Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Dynamic Postural Stability in Young Adolescent Male and Female Athletes

Purpose: To investigate dynamic postural stability performance of young adolescent athletes. Methods: Eighty-nine male and 81 female athletes participated. Each participant performed 3 trials of the anterior, posterior-medial, and posterior-lateral reach directions of the Star Excursion Balance Test on each limb. Distance achieved for each direction was expressed as a percentage of leg length, with the composite reach distance of these directions being used for statistical analysis. Results: No significant interaction effect for sex and limb dominance (P > .05) was found, nor was a significant main effect for sex or limb dominance (P > .05) observed. Notably, the composite reach distance achieved by both male and female athletes was less than 94% of leg length, a value that has previously been identified for increased injury risk in adolescent athletes. Conclusion: Further longitudinal research is needed to fully understand how dynamic postural stability changes over adolescence.
Mechanisms of block of muscle type CLC chloride channels (Review)

CLC proteins are a nine-member gene family of Cl - channels that have diverse roles in the plasma membrane and in intracellular organelles. The recent structure determination of bacterial CLC homologues by Dutzler et al. was a break-through for the structure-function analysis of CLC channels. This review describes the mechanisms of inhibition of muscle type CLC channels by two classes of small organic substances: 9-anthracene carboxylic acid (9AC) and p-chlorophenoxy propionic acid (CPP). Both substances block muscle type CLC channels (CLC-0 and CLC-1) from the intracellular side. For CPP, one could show that it inhibits the individual protopores of the double-barrelled channel. A major difference between the two types of blockers is the extremely slow binding- and unbinding-kinetics of 9AC (time scale of min), compared to that of CPP block (time scale of s), while the general mechanism of block seems to be quite similar. In the case of the chiral CPP only the S(-) enantiomer is effective. Both substances exhibit a strongly voltage-dependent block with strong inhibition at negative voltages and relief of block at depolarizing potentials at which the channels tend to open maximally. A quantitative kinetic model was developed for the CPP block of CLC-0 in which the closed state has a much larger affinity for CPP than the open state and opening of drug-bound channels is greatly slowed compared to drug-free channels. First experiments with mutated CLC-0 channels and with derivatives of CPP strongly support the pore localization of the CPP binding site. This work provides the basis for the use of these small organic substances as tools to investigate the pharmacological properties of mammalian CLC channels guided by the crystallographic structure of bacterial CLC homologues. They might also turn out to be useful to obtain information about the intricate coupling of gating and permeation that characterizes CLC channels.
Expression of the plasmodial pfmdr1 gene in mammalian cells is associated with increased susceptibility to chloroquine

Chloroquine (CQ)-resistant (CQR) Plasmodium falciparum malaria parasites show a strong decrease in CQ accumulation in comparison with chloroquine-sensitive parasites. Controversy exists over the role of the plasmodial pfmdr1 gene in the CQR phenotype. pfmdr1 is a member of the superfamily of ATP-binding cassette transporters. Other members of this family are the mammalian multidrug resistance genes and the CFTR gene. We have expressed the pfmdr1-encoded protein, Pgh1, in CHO cells and Xenopus oocytes. CHO cells expressing the Pgh1 protein demonstrated an increased, verapamil-insensitive susceptibility to CQ. Conversely, no increase in drug susceptibility to primaquine, quinine, adriamycin, or colchicine was observed in Pgh1-expressing cells. CQ uptake experiments revealed an increased, ATP-dependent accumulation of CQ in Pgh1-expressing cells over the level in nonexpressing control cells. The increased CQ accumulation in Pgh1-expressing cells coincided with an enhanced in vivo inhibition of lysosomal alpha-galactosidase by CQ. CHO cells expressing Pgh1 carrying two of the CQR-associated Pgh1 amino acid changes (S1034C and N1042D) did not display an increased CQ sensitivity. Immunofluorescence experiments revealed an intracellular localization of both mutant and wild-type forms of Pgh1. We conclude from our results that wild-type Pgh1 protein can mediate an increased intracellular accumulation of CQ and that this function is impaired in CQR-associated mutant forms of the protein. We speculate that the Pgh1 protein plays an important role in CQ import in CQ-sensitive malaria parasites.
Sertraline treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder: results of 24 weeks of open-label continuation treatment.

BACKGROUND Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is typically associated with a high degree of chronicity, comorbidity, and psychosocial disability. The efficacy of sertraline in the acute treatment of PTSD has been confirmed based on the results of 2 large, placebo-controlled studies, but almost no prospective long-term treatment studies have been reported. METHOD One hundred twenty-eight patients who completed 12 weeks of double-blind, placebo-controlled, acute-phase treatment for DSM-III-R-defined PTSD with sertraline were continued into a 24-week open-label continuation phase. Efficacy was evaluated using the endpoint change in the 17-item Clinician Administered PTSD Scale Part 2 (CAPS-2) severity score, the 15-item patient-rated Impact of Event Scale, and the Clinical Global Impressions-Improvement and -Severity of Illness scales as primary outcome measures. Treatment response was defined as > or =30% decrease in the CAPS-2 total severity score (compared with acute-phase baseline score) and a Clinical Global Impressions-Improvement score of 1 or 2. RESULTS Ninety-two percent of acute-phase responders maintained their response during the full 6 months of continuation treatment. In addition, 54% of acute-phase nonresponders converted to responder status during continuation therapy. Over the 36-week course of acute and continuation therapy, 20% to 25% of the improvement in the CAPS-2 severity score occurred during the continuation phase. Sertraline was well tolerated, with 8.6% of patients discontinuing due to adverse events. A high pretreatment CAPS-2 score (> 75) predicted a longer time to response and a greater likelihood that response occurred after 12 weeks of acute treatment. CONCLUSION The acute efficacy of sertraline is sustained in the vast majority of patients, and at least half of nonresponders to acute treatment will eventually respond to continued treatment.
Clinical experience with cerebral oximetry in stroke and cardiac arrest

Objective: To address the ability and reliability of the INVOS 3100A (Somanetics, Troy, MI) cerebral oximeter to detect cerebral desaturation in patients and the interpretation of cerebral oximetry measurements using the INVOS 3100A in stroke and cardiac arrest. Design: Case reports of two patients. Setting: Neurologic Intensive Care Unit of a University Hospital. Patients: Two patients suffering occlusive strokes of the middle cerebral artery. One later suffered a cardiac arrest. Results: The first case, a patient who suffered cardiac arrest while undergoing continuous cerebral oximetry, clearly demonstrated the ability of the INVOS 3100A to detect rapid tissue vascular oxyhemoglobin desaturation in the brain during circulatory arrest. In the second case, oximetry readings were obtained in a patient with a right internal carotid artery occlusion and an infarct in the middle cerebral artery territory. The circulation of the anterior cerebral artery (ACA) territory was intact. Stable xenon‐computed tomography of local cerebral blood flow showed no perfusion in the infarct, and oximetry readings were between 60 and 65. In the border zone between the middle cerebral artery and the ACA, readings of 35 to 40 were obtained, and over the ACA territory, the readings were in the 60s. Conclusions: Oximetry by near infrared spectroscopy reflects the balance between regional oxygen supply and demand. In dead or infarcted nonmetabolizing brain, saturation may be near normal because of sequestered cerebral venous blood in capillaries and venous capacitance vessels and contribution from overlying tissue. In regionally or globally ischemic, but metabolizing brain, saturation decreases because oxygen supply is insufficient to meet metabolic demand. These observations are supported by previously reported "normal" readings in unperfused or dead brains.
Introduction of an accelerated diagnostic protocol in the assessment of emergency department patients with possible acute coronary syndrome: The Nambour Short Low‐Intermediate Chest pain project

Emergency physicians can feel pressured by opposing forces of clinical reality and the need to publish successful key performance indicators in an environment of increasing demands and cost containment. This is particularly relevant to management of patients with undifferentiated chest pain and possible acute coronary syndrome. Unreliability of clinical assessment and high risk of adverse outcomes for all concerned exist, yet national guidelines are at odds with efforts to reduce ED crowding and access block. We report findings from the Nambour Short Low‐Intermediate Chest pain risk trial, which safely introduced an accelerated diagnostic protocol with reduced ED length of stay and high patient acceptability. Over a 7‐month period, there were no major adverse cardiac events by 30 days in 19% of undifferentiated chest pain presentations with possible acute coronary syndrome discharged after normal sensitive cardiac troponin taken 2 h after presentation and scheduled to return for outpatient exercise stress test.
MASHA-EL: A Multi-Agent System for Supporting Adaptive E-Learning

Agent-based e-learning systems allow the interaction between students and e-learning Web sites, providing students with useful suggestions about the available educational resources. In these systems, generally each student is monitored by a student agent, while each e-learning site is associated with a site agent. However, these systems are not able to support students which exploit different devices as PC, palmtop, cellular, etc. multi-agent system handling adaptivity (MASHA) is a recent multi-agent system which appears as a promising candidate to overcome such a limitation. However, in the case of large agent communities, the tasks of both the student and the site agent in MASHA can result significantly heavy. To face this issue, we propose in this paper an extension of the MASHA system, called MASHA-EL, appositely conceived for supporting e-learning. In this system, a student that exploits a given device is provided with a device agent, and each e-learning Web site is associated, in its turn, with a teacher agent. When a student visits the e-Learning site of the teacher agent using a given device, the teacher agent provide him with useful recommendations also considering the exploited device. We present some experimental results that compares the performances of MASHA-EL with other well- known agent-based recommenders, and that show significant advantages obtained by MASHA-EL in terms of recommendation effectiveness and reduction of time costs.
Is a functional sarcoplasmic reticulum necessary for preconditioning?

Several studies have shown that the protective effect of ischemic preconditioning (PC) is associated with decreased calcium release from the sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR). However, no study has yet demonstrated whether these changes are essential in the mechanism of PC. In order to investigate whether a functional SR was necessary for PC, we manipulated SR calcium handling using (i) 0.1microM ryanodine (RY), a concentration known to lock the SR calcium release channel in the open state and (ii) 50microM cyclopiazonic acid (CPA), a specific inhibitor of the SR calcium ATPase. Initial experiments confirmed that both RY and CPA eliminated the ability of the SR to accumulate calcium. Isolated rat hearts (n=6-7/group) were perfused normoxically for 30 min prior to either a further 40 min of perfusion [control (C)] or 4x[5 min ischemia (I) + 5 min reperfusion (R)] (PC). All hearts were then subjected to a further 40 min I + 40 min R. The C and PC protocols were then repeated in the presence of RY or CPA, introduced after 10 min of perfusion. (31)P-NMR was used to measure ATP, PCr, P(i)and intracellular pH. RY and CPA decreased developed pressure (DP) by 75% and 59%, respectively. Percentage recovery of LVDP was significantly higher in PC (72+/-8%), PC+RY (72+/-7%) and PC+CPA (49+/-7%) groups compared with their respective controls (43+/-7%, 47+/-7% and 10+/-4%) (P<0.05). Thus, PC remains protective in the presence of a SR unable to accumulate calcium, suggesting that the changes in SR calcium release are not essential in the mechanism of preconditioning.
The paradigm of "more than Moore"

Microelectronics has pervaded our lives for the past fifty years, with massive penetration into health, mobility, security, communications, education, entertainment, and virtually every aspect of human lives. In the past decades, as the main stream, these progresses are powered by Moore's law, with two focused development arenas, namely, IC miniaturization down to nano dimension, and SoC based system integration. While microelectronics community continues to invent new solutions around the world to keep Moore's law alive, there are ever-increasing awareness, R&D effort and business drivers to push the development and application of "more than Moore" (MtM) that are based upon or derived from silicon technologies but do not scale with Moore's law (with typical examples as RF, power, sensor and actuator, SiP, heterogeneous integration, etc.). This emerging trend is partially trigged by the increasing social needs for high level system integration including non-digital functionalities, the necessity to broaden the product portfolio of existing wafer fabs, and the limiting economic and time factors of advanced SoC development. Starting from the rationale of MtM, this paper will highlight some strategic research subjects for the major "MtM" related technology building blocks. Some issues related to the paradigm of MtM, covering industrial vision, strategy and business models, will also be discussed.
Physical and chemical properties, antioxidant activity, total phenol and mineral profile of seeds of seven different date fruit (Phoenix dactylifera L.) varieties

The physical and chemical properties of the date (Phoenix dactylifera L.) fruit seeds from seven date samples (Soukari, Soulag, Barhi, Khulas, Rozaiz, Soughi and Monaif) were evaluated. Energy values of dried and ground seeds were found between 4340 kcal/kg (Barhi cv) and 4795 kcal/kg (Rozaiz cv). Also, while crude oil content of seeds were established between 4.68% (Khulas cv) and 7.96% (Monaif cv), crude protein contents were found at the levels between 3.71% (Soulag cv) and 5.47% (Barhi cv). The antioxidant activity of seeds obtained from different date fruits changed between 78.03 (mg/ml) (Monaif cv) and 79.94 (mg/ml) (Barhi cv). In addition, the total phenol contents of seeds were found between 1.98 mg gallic acid equivalents (GAE)/100 g (Barhi cv) and 4.65 mg GAE/100 g (Soughi cv). The most abundant fatty acids of the date seed oils were oleic, lauric, myristic, palmitic and stearic acids. Ca, Mg, K and P contents of date seeds were found at the high concentrations.
An image analysis approach for automatic malignancy determination of prostate pathological images

Determining malignancy of prostate pathological samples is important for treatment planning of prostate cancer. Traditionally, this is performed by expert pathologists who evaluate the structure of prostate glands in the biopsy samples. However, this is a subjective task due to inter‐ and intra‐observer differences among pathologists. Also, it is time‐consuming and difficult to some extent. Therefore, automatic determination of malignancy of prostate pathological samples is of interest.
A diagnostic rule for acute gouty arthritis in primary care without joint fluid analysis.

BACKGROUND Most cases of acute gouty arthritis are diagnosed in primary care and without joint fluid analysis in many instances. Our objectives were to estimate the validity of this diagnosis by family physicians and to develop a diagnostic rule. METHODS Patients with monoarthritis recruited in an open Dutch population with gout by family physician diagnosis were enrolled in a diagnostic study (March 24, 2004, through July 14, 2007). Validity variables were estimated using 2 x 2 tables, with the presence of synovial monosodium urate crystals as the reference test. For development of the diagnostic rule, clinical variables (including the presence of synovial monosodium urate crystals) were collected within 24 hours. Statistically significant variables and predefined variables were separately entered in multivariate logistic regression models to predict the presence of synovial monosodium urate crystals. Diagnostic performance of the models was tested by receiver operating characteristic curve analysis. The most appropriate model was transformed to a clinically useful diagnostic rule. RESULTS Three hundred twenty-eight patients were included in the study. The positive and negative predictive values of family physician diagnosis of gout were 0.64 and 0.87, respectively. The most appropriate model contained the following predefined variables: male sex, previous patient-reported arthritis attack, onset within 1 day, joint redness, first metatarsophalangeal joint (MTP1) involvement, hypertension or 1 or more cardiovascular diseases, and serum uric acid level exceeding 5.88 mg/dL (to convert serum uric acid level to micromoles per liter, multiply by 59.485). The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve for this model was 0.85 (95% confidence interval, 0.81-0.90). Performance did not change after transforming the regression coefficients to easy-to-use scores and was almost equal to that of the statistically optimal model (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve, 0.87; 95% confidence interval, 0.83-0.91). CONCLUSIONS The validity of family physician diagnosis of acute gouty arthritis was moderate in this study. An easy-to-use diagnostic rule without joint fluid analysis was developed for their use.
Positive-Bias Temperature Instability Improvement of Poly-Si Thin-Film Transistor With HfO2 Gate Dielectric by Ammonia Plasma Treatment

In this paper, positive-bias temperature instability (PBTI) stress with different stress voltage at T = 125 °C is executed on the high-performance polycrystalline silicon (poly-Si) thin-film transistors (TFTs) with HfO<sub>2</sub> gate dielectric and ammonia (NH<sub>3</sub>) plasma surface treatment. The NH<sub>3</sub> plasma surface treatment on the poly-Si TFT with HfO<sub>2</sub> gate dielectric can significantly decrease the threshold voltage (V<sub>TH</sub>) approximately -1.86 V, reduce the subthreshold slope (S.S.) approximately -88 mV/decade, enhance the transconductance (G<sub>m</sub>) approximately 2.4×, and driving current (I<sub>drv</sub>) approximately 2.34. In addition, the device degradation after PBTI stress with stress voltage V<sub>G</sub> - V<sub>TH</sub> = 7 V for 1000 s at T = 125 °C can also be improved after the NH<sub>3</sub> plasma surface treatment, such as the suppressing of VTH shift from 2.063 to 0.617 V, S.S. degradation quantity from 0.284 V/decade to 0.172 V/decade, and I<sub>drv</sub> reduction from -77% to -44%. The improvement of the PBTI of poly-Si TFTs with NH<sub>3</sub> plasma surface treatment is attributed to the suppression of oxide charge trapping effect and the degradation of interface state density (N<sub>it</sub>) and grain boundary trap state density (N<sub>GB</sub>).
Use of quality checklists and need for disease-specific guidance in economic evaluations: a meta-review

Economic evaluations have become an essential part of reimbursement decisions in a wide range of countries. To ensure high quality, a variety of checklists with different purposes have been developed and implemented enabling assessment of these evaluations. Three of these checklists are most frequently used and are recommended by the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews for critical appraisal (Drummond, CHEC and Philips). Every checklist is developed with a different purpose having, for example, a focus on reporting or conducting and on modeling or trial-based evaluations. This review outlines the heterogeneity in choice and implementation of these quality checklists in an incorrect manner. This ultimately results in under- and even possibly overestimation of quality of included economic evaluations. More guidance in selecting correct checklists suiting the purpose of the quality check is therefore of utmost importance. Moreover, it appears that current checklists are lacking detailed disease-specific guidance resulting in models not correctly reflecting disease progression. Therefore, outcomes indicate that the problem of the wide variability of methodological choices is prevalent in some other disease areas too, regardless of the availability of quality checklists. More international collaboration should therefore be initiated in developing and publishing standardized and open source disease-specific reference models to overcome this problem.
Characterization of MHC class II B polymorphism in multiple populations of wild gorillas using non‐invasive samples and next‐generation sequencing

Genes encoded by the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) are crucial for the recognition and presentation of antigens to the immune system. In contrast to their closest relatives, chimpanzees and humans, much less is known about variation in gorillas at these loci. This study explored the exon 2 variation of ‐DPB1, ‐DQB1, and ‐DRB genes in 46 gorillas from four populations while simultaneously evaluating the feasibility of using fecal samples for high‐throughput MHC genotyping. By applying strict similarity‐ and frequency‐based analysis, we found, despite our modest sample size, a total of 18 alleles that have not been described previously, thereby illustrating the potential for efficient and highly accurate MHC genotyping from non‐invasive DNA samples. We emphasize the importance of controlling for multiple potential sources of error when applying this massively parallel short‐read sequencing technology to PCR products generated from low concentration DNA extracts. We observed pronounced differences in MHC variation between species, subspecies and populations that are consistent with both the ancient and recent demographic histories experienced by gorillas. Am. J. Primatol. 77:1193–1206, 2015. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.