Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The pathogenesis of congenital myopia. A study of 66 cases.

Congenital myopia offers an unusual source material for the study of pathological myopia. While it is relatively rare, exhibiting an incidence of considerably less than 1%, 1-3 it is probably the "purest" form of the disease. Posterior sclerectasia is almost invariably found, and the numerous environmental factors which allegedly contribute to its pathogenesis can be reduced to a minimum. The children studied in this series, as in previous studies, are diagnosed several years after birth. It would, indeed, be more accurate to term the condition "perinatal sclerectatic myopia. " However, the introduction of new terms, although more accurate, might only serve to confuse rather than clarify the subject. Materials and Methods A total of 66 cases of congenital myopia were examined for this study. The congenital nature of the disease was considered to be established by a history of nearsighted attitudes assumed by the child since early infancy in conjunction with
DNA TOPOISOMERASE ACTIVITIES IN CHINESE HAMSTER RADIOSENSITIVE MUTANTS AFTER X‐RAY TREATMENT

In the last years the attractive hypothesis of a possible involvement of mammalian topoisomerases in DNA repair has been proposed, given their molecular mechanism of action. So far, using asynchronous cultures a lot of controversial results have been reported, without taking into account the frequently dramatic fluctuations of topoisomerase activities depending upon the cell cycle stage and proliferation rate (mainly for topoisomerase II).
A Novel Algorithm for Feature Level Fusion Using SVM Classifier for Multibiometrics-Based Person Identification

Recent times witnessed many advancements in the field of biometric and ultimodal biometric fields. This is typically observed in the area, of security, privacy, and forensics. Even for the best of unimodal biometric systems, it is often not possible to achieve a higher recognition rate. Multimodal biometric systems overcome various limitations of unimodal biometric systems, such as nonuniversality, lower false acceptance, and higher genuine acceptance rates. More reliable recognition performance is achievable as multiple pieces of evidence of the same identity are available. The work presented in this paper is focused on multimodal biometric systemusing fingerprint and iris. Distinct textual features of the iris and fingerprint are extracted using the Haar waveletbased technique. A novel feature level fusion algorithm is developed to combine these unimodal features using the Mahalanobis distance technique. A support-vector-machine-based learning algorithm is used to train the system using the feature extracted. The performance of the proposed algorithms is validated and compared with other algorithms using the CASIA iris database and real fingerprint database. Fromthe simulation results, it is evident that our algorithm has higher recognition rate and very less false rejection rate compared to existing approaches.
Use of baculovirus MHC/peptide display libraries to characterize T‐cell receptor ligands

Summary: Peptide/protein display libraries are powerful tools for identifying and manipulating receptor/ligand pairs. While the large size of bacterial phage display libraries has made them the platform of choice in many applications, often considerable engineering has been required to achieve display of properly folded and active eukaryotic proteins, such as antibodies. This problem has been partially solved in several eukaryotic display systems, e.g. using yeast or retroviruses, but these systems have their own limitations. Recently, baculovirus has been developed as a display system using the virus itself or infected insect cells as the display platform. Here, we review the development and use of baculovirus‐infected cells as a platform for display libraries of peptides bound to major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I (MHCI) or class II (MHCII). We have used fluorescent multimeric soluble T‐cell receptors (TCRs) to screen these libraries and to identify peptide antigen mimotopes. We also present some improvements to this system that allow very large libraries to be constructed and screened. We have used these libraries to examine the role of MHCII‐bound peptides in the presentation of the staphylococcal enterotoxin A (SEA) and to manipulate an MHCI tumor‐associated antigen.
Cardiopulmonary bypass-induced changes in plasma concentrations of propofol and in auditory evoked potentials.

Unbound, rather than total, plasma concentrations may be related to the anaesthetic action of propofol. Therefore, we measured plasma concentrations of propofol and recorded Nb wave latencies of auditory evoked potentials (AEP) during continuous infusion of propofol in 15 patients undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) surgery. After induction of anaesthesia with fentanyl, propofol was infused continuously at a rate of 10 mg kg-1 h-1 for 20 min, and then the rate was reduced to 3 mg kg-1 h-1. Administration of heparin before cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) did not affect total or unbound propofol concentration. Initiation of CPB decreased mean total propofol concentration from 2.6 to 1.7 micrograms ml-1 (P < 0.01). Simultaneously, mean unbound propofol concentration remained at 0.06 micrograms ml-1 because of a slight increase in the mean free fraction of plasma propofol (from 2.3 to 3.5%; P > 0.05). During hypothermic CPB, mean total propofol concentration increased to concentrations measured before bypass (to 2.1 micrograms ml-1; P > 0.05 vs value before CPB) and the mean unbound propofol concentration was at its highest (0.07 microgram ml-1; P < 0.05 vs value before heparin). After CPB and administration of protamine, the mean total propofol concentration remained lowered (1.7 micrograms ml-1; P < 0.05 vs value before heparin) and the mean unbound propofol concentration returned to the level measured before heparin (P < 0.001 vs value during hypothermia). The latency of the Nb wave from recordings of AEP increased after induction of anaesthesia, reached its maximum during hypothermia and was prolonged during the subsequent phases of the study. The latency of the Nb wave did not correlate with total or unbound propofol concentration. We conclude that the changes in total and unbound concentrations of plasma propofol were not parallel in patients undergoing CABG. During CPB or at any other time during the CABG procedure, the unbound propofol concentration did not decrease and Nb wave latency was prolonged compared with baseline values measured after induction of anaesthesia before the start of CPB.
Law-Governed Regularities in Software Systems

Regularities, or the conformity to unifying principles, are essential to the comprehensibility, manageability and reliability of large software systems, and should, therefore, be considered an important element of their architecture. But, as is argued in this paper, the inherent globality of regularities makes them very hard to implement in traditional methods. This paper explores an approach to regularities which greatly simplifies their implementation, making them more easily employable for taming of the complexities of large systems. This approach, which is based on the concept of law-governed architecture (LGA), provides system designers and builders with the means for establishing regularities simply by declaring them formally and explicitly as the law of the system . Once such a law-governed regularity is declared, it is enforced by the environment in which the system is developed. We introduce here the formalism for specifying laws under the Darwin/2 environment, and give a sample of regularities that can be efficiently established by such laws. Although not all desirable regularities can be established this way, it is argued that the range of feasible law-governed regularities, which can be easily defined and efficiently enforced, is sufficiently broad for this to become a useful software engineering technique.
Structure of murine complement component C3. II. Nucleotide sequence of cloned complementary DNA coding for the alpha chain.

From the inserts of two recombinant plasmids isolated from a murine liver cDNA library, the nucleotide sequence coding for the C3 alpha chain was obtained and the corresponding amino acid sequence was derived. The alpha chain portion of the mRNA is 2979 nucleotides long, specifying a polypeptide of 993 amino acids. The molecular weight of the alpha chain, in the absence of carbohydrate, was calculated from the sequence data to be 112,933. Two possible carbohydrate attachment sites were predicted at residues 269 (Asn) and 947 (Asn). In addition, the positions for two putative factor I cleavage sites were predicted from a comparison with the cleavage sites in the human C3 alpha chain. The C3 alpha chain contains 24 cysteine residues, 10 of these clustered in the C-terminal 175 amino acids of the alpha chain. Together with the accompanying report (Lundwall, A, Wetsel, R.A., Domdey, H., Tack, B.F., and Fey, G.H. (1984) J. Biol. Chem. 259, 13851-13856), this study completes the nucleotide and amino acid structure of the murine precursor prepro-C3 molecule.
C:N:P Stoichiometry and Carbon Storage in a Naturally-Regenerated Secondary Quercus variabilis Forest Age Sequence in the Qinling Mountains, China

Large-scale Quercus variabilis natural secondary forests are protected under the Natural Forest Protection (NFP) program in China to improve the ecological environment. However, information about nutrient characteristics and carbon (C) storage is still lacking. Plant biomass and C, nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) stoichiometry of tree tissues, shrubs, herbs, litter, and soil were determined in young, middle-aged, near-mature and mature Quercus variabilis secondary forests in the Qinling Mountains, China. Tree leaf N and P concentrations indicated that the N-restricted situation worsened with forest age. The per hectare biomass of trees in decreasing order was near-mature, mature, middle-aged, then young stands. The majority of the biomass was in the stems (44.88–48.15%), followed by roots (24.54–28.68%), and branches (10.15–14.16%), and leaves made up the lowest proportion (2.86–3.55%) of trees. C storage at plant layer increased significantly with age, reaching maximum values in near-mature stand (100.4 Mg·ha−1) and then decreasing in mature stands. Soil C storage at a depth of 0 to 100 cm was 82.8, 96.8, 85.8, 104.2 Mg·ha−1, and C storage of forest ecosystem was 122.8, 163.0, 184.9, 178.3 Mg·ha−1 in young, middle-aged, near-mature, mature stands, respectively. There were significant correlations between biomass and C, N, P stoichiometry in different layers, especially in young stands.
Increased common carotid intima-media thickness. Adaptive response or a reflection of atherosclerosis? Findings from the Rotterdam Study.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Carotid intima-media thickness (IMT) measurements are used widely to study atherosclerosis. Some have suggested that an increased IMT reflects a nonatherosclerotic adaptive response to changes in shear stress and tensile stress. This stems from the hypothesis that changes in shear stress and subsequently in lumen diameter are followed by changes in IMT to keep tensile stress constant. We studied the relation of common carotid IMT to common carotid end-diastolic lumen diameter and tensile stress, as approximated by mean arterial pressure (lumen diameter/IMT)]. METHODS A cross-sectional analysis was performed with data obtained from the first 1715 participants in the Rotterdam Study, a population-based cohort study among 7983 subjects aged 55 years and over who underwent ultrasonographic examination of the carotid arteries. End-diastolic lumen diameter and IMT of the common carotid arteries were evaluated and quantified. RESULTS With increasing IMT, inner and outer lumen diameters increased gradually, and beyond an IMT of 1.10 mm, the inner lumen diameter decreased. Tensile stress increased with increasing lumen diameter instead of being constant. The lumen-to-IMT ratio was constant across levels of mean arterial pressure. CONCLUSIONS Our findings are compatible with the view that at lower degrees of IMT, the thickening appears to reflect an equilibrium state in which the effects of pressure and flow on the arteries are in balance, given a characteristic relation between shear stress and local transmural pressure. Beyond a certain level, IMT more likely may represent atherosclerosis. Regardless of whether common carotid IMT reflects local atherosclerosis, it may still serve as a graded marker for cardiovascular risk.
Catch-up growth among low birth weight infants: Estimation of the time of occurrence of compensatory events

The aim of this study was to estimate the time elapsed between the birth and the occurrence of catch-up growth in the first 12 months of life, in groups of infants born with low birth weight (less than or equal to 2500g). Postnatal catch-up growth had occurred in 100 cases (60 boys and 40 girls). There were no statistical differences between the sexes in the frequency of growth compensation and in the time of the occurrence of the event. In the 2 nd and the 10 th month of life the fewest number of compensational events were observed, but there is no particular time which can be identified as having the most rapid velocity. The category of birth body weight, gestational age and occurrence of intrauterine growth retardation had a distinct influence on the time distribution of growth compensation. Preterm delivery compounded the effects on growth of small-for-gestational age births.
Mapping of left ventricular blood flow with radioactive microspheres in experimental coronary artery occlusion.

Radioactive microspheres were used to determine the pattern of regional left ventricular blood flow 30-60 min after acute coronary artery occlusion in nine dogs. Flow was found to be markedly reduced in the centre but only moderately reduced toward the edge of the ischaemic lesion, while in surrounding non-ischaemic myocardium flow was greater than normal. Flow was evenly distributed through the ventricular wall in non-ischaemic areas, but in ischaemic ones there was a disproportionate reduction in flow to the inner half of the wall.
Beta-hairpin stabilization in a 28-residue peptide derived from the beta-subunit sequence of human chorionic gonadotropin hormone.

The beta-subunit of the human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) hormone, which is believed to be related to certain types of cancer, contains three hairpin-like fragments. To investigate the role of beta-hairpin formation in the early stages of the hCGbeta folding, a 28-residue peptide with the sequence RDVRFESIRLPGSPRGVNPVVSYAVALS, corresponding to the H3-beta hairpin fragment (residues 60-87) of the hCGbeta subunit, was studied under various conditions using three optical spectroscopic methods: Fourier transform ir spectroscopy, electronic CD, and vibrational CD. Environmental conditions are critical factors for formation of secondary structure in this peptide. TFE : H(2)O mixed solvents induced helical formation. Formation of beta-structure in this peptide, which may be related to the native beta-hairpin formation in the intact hormone, was found to be induced only under conditions such as high concentration, high temperature, and the presence of nonmicellar sodium dodecyl sulfate concentrations. These findings support a protein folding mechanism for the hCGbeta subunit in which an initial hydrophobic collapse, which increases intermolecular interactions in hCGbeta, is needed to induce the H3-beta hairpin formation.
Health benefits of fermented foods

ABSTRACT In the past, the beneficial effects of fermented foods on health were unknown, and so people primarily used fermentation to preserve foods, enhance shelf life, and improve flavour. Fermented foods became an important part of the diet in many cultures, and over time fermentation has been associated with many health benefits. Because of this, the fermentation process and the resulting fermented products have recently attracted scientific interest. In addition, microorganisms contributing to the fermentation process have recently been associated with many health benefits, and so these microorganisms have become another focus of attention. Lactic acid bacteria (LAB) have been some of the most studied microorganisms. During fermentation, these bacteria synthesize vitamins and minerals, produce biologically active peptides with enzymes such as proteinase and peptidase, and remove some non-nutrients. Compounds known as biologically active peptides, which are produced by the bacteria responsible for fermentation, are also well known for their health benefits. Among these peptides, conjugated linoleic acids (CLA) have a blood pressure lowering effect, exopolysaccharides exhibit prebiotic properties, bacteriocins show anti-microbial effects, sphingolipids have anti-carcinogenic and anti-microbial properties, and bioactive peptides exhibit anti-oxidant, anti-microbial, opioid antagonist, anti-allergenic, and blood pressure lowering effects. As a result, fermented foods provide many health benefits such as anti-oxidant, anti-microbial, anti-fungal, anti-inflammatory, anti-diabetic and anti-atherosclerotic activity. However, some studies have shown no relationship between fermented foods and health benefits. Therefore, this paper aims to investigate the health effects of fermented foods.
Heart rates in cardiac resynchronization: the art of optimal device programming.

This editorial refers to ‘Acute haemodynamic effects of increase in paced heart rate in heart failure patients recorded with an implantable haemodynamic monitor’ by M. Staahlberg et al. , doi:10.1093/europace/euq354. Cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) has become the standard therapy for patients with decreased systolic left ventricular (LV) function with the indication extending most recently also the less symptomatic patients.1 Implantation rates in Europe have steadily increased with a clear difference between countries.2 Objective response rates with significant reverse LV remodelling have remained at 50–70% depending on the definition. Reverse remodelling, however, is the pre-requisite for decreasing hard clinical endpoints.3 Optimal delivery of CRT rests on three legs: (i) patient selection, (ii) optimal implantation, and (iii) optimal device programming. Although the first and, to lesser extent, the second point have been extensively studied, optimal device programming remains obscure, mostly due to time-consuming procedures for optimization and complex interdependence of the several parameters.4 Randomized studies are scarce and evidence is only available for optimal atrioventricular (AV) intervals. Heart rates have become critical in heart failure patients with the goal to ‘go as low as possible’. 5 If the heart rate per se needs to be low or if this is merely a surrogate for efficient suppression of neurohormonal activation remains controversial even though more data with the selective sinus node inhibitor ivabradine become available.5 Furthermore, it is unclear what optimal heart rates at exercise are. Chronotropic incompetence has been associated with adverse outcome in heart failure patients. …
Potential parental exposure to pesticides and limb reduction defects.

OBJECTIVES The goal of the study was to examine the effects of the potential pesticide exposure of parents on the risk of limb reduction defects in their offspring. METHODS A case-referent study was conducted utilizing New York State Congenital Malformation Register data. Persons with limb reduction defects and referents were compared in terms of parental occupations and residence counties. Parental occupations and industries reported on birth certificates were qualitatively rated by industrial hygienists to estimate potential pesticide (list four groups) exposures. Residential exposures were estimated from agricultural census data according to county of residence. RESULTS Neither parental exposure to pesticides [odds ratio (OR) 0.9, 95% confidence interval (95% CI) 0.6-1.4] nor farming occupation (OR 1.1, 95% CI 0.5-2.7) had an effect on the risk of total limb reduction defects. Those persons with limb reduction defects who had additional defects showed weak but consistent elevated risks in relation to parental occupational pesticide exposure. However, isolated cases of limb reduction defects were negatively related to these exposures. Residence in a farming or high pesticide use county was not associated with any type of limb reduction defect. CONCLUSIONS Cases of limb reduction defect with additional malformations appear to be associated with parental occupational pesticide exposure. Improving exposure classifications and subdividing the limb reduction defects by types in the analyses are suggested for future research.
Risk factors for survival after colorectal cancer resection.

BACKGROUND/AIMS To describe survival rates and prognostic factors for colorectal cancer (CRC) operated in a district general hospital setting with a special focus on the number of lymph nodes examined. METHODOLOGY Between December 2004 and December 2006, a total of 277 CRC patients who underwent surgical treatment in QHSU were included. All patients were followed up intensively from discharge until death or the end of the follow-up (December 31, 2010). RESULTS The median follow-up period was 53 months (range, 1-72 months). Overall 3-year survival was 72.9%. In only 11.5% of the specimens were 12 or more lymph nodes retrieved, but this did not affect survival. A multivariate analysis identified that the significant prognostic factors were TNM stage III [adjusted hazard ratio (HR): 5.49; 95%CI: 1.64-18.41], TNM stage IV (adjusted HR: 7.55; 95%CI: 2.12-26.84), tumor histology (adjusted HR: 1.88; 95%CI: 1.16-3.04), hospital stay (adjusted HR: 1.03; 95%CI: 1.00-1.06) and lymph node ratio (LNR) (adjusted HR: 3.92; 95%CI: 1.79-8.55) for stage III. CONCLUSIONS TNM stage, tumor histology and the length of hospital stay could prominently affect outcome overall. The lymph node count did not have a significant impact on survival, whereas the LNR proved significant for stage III. Nevertheless, a protocol using overall lymph node yield as a surrogate measure for more radical surgery seems warranted to improve the lymph node resected.
Why Put FPGAs in your CPU socket?

Summary form only given. Ever since FPGAs were invented, there has been great interest in using them as computing devices, and with the logic densities of today's devices, many interesting functions have been shown to have significant performance and energy benefits when implemented in FPGAs. However, when an application requires the combination of a high-performance CPU and an FPGA accelerator, the effectiveness of the FPGA is highly determined by the latency and bandwidth between the CPU, the CPU memory system and the FPGA and its memory system. Putting FPGAs into the CPU socket is one way to address this issue. This talk will present the history, the advantages and disadvantages, the challenges, architectures, programming models and applications of "insocket" accelerator systems.