Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Avian Lampbrush Chromosomes: a Powerful Tool for Exploration of Genome Expression

Lampbrush chromosomes (LBCs) are highly extended bivalents that function in the growing oocytes of many animals. Due to their distinctive chromomere-loop organization and intense transcriptional activity of lateral loops the LBCs, mainly amphibian ones, have served as a powerful system for exploring the general principles of chromosome organization and function. The exploitation of avian LBCs has considerably broadened the opportunities for comparative genome research and for cytogenetic analysis of domestic species. In this review we highlight the advantages of avian LBCs for research in different areas including integration of genome organization studies with studies on gene activity in vivo, analysis of co-transcriptional events occurring on nascent transcripts and investigation of chromosome-associated intranuclear domains. Recent findings concerning the organization of transcriptionally active and silent chromatin together with involvement of cohesin and condensin complexes into maintenance of structural integrity of LBCs are presented. The biological significance of the LBC phenomenon is discussed. The intensive transcription on LBCs shows some specific features: very long transcription units, deregulated termination, and transcription of non-coding satellite repeats. Here, based on the modern view on a role of RNA interference machinery in regulation of genome expression, we suggest a mechanism of initiation of satellite DNA transcription and offer a novel interpretation of the ‘classical’ hypothesis that sought to explain the significance of widespread transcription during oocyte growth.
Intraarticular injections of hyaluronan in patients with cartilage abnormalities and knee pain. A one-year double-blind, placebo-controlled study.

OBJECTIVE To compare the effect of intraarticular injections of hyaluronan and placebo (vehicle, saline) in patients with knee pain on exertion and with joint cartilage abnormalities. METHODS Fifty-two patients with arthroscopically verified deep cartilage fissures and villus-like flakes in the symptomatic knee were randomly assigned to receive intraarticular injections of 2.5 ml of either hyaluronan or vehicle, weekly for 5 weeks. The effect was evaluated by both primary and secondary parameters of efficacy at 2, 4, 13, 26, and 52 weeks. RESULTS At the followup visits, both groups had improvement from baseline; however, there was no difference between the groups in any of the relevant variables at any time point. CONCLUSION The effects of intraarticular hyaluronan do not differ significantly from those of placebo in patients with knee pain and cartilage disease.
Intercurrent clinical events are predictive of plasma C-reactive protein levels in hemodialysis patients.

BACKGROUND In chronic hemodialysis (HD) patients, the repetitive induction of the acute phase response (APR) may induce a chronic micro-inflammatory state, leading to various long-term complications. METHODS The present prospective study was designed to assess the alterations in the APR in 74 patients who were randomized to HD with a high-flux polysulfone (PS; F 60S), a super-flux PS (F 500S), or a super-flux cellulosic tri-acetate (CTA and CTA with filtered dialysate, CTA(f)) dialyzer. Blood samples collected at the start of the study and after twelve weeks were analyzed for interleukin-6 (IL-6) and C-reactive protein (CRP). In addition to the microbiological quality of the dialysate, the appearance of a "clinical event" was assessed. RESULTS At baseline, mean IL-6 levels were within the reference range whereas mean CRP levels were slightly elevated. Mean values did not change after 12 weeks of HD with either modality. After subdividing the patients in quartiles with increasing change in plasma CRP, 23.0% of the patients showed a change of more than 8.0 mg/L. In a multiple regression analysis, CRP levels appeared to be independent of the degree of dialysate contamination, the material and the flux characteristics of the devices. In fact, the variable "clinical events" was the only significant predictor of the plasma CRP levels (P < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS Based on these results, both PS and CTA super-flux dialyzers appear safe for clinical use. Whether changes in CRP values, which are associated with intercurrent clinical events, influence the long-term prognosis of chronic HD patients remains to be established.
An Effective MAC Scheme Based on Large Interference Range in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

An adaptive MAC scheme called Probabilistic CTS Reply (PCR) for mobile ad hoc network is proposed. This scheme takes the influence of the Large Interference Range to the IEEE 802.11 RTS/CTS in wireless environment into account, and based on the efficiency of RTS/CTS and transmission range between the transmitter and receiver, then makes modification of RTS/CTS from the receiver side. The results of the theory analysis and the network simulation give the conclusion that PCR can lessen interference more effectively than RTS/CTS and improve the performance of the network.
Yliopistot keskiajan sosiaalisena innovaationa : paavi, ruhtinas ja kaupunki

This study discusses the nature of the university as a medieval European social innovation. The author suggests that the emergence of European universities can be explained with the help of three social actors that are important for their development. These were 'the Pope', representing the research funder and academic gatekeeper; 'the Prince', symbolizing the territorial ruler and legislator; and 'the City', as being an actor that reveals the importance of local communities with whom the guilds of students and professors needed to negotiate on practical matters. The article suggests that local conditions in medieval Bologna and Paris were essential for the establishment of two different ideal types of universities: the University of Bologna as an example of a university ruled by students, and the University of Paris as an example of a university ruled by professors, masters. The article is based on academic research literature.
Stability in the Absence of Treatment

When subjects are measured twice, once at each of two symmetrical locations or times, stability of responses in the absence of treatment within subjects, together with comparability of untreated responses between subjects, is often viewed as supporting a conclusion that differences between treated and control responses re ect effects actually caused by the treatment. The degree to which this intuitive argument is formally correct is explored in several related models: a multivariate Normal model, a nonparametric model de ned by symmetries, an analogous randomized experiment, and a sensitivity analysis model for observational studies in which treatments are not randomly assigned to subjects, nor to locations within subjects. Card and Kreuger’s study of the employment effects of the minimum wage is used to illustrate the methods.
A novel mutation in the chloride channel gene, CLCNKB, as a cause of Gitelman and Bartter syndromes.

BACKGROUND Gitelman syndrome (GS) and Bartter syndrome (BS) are hereditary hypokalemic tubulopathies with distinct phenotypic features. GS has been considered a genetically homogeneous disorder caused by mutation in the gene encoding the NaCl cotransporter (TSC) of the distal convoluted tubule. In contrast, BS is caused by mutations in the genes encoding either the Na-K-2Cl cotransporter (NKCC2), the K+ channel (ROMK) or the Cl- channel (ClC-Kb) of the thick ascending limb. The purpose of this study was to examine the clinical, biochemical and genetic characteristics of a very large inbred Bedouin kindred in Northern Israel with hereditary hypokalemic tubulopathy. METHODS Twelve family members affected with hypokalemic tubulopathy, as well as 26 close relatives were clinically and biochemically evaluated. All study participants underwent genetic linkage analysis. Mutation analysis was performed in affected individuals. RESULTS Evaluation of affected family members (age range 3 to 36 years) revealed phenotypic features of both GS and classic Bartter syndrome (CBS). Features typical of GS included late age of presentation (>15 years) in 7 patients (58%), normal growth in 9 (75%), hypomagnesemia (SMg <0.7mmol/L) in 5 (42%), hypermagnesiuria (FEMg>5%) in 6 (50%) and hypocalciuria (urinary calcium/creatinine mmol/mmol <0.15) in 5 (42%). Features typical of CBS included early age of presentation (<1 year) in 3 (25%), polyuria/dehydration in 4 (33%), growth retardation in 3 (25%), hypercalciuria (urinary calcium/creatinine mmol/mmoverline>0.55) in 4 (33%) and nephrolithiasis in 1 (8%). Linkage analysis in affected patients excluded the TSC gene, SLC12A3, as the mutated gene, but demonstrated linkage to the Cl- channel gene, CLCNKB, on chromosome 1p36. Mutation analysis by direct sequencing revealed a novel homozygous missense mutation, arginine 438 to histidine (R438H), in exon 13 of CLCNKB in all patients. A restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis has been developed to aid in genotyping of family members. CONCLUSIONS Our findings demonstrate intrafamilial heterogeneity, namely the presence of GS and CBS phenotypes, in a kindred with the CLCNKB R438H mutation. We conclude that GS can be caused by a mutation in a gene other than SLC12A3. The exact role of the CLCNKB R438H mutation in the pathogenesis of the electrolyte and mineral abnormalities in GS and CBS remains to be established.
Correlation between architectural variables and torque in the erector spinae muscle during maximal isometric contraction

Abstract This study analysed whether a significant relationship exists between the torque and muscle thickness and pennation angle of the erector spinae muscle during a maximal isometric lumbar extension with the lumbar spine in neutral position. This was a cross-sectional study in which 46 healthy adults performed three repetitions for 5 s of maximal isometric lumbar extension with rests of 90 s. During the lumbar extensions, bilateral ultrasound images of the erector spinae muscle (to measure pennation angle and muscle thickness) and torque were acquired. Reliability test analysis calculating the internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha) of the measure, correlation between pennation angle, muscle thickness and torque extensions were examined. Through a linear regression the contribution of each independent variable (muscle thickness and pennation angle) to the variation of the dependent variable (torque) was calculated. The results of the reliability test were: 0.976–0.979 (pennation angle), 0.980–0.980 (muscle thickness) and 0.994 (torque). The results show that pennation angle and muscle thickness were significantly related to each other with a range between 0.295 and 0.762. In addition, multiple regression analysis showed that the two variables considered in this study explained 68% of the variance in the torque. Pennation angle and muscle thickness have a moderate impact on the variance exerted on the torque during a maximal isometric lumbar extension with the lumbar spine in neutral position.
Effect of converting-enzyme inhibition on renal response to ANF in rats with experimental heart failure.

Increased activity of the renin-angiotensin system is thought to play a major role in the pathogenesis of salt retention and edema formation in congestive heart failure. The present study evaluates the effects of chronic inhibition of angiotensin-converting enzyme on the response to infusion of exogenous atrial natriuretic factor (ANF) in salt-retaining rats with chronic arteriovenous (a-v) fistula, an experimental model of high-output congestive heart failure. Administration of ANF in incremental doses (5-50 micrograms.kg-1.h-1) to Inactin-anesthetized, sham-operated control rats resulted in dose-dependent increases in urine flow, sodium excretion, and glomerular filtration rate, and significant decreases in mean arterial blood pressure. These effects of atrial peptide were markedly attenuated in salt-retaining rats with a-v fistula. However, chronic oral treatment with the angiotensin-converting-enzyme inhibitor enalapril restored the natriuretic response of sodium-retaining rats with a-v fistula to high doses of ANF. At a dose of 50 micrograms.kg-1.h-1, fractional excretion of Na (FENa) in a-v fistula rats given enalapril was 4.0 +/- 0.5%, which was significantly greater than that in a-v fistula rats without enalapril (0.5 +/- 0.4%, P less than 0.05) and not different from the response in sham-control rats (4.9 +/- 0.7%). The improvement in the natriuretic response after enalapril was not associated with a significant increase in GFR and occurred despite a decrease in mean arterial pressure. Moreover, chronic enalapril treatment did not significantly alter the plasma levels of immunoreactive ANF in either the sham controls or in the rats with a-v fistula. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Rethinking of feature selection method for room-level localization using public APs

As WiFi infrastructures and smartphones are propagated widely various WiFi fingerprint-based indoor localization system has been proposed. One of the approaches to improve the accuracy is the feature selection method that analyse the characteristics of WiFi RSSI and construct fingerprint database. However, none of the previous studies analysed about the number of features selected despite the fact that it is important in practical system. In this paper, we propose the feature selection method with characteristics of constancy and strength and evaluate the performance according to the number of features selected.
Histamine and Migraine

Histamine is an ancient “tissue amine” preceding multicellular organisms. In the central nervous system (CNS), its fibers originate solely from the tuberomammillary nucleus and travel throughout the brain. It is mainly responsible for wakefulness, energy homeostasis, and memory consolidation. Recently, several studies suggest a potential role of histamine in migraine pathogenesis and management.
Prophylactic antibiotics for the prevention of neutropenic fever in patients undergoing autologous stem‐cell transplantation: Results of a single institution, randomized phase 2 trial

One hundred and fifty‐seven patients undergoing high‐dose chemotherapy (HDT) and autologous stem‐cell transplantation (ASCT) for hematopoietic malignancies and solid tumors were randomly assigned to receive (Group A) or not (Group B) prophylaxis with ciprofloxacin, orally, and vancomycin, intravenously. Prophylactic antibiotics were given from day 0 until resolution of neutropenia or the appearance of a febrile event. Furthermore, patients in both groups received once a day fluconazole, orally. The primary end‐point of our study was the incidence of neutropenic febrile episodes attributed to infection. One hundred and twelve (71.3%) patients developed neutropenic fever, 50 (56.2%) in Group A and 62 (91.2%) in Group B (P < 0.001) with the majority (82%) of patients developing fever of unknown origin. Patients on prophylactic antibiotics had a significantly lower rate of bacteremias (5.6%) than did those randomized to no prophylaxis (29.4%) (P = 0.005) and, when developing neutropenic fever, they had a lower probability of response to first‐line empirical antibiotics (P = 0.025). Prophylactic administration of ciprofloxacin and vancomycin reduced the incidence of neutropenic fever in patients receiving HDT with ASCT, however, without affecting the total interval of hospitalization, time to engraftment, or all‐cause mortality. Therefore, our results do not support the use of antibiotic prophylaxis for patients undergoing HDT and ASCT. Am. J. Hematol. , 2010. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
The Structure and Development of the Urethral Sinus in the Male White Mouse, with Notes on its Occurrence in other Rodents.

IT has been known for some time that a glandular diverticulum of the male urethra in the bulb is present in many rodents and some insectivores. Although this diverticulum has been mentioned and figured by several authors, there does not appear to have been any detailed description of its structure, development and homologies. It was felt that a fuller account was desirable. In this paper the structure and development of the urethral sinus in the white mouse are described, together with brief notes on the occurrence of the sinus in some other rodents.
Comparison of student outcomes and preferences in a traditional vs. World Wide Web-based baccalaureate nursing research course.

The purpose of this project was to compare student outcomes in an undergraduate research course taught using both World Wide Web-based distance learning technology and traditional pedagogy. Reasons given for enrolling in the traditional classroom section included the perception of increased opportunity for interaction, decreased opportunity to procrastinate, immediate feedback, and more meaningful learning activities. Reasons for selecting the Web group section included cost, convenience, and flexibility. Overall, there was no significant difference in examination scores between the two groups on the three multiple-choice examinations or for the course grades (t = -.96, P = .343). Students who reported that they were self-directed and had the ability to maintain their own pace and avoid procrastination were most suited to Web-based courses. The Web-based classes can help provide opportunities for methods of communication that are not traditionally nurtured in traditional classroom settings. Secondary benefits of the World Wide Web-based course were to increase student confidence with the computer, and introduce them to skills and opportunities they would not have had in the classroom. Additionally, over time and with practice, student's writing skills improved.
An inter-FA handover scheme to improve performance of mobile WiMAX systems

Mobile WiMAX has been introduced for next generation broadband wireless access systems, and it has been designed to provide various multimedia services through highspeed wireless Internet access. However, since IEEE 802.16e standard, international standard of mobile WiMAX, defined only hard handover as mendatory, Mobile Station (MS) cannot transmit or receive packets during handover procedure. Thus real-time packets can be dropped and it may result that service providers cannot guarantee quality of service during handover procedure. Even though many researches have been done in order to reduce handover delay in mobile WiMAX, problems in inter-Frequency Assignment (FA) handover procedure are still not solved. In the IEEE 802.16e standard, a Base Station (BS) can request serving MS to change frequency band from current serving FA to others attached in the serving BS in order to avoid congestion in the FA that MS is connected. If an MS receives the request, an MS should perform initial entry procedure to other FA. In this paper, we propose a novel inter-FA handover algorithm in order to reduce handover latency and message overhead. From experiment results, the proposed algorithm gives better performance than conventional IEEE 802.16e standard in terms of handover latency and BS throughput.
A Pilot Study of the Safety and Tolerability of Etanercept in Patients with Alcoholic Hepatitis

BACKGROUND:Alcoholic hepatitis is a cause of major morbidity and mortality, and effective therapeutic regimens to treat this condition are lacking. Both experimental and clinical evidence indicates that tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF), and the downstream cytokine interleukin-6 (IL-6), correlate with disease severity and may contribute to the pathogenesis and clinical sequelae of alcoholic hepatitis, thereby implicating a possible role for inhibition of TNF in the treatment of alcoholic hepatitis.OBJECTIVE:The aim of the current study was to assess the safety and tolerability of a p75-soluble TNF receptor:FC fusion protein (etanercept), an agent that binds and neutralizes soluble TNF in patients with alcoholic hepatitis in the form of an open-label pilot trial.METHODS:Etanercept administration was targeted for 2 wk duration in 13 patients with moderate or severe alcoholic hepatitis as assessed by a discriminant function value greater than 15 and/or the presence of spontaneous hepatic encephalopathy.RESULTS:On an intention-to-treat basis, the 30-day survival rate of patients receiving etanercept was 92% (12/13). Adverse events that were encountered included infection, hepatorenal decompensation, and GI bleeding, which required premature discontinuation of etanercept in 23% of patients (3/13). CONCLUSIONS:This is the first study to examine TNF inhibition with etanercept in patients with alcoholic hepatitis and the results of this study support the rationale for larger controlled studies to further assess safety and efficacy.
Some Limitations of a Proposed Linear Model for Antimicrobial Risk Management

The FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM) ( Bartholomew et al., 2005 ) recently proposed an approach to risk management based on the linear modeling framework: Risk = K × Exposure. They suggest that, once K has been estimated from historical data, it can be used to predict how limiting future exposure will reduce future risk. They illustrate the approach for fluoroquinolone‐resistant campylobacter in chicken. However, despite its appealing simplicity, the proposed approach confuses a possibly meaningless descriptive statistical ratio with a valid predictive causal relation. In general, the historical ratio K = (Risk/Exposure) may not predict how changing future exposures will affect future risks, and hence it does not necessarily provide an appropriate guide to current risk management actions. We identify several limitations of the proposed framework, including omission of frequency and severity of human health harm in quantifying “Risk” and omission of microbial load from “Exposure. ” Finally, we show that an extended linear modeling approach that considers impacts of changing animal antibiotic use on susceptible as well as on resistant bacteria is consistent with the conclusion that reducing “Exposure” can greatly increase “Risk. ”
A meta-analysis of randomized trials of behavioural treatment of depression

Background Depression is a common, disabling condition for which psychological treatments, in particular cognitive behavioural therapies are recommended. Promising results in recent randomized trials have renewed interest in behavioural therapy. This systematic review sought to identify all randomized trials of behavioural therapy for depression, determine the effect of such interventions and examine any moderators of such effect. Method Randomized trials of behavioural treatments of depression versus controls or other psychotherapies were identified using electronic database searches, previous reviews and reference lists. Data on symptom-level, recovery/dropout rate and study-level moderators (study quality, number of sessions, severity and level of training) were extracted and analysed using meta-analysis and meta-regression respectively. Results Seventeen randomized controlled trials including 1109 subjects were included in this meta-analysis. A random-effects meta-analysis of symptom-level post-treatment showed behavioural therapies were superior to controls [standardized mean difference (SMD) −0.70, 95% CI −1.00 to −0.39, k=12, n=459], brief psychotherapy (SMD −0.56, 95% CI −1.0 to −0.12, k=3, n=166), supportive therapy (SMD −0.75, 95% CI −1.37 to −0.14, k=2, n=45) and equal to cognitive behavioural therapy (SMD 0.08, 95% CI −0.14 to 0.30, k=12, n=476). Conclusions The results in this study indicate behavioural therapy is an effective treatment for depression with outcomes equal to that of the current recommended psychological intervention. Future research needs to address issues of parsimony of such interventions.