibility of the coatings developed were studied. All coatings showed an initial drug burst, followed by a low continuous drug release over 96 h. The dimension of release kinetics depended on the carrier used. All coated prostheses reduced bacterial growth drastically over 24 h, even below pathologically relevant concentrations. Different cytotoxic levels could be observed, revealing tocopherol acetate as the most promising biocompatible carrier. A possible reason for the highly cytotoxic effect of Softisan 649 could be assessed by demonstrating incorporated lipids in the cell soma with Oil Red O staining. Tromboelastography studies, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays, and an amidolytic substrate assay could confirm the hemocompatibility of individual coatings. The development of the biodegradable drug delivery systems described here and in vitro studies of those systems highlight the most important requirements for effective as well as compatible anti-infective coatings of PTFE grafts. Through continuous local release, high drug levels can be produced at only the targeted area and physiological bacterial proliferation can be completely inhibited, while biocompatibility as well as hemocompatibility can be ensured.
Identification of a novel left–right asymmetrically expressed gene in the mouse belonging to the BPI/PLUNC superfamily

In the process of left–right (L‐R) axis formation in the mouse, the node plays a critical role as a structure where the initial breaking of L‐R symmetry occurs. Here, we report on the gene LPlunc1, a member of BPI/PLUNC gene superfamily, which is asymmetrically expressed in the developing mouse node. LPlunc1 protein is secreted as a processed form of relative molecular mass 54K‐60K and shares sequence features with the other members of BPI/PLUNC superfamily, including the N‐terminal and C‐terminal homology domains, each of which is considered to form a lipid binding pocket. LPlunc1 is transiently expressed in the crown cells of the node asymmetrically. This expression pattern of Lplunc1 highly overlaps with that of Nodal, a major player during the L‐R formation. Interestingly, this asymmetric expression pattern is randomized in the iv mutant and reversed in the inv mutant, indicating that LPlunc1 is downstream of iv and inv. Our results suggest a link between lipid binding/transfer and the axis development. Developmental Dynamics 229:373–379, 2004. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.