Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Clinical features and response to treatment in Guillain‐Barré syndrome associated with antibodies to GM1b ganglioside

GM1b is a minor ganglioside in human peripheral nerves. Serum anti‐GM1b antibodies frequently are present in patients with Guillain‐Barré syndrome (GBS). In this collaborative study, we investigated the antecedent infections, clinical features, and response to treatment of GBS patients with anti‐GM1b antibodies. Of 132 GBS patients who participated in the Dutch GBS trial that compared the effect of intravenous immunoglobulins and plasma exchange, 25 (19%) patients had anti‐GM1b antibodies. IgM antibodies were present in 14, IgG antibodies in 15, and both isotypes in 4 patients. The 25 patients with anti‐GM1b antibodies had a clinical pattern distinct from that of the other 107 GBS patients. They more often had an episode of gastrointestinal illness and frequently showed serological evidence of recent infection by Campylobacter jejuni. The anti‐GM1b–positive subgroup was marked by more rapidly progressive, more severe, and predominantly distal weakness. Cranial nerve involvement and sensory deficits were less common in the patients with anti‐GM1b antibodies. The presence of anti‐GM1b antibodies was associated with slower recovery. The clinical manifestations predominantly were associated with anti‐GM1b antibodies of the IgG isotype. Fourteen (56%) of the 25 patients with anti‐GM1b antibodies also had anti‐GM1 antibodies. The group of patients with both antibodies was clinically more homogeneous and had a more rapidly progressive, pure motor neuropathy. The subgroup of anti‐GM1b–positive GBS patients responded well to treatment with immunoglobulins but not to plasmapheresis. The distinctive clinical features of the patients with anti‐GM1b antibodies show that acute motor neuropathy represents a specific subgroup within GBS and that recognizing these patients may have consequences as to the choice of therapy. Ann Neurol 2000;47:314–321
New approaches to the risk of Candida in the intensive care unit

Purpose of review Candidemia is the fourth most common bloodstream infection in the United States with similar trends reported worldwide. This infection is particularly relevant in the intensive care setting, and is independently associated with increased morbidity and mortality. Identification of patients at risk and developing new prophylactic strategies is a priority area of research. This review focuses on recent advances in risk identification and the groundwork for prophylaxis of invasive candidiasis in the intensive care setting. Recent findings Although risk factors for invasive candidiasis have been clearly identified (such as colonization, length of stay, use of parenteral nutrition, antibiotics, central lines, and abdominal surgery), there are few risk assessment strategies that clearly define or predict a population at high risk of getting this disease. Currently available risk assessment strategies are yet to be validated in multiple centers and settings. Geographically limited or population specific clinical trials (such as surgical patients) have shown early indications that antifungal prophylaxis is useful in reducing the incidence of invasive candidiasis by more than 50% in units with high incidence of infection, or in carefully selected high-risk patients. Interesting advances in non-culture diagnostic methods and surrogate markers of infection may also have an impact in early identification of infection and preemptive treatment. Summary Invasive candidiasis is a relevant problem in the intensive care setting. Better risk assessment strategies will permit identification of the subpopulations of patients that would benefit from prophylactic antifungal therapy the most, having the potential to save millions of lives and dollars.
Prevalence and impact of depression in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patients

Purpose of review This review presents recent advances in the study of the depression that is so often co-morbid with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The discussion includes prevalence, etiology, impact and management. Recent findings Efforts continue to find a reliable prevalence rate for co-morbid depression in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease but studies regularly find depression in 20–60% of these patients. Multiple etiologies contribute to this elevated rate including genetic predisposition, grief reaction, and effects of chronic abstructive pulmonary disease on the central nervous system. Once depression develops patients are less adherent to treatment plans, lose function and, potentially, suffer worse outcomes in exacerbations. Management of depression in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease continues to be primarily empirical. There are few quality studies demonstrating the usefulness of antidepressants in this population. Some studies suggest selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors will be effective, but require replication in larger groups. Other interventions including psychotherapy, physical rehabilitation, and improved social support are accumulating supporting data, but further research is needed. Summary Depression is present in up to 60% of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. It jeopardizes patients' ability to utilize treatment and may increase their risk for poor outcomes. Effective management will require high-quality studies and a multidisciplinary approach.
Synthesis, anti microbial screening and cytotoxic studies of some novel pyrazole analogs -

ABSTRACT Objective: To synthesize novel pyrazole analogs and evaluate their antimicrobial, anthelmintic and cytotoxic activity. Method: Novel (Z)-1-(4-chlorophenyl)-2-(3,5-dimethyl-4-(substituited phenyldiazenyl)-1H-pyrazol-1-yl)ethanone derivatives were synthesized by conventional method using potassium carbonate in DMF, under reflux condition. The antibacterial study was carried out against gram positive and gram negative bacteria using ciprofloxacin and norfloxacin as standard drugs. Antifungal activity was compared against fluconazole and evaluated using Candida albicans (MTCC 227) and Aspergillus niger (NCIM 1056). Anthelmentic activity assay was carried out on Indian earthworm, Pheretima posthuma. In vitro cytotoxicity studies were also carried out using Daltonâ€™s lymphoma ascites cells (DLA) and Ehrlich ascites carcinoma cells (EAC). Results: Results of antibacterial study indicated that the compound 22 showed most promising activity against both Gram-positive and Gram-negative organisms. Compound 21 and 24, exhibited relatively good inhibitory profile against Gram negative organism. In case of compounds 25,27-30 exhibited equally potent antifungal activity as that of the standard drug fluconazole. Moreover, compound 21-24,26 showed excellent activity against C. albicans and A.niger. The in vitro cytotoxicity results and anthelmintic reports indicated compound 22 exhibited promising activity among the tested analogs. Conclusion: These newly synthesized pyrazole analogs, especially 21, 22 and 24 are better scaffolds to develop as broad spectrum chemotherapeutic agents.
Identification of Box-Jenkins models for Parameter-Varying Spatially Interconnected systems

This paper presents an identification technique to identify models for Parameter-Varying Spatially Interconnected systems. The main focus of the note is the case when there is additive colored noise in the output of the data generating system. A Refined Instrumental Variable method is proposed to identify parameter-varying spatially interconnected models with Box-Jenkins structure. The technique allows identification of models for general multi-dimensional systems, which may be separable or non-separable, causal, semi-causal (spatially interconnected systems) or non-causal. The effectiveness of the method is shown with application to simulation example.
HMGA2 overexpression predicts relapse susceptibility of blastemal Wilms tumor patients

Wilms tumor (WT) is an embryonal malignant neoplasm of the kidney that accounts for 6–7% of all childhood cancers. WT seems to derive from multipotent embryonic renal stem cells that have failed to differentiate properly. Since mechanisms underlying WT tumorigenesis remain largely unknown, the aim of this study was to explore the expression of embryonic stem cell (ESC) markers in samples of WT patients after chemotherapy treatment SIOP protocol, as the gene expression patterns of ESC are like those of most cancer cells. We found that expression of ESC markers is heterogeneous, and depends on histological WT components. Interestingly, among ESC markers, HMGA2 was expressed significantly stronger in the blastemal component than in the stromal and the normal kidney. Moreover, two subsets of patients of WT blastemal type were identified, depending on the expression levels of HMGA2. High HMGA2 expression levels were significantly associated with a higher proliferation rate (p=0.0345) and worse patient prognosis (p=0.0289). The expression of HMGA2 was a stage-independent factor of clinical outcome in blastemal WT patients. Our multivariate analyses demonstrated the association between LIN28B–LET7A–HMGA2 expression, and the positive correlation between HMGA2 and SLUG expression (p=0.0358) in blastemal WT components. In addition, patients with a poor prognosis and high HMGA2 expression presented high levels of MDR3 (multidrug resistance transporter). Our findings suggest that HMGA2 plays a prominent role in the pathogenesis of a subset of blastemal WT, strongly associated with relapse and resistance to chemotherapy.
Intelligence and cooperation in virtual manufacturing

A "virtual enterprise" results from a temporary agreement among some enterprises, which decide to cooperate together into a given value chain for a limited time horizon. The crucial point in the development of said network is "to search for partners" and organize interactions among firms. In practice, a first problem has to be approached each time a re-organization of the network can be applied, by either including a new component firm or leaving a component to be independent. A second crucial problem refers to an individual enterprise, which has to decide about its own convenience to be a partner in a newtrok. The paper aims to define some criteria for supporting these two design problems. The scope is to have simple conditions able to evaluate if cooperation among potential partner firms could be successfully stipulated,.
The influence of diamorphine on spinal anaesthesia induced with isobaric 0.5% bupivacaine

In a randomised, double‐blind study, the effect of addition of 1 mg of diamorphine to 4 ml of 0.5% bupivacaine for spinal anaesthesia was studied in two groups each of 30 patients presenting for either transurethral genito‐urinary surgery, or for lower limb arterial surgery or inguinal herniorrhaphy. Addition of 1 mg diamorphine to intrathecal 0.5% bupivacaine produced a prolonged and satisfactory analgesia in more than half the patients undergoing lower limb arterial or inguinal surgery, and the analgesic requirements of the remainder during the first postoperative 24 h were much less than those who received bupivacaine alone. In the urological surgery set there were no significant differences between the group who received bupivacaine and diamophine, and the group who received bupivacaine alone. The mixture of diamorphine I mg in 4 ml 0.5% bupivacaine was slightly less hypobaric (0.9981 at 37°C) than bupivacaine alone.
Priority-Based Data Gathering Framework in UAV-Assisted Wireless Sensor Networks

This paper proposes a novel data acquisition framework in sensor networks using an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) with the goal of increasing the efficiency of the data gathering efforts. To maximize the system throughput, we introduce a priority-based frame selection scheme to suppress the number of redundant data transmissions between sensor nodes and the UAV. Toward this goal, we classify the nodes inside the UAV's coverage area into different frames according to their locations. Taking advantage of the mobility of the UAV, we assign different transmission priorities to nodes in different frames. To do that, we introduce an adjustment to the contention window value used in IEEE 802.11 MAC, thereby defining a lower contention window range to the frame with higher priority (urgent area) and a higher contention window range to the frame with lower priority (less important area). The proposed framework leads to a reduction in packet collisions and, at the same time, minimizes the packet loss originated from nodes in the rear-side of the UAV when the UAV moves in the forward direction. To optimize the networks' energy consumption, we present a novel routing protocol based on the aforementioned framework. By leveraging the proposed framework and routing algorithm, we aim to reduce the transmission distances between senders and receivers. A shorter distance leads to better channel quality and energy savings, as is verified by our simulation studies and results.
A survival analysis of clinically significant change in outpatient psychotherapy.

The number of sessions required to produce meaningful change has not been assessed adequately, in spite of its relevance to current clinical practice. Seventy-five clients attending outpatient therapy at a university-affiliated clinic were tracked on a weekly basis using the Outcome Questionnaire (Lambert et al., 1996) in order to determine the number of sessions required to attain clinically significant change (CS). Survival analysis indicated that the median time required to attain CS was 11 sessions. When current data were combined with those from an earlier investigation (Kadera, Lambert, and Andrews, 1996), it was found that clients with higher levels of distress took 8 more sessions to reach a 50% CS recovery level than clients entering with lower levels of distress. At a six-month follow-up, CS gains appeared to have been maintained. Other indices of change also were examined (reliable change, average change per session). The implications of these results for allocating mental-health benefits, such as the number of sessions provided through insurance, are discussed.
Broadening of the RF Power-Density Window for Calcium-ion Efflux from Brain Tissue

Blackman et al. [1], [2] have reported enhanced efflux of calcium ions from chicken forebrains, exposed in vitro in a 50 ¿stripline to 147 MHz radiation, modulated sinusoidally at 16 Hz. When the spacing between the sample tubes was 3.8 cm on center, enhancement occurred at an incident power density of 0.83 mW/cm2, but not at 0.11, 0.5S, 1.11, or 1.38 mW/cm2. When the spacing between sample tubes was reduced to 1.9 cm, significant enhanced efflux was observed at incident power densities of 0.55, 0.83, 1.11, and 1.38 mW/cm2. This broadening of the effective power-density range is explained herein by calculations which show that the more closely spaced samples interact electrically in a way that both lowers and broadens the range of spatial variation-of absorbed power density (MW/cm3) within the sample for a given incident power density (mW/cm2). Electrical coupling among the samples allows several different values of incident power to yield exactly the same value of power absorbed at given points within the brain sample. Because the absorbed power density must be directly related to the power that interacts with the brain to enhance the efflux of calcium ions, the electromagnetic conditions for efflux enhancement in coupled and uncoupled brains are the same if the absorbed power density is the same. Ranges of absorbed power density are identified that could be effective in enhancing the efflux of calcium ions from the brain tissue.
A Wireless Multi-Channel Peripheral Nerve Signal Acquisition System-on-Chip

The adoption of chronic implantable peripheral nerve-based prosthetic devices is currently hampered by the lack of a highly integrated neural signal acquisition system-on-chip (SoC). We report a ten-channel peripheral nervous system (PNS) electroneurogram (ENG) signal acquisition SoC within an implantable package. Requiring only four off-chip capacitors, this SoC can be co-encapsulated with flexible nerve electrodes and a resonant coil antenna to form a 3.4 cm<sup>3</sup> and 3.9 g implantable device for chronic ENG acquisition. This SoC is inductively powered and controlled through a resonant coil at 22 MHz and transmits the digitized neural signal through a near-infrared LED (NIR-LED). Fabricated in 0.18-<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mu \text{m}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> CMOS, each amplifier channel exhibits an input referred noise of 1.9 <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mu \text{V}_{\mathbf {rms}}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> and a noise efficiency factor (NEF) of 4.0 within the signal bandwidth of 5.5 kHz. Each amplifier channel within the SoC is digitized with 10-bit resolution at 17.5 ksps, and the total power consumption (SoC and NIR-LED) is 4.4 mW when the NIR-LED is driven at 3 Mb/s. An electrode impedance measurement circuit with <10% magnitude and <8° angle error for measuring impedances up to 1 <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\text{M}\Omega $ </tex-math></inline-formula> is also incorporated in this SoC. This wireless, low noise ENG acquisition SoC package has been validated <italic>in vivo</italic> while implanted on a rodent to acquire ENG from its sciatic nerve.
Pearls for Ablation in Congenital Heart Disease

Ablation in Congenital Heart Disease. Tachyarrhythmias occur in patients having congenital heart disease most commonly related to surgically created or naturally occurring conduction obstacles, and to postoperative hemodynamic effects on cardiac muscle. Less frequently, the underlying disease is associated with tachycardia substrates. Thorough knowledge of the patient's congenital anatomy and surgical procedures is required before considering catheter ablation. In many instances, procedural considerations should include meticulous hemodynamic surveillance, analogous to patients having structurally normal heart but cardiomyopathy. This includes careful selection of sedating and anesthetic agents. Congenital heart defects that have a higher than expected incidence of naturally occurring tachyarrhythmia substrates include Ebstein anomaly of the tricuspid valve, congenitally corrected transposition, and some of the heterotaxies. Intraatrial reentry tachycardia and atrial flutter are especially prevalent following the Mustard or Senning operations for d‐transposition of the great arteries and the earlier Fontan type operations. Although these tachyarrhythmias are not as frequent following atrial septal defect repair, the high incidence of this defect also makes these patients germaine to this discussion. Focal atrial tachyacrdia and atrioventricular nodal reentry tachycardia also occur in these patient groups. Macroreentry ventricular tachycardia occurs most frequently following right ventricular outflow tract surgery, especially following repair of tetralogy of Fallot. This article focuses on the technical aspects of catheter ablation of these arrhythmias, due to the challenges presented by the underlying anatomy compared with patients having normal hearts. (J Cardiovasc Electrophysiol, Vol. 21, pp. 223‐230, February 2010)
Leakage-Aware Predictive Thermal Management for Multicore Systems Using Echo State Network

Leakage power is becoming significant in new generation IC chips. As leakage power is nonlinearly related to temperature, it is challenging to manage the thermal behavior of today’s multicore systems, since thermal management becomes a nonlinear control problem. In this paper, a new predictive dynamic thermal management (DTM) method with neural network thermal model is proposed to naturally consider the inherent nonlinearity between leakage and temperature. We start with analyzing the problems of using recurrent neural network (RNN) to build the nonlinear thermal model, and point out that there is exploding gradient induced long-term dependencies problem, leading to large model prediction errors. Based on this analysis, we further propose to use echo state network (ESN), which is a special type of RNN, as the leakage-aware nonlinear thermal model. We theoretically and experimentally show that ESN achieves much higher accuracy by completely avoiding the long-term dependencies problem. On top of this nonlinear ESN thermal model, we propose a novel model predictive control (MPC) scheme called ESN MPC, which uses iterative steps to find the optimal future power recommendations for thermal management. Being able to consider the leakage-temperature nonlinear effects and equipped with advanced control technique, the new method achieves an overall high quality temperature management with smooth and accurate temperature tracking. The experimental results show the new method outperforms the state-of-the-art leakage-aware multicore DTM method in both temperature management quality and computing overhead.
Estimation of a failure time distribution based on imperfect diagnostic tests

Sequentially-administered diagnostic tests used to determine the occurrence of a silent event are sometimes subject to error, leading to false positive and false negative test results. In such cases, standard methods for interval censored data do not give valid estimates of the distribution of the time to the event. We present methods for estimating the distribution of the time to the event that account for multiple types of imperfect diagnostic test, as well as differing periods at risk. We illustrate the methods with simulated data and results from a clinical trial for the prevention of mother-to-infant transmission of HIV in Tanzania. Copyright Biometrika Trust 2003, Oxford University Press.
Insulin promotes T cell recovery in a murine model of autoimmune myocarditis

Glucose‐insulin‐potassium (GIK) is a useful adjunct to myocarditis. Besides its essential action in energy metabolism, insulin also exerts an anti‐inflammatory effect. This study investigated the effect of insulin on myocardial inflammation in experimental autoimmune myocarditis (EAM) in mice and its potential role in T cell regulation. Mice were divided randomly into a normal control group, a saline‐treated EAM group and an insulin‐treated EAM group. The histopathological changes of myocardium, α‐myosin heavy chain (MyHCα)614–629 antigen‐specific autoantibody titre, the serum level of cardiac troponin I (cTnI), mitogen‐activated protein kinase (MAPK) family members' activity and content were measured. Furthermore, the phenotype of T lymphocyte subsets in splenocytes was analysed to evaluate the immune status of mice. Insulin reduced serum cTnI of EAM mice on days 14 and 21 (P < 0·05) after immunization, with no changes in blood glucose and autoantibody production. Western blot revealed that extracellular signal‐regulated protein kinase (ERK1/2) may be a determining factor in this process. Total ERK1/2 and phospho‐ERK1/2 (p‐ERK1/2) were both up‐regulated in insulin‐treated mice after immunization. We also found that insulin treatment promoted T cell recovery without changing the naive‐to‐memory T‐cell ratio; in particular, CD3+ T cells in insulin‐treated mice proliferated more vigorously than in control mice (P < 0·05). We report here for the first time that insulin alleviates myocarditis in the EAM model. These data show that insulin has a direct effect on T cell proliferation in EAM. It is possible that GIK or insulin may assist T cell recovery towards normal in myocarditis, especially for diabetic or hyperglycaemic patients.