Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Changing trends in asthma in 9–12 year olds between 1964 and 2009

Introduction Childhood asthma is a common condition and the prevalence has increased in many countries during the late 20th century. The Aberdeen schools asthma surveys reported rising lifetime prevalence of asthma between 1964 and 2004 in children aged 9–12 years, but a fall in wheeze in the last 3 years between 1999 and 2004. The present study tested the hypothesis that lifetime childhood asthma prevalence has fallen since 2004. Methods Children aged 9–12 years who attended the same schools surveyed since 1964 were invited to participate. A lifetime history of asthma or eczema and also wheeze in the past 3 years and 12 months was ascertained from a questionnaire. Trends over 1999, 2004 and 2009 were analysed with adjustment for age, gender and an index of deprivation. Results There were 2253 eligible children and 1196 (53%) questionnaires were returned. The lifetime prevalence of asthma rose from 24.3% in 1999 to 28.4% in 2004 but fell to 22.1% in 2009 (p<0.001), while wheeze in the last 3 years fell from 27.9% in 1999 to 25.2% in 2004 and fell further to 22.2% in 2009 (p<0.001). The lifetime prevalence of eczema among 9–12 year olds was 21.4% in 1999, 34.1% in 2004 and 30.7% in 2009 (p<0.001). Reductions in symptom prevalences between 2004 and 2009 were significant for girls but not boys. Conclusion The prevalence of lifetime asthma and wheeze appear to have fallen in school children, especially girls, although the low response rate means some caution is required when interpreting the results. Asthma prevalence remains high and the underlying mechanisms remain incompletely understood.
Evolution of information retrieval system: Critical review of multimedia information retrieval system based on content, context, and concept

In recent years the explosive growth of information affects the flood of information. The amount of information must be followed by the development of the effective Information Retrieval System (IRS) so that the information will be easily accessible and useful for the user. The source of Information contains various media format, beside text there is also image, audio, and video that called multimedia. A large number of multimedia information rise the Multimedia Information Retrieval System (MIRS). Most of MIRS today is monolithic or only using one media format like Google1 for text search, tineye2 for image search, youtube3 for video search or 4shared4 for music and audio search. There is a need of information in any kind of media, not only retrieve the document in text format, but also retrieve the document in an image, audio and video format at once from any kind media format of the query. This study reviews the evolution of IRS, regress from text-based to concept-based MIRS. Unified Multimedia Indexing technique is discussed along with Concept-based MIRS. This critical review concludes that the evolution of IRS follows three paces: content-based, context-based and concept-based. Each pace takes on indexing system and retrieval techniques to optimize information retrieved. The challenge is how to come up with a retrieval technique that can process unified MIRS in order to retrieve optimally the relevant document.
Principles in prevention of periodontal diseases: Consensus report of group 1 of the 11th European Workshop on Periodontology on effective prevention of periodontal and peri-implant diseases.

AIMS In spite of the remarkable success of current preventive efforts, periodontitis remains one of the most prevalent diseases of mankind. The objective of this workshop was to review critical scientific evidence and develop recommendations to improve: (i) plaque control at the individual and population level (oral hygiene), (ii) control of risk factors, and (iii) delivery of preventive professional interventions. METHODS Discussions were informed by four systematic reviews covering aspects of professional mechanical plaque control, behavioural change interventions to improve self-performed oral hygiene and to control risk factors, and assessment of the risk profile of the individual patient. Recommendations were developed and graded using a modification of the GRADE system using evidence from the systematic reviews and expert opinion. RESULTS Key messages included: (i) an appropriate periodontal diagnosis is needed before submission of individuals to professional preventive measures and determines the selection of the type of preventive care; (ii) preventive measures are not sufficient for treatment of periodontitis; (iii) repeated and individualized oral hygiene instruction and professional mechanical plaque (and calculus) removal are important components of preventive programs; (iv) behavioural interventions to improve individual oral hygiene need to set specific Goals, incorporate Planning and Self monitoring (GPS approach); (v) brief interventions for risk factor control are key components of primary and secondary periodontal prevention; (vi) the Ask, Advise, Refer (AAR) approach is the minimum standard to be used in dental settings for all subjects consuming tobacco; (vii) validated periodontal risk assessment tools stratify patients in terms of risk of disease progression and tooth loss. CONCLUSIONS Consensus was reached on specific recommendations for the public, individual dental patients and oral health care professionals with regard to best action to improve efficacy of primary and secondary preventive measures. Some have implications for public health officials, payers and educators.
18F-FDG PET in the management of patients with anaplastic thyroid carcinoma.

BACKGROUND Anaplastic thyroid carcinoma (ATC) is one of the most aggressive solid tumors in humans. The use of positron emission tomography (PET) with 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (18F-FDG) in ATC has not been studied, and only a few case reports have been published. The objective of this study was to investigate the potential contribution of 18F-FDG PET to the clinical management of patients with ATC. METHODS All patients with ATC studied with 18F-FDG PET from August 2001 through March 2007 were included. The PET results were correlated with computed tomography, ultrasound, magnetic resonance imaging, bone scan, histology, and clinical follow-up. The FDG uptake was semiquantified as maximum standard uptake value. Any change in the treatment plan as a direct result of the PET findings as documented in the clinical notes was recorded. RESULTS Sixteen patients were included. True-positive PET findings were seen for all primary tumors, in all nine patients with lymph node metastases, in five out of eight patients with lung metastases, and in two patients with distant metastases other than lung metastases. In 8 of the 16 patients, the medical records reported a direct impact of the PET findings on the clinical management. CONCLUSIONS ATC demonstrates intense uptake on 18F-FDG PET images. In 8 of the 16 patients (50%), the medical records reported a direct impact of the PET findings on the management of the patient. PET may improve disease detection and have an impact on the management of patients with ATC relative to other imaging modalities.
Which NADPH oxidase isoform is relevant for ischemic stroke? The case for nox 2.

UNLABELLED Significance and Recent Advances: Ischemic stroke is the leading cause of disability and third in mortality in industrialized nations. Immediate restoration of cerebral blood flow is crucial to salvage brain tissue, but only few patients are eligible for recanalization therapy. Thus, the need for alternative neuroprotective strategies is huge, and antioxidant interventions have long been studied in this context. Reactive oxygen species (ROS) physiologically serve as signaling molecules, but excessive amounts of ROS, as generated during ischemia/reperfusion (I/R), contribute to tissue injury. CRITICAL ISSUES Nevertheless and despite a strong rational of ROS being a pharmacological target, all antioxidant interventions failed to improve functional outcome in human clinical trials. Antioxidants may interfere with physiological functions of ROS or do not reach the crucial target structures of ROS-induced injury effectively. FUTURE DIRECTIONS Thus, a potentially more promising approach is the inhibition of the source of disease-promoting ROS. Within recent years, NADPH oxidases (Nox) of the Nox family have been identified as mediators of neuronal pathology. As, however, several Nox homologs are expressed in neuronal tissue, and as many of the pharmacological inhibitors employed are rather unspecific, the concept of Nox as mediators of brain damage is far from being settled. In this review, we will discuss the contribution of Nox homologs to I/R injury at large as well as to neuronal damage in particular. We will illustrate that the current data provide evidence for Nox2 as the most important NADPH oxidase mediating cerebral injury.
Whole-gene APC deletions cause classical familial adenomatous polyposis, but not attenuated polyposis or “multiple” colorectal adenomas

Familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP) is a dominantly inherited colorectal tumor predisposition that results from germ-line mutations in the APC gene (chromosome 5q21). FAP shows substantial phenotypic variability: classical polyposis patients develop more than 100 colorectal adenomas, whereas those with attenuated polyposis (AAPC) have fewer than 100 adenomas. A further group of individuals, so-called “multiple” adenoma patients, have a phenotype like AAPC, with 3–99 polyps throughout the colorectum, but mostly have no demonstrable germ-line APC mutation. Routine mutation detection techniques fail to detect a pathogenic APC germ-line mutation in approximately 30% of patients with classical polyposis and 90% of those with AAPC/multiple adenomas. We have developed a real-time quantitative multiplex PCR assay to detect APC exon 14 deletions. When this technique was applied to a set of 60 classical polyposis and 143 AAPC/multiple adenoma patients with no apparent APC germ-line mutation, deletions were found exclusively in individuals with classical polyposis (7 of 60, 12%). Fine-mapping of the region suggested that the majority (6 of 7) of these deletions encompassed the entire APC locus, confirming that haploinsufficiency can result in a classical polyposis phenotype. Screening for germ-line deletions in APC mutation-negative individuals with classical polyposis seems warranted.
Definition of full-time and part-time employment, and distributional assumptions: the implications for the estimated full-time and part-time wage equations

Abstract This paper demonstrates that rejecting the standard definition of full-time and part-time workers, the estimated number of hours that an individual is likely to work as a full-time worker is a function of the type of distribution one assumes about the error term in the wage equation. Adopting a switching regression model with unknown sample selection, we have found that the normality assumption generates higher hours for full-timers in comparison with the non-normal distributions. We also noted that regardless of the distribution assumed, the hours differ from one industry to another. The implication is that the standard definition of full-time and part-time worker may not be appropriate for all firms irrespective of the distribution assumed. The paper also shows the sensitivity of parameter estimates to the distributional assumptions about the error term in the wage equation. The results indicate that the normal distribution wage equation estimates are relatively larger than the Weibull and exponential distributions. This finding is particularly important because such differences in estimated coefficients may have a direct wage influence on the wage gap between full-time and part-time workers across distributions.
A pilot study of combined immunotherapy with autologous adoptive tumour‐specific T‐cell transfer, vaccination with CD40‐activated malignant B cells and interleukin 2

Most B‐cell malignancies are incurable diseases and therefore warrant new therapeutic approaches. In a pilot study, we tested the feasibility and safety of combined immunotherapy consisting of adoptive transfer of autologous tumour‐specific T cells, low‐dose interleukin 2 (IL‐2) and a cellular vaccine of CD40‐activated plasma cell leukaemia (PCL) cells in a patient who failed tandem repeat stem cell transplantation and idiotype vaccination. Autologous tumour‐specific T cells for adoptive T‐cell transfer were propagated in vitro by repetitive stimulation with autologous ex vivo CD40‐activated PCL cells. CD40‐activated PCL cells for vaccination were similarly generated ex vivo by co‐culture with CD40 ligand transfectants. Autologous T cells (5 × 108 and 2·5 × 109 for two separate treatment cycles) generated ex vivo and cytotoxic against autologous tumours were infused and well tolerated by the patient. Fever and myalgias were closely related to IL‐2 injections and no other adverse effects were observed. A temporary decrease of PCL cells in peripheral blood was seen after the first cycle of adoptive T‐cell therapy, tumour cell vaccination and low‐dose IL‐2. Tumour progression was associated with tumour cells that (1) expressed a complex karyotype, (2) demonstrated loss of MHC class II, and (3) did not induce autologous tumour‐specific T‐cell lines ex vivo. We demonstrated the safety and feasibility in combining autologous tumour‐specific T‐cell therapy with low‐dose IL‐2 and that clinical trials based on the use of CD40‐activated autologous tumour cell vaccines are warranted in patients with CD40‐activated autologous tumour cells, either as a vaccine or for ex vivo stimulation of autologous T cells.
Porous bioactive scaffold of aliphatic polyurethane and hydroxyapatite for tissue regeneration

In this study, a new hydroxyapatite (HA)/polyurethane (PU) composite porous scaffold was developed by in situ polymerization. Aliphatic isophorone diisocyanate as a nontoxic and safe agent was adopted to produce the rigid segment in polyurethane polymerization. Hydroxyapatite powder was compounded in a PU polymer matrix during the polymeric process. The macrostructure and morphology as well as mechanical strength of the scaffolds were characterized by FTIR, XRD, DSC and SEM. The results show that the isophorone diisocyanate can react mildly with hydroxyl (–OH) groups of castor oil and a mild foaming action caused by the release of CO2 gas occurred simultaneously in the reactive process, thus producing a uniform porous structure of HA/PU scaffold. The HA/PU composite scaffold with a high HA content of about 60 wt% has a porosity of more than 78% and a pore size from 100 µm to 800 µm. The HA/PU scaffold exhibited good cytocompatibility estimated by co-culturing the scaffold with MG63 cells through MTT test. The porous composite scaffold has good homogenization and a perfect three-dimensional structure for cell migration and bone tissue ingrowth, and should have good prospects for bone tissue regeneration.
High-energy transients

We present an overview of high-energy transients in astrophysics, highlighting important advances over the past 50 years. We begin with early discoveries of γ-ray transients, and then delve into physical details associated with a variety of phenomena. We discuss some of the unexpected transients found by Fermi and Swift, many of which are not easily classifiable or in some way challenge conventional wisdom. These objects are important insofar as they underscore the necessity of future, more detailed studies.
A Comparison of Narratives Told by Younger and Older Adults

ABSTRACT The few studies that have examined verbal discourse in both young and older adults have yielded inconsistent results with respect to talkativeness and story quality. The disparity may arise from methodological differences. In this study the authors examined word count, irrelevant utterances, and ratings of quality of stories told by 24 young (mean age = 19.21) and 24 old (mean age = 72.13) adults. The authors found minimal age differences. A separate sample of 10 young and 10 older adults of ages similar to those of the storytellers read and rated all the stories. Raters were highly variable in their subjective evaluations of story quality, although satisfactory generalizability coefficients can be achieved with a sufficiently large number of raters. Most studies of discourse quality, however, use few raters, which produces unreliable measurement that can contribute to the inconsistent results reported in the literature.
Acute Phase Immune Response to Exercise Coexists with Decreased Neutrophil Antioxidant Enzyme Defences

Long-duration or damaging exercise initiates reactions that resemble the acute phase response to infection and induces neutrophil priming for oxidative activity. Our objective was to establish the status of the antioxidant defences and of the oxidative equilibrium in the neutrophils of sportsmen prior to and after intense physical exercise. Nine voluntary male professional cyclists participated in this study. The exercise was a cycling mountain stage (171 km) and the cyclists took a mean - SEM of 270 - 12 min to complete it. We determined the activities of catalase (CAT), glutathione reductase (GR), glutathione peroxidase (GPx), the levels and activity of superoxide dismutase (SOD), the concentrations of ascorbate, glutathione and glutathione disulphide (GSSG) and DNA levels in neutrophils. The cycling stage decreased enzyme activities expressed per DNA units: CAT (33%), SOD (38%), GPx (65%); increased ascorbate concentration in neutrophils and decreased the GSH/GSSG ratio and the enzyme activities expressed per DNA units. Neutrophils could contribute to plasma antioxidant defences against oxidative stress induced by exercise because they probably provide antioxidant enzymes and ascorbate.
Bone density, ultrasound measurements and body composition in early ankylosing spondylitis.

OBJECTIVES In this cross-sectional study, we evaluated bone density using both dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) and quantitative ultrasound (QUS) techniques and examined the changes in body composition in patients with ankylosing spondylitis (AS). METHODS Seventy-one patients were compared with seventy-one sex- and age-matched controls. Bone mineral density (BMD) was evaluated at the lumbar spine and femoral neck with a Lunar device. Total body measurements were also performed, giving BMD and bone mineral content (BMC) of the whole body, and fat and lean masses. Broadband ultrasound attenuation (BUA), speed of sound and stiffness were measured at the calcaneus using an Achilles ultrasound device. RESULTS The patients had significantly lower lumbar spine, femoral neck and total body BMD as compared with controls (all P < 0.05). Total body BMC was also decreased in AS (P = 0.002). On the contrary, fat and lean masses did not differ between patients and controls as observed for QUS values. Mild to good correlations were found between BMD and QUS parameters (r ranging from 0.22 to 0.53; all P < or = 0.01). When applying the World Health Organization (WHO) definition for osteoporosis, we found that 46.5% of patients had lumbar spine osteopenia and/or osteoporosis, while 26.8% had femoral neck osteopenia and/or osteoporosis (controls: 23.9 and 10%; P = 0.001 and 0.08, respectively). No relationships between disease activity (as evaluated by erythrocyte sedimentation rate, serum C-reactive protein levels and BASDAI, a clinical index of disease activity) and BMD measurements were found and only femoral neck BMD correlated with disease duration (r = -0.25; P = 0.04). Finally, the presence of talalgia in AS did not influence the QUS values. CONCLUSION These results confirm that AS patients have decreased BMD values at both the spine and femur, and also in total body measurements, reflecting a generalized bone loss. On the contrary, soft tissue composition does not seem to be influenced by the disease. QUS parameters were found to be similar between patients and controls, suggesting that the QUS method did not provide additive information to DEXA. As it is thought that QUS provides information about qualitative properties of bone, the normal results of QUS values in our patient series argue against modifications in AS bone micro-architecture.
Acute Effects of Kinesio Taping on Knee Extensor Peak Torque and Electromyographic Activity After Exhaustive Isometric Knee Extension in Healthy Young Adults

Objective:To evaluate the effect of Kinesio Tex tape and its method of application, Kinesio Taping (KT) on knee extensor performance before and after an exhaustive isometric knee extension exercise. Design:Single-blinded, randomized control trial. Setting:Centre for Sports Training and Rehabilitation at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Participants:Twenty-six healthy volunteers with no history of knee injuries. Interventions:Subjects were randomized to either the KT or sham taping group. Main Outcome Measures:The effects of KT on the neuromuscular performance of the knee extensors were measured before and after KT application, and immediately and 5 and 10 minutes after an exhaustive isometric knee extension exercise. Results:Within-group analyses revealed a significant effect of time on the peak torque in isometric knee extension (F2.73,65.44 = 24.5, P < 0.001), but no significant group (F2.73,65.44 = 2.13, P = 0.11) or interaction (F1,24 = 0.59, P = 0.45) effect. A significant time effect (F2.52,60.14 = 3.75, P = 0.02) and a significant time × group interaction (F1,24 = 4.59, P = 0.04) was found for the rate of peak torque development. Post hoc comparisons revealed significantly higher rates in the intervention group (F1,24 = 4.594, P = 0.04) over all 5 tests. No significant effects of time (F4,96 = 0.88, P = 0.48; F2.56,61.35 = 2.75, P = 0.06), group (F4,96 = 0.56, P = 0.69; F2.56,61.35 = 1.16, P = 0.33), or time × group interaction (F1,24 = 2.77, P = 0.11; F1,24 = 0.20, P = 0.66) were found for either the electromechanical delay or electromyographic results, respectively. Conclusions:The present study suggests that KT shortens the time required to generate peak torque during isometric knee extension, which has important implications for sports performances that require the rapid generation of peak muscular force. Clinical Relevance:Kinesio taping is commonly seen in the sports arena. The popularity is presumably due to the general belief in its injury prevention and enhancement of muscle performance. The results of the present findings suggested that KT shortens the time to reach peak torque generation. Aside from this, there is no other significant positive effect on muscle performance. Further investigation on the effects of KT on muscle performance is warranted.