Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Using topiramate or naltrexone for the treatment of alcohol-dependent patients.

BACKGROUND To compare topiramate versus naltrexone in the treatment of alcohol dependence. METHODS A 6-month naturalistic, randomized and open-label, trial of topiramate versus naltrexone, with assessments at enrollment and after 3 and 6 months of treatment. The setting was an outpatient alcohol clinic. One hundred and two alcohol-dependent patients who had been drinking heavily during the past month were included. Two randomized groups were created. In one, naltrexone was used as the therapeutic agent and, in the other, topiramate was chosen as the therapeutic agent. Both groups received psychological relapse prevention therapy. Outcome was measured using tools that assessed alcohol intake, cravings, disability, and quality of life; changes in biomarkers of alcohol intake were also used. With all the data, a secondary composite measure was created in order to assess each patient's global alcohol intake and its consequences. RESULTS Both groups showed substantial reduction in their drinking. Naltrexone patients had higher nicotine consumption throughout the study. Topiramate was better at reducing alcohol-related cravings throughout the study. Both treatments had a similar mean cost throughout the study. CONCLUSIONS Both topiramate and naltrexone were efficacious in the treatment of alcohol dependence, and the treatment costs were similar. There is a trend for topiramate to be superior to naltrexone on critical measures of drinking; however, the study did not have adequate statistical power to establish this fact.
Increased susceptibility to sporadic Parkinson's disease by a certain combined α‐synuclein/apolipoprotein E genotype

Parkinson's disease (PD) is one of the most common neurodegenerative disorders affecting about 1% of Western populations older than age 50. The pathological hallmark of PD are Lewy bodies, that is, intracytoplasmic inclusion bodies in affected neurons of the substantia nigra. Recently, α‐synuclein (α‐SYN) has been identified as the main component of Lewy bodies in sporadic PD, suggesting involvement in neurodegeneration via protein accumulation. The partially overlapping pathology of PD and Alzheimer's disease, as well as striking structural similarities of α‐SYN and apolipoprotein E, which is a major risk factor for late‐onset Alzheimer's disease, prompted us to investigate the influence of different α‐SYN and apolipoprotein E alleles for developing sporadic PD. We performed association studies in 193 German PD patients and 200 healthy control subjects matched for age, sex, and origin. A polymorphism in the promoter region of the α‐SYN gene (NACP‐Rep1) as well as of the closely linked DNA markers D4S1647 and D4S1628 revealed significant differences in the allelic distributions between PD patients and the control group. Furthermore, the Apoε4 allele but not the Th1/E47 promoter polymorphism of the apolipoprotein E gene was significantly more frequent among early‐onset PD patients (age at onset, <50 years) than in late‐onset PD. Regarding the combination of the Apoε4 allele and allele 1 of the α‐SYN promoter polymorphism, a highly significant difference between the group of PD patients and control individuals has been found, suggesting interactions or combined actions of these proteins in the pathogenesis of sporadic PD. PD patients harboring this genotype have a 12.8‐fold increased relative risk for developing PD during their lives. Ann Neurol 1999;45:611–617
Multi-feature Vehicle Detection Using Feature Selection

Feature selection has received attention recently in the field of object detection. A vehicle detection method using feature selection is presented in this work. An efficient feature subset is selected using feature selection methods and each feature subset is evaluated by computing the average error rate in different classification methods. The feature selection methods used in this work are the logistic regression, least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) and the random forest (RF) methods. The proposed method is evaluated using actual data, showing good performance.
Condición y educación Bucodental y otros determinantes de la salud en personas adultas mayores de seis cantones del Área Metropoliana

Ante el acelerado envejecimiento de la poblacion en Costa Rica y la ausencia de conocimiento nuevo sobre la condicion bucodental de las personas adultas mayores(PAM) y otros determinantes de salud, se decidio realizar una investigacion epidemiologica con 1566 mayores de 60 anos, en seis cantones del Area Metropolitana. Los resultados generales fueron: alto nivel de edentulismo 45%, con diferencia estadisticamente positiva (p=0,0001)en todos los cantones. En las mujeres el edentulismo es mayor, diferencia que resulto ser estadisticamente significativa al 90% de confianza. Las PAM de San Pedro Montes de Oca, fueron las que mas piezas naturales mantenian en boca. Tambien se evidencio elevada presencia de caries radicular 43%, y hay necesidad de protesis en el 55%, con el agravante del mal estado de estas en quienes las poseen, por su uso mas alla de lo funcional. La conclusion principal fue que las PAM en la actualidad tienen una deteriorada condicion bucodental. Se percibio la falta de conocimientos al respecto, por lo que se inicio una segunda etapa con el objetivo de brindar educacion sobre diferentes topicos relacionados con esta problematica. En esta etapa participaron 403 personas, pertenecientes a la misma area geografica. El metodo usado se baso en diferentes tecnicas de aprendizaje: videos, dramatizaciones y charlas. Se realizaron dos cuestionarios, uno previo y otro una semana posterior a las dos intervenciones educativas. Los temas desarrollados fueron: erradicacion de mitos sobre la perdida de los dientes, explicacion de las consecuencias de dormir con las protesis, y la instruccion sobre el correcto cepillado dental y limpieza de las protesis. Se desarrollaron temas especificos: halitosis, xerostomia, enfermedad periodontal, nutricion, autoestima y gastritis. Se corroboro que las personas mayores que participaron, lograron aprender a su ritmo y que es necesario apuntar a una educacion permanente. Se concluye tambien, que es dificil erradicar en ellos, la creencia de algunos mitos como la naturalidad de la perdida de las piezas dentales en la vejez.
Components of the Risk Instrument for Screening in the Community (RISC) that Correlate with Public Health Nurses' Perception of Risk.

BACKGROUND Functional decline and frailty are common in community-dwelling older adults, leading to an increased risk of adverse outcomes. OBJECTIVE To examine the factors that public health nurses perceive to cause risk of three adverse outcomes: institutionalisation, hospitalisation, and death, in older adults, using the Risk Instrument for Screening in the Community (RISC). DESIGN A quantitative, correlational, descriptive design was used. SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS A sample of 803 community-dwellers, aged over 65 years receiving regular follow-up by public health nurses. Procedure and Measurements: Public health nurses (n=15) scored the RISC and the Clinical Frailty Scale (CFS) on patients in their caseload. We examined and compared correlations between the severity of concern and ability of the caregiver network to manage these concerns with public health nurses' perception of risk of the three defined adverse outcomes. RESULTS In total, 782 RISC scores were available. Concern was higher for the medical state domain (686/782,88%) compared with the mental state (306/782,39%) and activities of daily living (595/782,76%) domains. Concern was rated as severe for only a small percentage of patients. Perceived risk of institutionalisation had the strongest correlation with concern over patients mental state,(r=0.53), while risk of hospitalisation,(r=0.53) and death,(r=0.40) correlated most strongly with concern over the medical state. Weaker correlations were found for the other domains and RISC scores. The CFS most strongly correlated with the ADL domain,(r=0.78). CONCLUSION Although the prevalence of concern was high, it was mostly rated as mild. Perceived risk of institutionalisation correlated most with concern over the ability of caregiver networks to manage patients' mental state, while risk of hospitalisation and death correlated with patients' medical state. The findings suggest the importance of including an assessment of the caregiver network when examining community-dwelling older adults. Validation of the RISC and public health nurses' ratings are now required.
Personal and social variables as co-determinants of noise annoyance.

This paper starts with the fact that noise annoyance is partly due to acoustic factors, partly due to so-called moderating variables, i.e. personal and social aspects of the residents. Noise annoyance is considered to be the (long-term) negative evaluation of living conditions with respect to noise. This evaluation is not simply dependent on past disturbances, but on attitudes and expectations, too. The personal factors influencing the evaluation and described here are: Sensitivity to noise, fear of harm connected with the source, personal evaluation of the source, and coping capacity with respect to noise. The social factors described here are: General (social) evaluation of the source, trust or misfeasance with source authorities, history of noise exposure, and expectations of residents. For most of these variables, data from different community studies are used in order to illustrate the respective moderating effect on annoyance. In addition, some of the moderators are presented as possible tools in order to reduce noise annoyance. It is expected that a significant decrease in a negatively moderating variable is as effective in reducing noise annoyance, as is a significant decrease in noise level.
Blind and Semiblind Channel Estimation for Single-Carrier Block Transmission Systems Using Few Received Blocks

In this paper, the blind and semiblind channel estimation and equalization are investigated for zero-padding single-carrier block transmission (ZP-SCBT) systems using second-order statistics. Unlike the conventional channel estimation techniques, the proposed approach focuses on identifying the inverse of the channel impulse response rather than the channel response itself by skillfully exploiting the redundancy of the zero-padding. One interesting advantage of the proposed blind and semiblind approach is that the number of received blocks needed for blind identification is significantly reduced compared to the subspace method. Moreover, the computational complexity of the proposed approaches is much lower than the existing subspace methods. Simulation results are provided to demonstrate that the performance of the proposed approach is superior to the subspace-based blind methods.
Epibacterium ulvae gen. nov., sp. nov., epibiotic bacteria isolated from the surface of a marine alga.

Two Gram-reaction-negative, rod-shaped, motile bacteria, designated strains U82 and U95(T), were isolated from the marine alga Ulva australis collected at Sharks Point, Clovelly, a rocky intertidal zone near Sydney, Australia. Both strains were oxidase- and catalase-positive, formed brown- to black-pigmented colonies and required NaCl for growth. Phylogenetic analysis based on nearly complete 16S rRNA gene sequences revealed that these strains belong to the Roseobacter clade within the Alphaproteobacteria. The 16S rRNA genes of both strains were identical across the sequenced 1326 nt, but showed differences in the intergenic spacer region (ITS) between the 16S and the 23S rRNA genes. At the genomic level the DNA G+C contents of strains U82 and U95(T) were identical (52.6 mol%) and they had a DNA-DNA hybridization value of 83.7%, suggesting that these strains belong to the same species. The closest described phylogenetic neighbour to strains U82 and U95(T) was Thalassobius aestuarii DSM 15283(T) with 95.8% 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity. Other close relatives include further species of the genera Thalassobius and Shimia. Strains U82 and U95(T) were negative for bacteriochlorophyll a production, showed antibacterial activity towards other marine bacteria, were resistant to the antibiotics gentamicin and spectinomycin and were unable to hydrolyse starch or gelatin. The major fatty acids (>1%) were 18 : 1ω7c, 16 : 0, 18 : 2, 10 : 0 3-OH, 12 : 0, 20 : 1 2-OH and 18 : 0. The polar lipid pattern indicated the presence of phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylcholine, two unidentified aminolipids and four unidentified phospholipids. Both strains produced ubiquinone 10 (Q-10) as the sole respiratory lipoquinone. Based on their phenotypic and phylogenetic characteristics, it is suggested that strains U82 and U95(T) are members of a novel species within a new genus for which the name Epibacterium ulvae gen. nov., sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain of the type species is U95(T) ( = DSM 24752(T) = LMG 26464(T)).
Retinoblastoma‐related protein pRb2/p130 and its binding to the B‐myb promoter increase during human neuroblastoma differentiation

Neuroblastoma cells can undergo neural differentiation upon treatment with a variety of chemical inducers and growth factors. During this process, many cell cycle–related genes are downregulated while differentiation‐specific genes are triggered. The retinoblastoma family proteins, pRb, p107, and pRb2/p130, are involved in transcriptional repression of proliferation genes, mainly through their interaction with the E2F transcription factors. We report that pRb2/p130 expression levels increased during differentiation of neuroblastoma cell line LAN‐5. On the other hand, both pRb and p107 decreased and underwent progressive dephosphorylation at late differentiation times. The expression of B‐myb and c‐myb, two targets of the retinoblastoma family proteins, were downregulated in association with the increase of pRb2/p130, which was detected as the major component of the complex with E2F on the E2F site of the B‐myb promoter in differentiated cells. Interestingly, E2F4, a preferential partner of p107 and pRb2/p130, was upregulated and underwent changes in cellular localization during differentiation. In conclusion, our data suggest a major role of pRb2/p130 in the regulation of B‐myb promoter during neural differentiation despite the importance of cofactors in modulating the function of the retinoblastoma family proteins. J. Cell. Biochem. 67:297–303, 1997. © 1997 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Enzyme‐driven bacillus spore coat degradation leading to spore killing

The bacillus spore coat confers chemical and biological resistance, thereby protecting the core from harsh environments. The primarily protein‐based coat consists of recalcitrant protein crosslinks that endow the coat with such functional protection. Proteases are present in the spore coat, which play a putative role in coat degradation in the environment. However these enzymes are poorly characterized. Nonetheless given the potential for proteases to catalyze coat degradation, we screened 10 commercially available proteases for their ability to degrade the spore coats of B. cereus and B. anthracis. Proteinase K and subtilisin Carlsberg, for B. cereus and B. anthracis spore coats, respectively, led to a morphological change in the otherwise impregnable coat structure, increasing coat permeability towards cortex lytic enzymes such as lysozyme and SleB, thereby initiating germination. Specifically in the presence of lysozyme, proteinase K resulted in 14‐fold faster enzyme induced germination and exhibited significantly shorter lag times, than spores without protease pretreatment. Furthermore, the germinated spores were shown to be vulnerable to a lytic enzyme (PlyPH) resulting in effective spore killing. The spore surface in response to proteolytic degradation was probed using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), which provided key insights regarding coat degradation. The extent of coat degradation and spore killing using this enzyme‐based pretreatment approach is similar to traditional, yet far harsher, chemical decoating methods that employ detergents and strong denaturants. Thus the enzymatic route reduces the environmental burden of chemically mediated spore killing, and demonstrates that a mild and environmentally benign biocatalytic spore killing is achievable. Biotechnol. Bioeng. 2014;111: 654–663. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
A quantitative description of end‐plate currents in the presence of two lidocaine derivatives.

1. Possible ways in which local anaesthetics may act to produce their characteristic alterations of end‐plate current (e.p.c.s) are considered. 2. Following Magleby & Stevens (1972b), it is proposed that when acetylcholine (ACh) binds to its end‐plate receptor it induces a conformational change which causes an increased ionic permeability and, thus, the measured e.p.c. ; the reverse conformational change which returns the permeability to its resting state is postulated to be the rate‐limiting event for e.p.c. decay whether or not local anaesthetics are present. Moreover, it is proposed that the ACh receptor had multiple binding sites and the local anaesthetics can bind to one or more of these sites thereby altering the conformational changes induced when ACh binds to remaining sites. 3. Equations based on this proposal are developed and are shown to provide an accurate description of the entire e.p.c. time couse as modified by eith QX‐222 or QX‐314. 4. Other models are also discussed; models in which local anaesthetic molecules bind only after receptor activation appear to be ruled out.
Optic neuritis: chemokine receptor CXCR3 and its ligands

Aim: To study the involvement of the chemokine receptor CXCR3 and its ligands (CXCL9/Mig, CXCL10/IP-10, CXCL11/ITAC) in optic neuritis (ON). Methods: 30 patients with ON and 10 non-inflammatory neurological disease controls were included. The patients underwent a phlebotomy, lumbar puncture, and MRI scan. CXCR3 expression was studied on blood and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) T cells by flow cytometry. CXCL9, CXCL10, and CXCL11 were measured in plasma and CSF by ELISA. Results: CSF concentrations of CXCL10, but not of CXCL9 and CXCL11, were significantly higher in ON patients than in controls. CSF concentrations of CXCL10 correlated with the CSF leucocyte count in ON patients, and CXCR3 expressing cells were significantly enriched in the CSF. Conclusion: These data show that the CSF concentration of the CXCR3 ligand CXCL10 is selectively increased in CSF from ON patients, and CXCR3 positive cells are recruited to the subarachnoid space.
Synchronization of a Class of Discrete Chaotic Systems by Improved Piecewise Linear Control

Based on the method of feedback chaos control, a nonlinear feedback control technique was used to synchronize two identical chaotic systems with different initial values. Because the conditional Lyapunov exponent of response system is greater than zero, synchronization loses when linear feedback method used alone. However,combining with piecewise control method as well as the improved couple terms, system synchronization is realized. The numerical simulations show that by using the proposed piecewise linear method the synchronized error is much smaller than that of nonlinear feedback control, and converge to zero more quickly.
Randomized rounding and rumor spreading with stochastic dependencies

Randomness is an important ingredient of modern computer science. The present thesis is concerned with two uses of randomness, viz. randomized roundings and randomized rumor spreading algorithms. The theorem of Beck and Fiala (1981) asserts that for every hypergraph and every set of vertex weights there is a rounding of the vertex weights such that the additive rounding error for all hyperedges is bounded by the maximum degree. In Chapter 2 this theorem will be extended to randomized roundings, that is, to roundings that are efficiently generated at random in such a way that each value is rounded up with probability equal to its fractional part. The larger part of this thesis deals with randomized rumor spreading algorithms. These are protocols for disseminating information on graphs. The classical randomized rumor spreading was introduced and fi rst investigated by Frieze and Grimmett on the complete graph (1985). In Chapter 3 a generalization of their results both in terms of the model used and in terms of the underlying graph will be shown. In Chapter 4 a quasirandom rumor spreading protocol introduced by Doerr, Friedrich, and Sauerwald (2008) will be considered. We present a detailed analysis of its evolution and show that its performance and robustness match performance and robustness of the randomized rumor spreading protocol. The unifying idea is to use dependencies so as to obtain results that are superior or equal to those obtained via independent randomness. Die Verwendung von Zufallselementen ist ein wichtiger Bestandteil der modernen Informatik. Die vorliegende Arbeit untersucht zwei Bereiche, in denen randomisierte Methoden Verwendung finden, namlich randomisierte Rundungen und randomisierte Algorithmen zur Geruchteverbreitung. Der Satz von Beck und Fiala (1981) sagt aus, dass es fur jeden Hypergraphen und fur jeden Satz von Knotengewichten eine Rundung gibt derart, dass der Rundungsfehler pro Kante vom Maximalgrad beschrankt wird. Im ersten Teil der Arbeit wird dieser Satz auf den Fall randomisierter Rundungen verallgemeinert, das heist auf zufallige Rundungen, bei denen jede Zahl mit der Wahrscheinlichkeit entsprechend ihren Nachkommastellen aufgerundet wird. Der zweite, grosere Teil der Arbeit handelt von randomisierten Algorithmen zur Geruchteverbreitung. Das klassische "Randomized Rumor Spreading" wurde von Frieze und Grimmett (1985) eingefuhrt. Ihre Ergebnisse werden in Kapitel 3 sowohl hinsichtlich des Modells als auch hinsichtlich des zugrundegelegten Graphen verallgemeinert. In Kapitel 4 wird ein quasizufalliges Modell zur Geruchteverbreitung betrachtet und gezeigt, dass es bezuglich Laufzeit und Robustheit dem klassischen Modell gleichwertig ist. Gemeinsam liegt beiden Teilen der Arbeit die Idee zugrunde, stochastische Abhangigkeiten zu nutzen um Ergebnisse zu erzielen, die den unter Verwendung stochastischer Unabhangigkeit erzielten gleichwertig oder uberlegen sind.
Early laminar events involving endothelial activation in horses with black walnut- induced laminitis.

OBJECTIVE To determine proinflammatory gene expression, endothelial adhesion molecule gene expression, and matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) concentrations in laminar specimens at 1.5 hours after administration of black walnut extract (BWE) and to compare these values with later time points. ANIMALS 25 horses. PROCEDURES After nasogastric administration of BWE, anesthesia was induced at 1.5 hours in early time point (ETP) horses (n = 5), between 3 and 4 hours in developmental time point horses (5), and between 9 and 10 hours in acute onset of lameness time point horses (5). Anesthesia was induced at 3 and 10 hours after nasogastric administration of water in 2 groups of control horses (3-hour control group, n = 5; 10-hour control group, 5). Real-time quantitative PCR assay was performed on laminar specimens from control and ETP horses for cyclooxygenase (COX)-1, COX-2, interleukin (IL)-1beta, tumor necrosis factor-alpha, IL-6, IL-8, IL-10, MMP-2, and MMP-9 gene expression; and on laminar specimens from all groups for endothelial adhesion molecules, intercellular adhesion molecule (ICAM)-1, and E-selectin gene expression. Leukocyte emigration was assessed via CD13 immunohistochemistry, and gelatinase accumulation was determined by gelatin zymography. RESULTS Laminar concentrations of IL-1beta, IL-6, IL-8, COX-2, ICAM-1, and E-selectin mRNA were significantly increased in ETP horses, compared with control horses. Concentrations of IL-1beta, IL-8, ICAM-1, and E-selectin mRNA peaked at 1.5 hours. In ETP horses, leukocyte emigration was present in 3 of 5 horses and pro-MMP-9 was detected in 2 of 5 horses. CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE Results indicated that endothelial activation and laminar inflammation are early events in laminitis; MMP accumulation likely is a downstream event.