Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Immunological aspects of Botox®, Dysport® and MyoblocTM/NeuroBloc®

In some patients treated with botulinum toxin (BT), antibodies are produced in association with certain treatment parameters, patient characteristics and immunological properties of the BT preparation used. Therapeutic BT preparations are comprised of botulinum neurotoxin, non‐toxic proteins and excipients. Antibodies formed against botulinum neurotoxin can block BT's biological activity. The antigenicity of a BT preparation depends on the amount of botulinum neurotoxin presented to the immune system. This amount is determined by the specific biological activity, the relationship between the biological activity and the amount of botulinum neurotoxin contained in the preparation. For Botox® the specific biological activity is 60 MU‐EV/ng neurotoxin, for Dysport® 100 MU‐EV/ng neurotoxin and for MyoblocTM/NeuroBloc® 5 MU‐EV/ng neurotoxin. For MyoblocTM/NeuroBloc® this translates into an antibody‐induced therapy failure rate of 44% in patients treated for cervical dystonia, whereas for BT type A preparations this figure is approximately 5%. No obvious differences in antigenicity of BT type A preparations have been detected thus far. For the current formulation of Botox®, the rate of antibody‐induced therapy failure is reportedly less than 1%. To determine the antigenicity of different BT preparations in more detail, prospective studies on large series of unbiased patients with sensitive and specific BT antibody tests are necessary.
Impact of venous thromboembolism, venous stasis syndrome, venous outflow obstruction and venous valvular incompetence on quality of life and activities of daily living: A nested case-control study

The role of venous stasis syndrome (VSS) mechanisms (i.e. venous outflow obstruction [VOO] and venous valvular incompetence [VVI]) on quality of life (QoL) and activities of daily living (ADL) is unknown. The objective of this study was to test the hypotheses that venous thromboembolism (VTE),VSS,VOO and VVI are associated with reduced QoL and ADL. This study is a follow-up of an incident VTE case-control study nested within a population-based inception cohort of residents from Olmsted County, MN, USA, between 1966 and 1990. The study comprised 232 Olmsted County residents with a first lifetime VTE and 133 residents without VTE. Methods included a questionnaire and physical examination for VSS; vascular laboratory testing for VOO and VVI; assessment of QoL by SF36 and of ADL by pertinent sections from the Older Americans Resources and Services (OARS) and Arthritis Impact Measurement Scales (AIMS2) questionnaires. Of the 365 study participants, 232 (64%), 161 (44%), 43 (12%) and 136 (37%) had VTE, VSS, VOO and VVI, respectively. Prior VTE was associated with reduced ADL and increased pain, VSS with reduced physical QoL and increased pain, and VOO with reduced physical QoL and ADL.VVI was not associated with QoL or ADL. In conclusion,VSS and VOO are associated with worse physical QoL and increased pain. VOO and VTE are associated with impaired ADL. We hypothesize that rapid clearance of venous outflow obstruction in individuals with acute VTE will improve their QoL and ADL.
The Role of the Autonomic Nervous System in the Pathophysiology of Obesity

Obesity is reaching epidemic proportions globally and represents a major cause of comorbidities, mostly related to cardiovascular disease. The autonomic nervous system (ANS) dysfunction has a two-way relationship with obesity. Indeed, alterations of the ANS might be involved in the pathogenesis of obesity, acting on different pathways. On the other hand, the excess weight induces ANS dysfunction, which may be involved in the haemodynamic and metabolic alterations that increase the cardiovascular risk of obese individuals, i.e., hypertension, insulin resistance and dyslipidemia. This article will review current evidence about the role of the ANS in short-term and long-term regulation of energy homeostasis. Furthermore, an increased sympathetic activity has been demonstrated in obese patients, particularly in the muscle vasculature and in the kidneys, possibily contributing to increased cardiovascular risk. Selective leptin resistance, obstructive sleep apnea syndrome, hyperinsulinemia and low ghrelin levels are possible mechanisms underlying sympathetic activation in obesity. Weight loss is able to reverse metabolic and autonomic alterations associated with obesity. Given the crucial role of autonomic dysfunction in the pathophysiology of obesity and its cardiovascular complications, vagal nerve modulation and sympathetic inhibition may serve as therapeutic targets in this condition.
Treatment needs of prisoners with psychiatric disorders.

OBJECTIVE--To describe the prevalence of psychiatric disorder and the treatment needs of sentenced prisoners in England and Wales. DESIGN--Population survey based on a 5% sample of men serving prison sentences. SETTING--Sixteen prisons for adult males and nine institutions for male young offenders representative of all prisons in prison type, security levels, and length of sentences. SUBJECTS--406 young offenders and 1478 adult men, 404 and 1365 of whom agreed to be interviewed. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES--History of psychiatric disorder, clinical diagnosis of psychiatrist, and required treatment. RESULTS--652 (37%) men had psychiatric disorders diagnosed, of whom 15 (0.8%) had organic disorders, 34 (2%) psychosis, 105 (6%) neurosis, 177 (10%) personality disorder, and 407 (23%) substance misuse. 52 (3%) were judged to require transfer to hospital for psychiatric treatment, 96 (5%) required treatment in a therapeutic community setting, and a further 176 (10%) required further psychiatric assessment or treatment within prison. CONCLUSIONS--By extrapolation the sentenced prison population includes over 700 men with psychosis, and around 1100 who would warrant transfer to hospital for psychiatric treatment. Provision of secure treatment facilities, particularly long term medium secure units, needs to be improved. Services for people with personality, sexual, and substance misuse disorders should be developed in both prisons and the health service.
Transplanted Neural Stem Cells Survive, Differentiate, and Improve Neurological Motor Function after Experimental Traumatic Brain Injury

OBJECTIVE Using the neural stem cell (NSC) clone C17.2, we evaluated the ability of transplanted murine NSCs to attenuate cognitive and neurological motor deficits after traumatic brain injury. METHODS Nonimmunosuppressed C57BL/6 mice (n = 65) were anesthetized and subjected to lateral controlled cortical impact brain injury (n = 52) or surgery without injury (sham operation group, n = 13). At 3 days postinjury, all brain-injured animals were reanesthetized and randomized to receive stereotactic injection of NSCs or control cells (human embryonic kidney cells) into the cortex-hippocampus interface in either the ipsilateral or the contralateral hemisphere. One group of animals (n = 7) was killed at either 1 or 3 weeks postinjury to assess NSC survival in the acute posttraumatic period. Motor function was evaluated at weekly intervals for 12 weeks in the remaining animals, and cognitive (i.e., learning) deficits were assessed at 3 and 12 weeks after transplantation. RESULTS Brain-injured animals that received either ipsilateral or contralateral NSC transplants showed significantly improved motor function in selected tests as compared with human embryonic kidney cell-transplanted animals during the 12-week observation period. Cognitive dysfunction was unaffected by transplantation at either 3 or 12 weeks postinjury. Histological analyses showed that NSCs survive for as long as 13 weeks after transplantation and were detected in the hippocampus and/or cortical areas adjacent to the injury cavity. At 13 weeks, the NSCs transplanted ipsilateral to the impact site expressed neuronal (NeuN) or astrocytic (glial fibrillary acidic protein) markers but not markers of oligodendrocytes (2′3′cyclic nucleotide 3′-phosphodiesterase), whereas the contralaterally transplanted NSCs expressed neuronal but not glial markers (double-labeled immunofluorescence and confocal microscopy). CONCLUSION These data suggest that transplanted NSCs can survive in the traumatically injured brain, differentiate into neurons and/or glia, and attenuate motor dysfunction after traumatic brain injury.
Tecnologías sostenibles sobre la gestión del agua: la desalación, estudio del caso en la zona costera del Mediterráneo

El objetivo fundamental del presente proyecto es el estudio de viabilidad de las desaladoras, centrandonos en la zona costera del Mediterraneo. El proyecto se centra en el estudio de los impactos causados por las desecadoras, analizando los aspectos mas importantes: economicos, sociales, ambientales e institucionales. Se dara una vision global de estos aspectos resaltandolos exhaustivamente en la zona costera espanola del Mediterraneo.
Cloning and Characterization of Cell Adhesion Kinase β, a Novel Protein-tyrosine Kinase of the Focal Adhesion Kinase Subfamily (*)

A second protein-tyrosine kinase (PTK) of the focal adhesion kinase (FAK) subfamily, cell adhesion kinase β (CAKβ), was identified by cDNA cloning. The rat CAKβ is a 115.7-kDa PTK that contains N- and C-terminal domains of 418 and 330 amino acid residues besides the central kinase domain. The rat CAKβ has a homology with mouse FAK over their entire lengths except for the extreme N-terminal 88 residues and shares 45% overall sequence identity (60% identical in the catalytic domain), which indicates that CAKβ is a protein structurally related to but different from FAK. The CAKβ gene is less evenly expressed in a variety of rat organs than the FAK gene. Anti-CAKβ antibody immunoprecipitated a 113-kDa protein from rat brain, 3Y1 fibroblasts, and COS-7 cells transfected with CAKβ cDNA. The tyrosine-phosphorylated state of CAKβ was not reduced on trypsinization, nor enhanced in response to plating 3Y1 cells onto fibronectin. CAKβ localized to sites of cell-to-cell contact in COS-7 transfected with CAKβ cDNA, in which FAK was found at the bottom of the cells. Thus, CAKβ is a PTK possibly participating in the signal transduction regulated by cell-to-cell contacts.
[Effect of platelet-rich plasma injection on early healing of Achilles tendon rupture in rats].

OBJECTIVE Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) can promote wound healing. To observe the effect of PRP injection on the early healing of rat's Achilles tendon rupture so as to provide the experimental basis for clinical practice. METHODS Forty-six Sprague Dawley rats were included in this experiment, female or male and weighing 190-240 g. PRP and platelet-poor plasma (PPP) were prepared from the heart arterial blood of 10 rats; other 36 rats were made the models of Achilles tendon rupture, and were randomly divided into 3 groups (control group, PPP group, and PRP group), 12 rats for each group. In PPP and PRP groups, PPP and PRP of 100 microL were injected around the tendons once a week, respectively; in the control group, nothing was injected. The tendon tissue sample was harvested at 1, 2, 3, and 4 weeks after operation for morphology, histology, and immunohistochemistry observations. The content of collagen type I fibers also was measured. Specimens of each group were obtained for biomechanical test at 4 weeks. RESULTS All the animals survived till the end of the experiment. Tendon edema gradually decreased and sliding improved with time. The tendon adhesion increased steadily from 1 week to 3 weeks postoperatively, and it was relieved at 4 weeks in 3 groups. There was no significant difference in the grading of tendon adhesion among 3 groups at 1 week and at 4 weeks (P > 0.05), respectively. The inflammatory cell infiltration, angiogenesis, and collagen fibers were more in PRP group than in PPP group and control group at 1 week; with time, inflammatory cell infiltration and angiogenesis gradually decreased. Positive staining of collagen type I fibers was observed at 1-4 weeks postoperatively in 3 groups. The positive density of collagen type I fibers in group PRP was significantly higher than that in control group and PPP group at 1, 2, and 3 weeks (P < 0.05), but no significant difference was found among 3 groups at 4 weeks (P > 0.05). The biomechanical tests showed that there was no significant difference in the maximal gliding excursion among 3 groups at 4 weeks postoperatively (P > 0.05); the elasticity modulus and the ultimate tensile strength of PRP group were significantly higher than those of control group and PPP group at 4 weeks (P < 0.05). CONCLUSION PRP injection can improve the healing of Achilles tendon in early repair of rat's Achilles tendon rupture.
Design aspects of Web Services for M2M device fault and performance management

The ubiquitous penetration of Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communications challenges the device management. Remote Entity Management is defined as generic functionality that can be shared by different M2M applications. The paper presents an approach to design RESTful Web Services for M2M device fault and performance management. Common Web Services operations are identified and mapped onto HTTP methods. Performance characteristics related to Web Services deployment are evaluated by modeling the traffic flows and utilization of a Service Capability Server.
Patient-Centered Medicine: A Professional Evolution

American medicine is in the midst of a professional evolution driven by a refocusing of medicine's regard for the patient's viewpoint. Historically, medicine has been largely physician centered, but physicians have begun to incorporate patients' perspectives in ways that increasingly matter. Some call this shift "patient-centered" care. In support of the view that this refocusing reflects a broad professional shift, we describe the evolution to patient-centered care in many areas of medicine: patient care, health-related law, medical education, research, and quality assessment. ( JAMA . 1996;275:152-156)
Post-fabrication calibration of Near-Threshold circuits for energy efficiency

Scaling supply voltage to the Near-Threshold Voltage (NTV) region is an effective approach for energy-constrained circuit design at the cost of performance reduction. However, the impacts of process and runtime variations on the circuits operating at NTV aggravate due to the larger sensitivity to variations. This sensitivity changes the performance and power consumption of the circuit impacting the Minimum Energy Point (MEP). Therefore, finding an optimum operating voltage for Near-Threshold Computing (NTC) in a per-chip basis to account for variability is very challenging. In this paper, we propose a post-fabrication calibration approach based on machine learning in which the optimal supply voltage of each chip is determined during manufacturing test according to basic characteristics of the circuits such as dynamic and leakage power. Unlike the conventional approaches which find the MEP during runtime, the proposed technique imposes almost no overhead (area and power) to the circuit. The simulation results show a significant improvement (59.1%) in the energy efficiency compared to the state-of-the-art approaches.
Reduction of postischaemic ventricular dysfunction and arrhythmias by trapping hydroxyl radicals with salicylic acid.

Recent studies have suggested the ability of salicylic acid (SA) to trap the hydroxyl radicals (.OH) generated in reperfused ischaemic myocardium. This study was designed to examine the effect of SA on reperfusion-induced arrhythmias and postischaemic ventricular dysfunction. Isolated rat hearts perfused by the Langendorff technique were preperfused with SA for 10 min. Hearts were then made ischaemic for 30 min, followed by 30 min of reperfusion. The left-ventricular contractile functions, including left-ventricular developed pressure (LVDP) and its first derivative (LV dp/dt), and creatine kinase (CK) release, were determined before and after ischaemia. Epicardial electrocardiograms (ECG) were also employed to analyse the incidence of ventricular tachycardia (VT) and ventricular fibrillation (VF). SA improved LVDP and LV dp/dt, and reduced CK release, as compared to the control group (p < 0.05). The incidence of VT and VF during reperfusion was also significantly reduced by SA (p < 0.05). Analysis of tissue thiobarbituric acid-reactive products indicates that SA decreased oxidative stress during reperfusion. In conclusion, these results suggest that SA reduces ventricular dysfunction and attenuates ventricular arrhythmias by trapping OH radicals upon reperfusion in isolated rat hearts.
An Optimization and Comparative Study of Air-Coupled CMUT Cells With Circular and Annular Geometries

Air-coupled capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducers (CMUTs) with annular cell geometry have recently been reported to have a promising transmit sensitivity. This paper reports three optimization schemes, which further improve the transmit sensitivity and also help achieve a reasonable comparison between the novel annular and conventional circular cells. Lumped element models of both cell types with laminate plate structures are presented. Based on these models, a design optimization flowchart was constructed to facilitate analytical optimization on the three schemes. Circular and annular CMUTs with a common 97-kHz natural resonance frequency were fabricated and characterized to verify the efficacy of the optimization principle. Using the optimization flowchart, annular and circular cells with frequencies ranging from 100 to 300 kHz were analytically optimized and then compared. The comparison results demonstrate that, given the same dc bias and ac excitation voltage, the output power density at the plate surface of the optimized annular cell is double that of the optimized circular cell. Additionally, when generating the same surface power density, an optimized annular cell requires either half the dc bias or half the ac excitation voltage of an optimized circular cell. This paper provides a practical optimization framework for CMUT cell design and demonstrates the superiority of annular cells for air-coupled applications.
A comparison of feed methods for electrically small and low-profile meander line antennas

Electrically small and low-profile antennas (ESLA) have been widely studied in recent years. An antenna which is close to a back conductor can reduce the electrical effects from the backing material when installed on IC chips, human body or any metallic or lossy material. However, typical electrically and low-profile antennas have low radiation efficiency resulting in a difficulty of impedance matching to 50 Ω. For designing an ESLA, a capacitive feed (C-feed) technique has been proposed in [7] for a meander line antenna with a length of half-wavelength. Using the C-feed structure, the imaginary part of the input impedance of the antenna can be easily controlled by varying the size of the feed plate which is installed in between the radiating element and ground plane. Furthermore, a modified quarter-wavelength capacitive-feed meander line antenna (QCFMA) has been proposed in [8] for gain improvement satisfying ka = 0.435 <; 0.5, k: wave number, a: radius of a sphere surrounding the antenna. In this paper, the QCFMA is compared with the same dimension of meander line antenna with an inverted-F antenna structure (IFMA) in order to evaluate the performance of C-feed structure. As a result, QCFMA shows better radiation characteristics than IFMA, and the two fabricated antennas show good agreement with the simulated results.
CD4+ cell count at antiretroviral therapy initiation and economic restoration in rural Uganda

Objective:To determine whether earlier initiation of antiretroviral therapy (ART) is associated with better economic outcomes. Design:Prospective cohort study of HIV-positive patients on ART in rural Uganda. Methods:Patients initiating ART at a regional referral clinic in Uganda were enrolled in the Uganda AIDS Rural Treatment Outcomes study starting in 2005. Data on labor force participation and asset ownership were collected on a yearly basis, and CD4+ cell counts were collected at pre-ART baseline. We fitted multivariable regression models to assess whether economic outcomes at baseline and in the 6 years following ART initiation varied by baseline CD4+ cell count. Results:Five hundred and five individuals, followed up to 6 years, formed the estimation sample. Participants initiating ART at CD4+ cell count at least 200 cells/&mgr;l were 13 percentage points more likely to be working at baseline (P < 0.01, 95% confidence interval 0.06–0.21) than those initiating below this threshold. Those in the latter group achieved similar labor force participation rates within 1 year of initiating ART (P < 0.01 on the time indicators). Both groups had similar asset scores at baseline and demonstrated similar increases in asset scores over the 6 years of follow-up. Conclusion:ART helps participants initiating therapy at CD4+ cell count below 200 cells/&mgr;l rejoin the labor force, though the findings for participants initiating with higher CD4+ cell counts suggests that pretreatment declines in labor supply may be prevented altogether with earlier therapy. Baseline similarities in asset scores for those with early and advanced disease suggest that mechanisms other than morbidity may help drive the relationship between HIV infection and economic outcomes.
In Vitro Treatment of Different Isolates from Cattle Dung and Pig Slurry by Nisin

Laukova A. : In Vitro Treatment of Different Isolates from Cattle Dung and Pig Slurry by Nisin. Acta Vet. Brno 2000, 69: 147–151. The antimicrobial effect of nisin against selected environmental isolates (from cattle dung and pig slurry) was tested using two methods: well diffusion test and agar spot test. Following isolates were included in the tests: enterococci (33), staphylococci (11), Bacillus spp. (2), Providencia spp. (3), Citrobacter freundii (1), Morganella morganii (2) and Acinetobacter -like sp. (1). Using well diffusion test all indicator organisms were sensitive to nisin at a concentration of 1 mg ml -1 , except of species Morganella morganii and Citrobacter freundii. Inhibition zones measured from 11 up to 26 mm (in diameter). The nisin activity towards indicators expressed in AU ml -1 ranged from 100 AU ml -1 up to 6400 AU ml -1 . The most sensitive to nisin was found Enterococcus faecalis V24 strain and Bacillus pumilus BP17 strain (3200 – 6400 AU ml-1). Moreover, in our in vitro tests, the Gram-negative species of genera Providencia and Acinetobacter were sensitive to nisin (200, 400 AU ml-1); in spite of the predominat effect of nisin against Gram-positive bacteria.