Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Risk of elevated transaminases in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients treated with erlotinib, gefitinib and afatinib: a meta-analysis

ABSTRACT This meta-analysis has been conducted to determine the risk of elevated transaminases associated with the use of erlotinib, gefitinib and afatinib in patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Studies eligible for our analysis included randomized phase II and III trials of patients with NSCLC on the three agents which describe events of elevated alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST). Initial database search revealed 300 relevant citations. After excluding non-eligible studies, 24 trials were considered eligible for the analysis. The relative risk (RR) of all-grade elevated ALT and AST was 1.82 (95% CI: 1.42–2.34; p < 0.00001) and 2.09 (95% CI: 1.54–2.83; p < 0.00001) respectively; while for high-grade elevated ALT and AST, it was 9.23 (95% CI: 5.06–16.85; p < 0.00001) and 1.78 (95% CI: 0.5–6.26; p = 0.37), respectively. Our meta-analysis has shown that there is an overall elevated risk of elevated transaminases with the use of these agents.
Craze: Gin and Debauchery in an Age of Reason

Craze: Gin and Debauchery in an Age of Reason. By Jessica Warner. Profile Books, London. www.profilebooks. co.uk, 267 pp., £15. ISBN: 1 86197 676 4. Readers of an international journal may not be aware of the epidemic of excessive gin drinking that inflicted London in the eighteenth century. The usurping of the British throne by a Dutch prince in 1688 brought gin in its wake. Taxes on the concoction of grain spirits and juniper oil, though minimal, provided useful revenues to support the new government's wars against …
Heart function in mouse models of muscular dystrophy

Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is an X-linked recessive disease caused, in most cases, by the complete absence of the 427 kD cytoskeletal protein, dystrophin. Without dystrophin, the dystrophin-associated protein complex (DAPC) does not form and the plasma membrane is destabilised. There is no effective treatment and affected individuals die from respiratory failure and cardiomyopathy by age 30. This thesis describes experiments in which in vivo cardiac function was measured using non-invasive magnetic resonance imaging in a number of mouse models relevant to muscular dystrophy. As syncoilin forms a link from the DAPC to the cytoskeleton, it was postulated in Chapter 3 that the syncoilin knockout mouse would have cardiac defects similar to those caused by the loss of dystrophin. However, the loss of syncoilin did not alter the protein levels of its binding partners, measured by western blotting, and caused no defect in heart function or structure, measured using histological staining. Similarly, in Chapter 4, a mouse with a mutation in the transient receptor potential channel canonical type 3 (TRPC3), a receptor/stretch-activated cation channel thought to be involved in the pathogenesis of DMD, was found to have no functional or morphological cardiac defect. In the mdx mouse, a mouse model of DMD that lacks dystrophin, cardiomyopathy was prevented by either increasing levels of the dystrophin related protein, utrophin, or of dystrophin, in the diaphragm, which thereby restored diaphragm function. In Chapter 5 it was found that in a transgenic mdx mouse in which utrophin was over-expressed in skeletal muscle and diaphragm, but not in the heart, cardiac function was restored to wild-type levels. However, histologically the transgenic heart showed more fibrosis and immune cell infiltration than that of untreated mdx controls. In Chapter 6 it was found that in mdx mice treated with a peptide-conjugated phosphorodiamidate morpholino oligomer (PPMO), that resulted in high dystrophin restoration in skeletal muscle and diaphragm only, cardiac function was also restored to wild-type levels. In Chapter 6 it was also found that in dystrophin/utrophin-deficient double-knockout (dKO) mice, a more severely affected animal model of DMD, treatment with a PPMO again produced high levels of dystrophin only in skeletal muscle and diaphragm, and once more restored cardiac function to wild-type levels. In the dKO mouse, there was no difference in heart function between treatment of the diaphragm plus the heart and treatment of the diaphragm alone. Restoration of diaphragm and other respiratory muscle function, irrespective of the method used, was sufficient to prevent cardiomyopathy in dystrophic mice. The novel mechanism of treating respiratory muscles to prevent cardiomyopathy in dystrophic mice has implications for the study of heart function in the current DMD mouse models and suggests a new approach to treatment.
Diagnóstico de enfermagem de pacientes no período transoperatório de cirurgia cardíaca

O objetivo deste estudo foi identificar os diagnosticos de enfermagem de pacientes no periodo transoperatorio de cirurgia cardiaca. Para a coleta de dados, foi elaborado e validado um instrumento baseado no modelo conceitual de Horta. Foram avaliados 17 pacientes adultos, no periodo transoperatorio de cirurgia cardiaca, sendo nove homens e oito mulheres, com idade media de 58 anos. Os diagnosticos de enfermagem, identificados segundo a Taxonomia I da NANDA, com frequencia superior a 50,0%, foram: risco para infeccao (100%), risco para desequilibrio de volume de liquidos (100%), troca de gases prejudicada (100%), risco para aspiracao (100%), protecao alterada (100%), integridade da pele prejudicada (100%), risco para disfuncao neurovascular periferica (100%), risco para lesao perioperatoria de posicionamento (100%) e risco para temperatura corporal alterada (94,1%). Observamos uma predominância dos diagnosticos de enfermagem relacionados as necessidades fisiologicas.
Statins as emerging treatments for asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

Asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) represent increasingly common respiratory conditions with a clear unmet need for more effective and safer therapy. Airway inflammation is key to both asthma pathogenesis and exacerbation of symptoms in COPD. Several lines of evidence are now emerging, demonstrasting that, in addition to their established effectiveness in the treatment of atherosclerotic disease, statins also exhibit anti-inflammatory properties, which may be of relevance for the treatment of chronic lung disease, including asthma and COPD. This review will examine the diverse in vitro and in vivo anti-inflammatory properties of statins and consider the available evidence that statins represent novel therapeutic interventions for asthma and COPD.
Energy and performance exploration of accelerator coherency port using Xilinx ZYNQ

Cooperation of CPU and hardware accelerator to accomplish computational intensive tasks, provides significant advantages in run-time speed and energy. Efficient management of data sharing among multiple computational kernels can rapidly turn into a complicated problem. The Accelerator coherency port (ACP) emerges as a possible solution by enabling hardware accelerators to issue coherent accesses to the memory space. In this paper, we quantify the advantages of using ACP over the traditional method of sharing data on the DRAM. We select the Xilinx ZYNQ as target and develop an infrastructure to stress the ACP and high-performance (HP) AXI interfaces of the ZYNQ device. Hardware accelerators on both of HP and ACP AXI interfaces reach full duplex data processing bandwidth of over 1.6 GBytes/s running at 125 MHz on a XC7Z020-1C device. The effect of background DRAM and cache traffic on the performance of accelerators is analyzed. For a sample image filtering task, the cooperative operation of CPU and ACP accelerator (CPU-ACP) gains a speed-up of 1.2X over CPU and HP acceleration (CPU-HP). In terms of energy efficiency, an improvement of 2.5 nJ (> 20%) is shown for each byte of processed data. This is the first work which represents detailed practical comparisons on the speed and energy efficiency of various processor-accelerator memory sharing techniques in a configurable heterogeneous platform.
Fiber Treating Metabolic Syndrome

The number of individuals diagnosed with metabolic syndrome has risen dramatically in recent years. Although not a disease itself, metabolic syndrome significantly raises the risk of developing cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes mellitus, both considered to be epidemics. Therefore, it is critical to promote aggressive therapies that effectively combat conditions associated with the metabolic syndrome. However, treating metabolic syndrome is complicated due to the complex nature of its pathophysiology coinciding with the many health abnormalities metabolic syndrome is often associated with, including but not limited to, insulin resistance, central obesity, hypertension, and atherogenic dyslipidemia. One promising compound that has been demonstrated to alleviate metabolic syndrome is fiber. The various types of fiber work through multiple mechanisms of action in the human body and can potentially result in weight loss in addition to blood glucose control and the lowering of cholesterol. Therefore, increasing intake of dietary fiber might prevent or even reverse some of the negative health anomalies associated with metabolic syndrome. The purpose of this review is to provide a cursory overview of the core components of metabolic syndrome and address how fiber intake may combat these conditions.
On the front line of biodefense: the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services support to international biological risk management regimes.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is supporting the U.S. Department of State in its public diplomacy demarches related to the Biological Weapons Convention and United Nations Security Council Resolution 1540. The tenets of these major international instruments are implemented through a statutory, regulatory, and policy framework on biological risk management; an effective oversight of biodefense research and development programs; and international partnerships and collaborations toward countering biological threats, whether natural, accidental, or deliberate in nature. These activities illustrate the increasing importance of health to the U.S. national security and foreign policy. Raising the awareness of public health and science communities about the obligations under the Biological Weapons Convention and United Nations Security Council Resolution 1540 is a critical element in their implementation and in preventing the misuse of scientific and technological advances.
Vintafolide (EC145) for the treatment of folate-receptor-α positive platinum-resistant ovarian cancer

Seminal advances in the treatment of cancer have been achieved because of drug development in ovarian cancer; notably the developments of platinums and taxanes. However, no new drug has been FDA approved for ovarian cancer since 2006, and the approval of an antiangiogenic agent for ovarian cancer in the US has stalled. Predicting the next breakthrough is a high risk and highly expensive venture. One of the most promising prospects is folate-receptor (FR)-targeted therapy, given the high expression in FR ovarian cancer. We review the development of vintafolide (EC145), a folic acid-desacetylvinblastine conjugate, the predictive utility of a FR-targeted imaging agent, technetium-99m-etarfolatide (EC20), the challenges in proving survival advantage, and other approaches to exploiting FR as a target in ovarian cancer.
Using quadrocopter as a pentest tool

This paper describes the creation of a prototype "small" unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) for safety audit of information systems (pentest) [1, 2]. Such devices can seamlessly penetrate in closed facilities. It increases the chances compromising wireless networks available only in closed facilities. As base for the project was Parrot AR.Drone 2 and single-board computer (CBC) Raspberry Pi [3, 4]. Was created algorithm for attack Wi-Fi networks located on protected area.
MRM: delivering predictability and service differentiation in shared compute clusters

Computing-as-a-service has been evolving steadily. Today, private clouds (e.g., Google's internal shared computing cluster) as well as public clouds (e.g., Amazon's web services (AWS), Microsoft's Azure) provide computing abstractions at various levels: bare virtual machines, specialized languages and runtimes (e.g., for massively-parallel data processing---MapReduce, Dryad), web services. For example, Amazon offers bare virtual machines as well as MapReduce clusters.
Pharmacokinetic studies of antimalarials: recent developments

Pharmacokinetic studies are essential for the development of safe and effective antimalarial treatment regimens, but there are clinical situations in which there are limited data on drug disposition. These include very young children, pregnant women, and where drug interactions may alter treatment response. New approaches such as sampling methods involving low volumes and minimal preparation such as dried blood spots, highly sensitive and specific multidrug assays, and population PK analyses which can evaluate the influence of covariates such as age, pregnancy and coadministered therapies, can generate robust data that inform treatment in the most challenging situations in the tropics.
Prospective study of ventilated patients in the paediatric medical intensive care unit of Lady Ridgeway Hospital

Objective: To determine the characteristics and outcome of ventilated patients in the paediatric medical intensive care unit (PICU) of Lady Ridgeway Hospital for Children (LRH), Colombo. Design: Prospective descriptive study Method: The study population consisted of all ventilated paediatric patients admitted to PICU, LRH from 1 st March to 31 st August, 2009. The factors studied included demographic profile (age, sex, residence, transfer), length of stay on ventilator, indication for ventilation, details of organ dysfunction and the final outcome. Results: There were 152 patients ventilated over the study period of six months. Seventy three were under one year of age. Male to female ratio was 1.17:1. A significant proportion (n=105) were from the Western province. Eighty five patients were transferred from medical wards of LRH. Median duration of ventilation was six days (IRQ 4-10). Indications for ventilation included respiratory problems (85), neurological disorders (13), cardiac causes (5), hepatic problem (1) and miscellaneous diseases (48) including 32 from dengue syndromes. There were 42 deaths among ventilated patients giving an overall mortality rate of 27.6%. Multi-organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS) on admission accounted for 81% of the deaths. Bronchopneumonia (16) and dengue haemorrhagic fever (12) were the main underlying causes of death. Thirty two (21%) had anaemia while in the PICU, 15 of them having anaemia on admission. Nosocomial infection was present in 17 (11%) patients. Children transferred from other provinces had a higher risk of death than those from the Western province (OR=1.5, 95% CI: 0.7 – 3.3). Conclusions: MODS on admission accounted for 81% of the deaths. Bronchopneumonia and dengue haemorrhagic fever were the main underlying causes of death. Children transferred from other provinces had a higher risk of death compared to those from the Western province (Key words: Medical intensive care; nosocomial infection; anaemia; mortality) DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.4038/sljch.v41i3. 4598
Variations of pharmacokinetics of drugs in patients with cirrhosis

ABSTRACT Liver cirrhosis is the end stage of many different chronic liver diseases and is becoming an important cause of mortality and morbidity across the world. In theory, the numerous physiopathological changes suffered by these patients warrant relevant pharmacokinetic changes in most drugs. However, the influence of these changes on the efficacy and toxicity responses of patients with cirrhosis have been evaluated by few clinical trials and observational studies. As a consequence, therapeutic decisions in these patients are usually complex and subject to uncertainties. In this article, we review the regulatory guidelines to study responses to drugs according to pharmacokinetic variability and the published information that is useful for guiding the dosage adjustment of frequently used drugs in patients with cirrhosis (antivirals, antibiotics, analgesics, etc.) to obtain the best risk-benefit ratio.
PREVALENCE OF FATTY LIVER DISEASE AND ITS RISK FACTORS IN TYPE 2 DIABETIC PATIENTS

OBJECTIVE: To determine the prevalence of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) in type 2 diabetic patients and to assess its possible risk factors. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Two hundred and seventy two (186 females and 86 males) diabetic patients were studied. Liver ultrasound was performed along with the measurement of such labratoary tests as alanine transaminase, aspartate transaminase, alkaline phospahatase, fasting blood sugar, glycosilated hemoglobin, triglyceride, total cholesterol, low density lipoprotein, high density lipoprotein, thyroid stimulating hormone, thyroxine, blood urea nitrogen and creatinine. Patients with other causes of fatty liver disease such as autoimmune hepatitis or Wilson’s disease were excluded. RESULTS: The mean age of the subjects was 51±10 years. One hundred and eighty nine of them (70%) had fatty liver, of whom 60 (32%) and 129 (68%) subjects were males and females, respectively. One hundred and fifteen (61%) out of 189 patients were in grade 1, 66 (35%) were in grade 2, and the rest, 8 (4%), were in grade 3 of fatty change in liver. In logistic regression analysis, the variables with significant changes were Body Mass Index (BMI) with OR = 1.26 (95% CI = 1.16-1.37) and triglyceride (TG ) with OR = 1.46 (95% CI = 1.01-2.11). CONCLUSION: The prevalence of fatty liver disease was high in the studied patients (70%). In diabetic patients, Body Mass Index (BMI) and triglyceride (TG) had significant relationship with the presence of fatty liver.
Can radiobiological parameters derived from squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck be used to predict local control in anal cancer treated with chemoradiation?

OBJECTIVES Parameters have been derived in head and neck cancer to account for the additional biological effective dose provided by synchronous chemotherapy. The purpose of this study was to establish whether such parameters could be used to predict local control differences in anal cancer. METHODS In anal cancer two randomised trials of radiotherapy vs chemoradiotherapy and two trials randomising between different synchronous chemotherapy regimens were identified. To predict differences in local control between the arms of the first two studies, a global value of 9.3 Gy for the chemotherapy biologically effective dose was employed. For the last two trials, values specific to differing chemotherapy schedules were derived. These values were added to the calculated biological effective dose for the radiotherapy component in order to predict local control outcomes in anal cancer trials. RESULTS The predicted difference in local control using the global value of 9.3 Gy for the addition of synchronous chemotherapy in the trials of radiotherapy vs radiotherapy and synchronous chemotherapy was 24.6% compared with the observed difference of 21.4%. Using schedule-specific values for the contribution of chemotherapy, the predicted differences in local control in the two trials of differing synchronous chemotherapy schedules were 7.2% and 12% compared with the observed 18% and 0%. CONCLUSION The methods initially proposed require modification to result in adequate prediction. If the decreased cisplatin dose intensity employed in anal cancer is modelled, more satisfactory predictions for such trials can be achieved. ADVANCES IN KNOWLEDGE This revised modelling may be hypothesis generating.
MapReduce performance evaluation for knowledge-based recommendation of context-tagged photos

Recommendation systems are a subclass of information filtering systems that aims at helping users in retrieving information. Recently, contextual information proved to be effective in improving the quality of results of Recommender Systems. However, Context-aware Recommender Systems still suffer performance issues for real-time recommendation, mainly due to the amount of items that should be considered for recommendation. In this paper, we present an evaluation of using MapReduce and its integration with a mobile system for implementing a knowledge-based algorithm for context-aware recommendation. To be effective, this photo recommendation algorithm should work with a large set of images annotated with contextual information. The MapReduce algorithm parallelizes the processing required to generate the recommendation results and so improved the system performance. The results of performance analysis showed, for instance, that cloud-based version of the reccomendation reaches a speedup of 7x with a image base with more than 41 million photos.
Predicting the Power Consumption of Electric Appliances through Time Series Pattern Matching

We present a system to forecast the power consumption of electric household appliances. Accurate load prediction has numerous application domains, e.g., the facilitation of peak load prediction at a much higher resolution than permitted by state-of-the-art load profiles. Our solution is based on the identification and isolation of representative characteristic signatures from previously collected power consumption traces. Subsequently, time series pattern matching is applied to detect these signatures in real-time data, and emit predictions of an appliance's future consumption based thereupon. We evaluate the prediction accuracy of our approach with thousands of device-level power consumption traces and highlight the achievable prediction horizon.
Adjuvant Psychological Therapy with a Terminally III Patient: A Case Report

Adjuvant Psychological Therapy (APT), a cognitive behavioural treatment, has been developed to alleviate cancer-related anxiety and depression. It is being evaluated in a controlled study of patients with early cancer, but has not been used previously in patients with terminal cancer. This case report describes the use of APT in a severely anxious and depressed male patient with terminal carcinoma of the colon. His psychological progress until death is reported. Although no firm conclusions can be drawn from a single case, the results obtained were sufficiently encouraging to warrant a systematic study of APT in emotionally distressed patients with terminal illness.