Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The effect of prostacyclin on the adhesion of leucocytes to injured vascular endothelium

The effect of local application of various solutions on leucocyte adherence to the wall of small blood vessels in the microcirculation of the rat mesentery was examined. Leucocyte adhesion was produced by local application of zymosan‐activated complement. Solutions of EDTA, lignocaine and prostacyclin when applied locally cause the release of a high proportion of leucocytes previously firmly adherent to the endothelium of venules and small veins without producing any significant change in the rate of blood flow through the affected vessels. Acetylcholine injected intravenously increases the rate of blood flow through the mesenteric microcirculation several fold but has no apparent effect on pre‐existing leucocyte sticking. The findings suggest that in normal small blood vessels production of prostacyclin by vascular endothelium may inhibit adhesion of leucocytes to the vascular wall. When endothelium is injured local production of prostacyclin may be inhibited sufficiently to permit adhesion of leucocytes to the injured endothelium and so induce the earliest stage in the emigration of leucocytes into the area of injury. Lignocaine may possibly inhibit leucocyte sticking by increasing local production of prostacyclin, but the mode of action of EDTA and many other aspects of the mechanism responsible for leucocyte sticking remain obscure.
18 F-FLT PET for Visualization of Laryngeal Cancer : Comparison with 18 F-FDG PET

The feasibility of 18F-3 -fluoro-3 -deoxy-L-thymidine PET (FLT PET) for detecting laryngeal cancer was investigated and compared with 18F-FDG PET. Methods: Eleven patients diagnosed with or strongly suspected of having recurrent laryngeal cancer and 10 patients with histologically proven primary laryngeal cancer underwent attenuation-corrected 18F-FLT PET imaging 60 min after injection of a median of 213 MBq (range, 175–400 MBq) 18F-FLT and attenuation-corrected 18F-FDG PET imaging 90 min after injection of a median of 340 MBq (range, 165–650 MBq) 18F-FDG. All patients were staged by endoscopy and CT according to the Union Internationale Contre la Cancer TNM staging system. All patients underwent biopsy of the laryngeal area after imaging. Lesions seen on 18F-FDG PET and 18F-FLT PET were compared with histopathologic results. Mean SUVs, maximum SUVs, and tumor-to-nontumor (TNT) ratios were calculated for 18F-FLT and 18F-FDG. Wilcoxon nonparametric testing was used for comparison of 18F-FDG with 18F-FLT uptake. The Spearman correlation coefficient was used to correlate mean SUVs, maximum SUVs, and TNT ratios of 18F-FDG PET and 18F-FLT PET. Two-tailed P values 0.05 were considered significant. Results: 18F-FDG PET and 18F-FLT PET detected laryngeal cancer correctly in 15 of 17 patients. One lesion judged as positive on 18F-FDG PET turned out to be normal tissue. Of 2 lesions judged as positive on 18F-FLT PET, 1 turned out to be inflammation and the other to be normal tissue. Maximum SUVs were 3.3 (range, 1.9–8.5) for 18F-FDG and 1.6 (range, 1.0–5.7) for 18F-FLT (P 0.001). Mean SUVs were 2.7 (range, 1.5–6.5) for 18F-FDG and 1.2 (range, 0.8–3.8) for 18F-FLT (P 0.001). TNT was 1.9 (range, 1.3–4.7) for 18F-FDG and 1.5 (range, 1.1–3.5) for 18F-FLT (P 0.05). Conclusion: The numbers of laryngeal cancers detected with 18F-FLT PET and 18FFDG PET were equal. In laryngeal cancer, the uptake of 18F-FDG is higher than that of 18F-FLT.
Dose of dialysis, convection and haemodialysis patients outcome--what the HEMO study doesn't tell us: the European viewpoint.

The main aims of dialysis treatment are to prolong patient survival, reduce morbidity and improve quality of life. However, despite many technical advances made over the last few years, morbidity and mortality of dialysis patients remain unacceptably high [1] and their quality of life is often poor. The delivered dose of dialysis can affect morbidity and mortality of dialysis patients [2]. Moreover, in the last decade, several epidemiological studies, based mainly on longitudinal database registries, have suggested a possible superiority of convective dialysis treatments in improving patient outcome [3–7]. Thus, in addition to the dose of dialysis delivered, the size of molecules removed can also be of importance. In a randomized controlled study of 380 patients, Locatelli et al. [8] compared four dialysis modalities (cuprophan dialysis, lowand high-flux polysulfone dialysis, and high-flux polysulfone haemodiafiltration). While there was no difference in treatment tolerance and nutritional status, a statistically significant difference in pre-dialysis plasma b-microglobulin levels between convective and diffusive treatments (high vs low flux) was found. No difference in morbidity and mortality was found; however, this study was not designed to detect such a difference. Given the importance of these issues, it is not surprising that the primary aim of the HEMO study, the largest clinical trial on outcome of chronic haemodialysis (HD) patients reported to date, was to evaluate the effect of dialysis dose and convection on patient survival [9]. The HEMO study was thus designed to answer two basic questions: (i) should we increase dialysis dose above the currently recommended minimum dose [a single-pool (sp) KtuV of 1.3], and (ii) should the concept of dialysis adequacy be widened to include, in addition to urea removal, medium and large-size molecule clearance in order to improve the outcome of dialysis patients?
An immunological link between Candida albicans colonization and Crohn’s disease

Abstract The etiology of Crohn’s disease (CD), an autoimmune, inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) which affects approximately one million people in Europe, is still unclear. Nevertheless, it is widely accepted that CD could result from an inappropriate inflammatory response to intestinal microorganisms in a genetically susceptible host. Most studies to date have concerned the involvement of bacteria in disease progression. In addition to bacteria, there appears to be a possible link between the commensal yeast Candida albicans and disease development. In this review, in an attempt to link the gut colonization process and the development of CD, we describe the different pathways that are involved in the progression of CD and in the host response to C. albicans, making the yeast a possible initiator of the inflammatory process observed in this IBD.
Emergency obstetric hysterectomy

Background. All cases of obstetric hysterectomies that were performed in our hospital during a seven‐year study period were reviewed in order to evaluate the incidence, indications, risk factors, and complications associated with emergency obstetric hysterectomy. Methods. Medical records of 45 patients who had undergone emergency hysterectomy were scrutinized and evaluated retrospectively. Maternal age, parity, gestational age, indication for hysterectomy, the type of operation performed, estimated blood loss, amount of blood transfused, complications, and hospitalization period were noted and evaluated. The main outcome measures were the factors associated with obstetric hysterectomy as well as the indications for the procedure. Results. During the study period there were 32,338 deliveries and 9,601 of them (29.7%) were by cesarean section. In this period, 45 emergency hysterectomies were performed, with an incidence of 1 in 2,526 vaginal deliveries and 1 in 267 cesarean sections. All of them were due to massive postpartum hemorrhage. The most common underlying pathologies was placenta accreta (51.1%) and placenta previa (26.7%). There was no maternal mortality. Conclusions. Obstetric hysterectomy is a necessary life‐saving procedure. Abnormal placentation is the leading cause of emergency hysterectomy when obstetric practice is characterized by a high cesarean section rate. Therefore, every attempt should be made to reduce the cesarean section rate by performing this procedure only for valid clinical indications.
Effects of stretch on work and efficiency of frog (Rana pipiens) muscle

SUMMARY Applying a small stretch to active muscle immediately before shortening results in an increase in force and work done during subsequent shortening. The basis of the increase is not fully understood, having important implications for work and efficiency, and how they are influenced through stretch. We used the anterior tibialis muscle of leopard frogs (Rana pipiens complex) to measure the oxygen consumed and work done during shortening contractions that were immediately preceded by either a brief stretch (5% muscle length over 25 ms) or an isometric contraction (25 ms duration). Work done by the muscle while shortening following stretch was about 28% greater than work done following an isometric contraction (P<0.001). However the net work done during the entire contraction (i.e. accounting for the work required to stretch the muscle) was reduced by 13% if stretch preceded the shortening phase (P=0.003). The energy (oxygen) used during a stretch–shorten cycle was the same as for an isometric-shorten contraction (P=0.34). Likewise, the efficiency of net work (net work/energy used) was only marginally different between shortening contractions preceded by stretch or an isometric phase (P=0.07). Thus, under conditions that were intended to mimic what might occur during animal movement, a stretch that immediately preceded shortening enhanced work during shortening but did not impart a net mechanical or energetic benefit to the contraction. These observations could indicate that stretch simply extends compliant elements that recoil subsequently with some loss of mechanical energy in the process and/or that stretch results in an increase in the number of, and hence work done by, cross bridges during muscle shortening accompanied by a proportionate increase in energy consumed.
The percentage of patients with seronegative spondyloarthritis requiring magnetic resonance imaging to meet the Canadian Rheumatology Association/Spondyloarthritis Research Consortium of Canada guidelines for access to anti-tumor necrosis factor treatment.

OBJECTIVE To determine what percentage of patients would require a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan to qualify for treatment in a Canadian tertiary care setting. METHODS Consecutive patients with established axial seronegative spondyloarthropathy were recruited. Patients completed a Bath Ankylosing Spondylitis Disease Activity Index (BASDAI) and Bath AS Functional Inquiry (BASFI) questionnaire and the erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) and C-reactive protein (CRP) level were measured. Patients were categorized into groups, those who would qualify for anti-tumor necrosis factor (TNF) agents without an MRI, those who would require an MRI to determine eligibility, and those who would not qualify, even with active inflammation on an MRI. RESULTS Twenty-nine patients were recruited in a 1-year period and 12 (41.3%; 95% confidence interval 25.5%-59.3%) would require an MRI to gain access to an anti-TNF agent. Extrapolating published estimates of prevalence of seronegative arthritis and AS and assuming 1/3 will have severe resistant disease, about 9000 patients in Canada would require an MRI to determine eligibility for anti-TNF treatment. CONCLUSION Canada currently ranks 13/22 countries studied in terms of MRI resources per capita. Given the limited MRI resources in Canada, Canadian Rheumatology Association/Spondyloarthritis Research Consortium of Canada guidelines could present an additional barrier to timely treatment in 41% of patients.
Protein Arginine Methyltransferase 5 Suppresses the Transcription of the RB Family of Tumor Suppressors in Leukemia and Lymphoma Cells

ABSTRACT The proper epigenetic modification of chromatin by protein arginine methyltransferases (PRMTs) is crucial for normal cell growth and health. The human SWI/SNF-associated PRMT5 is involved in the transcriptional repression of target genes by directly methylating H3R8 and H4R3. To further understand the impact of PRMT5-mediated histone methylation on cancer, we analyzed its expression in normal and transformed human B lymphocytes. Our findings reveal that PRMT5 protein levels are enhanced in various human lymphoid cancer cells, including transformed chronic lymphocytic leukemia (B-CLL) cell lines. PRMT5 overexpression is caused by the altered expression of the PRMT5-specific microRNAs 19a, 25, 32, 92, 92b, and 96 and results in the increased global symmetric methylation of H3R8 and H4R3. An evaluation of both epigenetic marks at PRMT5 target genes such as RB1 (p105), RBL1 (p107), and RBL2 (p130) showed that promoters H3R8 and H4R3 are hypermethylated, which in turn triggers pocket protein transcriptional repression. Furthermore, reducing PRMT5 expression in WaC3CD5 B-CLL cells abolishes H3R8 and H4R3 hypermethylation, restores RBL2 expression, and inhibits cancer cell proliferation. These results indicate that PRMT5 overexpression epigenetically alters the transcription of key tumor suppressor genes and suggest a causal role of the elevated symmetric methylation of H3R8 and H4R3 at the RBL2 promoter in transformed B-lymphocyte pathology.
Pharmacologic Inhibition of Adhesion Formation and Peritoneal Tissue-Type Plasminogen Activator Activity

Intraperitoneal adhesions remain a costly, long-term sequela of abdominal surgery. They cause significant postoperative morbidity and difficult reoperative surgery. Although adhesions have been recognized for more than 250 years, a uniformly effective method of adhesion prevention does not exist. In recent years, research has become more focused on understanding the biochemical and cellular processes involved in adhesion formation--a necessary step in the development of safe and effective means of adhesion prevention. Studies suggest that events critical to adhesion outcome begin within hours of an abdominal operation with the balance between fibrin deposition and degradation being of central importance. A pharmacologic agent administered at the time of surgery that could tip the fibrinolytic balance in favor of fibrin degradation without interfering with postoperative wound healing would be an ideal candidate in the prevention of adhesion formation. Further research into the molecular and cellular events that underlie adhesion formation is essential and undoubtedly will lead to successful adhesion prevention.
Chlorination, chlorination by-products, and cancer: a meta-analysis.

OBJECTIVES Individual epidemiological investigations into the association between chlorination by-products in drinking water and cancer have been suggestive but inconclusive. Enough studies exist to provide the basis for a meaningful meta-analysis. METHODS An extensive literature search was performed to identify pertinent case-control studies and cohort studies. Consumption of chlorinated water, surface water, or water with high levels of chloroform was used as a surrogate for exposure to chlorination by-products. Relative risk estimates were abstracted from the individual studies and pooled. RESULTS A simple meta-analysis of all cancer sites yielded a relative risk estimate for exposure to chlorination by-products of 1.15 (95% CI: 1.09, 1.20). Pooled relative risk estimates for organ-specific neoplasms were 1.21 (95% CI: 1.09, 1.34) for bladder cancer and 1.38 (95% CI: 1.01, 1.87) for rectal cancer. When studies that adjusted for potential confounders were pooled separately, estimates of relative risks did not change substantially. CONCLUSIONS The results of this meta-analysis suggest a positive association between consumption of chlorination by-products in drinking water and bladder and rectal cancer in humans.
Personality, Functioning, and Recovery from Major Depression

The effect of personality on the effectiveness of elect roconvulsive therapy in those with severe depressive illness has been investigated in a few studies, and the results are conflicting, with some demonstrating no effect and others the opposite. These studies, however, used hospital readmission as the only outcome measure, and the methods of personality assessment varied. To study this question in further detail, 40 patients were assessed while receiving inpatient electroconvulsive therapy, at the time of discharge, every G weeks for 6 months, and at 1 year after discharge. A number of outcome variables were assessed, including both symptomatic and social functioning measures as well as readmission to hospital. Premorbid personality was also assessed after discharge. The results demonstrate that personality is a predictor of social function at the time of discharge from hospital. In those patients with personality disorders, social recovery is slower than in those with normal personalities. Personality status did not distinguish the speed of symptomatic recovery or of readmission. The significance of these findings is discussed.
Hub-polling-based IEEE 802.11 PCF with integrated QoS differentiation

IEEE 802.11 is one of the most influential wireless LAN (WLAN) standards. Point coordination function (PCF) is its medium access control (MAC) protocol with real-time traffic (rt-traffic) quality-of-service (QoS) guarantees. In PCF, it is very likely that non-real-time traffic (nrt-traffic) will use the contention free period (CFP) that should be dedicated to traffic having higher priority such as rt-traffic. Therefore, a modified PCF protocol called MPCF, which is based on hub polling and an integrated QoS differentiation, is presented in this paper. With the integrated QoS differentiation, MPCF can prioritize bandwidth requests according to service classes and QoS requirements. With hub polling, MPCF can reduce the bandwidth for control frames and improve the network throughput. A simple and accurate analytical model is derived and presented in this paper to calculate the system throughput of MPCF. Simulation results show that MPCF protocol is much better than PCF in terms of system capacity and rt-traffic QoS guarantees. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Holocene Woodlands in the Southwestern Deserts

Twenty-nine radiocarbon-dated pack rat middens document woodland communities in the deserts of the southwestern United States less than 10,000 years ago. A synchronous change from woodland to desert or grassland occurred about 8000 years ago in the Chihuahuan, Sonoran, and Mohave deserts. A shift of the Aleutian low and the winter storm track to the north, which resulted in drastically reduced winter precipitation in these areas, is inferred. The shift to nonpluvial climates in the Southwest lagged behind the beginning of nonglacial climates in the North because the melting continental glaciers contined to affect general circulation patterns.
Parsing mixfix expressions: dealing with user-defined mixfix operators efficiently

ing from precedence between operators and of typing, every expression can be seen as a sequence of so-called operator backbones (or operator backbone instantiations). An operator backbone is the sub-sequence of tokens of an instantiated visible operator, starting from the beginning of its leftmost visible separator up to the end of its rightmost visible separator. If an expression is split into such a sequence, the hierarchy between the operator instantiations inside the expression is forgotten. We call concatenations of backbones backbone expressions. The set of backbone expressions is a superset of the set of type-correct mixfix expressions, ignoring precedence, typing and problems caused by adjacent operands. A more formal definition of backbones can be found in section 3.2 on page 47. Example 22 If v1, v2 and v3 are backbone expressions, the list of terminal symbols of the form [for]++ v1 ++[ := ]++ v2 ++[to]++ v3 ++[do] is a possible backbone of the operator with pattern for := to do . We can derive a (generally ambiguous) context-free backbone grammar which describes all such concatenations for a given set of mixfix operators (cf. 3.2.1). The language recognized by this grammar is the set of backbone expressions. In essence, this grammar abstracts from typing, precedences between operators and adjacent operands inside operators in the following way: • All left-open or right-open operands (and those directly and indirectly adjacent to them) are ignored (by stripping them from the operator patterns) and the parse trees thus are flattened, causing the inner parts of the operators to stand beside each other instead of being put into a hierarchy. • The problems caused by adjacent operands between non-empty separators are ignored by subsuming adjacent inner operands into a single operand. This does not cause our backbone language to change, because adjacent operands are already a concatenation of expressions. Therefore, since every expression is a sequence of backbones, sequences of adjacent instantiated operands can already be seen as a backbone expression. It should be easy to see how a mapping from parse trees to backbone interpretations (which is a sequence of sequence of tokens) can be defined (cf. definition 17 on page 47). Thus, if an expression does not have an interpretation in the backbone language, it cannot have an interpretation in the expression language. Moreover, if an expression is unambiguous in the backbone language, all possible syntactic ambiguity in the expression can only be related to precedence (which is influenced by typing) or adjacent operands. If, on the other hand, there is more than one backbone interpretation for an expression we have an ambiguity in the expression language that can not in general be resolved by use of precedences or by the restrictions on adjacent operands. Therefore, we must reject expressions which have this so-called backbone ambiguity as ambiguous during parsing, as we have no means to disambiguate them (other than letting the user add parentheses).
Transmission Modes and Evolution of the Parasitism‐Mutualism Continuum a

An analysis of fitness costs and benefits associated with pathogenicity suggests that modes of transmission are key determinants of evolution toward severely pathogenic, benign, or mutualistic symbioses. Specifically, this approach suggests that symbionts with mobile life history stages should evolve toward extremely severe parasitism, vector-borne symbionts should evolve toward severe parasitism in vertebrate hosts and benign parasitism in the vectors, waterborne symbionts should evolve toward severe parasitism, symbionts transmitted by predation should evolve toward severe parasitism in prey hosts and benign parasitism in predator hosts, and vertically transmitted symbionts should evolve toward benign parasitism and mutualism. Detailed reviews of the literature on human diseases support the hypothesized severity of vector-borne and waterborne transmission. Evaluation of the other associations is less detailed, but each association appears to be present. This framework draws attention to the need for detailed reviews of relationships between transmission modes and the nature of symbiotic interactions, and experimental manipulations of transmission.
Hash based optimization for faster access to inverted index

Inverted Index is an important data structure in computer science. It is used to create a mapping between a word and the set of documents in which that word appears. Thus, it is used to store documents per word. Currently, the output of inverted indexing is stored haphazardly in a look up table. Hence traversing through the look up table for fetching indexes requires linear search. The time complexity of linear search is O(n) where n is the number of words whose inverted index has been stored. In this paper, a hash based optimization is proposed for storing the output of inverted index which can reduce the searching time complexity to O(1). Since inverted indexes are quite popular in big data applications like search engines, a MapReduce implementation of the proposed technique is also presented which can be easily implemented in a distributed environment.