Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Similar expression of through-and-through fluid movement along orthograde apical plugs of MTA Bio and white Portland cement.

AIM To compare the sealing ability of four hydraulic cements when used as an apical plug in teeth with wide-open apices. METHODOLOGY A sample of 70 maxillary central incisors were divided into four groups (n = 15) and a further 10 teeth served as controls. An artificial open apex was created in the teeth using Gates Glidden drills numbers 6-1 in a crown-down manner until the size 1 bur passed through the foramen. A divergent open apex was prepared to a size of 1.24 mm at the foramen by retrograde apical transportation using a number 8 (0.60) Profile Series 29 0.4 taper instrument inserted to the length of the cutting blade. In G1, the open apices were repaired with WMTA Angelus whilst in G2, G3 and G4 MTA Bio, Pro-Root MTA and Portland cement was employed respectively. Each root was assembled in a hermetic cell to allow the evaluation of fluid filtration. Leakage was measured by the movement of an air bubble travelling within a pipette connected to the teeth. Measurements of the air bubble movement were made after 10 min at a constant pressure of 50 cm H(2)O. The Kruskal-Wallis H-test was applied to the fluid flow data to detect differences between the experimental groups (P < 0.05). RESULTS Fluid movement occurred in every sample but was variable in all the experimental groups, ranging from 0.61 to 2.45 microL min(-1). There was no significant difference in mean fluid flow between the experimental groups (P > 0.05). CONCLUSIONS Fluid movement through teeth with open apices and filled with four hydraulic cements was similar. All cements allowed fluid movement.
Effects of Avocado (Persea americana) on Metabolic Syndrome: A Comprehensive Systematic Review

Metabolic syndrome (MetS) is a clustering of risk factors including high blood glucose, dyslipidemia, hypertension, and obesity that lead to the increased risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus and cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), which are among leading causes of death in the world. Metabolic syndrome increases the risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus and CVDs by approximately five and three folds, respectively. Therefore, it is of vital importance to manage such conditions with herbal options which have less undesirable adverse effects and may be more efficacious in comparison with synthetic options. Avocado is a well‐known source of carotenoids, minerals, phenolics, vitamins, and fatty acids. The lipid‐lowering, antihypertensive, antidiabetic, anti‐obesity, antithrombotic, antiatherosclerotic, and cardioprotective effects of avocado have been demonstrated in several studies. In this review, we aimed to find out avocado's pharmacological effects on different components of MetS. Moreover, this review report is performed on the MetS effects of peel, seed, flesh, and leaves of avocado. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Usher syndrome (sensorineural deafness and retinitis pigmentosa): pathogenesis, molecular diagnosis and therapeutic approaches.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW Usher syndrome (USH) is the most prevalent cause of hereditary deafness-blindness in humans. In this review, we pinpoint new insights regarding the molecular mechanisms defective in this syndrome, its molecular diagnosis and prospective therapies. RECENT FINDINGS Animal models wherein USH proteins were targeted at different maturation stages of the auditory hair cells have been engineered, shedding new light on the development and functioning of the hair bundle, the sound receptive structure. Improved protocols and guidelines for early molecular diagnosis of USH (USH genotyping microarrays, otochips and complete Sanger sequencing of the 366 coding exons of identified USH genes) have been developed. Approaches to alleviate or cure hearing and visual impairments have been initiated, leading to various degrees of functional rescuing. SUMMARY Whereas the mechanisms underlying hearing impairment in USH patients are being unraveled, showing in particular that USH1 proteins are involved in the shaping of the hair bundle and the functioning of the mechanoelectrical transduction machinery, the mechanisms underlying the retinal defects are still unclear. Efforts to improve clinical diagnosis have been successful. Yet, despite some encouraging results, further development of therapeutic approaches is necessary to ultimately treat this dual sensory defect.
LsIn pIL UNITED STATES AIR FORCE AIR UNIVERSITY AIR FORCE INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

A simple lightly damped second-order system is auamented with an optimal controller using linear quadratic regulator theory. However, instead of using conventional optimal control design methods, the controller is designed with frequency weighted cost functionals. This report investigates the effect of frequency shaping on the frequency and time response characteristics of the closed-loop system. The effects of frequency shaping on the state and control penalty matrices are analyzed separately. Each test case yields improved damping ratios compared with the baseline open-loop system. Each system, including the baseline model, has a high frequency asymptote slope of -40 dB/decade. There is very little difference in the high-frequency response characteristics of the frequency shaped augmented systems and the open-loop system. The most important result is that the low frequency magnitude response can be reduced by using frequency shapings. This is particularly useful in attenuating low frequency system modes as well as low frequency noise.
Influence of Explicit and Reflective versus Implicit Inquiry-Oriented Instruction on Sixth Graders' Views of Nature of Science.

This study investigated the influence of an explicit and reflective inquiry-oriented compared with an implicit inquiry-oriented instructional approach on sixth graders' understandings of nature of science (NOS). The study emphasized the tentative, empirical, inferential, and imaginative and creative NOS. Participants were 62 sixth-grade students in two intact groups. The intervention or explicit group was engaged in inquiry activities followed by reflective discussions of the target NOS aspects. The comparison or implicit group was engaged in the same inquiry activities. However, these latter activities included no explicit references to or discussion of any NOS aspects. Engagement time was balanced for both groups. An open-ended questionnaire in conjunction with semistructured interviews was used to assess partici- pants' NOS views before and at the conclusion of the intervention, which spanned 2.5 months. Before the intervention, the majority of participants in both groups held naive views of the target NOS aspects. The views of the implicit group participants were not different at the conclusion of the study. By comparison, substantially more participants in the explicit group articulated more informed views of one or more of the target NOS aspects. Thus, an explicit and reflective inquiry-oriented approach was more effective than an implicit inquiry-oriented approach in promoting participants' NOS conceptions. These results do not support the intuitively appealing assumption that students would automatically learn about NOS through engagement in science-based inquiry activities. Developing informed conceptions of NOS is a cognitive instructional outcome that requires an explicit and reflective instructional approach. 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 39: 551-578, 2002
Antibody Therapeutics in Cancer

In a relatively short period of time, monoclonal antibodies have entered the mainstream of cancer therapy. Their first use was as antagonists of oncogenic receptor tyrosine kinases, but today monoclonal antibodies have emerged as long-sought vehicles for the targeted delivery of potent chemotherapeutic agents and as powerful tools to manipulate anticancer immune responses. With ever more promising results from the clinic, the future will likely see continued growth in the discovery and development of therapeutic antibodies and their derivatives.
lin-35/Rb and ubc-18, an E2 ubiquitin-conjugating enzyme, function redundantly to control pharyngeal morphogenesis in C. elegans

The retinoblastoma gene product has been implicated in the regulation of multiple cellular and developmental processes, including a well-defined role in the control of cell cycle progression. The Caenorhabditis elegans retinoblastoma protein homolog, LIN-35, is also a key regulator of cell cycle entry and, as shown by studies of synthetic multivulval genes, plays an important role in the determination of vulval cell fates. We demonstrate an additional and unexpected function for lin-35 in organ morphogenesis. Using a genetic approach to isolate lin-35 synthetic-lethal mutations, we have identified redundant roles for lin-35 and ubc-18, a gene that encodes an E2 ubiquitin-conjugating enzyme closely related to human UBCH7. lin-35 and ubc-18 cooperate to control one or more steps during pharyngeal morphogenesis. Based on genetic and phenotypic analyses, this role for lin-35 in pharyngeal morphogenesis appears to be distinct from its cell cycle-related functions. lin-35 and ubc-18 may act in concert to regulate the levels of one or more critical targets during C. elegans development.
3D Breast Image Registration — A Review

Image registration is an important problem in breast imaging. It is used in a wide variety of applications that include better visualization of lesions on pre- and post-contrast breast MRI images, speckle tracking and image compounding in breast ultrasound images, alignment of positron emission, and standard mammography images on hybrid machines et cetera. It is a prerequisite to align images taken at different times to isolate small interval lesions. Image registration also has useful applications in monitoring cancer therapy. The field of breast image registration has gained considerable interest in recent years. While the primary focus of interest continues to be the registration of pre- and post-contrast breast MRI images, other areas like breast ultrasound registration have gained more attention in recent years. The focus of registration algorithms has also shifted from control point based semiautomated techniques, to more sophisticated voxel based automated techniques that use mutual information as a similarity measure. This paper visits the problem of breast image registration and provides an overview of the current state-of-the-art in this area.
Phytochemical and antioxidant profiles of leaves from different Sorbus L. species

Leaves of Sorbus L. have been used in various traditional medicine systems. Phenolic compounds determine the main pharmacological effects of Sorbus L. In this study, phytochemical and antioxidant profiles of Sorbus anglica, Sorbus aria, Sorbus arranensis, Sorbus aucuparia, Sorbus austriaca, Sorbus caucasica, Sorbus commixta, Sorbus discolor, Sorbus gracilis, Sorbus hostii, Sorbus semi-incisa and Sorbus tianschanica were determined. Twenty four constituents were identified in Sorbus L. species using ultra high performance liquid chromatography coupled to quadruple and time-of-flight mass spectrometers. Post-column FRAP assay identified compounds with reducing activity and revealed significantly greatest total antioxidant activity of 175.30 μmol TE/g DW, 169.20 μmol TE/g DW and 148.11 μmol TE/g DW in S. commixta, S. discolor and S. gracilis leaf samples, respectively, with neochlorogenic and chlorogenic acids being most significant contributors. Characteristic fingerprints of phytochemical and antioxidant profiles could be applied for the quality evaluation of various raw materials of Sorbus L. species.
Effects of environmental factors on exercise in fish

The critical swimming velocity of fish is affected by environmental conditions and the highest swimming speed is obtained only under specific circumstances. The mechanisms causing a reduction in exercise capacity depend on the type of environmental change. Acid waters exert an effect by reducing oxygen transport capacity, whereas reduced temperatures act largely on muscle contractility. Alkaline conditions and salinity change may affect both gas transport and muscle contractility. A fish must operate over a wide range of internal and external conditions and must possess both short- and long-term mechanisms to maintain function under a wide variety of conditions. These mechanisms may be part of the immediate reflex arsenal available to the fish (for example, catecholamine release) or they may be mechanisms induced during acclimation. The nature of the acclimation process is an indication of what may be limiting exercise under a particular set of circumstances. The concept of symmorphosis, especially when applied to ectotherms, needs to be viewed in a broader context. A symmetry of component parts may exist such that structures are designed to satisfy functional requirements for operation over a wide range of conditions, rather than optimally for a given set of conditions. This must involve compromises in design, especially for ectotherms such as fish. Thus, the more variable the conditions under which a system must operate, the less apparent it will be that symmorphosis exists between the component parts.
Why national eHealth programs need dead philosophers: Wittgensteinian reflections on policymakers' reluctance to learn from history.

CONTEXT Policymakers seeking to introduce expensive national eHealth programs would be advised to study lessons from elsewhere. But these lessons are unclear, partly because a paradigm war (controlled experiment versus interpretive case study) is raging. England's $20.6 billion National Programme for Information Technology (NPfIT) ran from 2003 to 2010, but its overall success was limited. Although case study evaluations were published, policymakers appeared to overlook many of their recommendations and persisted with some of the NPfIT's most criticized components and implementation methods. METHODS In this reflective analysis, illustrated by a case fragment from the NPfIT, we apply ideas from Ludwig Wittgenstein's postanalytic philosophy to justify the place of the "n of 1" case study and consider why those in charge of national eHealth programs appear reluctant to learn from such studies. FINDINGS National eHealth programs unfold as they do partly because no one fully understands what is going on. They fail when this lack of understanding becomes critical to the programs' mission. Detailed analyses of the fortunes of individual programs, articulated in such a way as to illuminate the contextualized talk and action ("language games") of multiple stakeholders, offer unique and important insights. Such accounts, portrayals rather than models, deliver neither statistical generalization (as with experiments) nor theoretical generalization (as with multisite case comparisons or realist evaluations). But they do provide the facility for heuristic generalization (i.e., to achieve a clearer understanding of what is going on), thereby enabling more productive debate about eHealth programs' complex, interdependent social practices. A national eHealth program is best conceptualized not as a blueprint and implementation plan for a state-of-the-art technical system but as a series of overlapping, conflicting, and mutually misunderstood language games that combine to produce a situation of ambiguity, paradox, incompleteness, and confusion. But going beyond technical "solutions" and engaging with these language games would clash with the bounded rationality that policymakers typically employ to make their eHealth programs manageable. This may explain their limited and contained response to the nuanced messages of in-depth case study reports. CONCLUSION The complexity of contemporary health care, combined with the multiple stakeholders in large technology initiatives, means that national eHealth programs require considerably more thinking through than has sometimes occurred. We need fewer grand plans and more learning communities. The onus, therefore, is on academics to develop ways of drawing judiciously on the richness of case studies to inform and influence eHealth policy, which necessarily occurs in a simplified decision environment.
In Vivo Treatment with Monoclonal Antibodies Directed Against CD4 and CD8 Antigens in Miniature Swine

Two monoclonal antibodies (mAb) with specificities for mature T-cell subsets in miniature swine have been characterized previously. Antibody 74–12-4 recognizes the porcine CD4 accessory molecule and 76–2-11 is specific for the CD8 molecule. We have now examined the effects of in vivo administration of 74–12-4 and 76–2-11 on several parameters of transplantation immunity. No prolongation of class I disparate skin or kidney graft survival was observed in animals treated with either mAb alone or with a combination of both. In addition, in vivo treatment with these mAbs, in combination with subtherapeutic total body irradiation, failed to permit engraftment of allogeneic bone marrow. These therapeutic failures were thought likely to be a consequence of the fact that 74–12-4 coats, but does not deplete, CD4 cells in vivo. Because there are numerous anti-human mAbs that likewise fail to deplete in vivo, we have used 74–12-4 as a prototype to further manipulations aimed at achieving depletion. We attempted to eliminate 74–12-4-coated cells in two animals by subsequent administration of a hyperimmune pig anti-mouse Ig serum. In both such treated animals, administration of this serum produced surprisingly rapid clearance of 74–12-4 from the circulation and caused uncoating of CD4 cells, but no significant cell elimination was detected by flow cytometry. We have also prepared an anti-porcine-CD4 immunotoxin by conjugating 74–12-4 to the ribosome inhibitory plant toxin, pokeweed antiviral protein. This immunotoxin led to significant but not complete CD4 cell depletion from the peripheral blood in four of four treated animals. Further manipulations and possibly development of new anti-porcine CD4 mAbs may therefore be required to achieve complete depletion and successful mAb-mediated modification of transplantation responses.
Improvement in automatic postural coordination following alexander technique lessons in a person with low back pain.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE The relationship between abnormal postural coordination and back pain is unclear. The Alexander Technique (AT) aims to improve postural coordination by using conscious processes to alter automatic postural coordination and ongoing muscular activity, and it has been reported to reduce low back pain. This case report describes the use of the AT with a client with low back pain and the observed changes in automatic postural responses and back pain. CASE DESCRIPTION The client was a 49-year-old woman with a 25-year history of left-sided, idiopathic, lumbrosacral back pain. Automatic postural coordination was measured using a force plate during horizontal platform translations and one-legged standing. OUTCOMES The client was tested monthly for 4 months before AT lessons and for 3 months after lessons. Before lessons, she consistently had laterally asymmetric automatic postural responses to translations. After AT lessons, the magnitude and asymmetry of her responses and balance improved and her low back pain decreased. DISCUSSION Further research is warranted to study whether AT lessons improve low back pain-associated abnormalities in automatic postural coordination and whether improving automatic postural coordination helps to reduce low back pain.
A High-Efficient CMOS RF Power Amplifier With Automatic Adaptive Bias Control

A 2.4-GHz Doherty power amplifier (PA) is developed in 0.18-mum CMOS technology. An automatic adaptive bias control circuit is integrated with the auxiliary PA to improve the overall performance of the PA. Operated at 3V, the P1 dB and associated power-added-efficiency (PAE) of the PA are 21dBm and 33%, respectively. At the output power 6-dB backoff from P1 dB, the PAE remains 21%. The limited PAE degradation at backoff power levels makes the PA suitable for the applications with high peak-to-average power ratio
Immune Response Induced by Airway Sensitization after Influenza A Virus Infection Depends on Timing of Antigen Exposure in Mice

ABSTRACT To study which phase of viral infection promotes antigen sensitization via the airway and which type of antigen-presenting cells contributes to antigen sensitization, BALB/c mice were sensitized by inhalation of ovalbumin (OA) during the acute phase or the recovery phase of influenza A virus infection, and then 3 weeks later animals were challenged with OA. The numbers of eosinophils and lymphocytes, the amounts of interleukin-4 (IL-4) and IL-5 in the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid, and the serum levels of OA-specific immunoglobulin G1 (IgG1) and IgE increased in mice sensitized during the acute phase (acute phase group), while a high level of gamma interferon production was detected in those sensitized during the recovery phase (recovery phase group). In the acute phase group, both major histocompatibility complex class II molecules and CD11c were strongly stained on the bronchial epithelium; in the recovery phase group, however, neither molecule was detected. OA-capturing dendritic cells (DCs) migrated to the regional lymph nodes, and a small number of OA-capturing macrophages were also observed in the lymph nodes of the acute phase group. In the recovery group, however, no OA-capturing DCs were detected in either the lungs or the lymph nodes, while OA-capturing macrophages were observed in the lymph nodes. These results indicate that the timing of antigen sensitization after viral infection determines the type of immune response.
Review: Ferruginous Bodies: Implications in the Mechanism of Fiber and Particle Toxicity

Exposures to fibers and particles can be associated with several different lung injuries including bronchitis, bronchiolitis, pneumonitis, pleuritis, pulmonary alveolar proteinosis, pneumoconiosis, mesotheliomas, and lung cancers. The mechanism of biological effect exerted by fibers and particles has not been exactly defined. Exposures to all fibers and particles introduce a solid-liquid interface into the lower respiratory tract. These surfaces all have some concentration of oxygen-containing functional groups that demonstrate a capacity to coordinate iron. Radical generation is catalyzed by this metal resulting in a cascade of cell signaling, transcription factor activation, and mediator release. We propose that the ferruginous body (i.e., a fiber or particle with a coating of both protein and iron) provides direct evidence of a participation of iron in the biological effect of both fibers and particles. It is recommended that an identification of ferruginous bodies in the lung be regarded as support for a metal-catalyzed oxidative stress in the mechanism of cell and tissue injury.
Automatic space heating control functions in the Lyon smart community project

Space heating is dominant in energy consumption of households in France. Toshiba introduced a Home Energy Management System (HEMS) to the residential area of a newly constructed building in Lyon, France, as a part of a smart community demonstration experiment project. We have developed automatic space heating control functions that the residents in the building can freely use as they wish. This paper presents evaluation results of these functions based on the data obtained from the HEMS. The results indicate that the total energy saving is about 20% and that use of occupancy information of not only the whole residence but also each room brings about effective energy saving.