Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Herpes Simplex Virus Type 2 Infection Among Bar and Hotel Workers in Northern Tanzania: Prevalence and Risk Factors

Background Type-specific serological tests have allowed for a better understanding of the epidemiology of herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2) infection in Africa. Goal The goal was to determine risk factors for HSV-2 among bar and hotel workers in Moshi, Tanzania. Study Design A cross-sectional study was conducted involving 515 workers in randomly selected bars and hotels in Moshi. Results The seroprevalence of HSV-2 was 43.5%. Women were more likely to be HSV-2-seropositive than men (age-adjusted OR = 3.8; 95% CI = 2.5–5.8). In multivariate analyses, age was positively associated with HSV-2 in both women and men. HIV-1-seropositive women had a significantly increased risk of HSV-2 infection (adjusted OR = 2.8; 95% CI = 1.5–5.1). Other predictors of HSV-2 were religion and sexual behavior for women and level of education, frequency of alcohol use, and concurrent partners for men. Conclusion The most common genital infection was that with HSV-2. Control of HSV-2 might be an important strategy for HIV-1 infection prevention in this population.
Products of chickpea processing as texture improvers in gluten-free bread

Recent market developments raised the need for alternatives to hydrocolloids as texture improver in gluten-free bread. Chickpea exerts several physicochemical properties (water- and oil-binding, emulsifying and foaming) that might address this need. Therefore, the effect of processing on chickpea functionality was tested on low ingredient dose, comparably to that of common hydrocolloids. Control bread was small, hard and with low gas retention ability as shown by microscopy, depicting holes inside crumb pores. Addition of chickpea flour in low dose (2% w/w) enhanced loaf volume by 20% and reduced crumb hardness by 40%, due to increased gas retention (no holes within pores) and superior homogeneity of the starch–protein network. On the contrary, chickpea paste deleteriously affected bread quality due to loss of solubility upon cooking. Interestingly, both soaking and cooking water significantly reduced crumb hardness, although to a lower extent than the flour. More homogeneous crumb structure and gas retention were observed in the micrographs, possibly due to the emulsifying activity of flavonoids and saponins (soaking) and insoluble fibre (cooking). Chickpea ingredients are promising substitute of hydrocolloids such as xanthan gum for texture improvement of gluten-free bread, although acting with different mechanisms.
A Randomized Trial of User-Controlled Text Messaging to Improve Asthma Outcomes: A Pilot Study

We enrolled 64 patients age 12 to 22 years with a diagnosis of poorly controlled persistent asthma in a 6-month longitudinal crossover study. During the 3 intervention months, participants created personalized text messages to be sent to their phones. Adherence was objectively monitored in 22 of the participants. The adolescent participants gave high ratings on the acceptability of the text messaging system. Asthma control improved from baseline to month 1 regardless of whether teens were in the texting or control group. While participants were in the texting group, their quality of life improved and worry about their asthma decreased. Receiving the text intervention resulted in an increase in adherence of 2.75% each month relative to no intervention, but the improvements were not sustained. There was modest improvement in asthma control and quality of life outcomes, as well as improved adherence during the texting intervention.
Caspofungin and Liposomal Amphotericin B Therapy of Experimental Murine Scedosporiosis

ABSTRACT Immunosuppressed mice were infected intravenously with conidia of Scedosporium prolificans. Treatment was begun 1 day later with liposomal amphotericin B, caspofungin, or both drugs initiated concurrently. Amphotericin B and caspofungin were each effective, but combined therapy did not appear to offer advantages over liposomal amphotericin B alone.
Impact of respiratory syncytial virus immune globulin in 1996-1997: a local controlled comparison.

BACKGROUND Immune globulin containing high titers of neutralizing antibodies specific for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is clinically used to prevent hospitalizations for RSV-related respiratory infections among high-risk infants. However, recommendations regarding which patient populations should receive RSV immune globulin are inconsistent. OBJECTIVE To compare hospitalization rates for prematurely born infants with and without chronic lung disease who received RSV immune globulin with similar infants whose parents refused such treatment during the 1996-1997 winter season. DESIGN Inception cohort study. PARTICIPANTS Infants born at less than 35 weeks' gestation and less than 6 months old without lung disease and children who had been born prematurely, had chronic respiratory disease, and were less than 2 years old at the onset of the RSV season. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE Hospitalization for an RSV-related respiratory illness. RESULTS Seventy-six infants (66 [87%] with chronic lung disease and 10 [13%] born prematurely without lung disease) received RSV immune globulin; 65 infants (18 [28%] with chronic lung disease and 47 [72%] born prematurely without lung disease) did not. Three (4%) of the treated group and 2 (3%) of the untreated group were hospitalized for RSV infections. Of those with chronic lung disease, 5% (3/66) of those treated with RSV immune globulin were hospitalized, compared with 11% (2/18) of those untreated. Of those born prematurely without lung disease, no infant in the treated (0/10) or untreated (0/47) group was hospitalized. CONCLUSIONS The risk of hospitalization of infants born prematurely who are younger than 6 months without lung disease is low. Current recommendations for preventing RSV illness in this group by using RSV immune globulin may require inclusion of more specific clinical characteristics rather than gestational age alone.
Hypoxia-inducible Factor 1 (HIF-1 )-mediated Hypoxia Increases BACE1 Expression and -Amyloid Generation*

Xian Zhang, Kun Zhou, Ruishan Wang, Jiankun Cui, Stuart A. Lipton, Francesca-Fang Liao, Huaxi Xu, and Yun-wu Zhang From the Institute for Biomedical Research and School of Life Sciences, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, China, the Institute of Health Sciences, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai 200025, China, and the Burnham Institute for Medical Research, La Jolla, California 92037
Pediatric Oral HIV Research in the Developing World

This article is a review of the literature between 2003 (since the last workshop) and April 2009 (Beijing workshop). It focuses on the prevalence of oral lesions associated with HIV infection, oral lesions as predictors of HIV infection, oral lesions as markers of the efficacy of highly active antiretroviral treatment and quality of life, caries risk, the management of oral lesions, and epidemiologic tests for clinical significance of oral lesions.
C/EBPβ and Nuclear Factor of Activated T Cells Differentially Regulate Adamts-1 Induction by Stimuli Associated with Vascular Remodeling

ABSTRACT Emerging evidence indicates that the metalloproteinase Adamts-1 plays a significant role in the pathophysiology of vessel remodeling, but little is known about the signaling pathways that control Adamts-1 expression. We show that vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), angiotensin-II, interleukin-1β, and tumor necrosis factor α, stimuli implicated in pathological vascular remodeling, increase Adamts-1 expression in endothelial and vascular smooth muscle cells. Analysis of the intracellular signaling pathways implicated in this process revealed that VEGF and angiotensin-II upregulate Adamts-1 expression via activation of differential signaling pathways that ultimately promote functional binding of the NFAT or C/EBPβ transcription factors, respectively, to the Adamts-1 promoter. Infusion of mice with angiotensin-II triggered phosphorylation and nuclear translocation of C/EBPβ proteins in aortic cells concomitantly with an increase in the expression of Adamts-1, further underscoring the importance of C/EBPβ signaling in angiotensin-II-induced upregulation of Adamts-1. Similarly, VEGF promoted NFAT activation and subsequent Adamts-1 induction in aortic wall in a calcineurin-dependent manner. Our results demonstrate that Adamts-1 upregulation by inducers of pathological vascular remodeling is mediated by specific signal transduction pathways involving NFAT or C/EBPβ transcription factors. Targeting of these pathways may prove useful in the treatment of vascular disease.
Oxygen: avoid too much of a good thing!

Their hypothesis is based on the observation that a high concentration of inspired oxygen may promote formation of atelectasis. We already know that lung function is altered in the awake, healthy obese adult. The restrictive breathing pattern present in these individuals is due to an abnormal position of the diaphragm, an increased mass of the chest wall and possibly an increased central blood volume. Overall, there is a close relationship between body mass index, a measure of obesity, and lung volumes such as vital capacity, functional residual capacity and residual lung volume. The well documented decrease in functional residual capacity is even more marked in the supine position and during general anaesthesia with mechanical ventilation. If functional residual capacity is reduced below the volume of closing capacity, lung units become poorly ventilated or not ventilated at all. Ultimately, such lung units collapse, increasing pulmonary shunt. It is conceivable that, in these patients, the use of a high inspiratory fraction of oxygen (FIO2) further promotes formation of atelectasis and impaired oxygenation.
Colloid Transport and Filtration of Cryptosporidium parvum in Sandy Soils and Aquifer Sediments

We present theoretical and experimental work on Cryptosporidium parvum oocysts to characterize their transport behavior in saturated, sandy sediments under strictly controlled conditions. Column experiments are implemented with three different sands (effective grain size: 180, 420, and 1400 μm) at two different saturated flow rates (0.7 and 7 m/d). The experiments show that C. parvum oocysts, like other colloids, are subject to velocity enhancement. In medium and coarse sands, the oocysts travel 10−30% faster than a conservative tracer. The classic clean-bed filtration model is found to provide an excellent tool to estimate the degree of C. parvum filtration. Experimentally determined collision efficiencies, α, range from 0.4 to 1.1. The magnitude of α is consistent with the known physical and chemical properties of the oocyst and the transport medium and compares well with, e.g., measured collision efficiencies of similarly sized E. coli bacteria. However, a significant amount of the initial deposition .
Netzintegration von Windenergieanlagen mit Energiespeichersystem

Die Anforderungen zur netzvertraglichen und -stabilisierenden Einspeisung durch Windenergieanlagen (WEA) in den Netzanschlussregeln (NAR) werden mit steigendem Anteil an der Gesamtstromerzeugung immer umfangreicher. […] In dieser Arbeit wird die Moglichkeit zur Verbesserung der Netzintegration von WEAn in Verbindung mit einem ESS untersucht. Es wird ein Uberblick uber ESS gegeben. Speichertechnologien und Umrichter zur Anbindung dieser an ein WEA-System werden auf Basis von Literaturrecherchen analysiert, untersucht und verglichen. Ein weiterer Fokus liegt auf Einspeiseverfahren, die die Erhohung der Netzqualitat und -stabilitat zum Ziel haben […]. Hierzu zahlen insbesondere solche zur Regelung der Netzfrequenz, sowie Glattung und Begrenzung der WEA-Ausgangsleistung. Es werden Kriterien definiert, nach denen sowohl die Speichertechnologien, als auch die untersuchten Anwendungen fur ESS bewertet werden. […] Durch simulative Untersuchungen der Anwendungen wird jeweils die minimal benotigte Auslegung eines ESS hinsichtlich dessen Anschlussleistung und Kapazitat ermittelt, wobei durch eine entwickelte Methodik insbesondere auch die Zyklenbelastung der Speicher berucksichtigt wird. Eine Abhangigkeit von unterschiedlichen typischen Windverhaltnissen, die uber IEC-Windklassen definiert werden, wird zudem festgestellt und bewertet. […] Im letzten Teil der Arbeit werden Konzepte zur Integration von einfachen und hybriden ESS in ein WEA-System hinsichtlich des Gesamtwirkungsgrads und des Bauteilaufwands benotigter Leistungselektronik analysiert und bewertet. Als optimales Konzept wird die Anbindung eines Speichers durch einen zusatzlichen Umrichter an den Zwischenkreis einer WEA identifiziert. […] Fur das Vorhalten einer Regelreserve zur Ausgangsleistungsglattung wird bei entsprechenden Randbedingungen der wirtschaftliche Betrieb mit heutigen Speicherpreisen festgestellt.
Novel therapeutic targets in osteoporosis

Osteoporosis is a common condition in which significant bone loss occurs resulting in an increased risk of sustaining fractures. Several licensed therapies are available to treat this condition, which suffer from several disadvantages including limited efficacy, high cost and poor long-term patient adherence as a consequence of significant side effects and inconvenient methods of administration. A wide range of therapeutic targets have been developed to provide a basis for developing newer therapies which overcome these limitations. These can be subdivided into those that are primarily directed towards inhibiting osteoclast-dependent bone resorption and those that stimulate osteoblastic bone formation. Targets can be grouped as follows: systemic factors such as steroid and peptide hormones; local factors produced in bone involved in osteoblast and osteoclastic regulation; and cellular targets such as cell membrane receptors and attachment proteins, cellular enzymes and nuclear transcription factors. To date, only a small proportion of these targets have yielded novel compounds to have entered clinical trials. However, it is anticipated that these will provide the basis for significant numbers of new therapies for osteoporosis in the foreseeable future.
Living laboratory: whole‐genome sequencing as a learning healthcare enterprise

With the proliferation of affordable large‐scale human genomic data come profound and vexing questions about management of such data and their clinical uncertainty. These issues challenge the view that genomic research on human beings can (or should) be fully segregated from clinical genomics, either conceptually or practically. Here, we argue that the sharp distinction between clinical care and research is especially problematic in the context of large‐scale genomic sequencing of people with suspected genetic conditions. Core goals of both enterprises (e.g. understanding genotype–phenotype relationships; generating an evidence base for genomic medicine) are more likely to be realized at a population scale if both those ordering and those undergoing sequencing for diagnostic reasons are routinely and longitudinally studied. Rather than relying on expensive and lengthy randomized clinical trials and meta‐analyses, we propose leveraging nascent clinical‐research hybrid frameworks into a broader, more permanent instantiation of exploratory medical sequencing. Such an investment could enlighten stakeholders about the real‐life challenges posed by whole‐genome sequencing, such as establishing the clinical actionability of genetic variants, returning ‘off‐target’ results to families, developing effective service delivery models and monitoring long‐term outcomes.
Compression of large DNA databases

The thesis explores algorithms to efficiently store and access repetitive DNA sequence collections produced by large-scale genome sequencing projects. First, existing general-purpose and DNA compression algorithms are evaluated for their suitability for compressing large collections of DNA sequences. Then two novel algorithms for compressing large collections of DNA sequences are introduced. The first algorithm is COMRAD, which is a disk-based dictionary compression algorithm that iteratively detects repetitions that occur across multiple sequences, and substitutes them with non-terminals. The method showed that repeats can be feasibly detected across multiple sequences for relatively large collections, while preserving sequence boundaries. The second algorithm is RLZ, which compresses highly similar sequence collections using a simple LZ77 parsing of each sequence with respect to a sequence chosen to be the reference. RLZ was also extended to conduct non-greedy LZ77 parsing, and with the combination of a few other optimisations, the algorithm indirectly detects and encodes approximate matches. RLZ is memory efficient, and is one of the fastest DNA sequence compression algorithms existing to date, both in terms of the compression and decompression speed. Both COMRAD and RLZ can compress sequence collections of fully assembled chromosomes and genomes, as well as sets of contigs and reads. Both algorithms also support individual sequence extraction and random access queries on compressed sets. RLZ was also extended to a full self-index by enabling substring searching on compressed sets with some limitations on detecting substrings. Since the effectiveness of RLZ compression depends on the reference sequence chosen for a collection, techniques for constructing reference sequences that better represent the collection were also explored. The results showed that using a reference sequence constructed with repeats detected by dictionary compressors leads to significant improvements in the compressed sizes produced by RLZ.
Modulation of Th1/Th2 balance by Lactobacillus strains isolated from Kimchi via stimulation of macrophage cell line J774A.1 in vitro.

UNLABELLED Lactobacilli isolated from Kimchi, a Korean traditional food, were tested for their capacity to modulate the T helper (Th) 1/Th2 balance. Ovalbumin (OVA)-sensitized mouse splenocytes were cultured with 26 strains of lactobacilli; the highest IL-12 induction and lowest IL-4 production were then observed in 4 strains, including Lactobacillus plantarum CJLP55, CJLP56, CJLP133, and CJLP136. These strains produced a larger amount of IL-12, which enhances differentiation and activation of Th1 cells, in macrophage cell-lines more than positive control strains L. casei KCTC 3109(T) and L. rhamnosus GG, although they also induced production of IL-10, which is a suppressor of IL-12. Indeed, CJLP133-stimulated macrophages induced production of more Th1 cytokine IFN-γ and less Th2 cytokine IL-4 than KCTC 3109(T) and GG in co-cultivation with T cells. These findings suggest that lactobacilli from Kimchi may modulate the Th1/Th2 balance via macrophage activation in the hypersensitive reaction caused by Th2 cells. PRACTICAL APPLICATION Allergic reactions including asthma and atopy are caused by predominance of Th2 response over Th1 response. Lactobacilli isolated from fermented foods such as yogurt, cheese, and Kimchi showed health-promoting activities. The present study indicated that several lactobacilli strains from Kimchi may reduce allergic reactions through macrophage-mediated induction of Th1 response.
One‐way trip: Influenza virus' adaptation to gallinaceous poultry may limit its pandemic potential

We hypothesise that some influenza virus adaptations to poultry may explain why the barrier for human‐to‐human transmission is not easily overcome once the virus has crossed from wild birds to chickens. Since the cluster of human infections with H5N1 influenza in Hong Kong in 1997, chickens have been recognized as the major source of avian influenza virus infection in humans. Although often severe, these infections have been limited in their subsequent human‐to‐human transmission, and the feared H5N1 pandemic has not yet occurred. Here we examine virus adaptations selected for during replication in chickens and other gallinaceous poultry. These include altered receptor binding and increased pH of fusion of the haemagglutinin as well as stalk deletions of the neuraminidase protein. This knowledge could aid the delivery of vaccines and increase our ability to prioritize research efforts on those viruses from the diverse array of avian influenza viruses that have greatest human pandemic potential.
An Algorithm for Rapid Binary Division

A new algorithm is given for reducing the number of additions and subtractions required in binary division in a computer. The algorithm is presented in two parts. A simplified algorithm, which can significantly reduce the number of operations with minimal additional circuitry, is used to develop the justification of the method. The complete algorithm introduces modifications which allow the minimum number of operations by examination of no more than the leading five bits of the divisor and remainder. An average of two-thirds can be saved in the number of operations.
Construction of a New Sensitive Molecular Tool for the Study of Gene Expression in Enterococcus faecalis

A promoter-probe vector designated pVEPhoZ-P has been developed to provide a convenient system to analyze transcription activities of promoters. It was constructed on the basis of pVE14218, a plasmid which lacks the replication protein and in which the 5′ part of alkaline phosphatase (AP) phoZ gene of Enterococcus faecalis was inserted. The pVEPhoZ vector was used to clone promoters of interest. The resulting promoter-probe vectors were integrated in the phoZ chromosomal locus by homologous recombination. This procedure generates recombinant clones with a single copy of phoZ functional allele placed under the control of the desired promoter. This system was investigated with different promoters of E. faecalis genes, namely those of sigV encoding an ECF sigma factor, croRS encoding a two-component system and dhaK operon. In all cases, expression data obtained previously for the three promoters were properly reported for this new tool. The pVEPhoZ-P promoter-probe vector is easy to use and it showed higher reporter activity in comparison to systems based on β-galactosidase. Therefore, this system constitutes a useful molecular tool for the study of promoters in E. faecalis or other bacterial species that possess a homologous phoZ gene.