Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Extra-CNS metastasis from glioblastoma: a rare clinical entity

Extra-CNS metastasis from glioblastoma (ECMGBM) is an emerging but little known clinical entity. We review pre-clinical and translational publications assessing the ability of GBM to spread locally and outside the CNS. Reported cases demonstrating ECMGBM are reviewed providing a summary of presentations for the entity. Special attention is placed on transmission of GBM through organ transplantation. Finally, predictions are made as to the future significance of ECMGBM, especially in the context of better outcomes in CNS GBM.
A Survey and Overview of Habitat Fragmentation Experiments

Abstract: Habitat destruction and fragmentation are the root causes of many conservation problems. We conducted a literature survey and canvassed the ecological community to identify experimental studies of terrestrial habitat fragmentation and to determine whether consistent themes were emerging from these studies. Our survey revealed 20 fragmentation experiments worldwide. Most studies focused on effects of fragmentation on species richness or on the abundance(s) of particular species. Other important themes were the effect of fragmentation in interspecific interactions, the role of corridors and landscape connectivity in individual movements and species richness, and the influences of edge effects on ecosystem services. Our comparisons showed a remarkable lack of consistency in results across studies, especially with regard to species richness and abundance relative to fragment size. Experiments with arthropods showed the best fit with theoretical expectations of greater species richness on larger fragments. Highly mobile taxa such as birds and mammals, early‐successional plant species, long‐lived species, and generalist predators did not respond in the “expected” manner. Reasons for these discrepancies included edge effects, competitive release in the habitat fragments, and the spatial scale of the experiments. One of the more consistently supported hypotheses was that movement and species richness are positively affected by corridors and connectivity, respectively. Transient effects dominated many systems; for example, crowding of individuals on fragments commonly was observed after fragmentation, followed by a relaxation toward lower abundance in subsequent years. The three long‐term studies (14 years) revealed strong patterns that would have been missed in short‐term investigations. Our results emphasize the wide range of species‐specific responses to fragmentation, the need for elucidation of behavioral mechanisms affecting these responses, and the potential for changing responses to fragmentation over time.
Norplant users with irregular bleeding. Ultrasonographic assessment and evaluation of serum concentrations of estradiol and progesterone.

OBJECTIVE To determine the changes in thickness and pattern of endometrium among Norplant (Leiras, Leiras Oy, Turku, Finland) users who have irregular bleeding and to correlate these changes with estradiol and progestrone concentrations. STUDY DESIGN Ultrasonographic evaluation (vaginal ultrasound) and serum sampling were performed on Norplant users who presented with complaints of bleeding at their first visit to the Family Planning Clinic, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Chulalongkong Hospital, Bangkok, Thailand, between October 1, 1998, and March 31, 1999. RESULTS A total of 85% (44/52 cases) of the subjects had estradiol concentrations < 50 pg/mL, and none had any luteal activity (progesterone concentration < 3 ng/mL). The endometrial thickness remained thin and very thin (3-6 mm = 50%, < 3 mm = 48%). A hyperechoic pattern in the endometrium was found in 90% of the subjects. There was a weak, negative correlation between estradiol concentration and endometrial thickness (P < .05, r = -.337). CONCLUSION Norplant users with irregular bleeding were usually characterized by low estradiol concentrations, absence of luteal activity and a thin, hyperechoic pattern in the endometrium.
Alcohol Drinking and One-Carbon Metabolism-Related Gene Polymorphisms on Pancreatic Cancer Risk

Effect of alcohol consumption on pancreatic cancer risk has been investigated in many studies, but results have been inconsistent. We conducted a case-control study to assess the effect of alcohol on pancreatic cancer in conjunction with polymorphisms in one-carbon metabolism enzymes, methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR C677T), methionine synthase (MTR A2756G), methionine synthase reductase (MTRR A66G), and thymidylate synthase (TS) variable number of tandem repeat. A total of 157 pancreatic cancer patients and 785 age- and sex- matched control subjects were genotyped for polymorphisms. Odds ratios (OR) with 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) were estimated using unconditional logistic models adjusted for potential confounders. Heavy alcohol drinking was marginally associated with an increased risk of pancreatic cancer (OR, 1.90; 95% CI, 1.00-3.62). None of the polymorphisms showed any significant effect on pancreatic cancer risk by genotype alone. In stratified analysis, effect of alcohol consumption on pancreatic cancer was observed in individuals with the MTHFR 667 CC, MTR 2756 AA, or MTRR 66 G allele. OR (95% CI) of pancreatic cancer for heavy drinkers compared with never drinkers was 4.50 (1.44-14.05) in the MTHFR 667 CC genotype, 2.65 (1.17-6.00) in the MTR 2756 AA genotype, and 3.35 (1.34-8.36) in the MTRR 66 G allele carriers. These results suggest that the folate-related enzyme polymorphism modifies the association between drinking habit and pancreatic cancer risk. (Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2008;17(10):2742–7)
Fractional Exhaled Nitric Oxide (FeNO) and Spirometry as Indicators of Inhalation Exposure to Chemical Agents in Pathology Workers

Objective: The objective of this study was to examine whether fractional exhaled nitric oxide (FeNO) and spirometry can be used as indices to evaluate adverse health effects of low-concentrated chemical inhalation exposure, mainly to formaldehyde. Methods: Thirty-three subjects (pathology technicians) and 30 controls (workers without handling any chemicals in the same hospitals) participated in this study. All participants underwent FeNO measurement and spirometry before and after 5 days of work. Results: FeNO significantly increased in the subjects with a history of asthma (P < 0.05), whereas forced vital capacity (FVC) and forced expiratory volume in the first second (FEV1) decreased in the subjects (P < 0.05). Furthermore, work duration and pre-work levels of FEV1 in the subjects had a significant association. Conclusion: The results suggest that FeNO, FVC, and FEV1 represent effective health-effect indices of low-concentrated chemical inhalation exposure.
Attaining nocturnal urinary control, nocturnal enuresis, and behavioral problems in Chinese children aged 6 through 16 years.

OBJECTIVE To estimate the prevalence of nocturnal enuresis and to examine associations between nocturnal urinary control or enuresis and behavioral problems in Chinese children. METHOD A community sample of 3,600 children aged 6 through 16 years was drawn from Shandong Province of China in 1997; 3,344 (93%) returned completed questionnaires. The Child Behavior Checklist and Teacher's Report Form were used to measure children's behavioral problems. RESULTS The proportion of children attaining nocturnal urinary control before age 2 was 7.7%; by age 3, this had increased to 53.1%, and by age 5 to 93%. The overall prevalence of nocturnal enuresis was 4.3%, with a significantly higher prevalence in boys than girls. There was no significant decrease in the prevalence of enuresis between 6 and 16 years of age. Multiple logistic regression analyses showed that attaining nocturnal urinary control after age 4 and current enuresis were significantly associated with an increased risk of behavioral, emotional, and academic problems. CONCLUSIONS Chinese children attain nocturnal urinary control earlier than Western children. The prevalence of nocturnal enuresis is low but fairly stable in children between 6 and 16 years. The findings support the link between nocturnal enuresis and psychopathology in children and adolescents.
Cytokine and microbial profiles in relation to the clinical outcome following treatment of peri‐implantitis

AIM To study whether cytokine levels and bacterial counts in p atients with peri-implantitis reflect clinical treatment outcome following non-surgical management. MATERIALS AND METHODS Luminex magnet bead technology and checkerboard DNA-DNA hybridization were used to assess treatment outcome after treatment at the implant with the most severe peri-implantitis in 41 participants. RESULTS Study group mean age was 40.3 years (SD ± 9.9). Stable treatment outcome after 6 months (no further bone loss, probing pocket depth decrease ≥0.5 mm, no bleeding/suppuration) was identified in 9 of 41 (22%) participants. Peri-implant crevicular fluid (PICF) levels were also lower for Il-1β (P < 0.01), and with trends of lower cytokine levels in PICF for TNF-α (P = 0.071), PDGFBB (P = 0.071), as well as for VEGF (vascular endothelial growth factor) (P = 0.071), and bacterial counts for Actinomyces israelii, Aggregatibacter actonomycetemcomitans (Y4), Campylobacter gracilis, Echerichia coli, Fusobacterium periodonticum, Leptotrichia buccalis, Parvimonas micra, Staphylococcus haemolyticus, Streptococcus anginosus, and Tannerella forsythia. Increasing levels of IL-1 β and S. aureus (r2 = 0.856) were found only at implants with non-stable outcome. A reduction of PICF levels for selected cytokines and bacteria studied had a sensitivity of 0.77, and a specificity of 0.80 against the clinical outcome as gold standard. Data analysis failed to differences in treatments (PerioFlow® versus YAG: ER laser) for changes in the expression of cytokines and bacteria studied. CONCLUSIONS At 6 months, clinically stable treatment outcome of peri-implantitis is associated lower levels of putative pathogens total bacterial load with ≥30% reduction of IL1-β, L-6, and VEGF levels in PICF.
Affine Differential Invariants of Functions on the Plane

A differential invariant is a function defined on the jet space of functions that remains the same under a group action. It is an important concept to solve the equivalence problem. This paper presents an effective method to derive a special type of affine differential invariants. Given some functions defined on the plane and an affine group acting on the plane, there are induced actions of the group on the functions and on the derivative functions of the functions. Affine differential invariants of these functions are useful in many applications. However, there has been little systematic study of this problem at present. No clear and simple results are available for application users to use directly. We propose a direct and simple method to construct affine differential invariants in this situation. Some useful explicit formulas of affine differential invariants of 2D functions are presented.
The metabolic background for peripheral nerve surgery.

HE proper time to repair a severed peripheral nerve continues to be debated. The response to traumatic nerve sectioning and the recovery after a neurorrhaphy varies greatly from nerve to nerve and with different levels of the same nerve. Earlier guidelines have now become clouded. Some recent textbooks and articles avoid any explicit instructions concerning the timing of a repair; ~ others advocate immediate repair; 1~7,27,41,47,52 still others hold out for a short 2 to 3 week delay; 12,36,5~,59,71,73 and, finally, some state it makes no difference? ~ The policy within the medical service of the Army has been that nerve suture should be done as soon as possible after a short waiting period of 2 to 3 weeks. This conclusion is based on articles written after World War II, which were concerned mostly with allowing peripheral demarcation of a war wound, and which were clinically supported by evaluation of motor return of function) a,54,56,71,72 Delays beyond the initial 19 to 21 day waiting period were accompanied by a 1% reduction in motor recovery for every 6 days of postponement of the definitive neurorrhaphy. 72 For the moderate size nerves such as the median, ulnar, radial, peroneal, and tibial, these guidelines hold true. For large nerve trunks, such as the sciatic nerve or brachial plexus, regardless of the timing of a repair, the outlook remains poor. For the smaller digital nerves, any delay appears unnecessary, and the progno
Durable remission of brain metastasis of hormone receptor-positive breast cancer with temozolomide and hormone therapy : two case reports and literature review

Brain metastasis is a major cause of morbidity and mortality for women with hormone receptor (HR)positive breast cancer, yet little is known about the optimal treatment of brain disease in this group of patients. Temozolomide (TMZ) has been shown to improve the survival for patients with glioblastoma. It has been investigated in the treatment of patients with brain metastasis originated from various solid tumors including breast cancer. However, clinical benefit data of TMZ in patients with brain metastasis from breast cancer especially those with HR-positive are still uncertain. The authors describe two patients with brain metastasis from breast cancer who were experienced with TMZ and hormonal therapy, which provided a survival of 17+ and 43+ months. We think that despite the poor prognosis and short survival of patients with brain metastasis, early treatment with TMZ and appropriate hormone therapy may improve the outcome and achieve prolonged palliation in selected HR-positive breast cancer patients with brain metastasis.
Analyse du comportement mécanique des mousses polymères : apport de la tomographie X et de la simulation numérique

Les materiaux polymeres a structures cellulaires allient des proprietes mecaniques, thermiques, chimiques et optiques interessantes aux regards des contraintes d’allegement des systemes et des structures. Toutefois, pour diversifier leurs applications et les rendre toujours plus performants dans les domaines de la sante, du transport ou encore du bâtiment, une etude fine des relations qui lient les procedes de fabrication a la microstructure generee et aux proprietes qui en decoulent, doit etre menee. Ces proprietes mecaniques dependent etroitement des proprietes de la matiere dont les mousses sont faites mais aussi de la morphologie de leurs microstructures (orientation, distribution et taille des pores, epaisseur des parois). Il est donc crucial de pouvoir quantifier et mesurer ces parametres pour tendre vers une comprehension fine des proprietes mecaniques et definir des modeles capables de relier le comportement macroscopique du materiau cellulaire vis-a-vis de son « equivalent » massif et de la microstructure. En collaboration etroite avec la direction recherche et developpement de l’entreprise INTEREP, leader europeen du caoutchouc cellulaire etanche, une caracterisation experimentale du comportement mecanique de mousses de differentes natures polymeriques et de differentes topologies a d’abord ete effectuee. Ensuite un ensemble de modelisations geometriques a ete developpe a partir d’observations microstructurales de vraies mousses en micro-tomographie RX et a partir de microstructures generees virtuellement par le biais d’une description physique du processus de fabrication de mousses polymeres. Finalement, une simulation numerique elements finis en 2D et en 3D de ces microstructures couplees a la caracterisation experimentale du materiau massif des parois a permis de reproduire et d’etudier finement les mecanismes de deformations observes experimentalement sur des mousses polymeres et d’affiner les lois de comportement empiriques avec la prise en compte d’un parametre supplementaire caracteristique de la statistique de distribution des cellules dans l’espace, c'est-a-dire de leurs localisations et de leur distribution de taille et de forme.
Dependence of calcium influx in neocortical cells on temporal structure of depolarization, number of spikes, and blockade of NMDA receptors

Increase of intracellular [Ca2+] evoked by action potentials in a cell can induce long‐term synaptic plasticity even without concomitant presynaptic stimulation. We used optical recording of the fluorescence of a Ca2+‐indicator Oregon Green to investigate whether differences in results obtained with modifications of that purely postsynaptic induction protocol could be due to differential Ca2+ influx. We compared changes of the somatic [Ca2+] in layer II–III pyramidal cells in slices of rat visual cortex evoked by bursts of depolarization pulses and long depolarizing steps. During weak depolarizations, the Ca2+ influx was proportional to the amplitude and duration of the depolarization. With suprathreshold depolarizations, the Ca2+ influx was proportional to the number of action potentials. Because the burst depolarizations evoked more spikes than did the long duration steps, this burst protocol led to a larger Ca2+ influx. With all stimulation protocols, the spike‐induced Ca2+ influx was reduced during blockade of N‐methyl‐D‐aspartate (NMDA) receptors. Differences in intracellular [Ca2+] increases thus may be one reason for differential effects of purely postsynaptic challenges on synaptic transmission. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Daytime predictors of sleep-disordered breathing in neuromuscular patients to better schedule polysomnography

Long-term mechanical ventilation has improved survival and quality of life in patients with neuromuscular disorders (NMD) 1–4. The 1999 consensus guidelines for the initiation of nocturnal mechanical ventilation 5 included criteria related to hypoventilation during sleep; namely symptoms suggesting hypercapnia during sleep and oxygen desaturation for a consecutive 5 mins. However, patients with NMD frequently under-report symptoms related to hypoventilation, which are also often nonspecific 6. Moreover, the usefulness of oxygen saturation alone is limited because of the hyperbolic shape of oxyhaemoglobin dissociation curve, which may show minor oxygen dissociation in the presence of hypoventilation and reduced arterial oxygen tension. Another limit of these consensus guidelines 5 is that sleep apnoea syndrome, which is frequent in NMD populations 7, was not taken into account. Finally, establishing the diagnosis of …
Disorder-specific automatic self-associations in depression and anxiety: results of The Netherlands Study of Depression and Anxiety

Background Cognitive theory points to the importance of negative self-schemas in the onset and maintenance of depression and anxiety disorders. Hereby, it is important to distinguish between automatic and explicit self-schemas, reflecting different cognitive-motivational systems. This study tested whether patients with a current major depression and/or anxiety disorder are characterized by automatic self-anxious and self-depressive associations and whether these associations are disorder specific. Method Patients (n=2329) and non-clinical controls (n=652) were tested as part of The Netherlands Study of Depression and Anxiety, a multi-center, longitudinal, cohort study with patients from different health care settings. Patient groups and non-clinical controls (18–65 years of age) were compared with regard to automatic self-anxious and self-depressive associations measured with the Implicit Association Test. Results Individuals with an anxiety disorder showed enhanced self-anxious associations, whereas individuals with a depression showed enhanced self-depressive associations. Individuals with co-morbid disorders scored high on both automatic self-associations. Although remitted individuals showed weaker automatic self-associations than people with a current disorder, their automatic self-anxious/depressed associations were still significantly stronger than those of the control group. Importantly, automatic self-associations showed predictive validity for the severity of anxious and depressive symptoms over and above explicit self-beliefs. Conclusions This study represents the first evidence that automatic self-anxious and self-depressive associations are differentially involved in anxiety disorders and depression. This may help to explain the refractoriness of these disorders and points to the potential importance of automatic self-associations in the development of psychopathological symptoms.
The chemokine receptor CXCR4 as a novel independent prognostic marker for node‐positive breast cancer patients

Node‐positive breast cancer patients are a high‐risk group. However, not all such patients will succumb to the disease. The molecular basis for this biologic heterogeneity is poorly understood. The chemokine receptor CXCR4 is a marker of metastatic disease. Its prognostic role in node‐positive patients is unknown. We postulate that high CXCR4 overexpression in node‐positive breast cancer specimens predicts a poor outcome.
Chaos control for a class of SIR epidemic model with seasonal fluctuation

In this paper, the problems of chaos control for a class of susceptible-infected-removed (SIR) epidemic model with seasonal fluctuation are investigated. The seasonality in outbreak is natural among infectious diseases, such as the common influenza, the type H1N1 influenza and so on. It is known that there exist chaotic phenomena in the epidemic model. Furthermore, the tracking control method is used to regulate chaotic motions in the epidemic model. A feedback control input is designed to achieve tracking of an ideal output. Thus, the density of infected individuals can converge to zero, in other words, the disease can be eliminated. Finally, numerical simulations are given to illustrate that the feedback control input is effective.
FAMILIAL AMYLOID POLYNEUROPATHY WITH MARKED HYPERTROPHY OF THE PERIPHERAL NERVES

Autopsy findings in a 40‐year‐old male with heredofamilial amyloidosis and polyneuropathy are reported. He had been suffering from progressive autonomic as well as sensorimotor dysfunctions. Prominent amyloid deposit was found in the kidney, heart, thyroid, and testis, and less in the interstitium and small vessels of almost all organs. The peripheral nerves, some showing prominent hypertrophy, were most severely involved by amyloid deposit in a form of stellate mass, which ultrastructurally consisted of radially arranged amyloid filaments. In the hypertrophied nerves and ganglia, in addition to amyloid, massive accumulation of acid mucopolysaccharide (AMPS) was seen filling up the interstitial space, which was the cause of hypertrophy. Ultrastructurally, AMPS was seen as finely granular substance. An extracted amyloid from the kidney showed 8 nm filament on negative staining and was estimated of having a molecular weight of 14,000.
Lead user identification in online user innovation communities: A method based on random forest classification

This paper aims to identify lead users from an online user innovation community. Based on three dimensions of user characteristics — user activeness, community influence, and user relations, a Random Forest classification model for lead user identification is proposed. Using the data from the MIUI forum of Xiaomi community, this model is tested. The result shows that Random Forest classification based the three dimensions of user characteristics is a feasible method for lead user identification.