Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Herpes Simplex Virus Type 1 ICP 27 Induces p 38 Mitogen-Activated Protein Kinase Signaling and Apoptosis in HeLa Cells

The herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) protein ICP27 has been implicated in a variety of functions important for viral replication including host shutoff, viral gene expression, activation of mitogen-activated protein kinases p38 and Jun N-terminal protein kinase (JNK), and apoptosis inhibition. In the present study we sought to examine the functions of ICP27 in the absence of viral infection by creating stable HeLa cell lines that inducibly express ICP27. Here, we characterize two such cell lines and show that ICP27 expression is associated with a cellular growth defect. The observed defect is caused at least in part by the induction of apoptosis as indicated by caspase-3 activation, annexin V staining, and characteristic changes in cellular morphology. In an effort to identify the function of ICP27 responsible for inducing apoptosis, we show that ICP27 expression is sufficient to activate p38 signaling to a level that is similar to that observed during wild-type HSV-1 infection. However, ICP27 expression alone is unable to lead to a strong activation of JNK signaling. Using chemical inhibitors, we show that the ICP27-mediated activation of p38 signaling is responsible for the observed induction of apoptosis in the induced cell lines. Our findings suggest that during viral infection, ICP27 activates p38 and JNK signaling pathways via two distinct mechanisms. ICP27 directly activates p38 signaling, leading to stimulation of the host cell apoptotic pathways. In contrast, robust activation of JNK signaling by ICP27 requires one or more delayed early or late viral gene products and may be associated with the inhibition of apoptosis.
A continuous T‐bet expression is required to silence the interleukin‐4‐producing potential in T helper type 1 cells

To develop into committed T helper type 1 (Th1) cells, naive CD4+ T cells not only need to acquire the capacity to produce interferon‐γ (IFN‐γ), but they also need to gain the ability to silence their interleukin‐4 (IL‐4) ‐producing potential. How Th1 cells silence their Th2 cytokine‐producing potential is an important yet unresolved issue in Th1 immunity. We found that a lack of IL‐4 stimulation was not sufficient to silence the IL‐4‐producing potential in activated CD4+ T cells and that Th1‐promoting factor was required. Although it has been shown that T‐bet is a crucial factor in suppressing Il4 gene expression, it is unclear whether a continuous presence of T‐bet is required to silence the Il4 gene in Th1 cells. To address this problem, we used an inducible form of T‐bet – a T‐bet‐oestrogen receptor fusion molecule (T‐bet‐ER). We found that the activation of T‐bet during primary or secondary culture was sufficient to silence IL‐4‐producing potential. On the other hand, the inactivation of T‐bet after naïve CD4+ T cells had differentiated into Th1 cells resulted in derepression of Il4 gene transcription. Additionally, we found that T‐bet is required to maintain Ifng expression. Our data demonstrate that the continuous expression of T‐bet is required for Th1 cells to silence their IL‐4‐producing potential.
Return to Play and Future ACL Injury Risk After ACL Reconstruction in Soccer Athletes From the Multicenter Orthopaedic Outcomes Network (MOON) Group

Background: There is limited information on outcomes and return to play (RTP) after anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction (ACLR) in soccer athletes. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to (1) test the hypotheses that player sex, side of injury, and graft choice do not influence RTP and (2) define the risk for future ACL injury in soccer players after ACLR. Study Design: Cohort study; Level of evidence, 3. Methods: Soccer players in a prospective cohort were contacted to determine RTP after ACLR. Information regarding if and when they returned to play, their current playing status, the primary reason they stopped playing soccer (if relevant), and incidence of subsequent ACL surgery was recorded. Results: Initially, 72% of 100 soccer athletes (55 male, 45 female) with a mean age of 24.2 years at the time of ACLR returned to soccer. At average follow-up of 7.0 years, 36% were still playing, a significant decrease compared with initial RTP (P < .0001). Based on multivariate analysis, older athletes (P = .006) and females (P = .037) were less likely to return to play. Twelve soccer athletes had undergone further ACL surgery, including 9 on the contralateral knee and 3 on the ipsilateral knee. In a univariate analysis, females were more likely to have future ACL surgery (20% vs 5.5%, P = .03). Soccer athletes who underwent ACLR on their nondominant limb had a higher future rate of contralateral ACLR (16%) than soccer athletes who underwent ACLR on their dominant limb (3.5%) (P = .03). Conclusion: Younger and male soccer players are more likely to return to play after ACL reconstruction. Return to soccer after ACLR declines over time. ACLR on the nondominant limb potentially places the dominant limb at risk for future ACL injury.
Cost-effectiveness of HIV postexposure prophylaxis following sexual or injection drug exposure in 96 metropolitan areas in the United States

Objectives: To evaluate the cost-effectiveness of HIV postexposure prophylaxis (PEP) following sexual or injection-related exposures in 96 metropolitan statistical areas in the United States (MSA). Design: Empirical, model-based cost-effectiveness analysis. Methods: Epidemiological and population size estimates from the literature were combined with information about the distribution of exposure types, PEP completion rate, proportion of source partners known to be HIV infected, and PEP program costs obtained from a feasibility study of PEP in San Francisco to estimate the cost-effectiveness of hypothetical PEP programs in each of the 96 MSA. The effectiveness of combination antiretroviral therapy following sexual or drug use-related exposures, which is presently not known, was assumed equal to the effectiveness of zidovudine monotherapy in the occupational setting. The main outcome measure was the cost–utility ratio, defined as the cost per quality-adjusted life year (QALY) saved by the PEP intervention. Results: The cost–utility ratios for the 96 MSA ranged from $4137 to $39 101 per QALY saved; only two of the ratios exceeded $30 000 per QALY saved. Combined across the 96 MSA, the hypothetical PEP programs would reach nearly 20 000 clients at a total cost of approximately $22 million. The overall cost–utility ratio across MSA was $12,567 per QALY saved. The majority of the HIV infections prevented by PEP were among men and women who reported receptive anal intercourse exposure. Conclusions: PEP following sexual or drug use-related exposures could be a cost-effective complement to existing HIV-prevention efforts in most MSA across the United States.
Effect of dialysate sodium concentration and sodium gradient on patients with maintenance hemodialysis

Backgrounds: Patients with maintenance hemodialysis (MHD) have a high risk of cardiovascular disease, which is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality. The aim of the present study was to explore the relationship between the sodium gradient and the water load of MHD patients. Methods: Eighty one MHD patients were selected in the study. The serum sodium concentration, sodium gradient, interdialysis weight gain (IDWG), IDWG% of the patients and the incidence of hypotension were analyzed. Correlation analysis was carried out. Results: The serum sodium concentrations were 138.81 ± 3.27 mmol/L and 137.81 ± 2.88 mmol/L before and after dialysis, respectively. The sodium concentration of dialysis solution was 135 mmol/L. The absolute sodium gradient was 3.92 ± 2.69 mmol/L. The absolute sodium concentration difference after dialysis was 2.79 ± 2.14 mmol/L. IDWG was 2.06 ± 0.82 kg and the value of IDWG% was 3.71 ± 1.42%. The absolute sodium gradient was positively correlated with IDWG (r=0.349, P=0.001) and IDWG% (r=0.269, P=0.013). Dialysis with the lowest IDWG had the least effect on sodium load and water load in patients. Age was negatively correlated with the sodium concentration before dialysis (r=-0.349, P=0.014), the absolute sodium gradient (r=-0.321, P=0.031), IDWG (r=-0.483, P=0.001) and IDWG% (r=-0.452, P=0.002). Conclusion: The absolute sodium gradient was significantly correlated with IDWG, which contributes to improving water load in MHD patients.
Estimates of Crowd-Out from a Public Health Insurance Expansion Using Administrative Data

We use a combination of administrative and survey data to estimate the fraction of individuals newly enrolled in public health coverage (Wisconsin's combined Medicaid and CHIP program) that had access to private, employer-sponsored health insurance at the time of their enrollment and the fraction that dropped this coverage. We estimate that after expansion of eligibility for public coverage, approximately 20% of new enrollees had access to private health insurance at the time of enrollment and that only 8% dropped this coverage (with the remaining 12% having both private and public coverage). We also identify an "upper bound" estimate, which suggests that the percentage of new enrollees with private insurance coverage at the time of enrollment is, at most, 27%. These estimates of crowd-out are relatively low compared with estimates from the literature based on Medicaid and CHIP expansions, although based both on different data and on a different method.
Managerial Optimism , Overconfidence and Board Characteristics : Toward a New Role of Corporate Governance

The aim of this paper is to discuss the effect of corporate governance mechanisms on controlling CEOs’ emotions and some behavioral biases. Departing from a sample of 40 public traded Tunisian firms, we test the impact of the board of directors on managing CEO’s irrationalities. Our results highlight strong evidence on the role of the board characteristics, especially the board independence, a small size and the absence of duality of posts on reducing some well documented biases such as managerial optimism and overconfidence. Our study contributes to the literature of corporate governance since it constitutes the basis of the new role of corporate governance as a power factor that can eliminate or reduce distortions in corporate decision caused by behavioral factors other than those of the traditional corporate governance. Corporate governance should include a new original mission; it should resolve the observable distortions that it may arise from managerial psychology.
Citizens Preferences Towards One-Stop Government

The poster presents the major results of a survey conducted in several German cities to asses preferences citizens have towards aspects of One-Stop Government. One Stop Government has a lot in common with the concept of collaborative CRM. Aspects that play an important role for its success are: channel adoption and assignment, collaborative data usage and privacy, cost reduction potentials and information policy (marketing) for egovernment services. Citizens seem to be ready for transaction type public online services and new forms of service delivery but more and continuous detailed research is necessary.
Maternal connective tissue disease and congenital heart block. Demonstration of immunoglobulin in cardiac tissue.

A RECENT report by Scott et al. described antibodies to a soluble tissue ribonucleoprotein antigen called Ro(SS-A) in the serum of 34 of 41 mothers who had given birth to infants with congenital complete heart block.1 Less than half the mothers had clinical evidence of connective tissue disease. The same antibody was found in 7 of 8 serum samples collected from affected infants under three months of age but in none of 13 samples obtained from older infants. The authors suggested that maternal antibody to Ro(SS-A) might serve as a marker to identify women at risk of having an infant .
Aprendizaje invertido para la mejora y logro de metas de aprendizaje en el Curso de Metodología de la Investigación en estudiantes de universidad

Introduccion: Actualmente, se esta tratando de cambiar el modelo tradicional de ensenanza, por uno guiado por las necesidades de aprendizaje del estudiantado. El modelo de aprendizaje invertido busca favorecer el aprendizaje mediante un trabajo coordinado por docentes y estudiantes. Objetivo: Analizar la implementacion del aprendizaje invertido para la mejora y logro de metas de aprendizaje en el curso de metodologia de la investigacion. Metodologia: Diseno cuasiexperimental, de intervencion, prospectivo, de corte longitudinal. Lugar: Facultad de Ciencias de la Salud de una universidad privada. Participantes: 81 estudiantes de pregrado. Intervenciones: Se selecciono una muestra no probabilistica por conveniencia y luego se implemento el modelo aula invertida. La primera medicion se realizo en la tercera semana de clases y la segunda medicion en la decimo quinta, mediante un instrumento validado y con indice de confiabilidad total de 0,79. Asimismo, se utilizo la plataforma educativa Edoome, con caracteristicas de sistema de gestion de aprendizaje de codigo abierto. Resultados: 93,8% manifesto que el profesorado y el estudiantado desarrollan las clases; 29,6% estudia previamente los contenidos y 39,5% realiza un resumen de la clase, donde predomina el trabajo colaborativo. 74,0% manifesto que el aprendizaje invertido facilito su aprendizaje y obtuvo mejores calificaciones en el examen final. Conclusion: El modelo demostro mejorar y ser efectivo para el logro de la metas de aprendizaje en el Curso de Metodologia de la Investigacion y su implementacion se esta convirtiendo en una necesidad para el sistema educativo universitario.
Fortnightly Review: Methadone maintenance treatment in opiate dependence: a review

This paper examines the changes and advances in research and clinical practice and examines the role of treatment structure and programme characteristics in the delivery of methadone maintenance. Methadone prescribing has become much more available over the past decade, both in countries with a history of its use, such as the United Kingdom and Australia, and in countries around the world which previously had not endorsed substitute prescribing.1 There is a need to examine closely the framework in which this treatment is delivered to ensure that the modes of delivery most effective from both cost and benefit perspectives are utilised. This review focuses entirely on methadone maintenance because this is the most extensively evaluated and most used treatment, with about a quarter of a million drug misusers receiving methadone treatment globally. A small number of experimental diamorphine and buprenorphine substitute programmes are being evaluated in several countries. Most studies have come from the United States and focus on the long term use of methadone in a specific setting; in contrast, methadone treatment in the United Kingdom has received virtually no formal evaluation to date bar one study.2 There is concern that a considerable amount of the methadone prescribing could be having little impact on illicit drug use or risk taking behaviour,3 a recent study of drug users in police custody echoes this.4 The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs has recommended a shift to a more structured approach for delivery of oral methadone maintenance. The organisation and regulation of methadone maintenance treatment varies widely, with explicit guidelines for programme operation in the United States and Australia and a virtual absence of structure and regulation in Britain. It is likely that policy analysts and treatment providers in countries with high levels of regulation and structured programmes …
Efficient proof of bid validity with untrusted verifier in homomorphic e-auction

Bid validity proof and verification is an efficiency bottleneck and privacy drawback in homomorphic e-auction. The existing bid validity proof technique is inefficient and only achieves honest-verifier zero knowledge (ZK). In this study, an efficient proof and verification technique is proposed to guarantee bid validity in homomorphic e-auction. The new proof technique is mainly based on hash function operations and only needs a very small number of costly public key cryptographic operations. Moreover, it can handle untrusted verifiers and achieve perfect ZK. As a result, efficiency and privacy of homomorphic e-auction applications are significantly improved. To the best of authors' knowledge, it proof technique is the first to handle untrusted verifiers in e-auction applications.
Implementación de métodos de calibración para sistemas multi-cámara

El objetivo principal de este trabajo es definir una metodologia clara y precisa para la calibracion de sistemas de vision con multiples camaras. La calibracion de las camaras es una tarea que se debe realizar siempre que se desee utilizar un sistema cuyo proposito sea el analisis de escenarios tridimensionales. Para la realizacion de este trabajo, se van a realizar medidas en un laboratorio con iluminacion controlada y al menos 2 camaras de infrarrojos. Se va a disponer ademas de otros elementos especificos necesarios para la calibracion, como son una escuadra, una varita y un conjunto de marcadores. En una primera aproximacion, se va a analizar la informacion capturada por las camaras (en este caso, las coordenadas de los puntos detectados en la imagen). Si se conoce la posicion exacta de los marcadores con sus coordenadas en 3D, es posible obtener una matriz de proyeccion que relacione ambos espacios. Por tanto, en este caso, la calibracion persigue la obtencion de dicha matriz de proyeccion que minimice el error de reconstruccion. Se preve que esta aproximacion sea insuficiente y que sea necesaria la utilizacion de metodos mas complejos. Parte del trabajo va a consistir en el de analisis diversos metodos de calibracion, su fundamento teorico, asi como de otros parametros relacionados con la calibracion. Para ello, no solo se van a analizar y programar los algoritmos y los metodos matematicos necesarios, sino que se van a proponer diversas formas de colocacion de la escuadra, asi como los movimientos a realizar con la varita para calibrar adecuadamente las camaras. Existira un compromiso entre precision y la sencillez de la calibracion. Finalmente, con dichos resultados se elaborara el metodo mas conveniente para que un usuario no experto en tecnologia, pueda realizar de forma sistematica el proceso de calibracion.
Balancing Controller for a Four-Legged , Bipedal Walking Robot Matt Haberland

A controller is developed to balance a two-dimensional walking robot. The equations of motion for the robot, modelled as a double pendulum with pivots at the hip and contact foot, are derived, linearized, and arranged in statespace form. A Linear Quadratic Regulator is developed for the linearized model; its performance simulated using both the linearized and the complete, nonlinear dynamics. The regulator fails to stabilize a physical four-legged biped due to measurement difficulties, and recommendations for measurement and controller improvement are proposed in response.
Robotic surgical instruments for dexterity enhancement in thoracoscopic coronary artery bypass graft.

OBJECTIVES Endoscopically sutured vascular anastomoses are complex, time consuming, and require great dexterity. We decided to evaluate performance enhancement using a robotic device to create sutured coronary artery bypass anastomoses with endoscopic techniques in a plastic model. METHODS Seven coronary artery bypass anastomoses were endoscopically created in a plastic model using a robotic enhancement technology (Computer Motion, Goleta, CA). Anastomoses were created with a single running suture (7-0 monofilament). Our endpoints were operative time, intraoperative incidents, stability and dexterity of the robotic system, surgeon's fatigue, and anastomotic patency. RESULTS Operative time was 46+/-12 min (mean+/-SD). There were no intraoperative incidents. Patency was confirmed in all anastomoses. The system's stability and dexterity were high. Surgeon's fatigue was mild. CONCLUSION The use of robotic enhancement technology leads to an efficient performance of sutured coronary artery bypass anastomoses in a plastic model. The robotic device enhances dexterity, precision, and reduces surgeon's fatigue while preserving the quality of hand suturing.
What is Limiting More Flexible Fire Management — Public or Agency Pressure?

Conventional wisdom within American federal fire management agencies suggests that external influence such as community or political pressure for aggressive suppression are key factors circumscribing the ability to execute less aggressive fire management strategies. Thus, a better understanding of external constraints on fire management options is essential. This entails validating or refuting the perceptions of fire managers about the relative constraints that external pressures place on their ability to implement more flexible fire management options. In the summer of 2008, our research team traveled to two fires—the Gap in California and Gunbarrel in Wyoming—each of which used a different strategy for managing the fire. At each site, we interviewed key agency individuals and asked them about internal and external factors that influenced their fire management decisions. We also interviewed community members to understand whether they sought to influence fire management. Internal factors included procedural requirements and agency beliefs and attitudes. External factors included political and community pressures from the public who are often perceived to demand an aggressive suppression response. This article details how these internal and external factors influence flexibility in fire management. Our findings did not wholly support conventional wisdom and suggest that internal pressures are as important as external pressure in shaping fire management strategy.
High throughput CUDA implementation of accurate geometric modelling for iterative reconstruction of PET data

An approach to high throughput and high accuracy modelling of the geometric component of PET acquisition for the Siemens Biograph mMR PET/MR scanner is presented. The geometric components calculated in forward and back-projections are computationally expensive, however, they are inherently parallel and therefore, they are suitable for implementation on parallel computing platforms such as CUDA, consequently permitting more accurate and computationally involved system models. The key aspects of this work are: (1) accurate modelling of the geometric component of each tube of response (TOR) by tracing multiple lines for each TOR to account for the varying sensitivity along and across the TOR; (2) decomposition of the calculations into transaxial and axial components allowing the use of ray and voxel-driven methods optimal for forward and back-projection, respectively. Such decomposition also allows keeping exact correspondence between the ray and voxel-driven methods for forward and backprojection. (3) Due to the large axial field of view and the high number of crystal rings (64), the core ray-tracing is taking place in the axial dimension by projecting the transaxial calculations on each direct and oblique sinogram element. (4) Axially oriented arrangement of the images and sinograms in the GPU memory enables more efficient use of the L2 cache and together with point (3) it leads to more optimal performance even without the use of shared memory. Currently, for the Biograph mMR scanner geometry the projections are calculated within two seconds.