Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Prevalence of peripheral blood cytopenias (hypersplenism) in patients with nonalcoholic chronic liver disease

OBJECTIVE:Thrombocytopenia or leukopenia in patients with chronic liver disease is often attributed to functional overactivity of the spleen (hypersplenism). Despite being a fairly common phenomenon, there is a paucity of reports on the prevalence of this syndrome in stable chronic liver disease patients with or without severe fibrosis/cirrhosis. The aim of this study was to establish the prevalence of peripheral blood cytopenia in patients with nonalcoholic cirrhosis/severe fibrosis versus patients with mild or no fibrosis on liver biopsy.METHODS:This is a retrospective chart review of 235 patients who underwent a liver biopsy. One hundred ninety-one patients met strict criteria for study entry; 28 different clinical and laboratory variables were collected from their charts review, and data were then analyzed using the SPSS statistical package.RESULTS:Of the cirrhotic patients, 64% were noted to have platelet counts consistently below 150,000 (lower limit of normal in our laboratory; mean, 144.6 ± 89.4; median, 114), whereas only 5.5% of noncirrhotic patients had thrombocytopenia (mean, 252.2 ± 103.4; median, 238). Leukopenia (WBC, <3,500) was relatively rare in the cirrhotic/fibrotic group, having a prevalence of 5% (7.59 ± 4.3) versus 3.3% (10.62 ± 14.2) of noncirrhotic patients.CONCLUSIONS:Of the patients with cirrhosis, 64% had thrombocytopenia (platelet count, <150,000). The likelihood ratio of finding a platelet count of <100,000 in patients with cirrhosis, as opposed to patients without cirrhosis, is almost 12.
Innervation of parasympathetic postganglionic neurons and bladder detrusor muscle directly after sacral root transection and repair using nerve transfer

This is a continuation of studies examining the effectiveness of root repairs and nerve transfers for bladder reinnervation. Our previous retrograde fluorogold tracing studies from the bladder to the spinal cord found regrowth of axons from the spinal cord through the nerve repair site to the bladder which was confirmed electrophysiologically [Ruggieri et al. J Neurotrauma 25:214–24, 2006]. The current study determines whether the pattern of axonal regrowth from the repaired nerves or roots to the bladder is different between the surgical reanastomosis methods.
Association between socioeconomic status and the development of asthma: analyses of income trajectories.

OBJECTIVES Using data on 2868 children born in the Western Australian Pregnancy Cohort (Raine) Study, we examined the association between changes in family socioeconomic status and childhood asthma. METHODS We determined the likelihood (odds ratio) of a child having asthma at ages 6 and 14 years for 4 family-income trajectories (chronic low, increasing, decreasing, and never low) over the child's lifetime. The trajectories were created from longitudinal latent-class models. RESULTS We found a 2-fold increased risk of asthma at age 14 years among children who had lived in a low-income family since birth, especially for girls. Asthma was less likely to occur in children born to single parents; income rose over time in many of these families. Compared with children in chronic low-income families, children in households with increasing incomes had a 60% lower risk of asthma. Single-point measures of low income were not found to be associated with asthma. CONCLUSIONS Chronic exposure to a low-income environment from birth was associated with the development of persistent asthma. There was also a protective effect against asthma among those children whose families had moved out of poverty.
La dimension évaluative du futur : le rôle des adverbes

Dans ce travail nous montrons que (i) les morphemes du futur, a travers les langues induisent un affaiblissement epistemique (pace Squartini, 2012) et (ii) aussi bien dans l’emploi epistemique que predictif du futur les adverbes modaux contribuent l’information qu’il y a une mesure de la confiance que l’agent epistemique a dans le fait que le monde actuel est/sera dans l’ensemble des mondes les meilleurs/raisonnables. Cette nouvelle proposition, nous voudrions suggerer, met en avant un ingredient present dans tous les modaux epistemiques : ceux-ci n’assertent pas seulement quelque chose a propos des mondes possibles, mais portent une information quant a la croyance de l’agent epistemique a propos de la place du monde actuel dans l’espace des mondes possibles, et plus specifiquement quant a sa croyance que le monde actuel est conforme a la source d’ordre, et a quel degre. Autrement dit, les modaux epistemiques vehiculent un contenu non-vericonditionnel, evaluatif. Nous proposons que dans la lecture predictive sont presentes a la fois une dimension metaphysique, epistemique et evaluative, et que celle-ci est revelee par les adverbes. Dans les deux usages (epistemique et predictif) les adverbes sont des modulateurs de la confiance du locuteur, ce qui semble etre un ingredient transversal aux emploi du futur, et probablement aux modalites epistemiques plus generalement.
Unemployment and mental health--who is (not) affected?

BACKGROUND The aim of this study is first, to investigate the association between periods of unemployment and mental distress, adjusting for previous health status, and second, to study differences and similarities between groups defined by age, sex, family situation, socioeconomic position and work environment. METHODS The analyses are based on a cohort of participants in Stockholm county council's Public Health Survey 2002 with a follow-up in 2007. Selected from the initial cohort are respondents 20-59 years who were employed at T1 and had no unemployment in 2001-02. Logistic regression is used and differences between groups are expressed as odds ratios. Interaction analyses are also performed. RESULTS Initial odds ratios of 1.84 in the group with 1 year of unemployment or more compared to the reference group with no unemployment is reduced to 1.52 after adjustment for prior mental and somatic health. Analyses show that the impact of unemployment in this sample is stronger for men, those working overtime, those with high social support or low control at their previous job, self-employed and those with low occupational class or low previous wage. Regarding family situation, unemployment is least associated with mental distress among individuals living in couples without children. CONCLUSION Results show an independent effect of unemployment on mental distress, but this effect varies between groups. Both proposed theories: role loss and differential susceptibility, receive some support. Since all interaction analyses are insignificant, results should be interpreted with caution.
CD40‐mediated death and cytokine secretion in colorectal cancer: A potential target for inflammatory tumour cell killing

CD40, a member of the tumour necrosis factor family, is expressed in a variety of epithelial cells. Although soluble CD40 agonists are growth‐inhibitory, membrane‐presented CD40 ligand (CD40L) induces extensive apoptosis in carcinoma cells. This study investigated whether CD40 is expressed in human colorectal carcinoma (CRC) cells and explored the functional consequences of CD40 ligation. CD40 expression in a panel of CRC lines was assessed by flow cytometry and in resected human CRCs by immunohistochemistry. CRC cells were treated in vitro with soluble CD40 agonists or cocultured with fibroblasts expressing membrane‐bound CD40 ligand. Apoptosis was determined by flow cytometry using Annexin V/propidium iodide labelling and by a DNA fragmentation assay. Cytokine secretion induced by CD40 ligation was quantified by a multiplex‐bead array approach. We show that CD40 is expressed in a proportion of established CRC lines in culture and that receptor expression is functional. Activation of CD40 by membrane‐presented CD40L, but not soluble agonists, causes high levels of death in CD40‐positive CRC cells and induces secretion of proinflammatory cytokines. In agreement with our in vitro observations, immunohistochemical studies demonstrated that CD40 is highly expressed in a proportion of colorectal cancer specimens. The high level of susceptibility of CRC cells to CD40‐killing combined with the ability of CD40 to induce concomitant secretion of proinflammatory cytokines suggest that CD40 ligation may represent a novel mechanism for elimination of CRC cells and render CD40 a promising therapeutic target for the eradication of colorectal tumours. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Graph based Dynamic Segmentation of Generic Objects in 3D

We propose a novel 3D segmentation method for RBGD stream data to deal with 3D object segmentation task in a generic scenario with frequent object interactions. It mainly contributes in two aspects, while being generic and not requiring initialization: firstly, a novel tree structure representation for the point cloud of the scene is proposed. Then, a dynamic manangement mechanism for connected component splits and merges exploits the tree structure representation.
Robust Sound Event Detection Through Noise Estimation and Source Separation Using NMF

This paper addresses the problem of sound event detection under non-stationary noises and various real-world acoustic scenes. An effective noise reduction strategy is proposed in this paper which can automatically adapt to background variations. The proposed method is based on supervised non-negative matrix factorization (NMF) for separating target events from noise. The event dictionary is trained offline using the training data of the target event class while the noise dictionary is learned online from the input signal by sparse and low-rank decomposition. Incorporating the estimated noise bases, this method can produce accurate source separation results by reducing noise residue and signal distortion of the reconstructed event spectrogram. Experimental results on DCASE 2017 task 2 dataset show that the proposed method outperforms the baseline system based on multi-layer perceptron classifiers and also another NMF-based method which employs a semi-supervised strategy for noise reduction.
Timolol Maleate 0.5% or 0.1% Gel‐Forming Solution for Infantile Hemangiomas: A Retrospective, Multicenter, Cohort Study

Abstract: Therapeutic options for superficial infantile hemangiomas (IH) are limited. Recently, timolol maleate gel, a topical nonselective beta‐blocker, has been reported as a potentially effective treatment for superficial IH. This study is an extension of a previously published pilot study designed to further investigate the efficacy and safety and to identify predictors of good response of topical 0.5% or 0.1% timolol maleate gel‐forming solution. This was a retrospective cohort study including patients enrolled from five centers. Patients were included if they were treated with timolol maleate 0.1% or 0.5% gel‐forming solution and had photographic documentation of the IH and at least one follow‐up visit. Patients with concomitant active treatment using other IH treatments were excluded. The primary endpoint was change in the appearance of IH as evaluated using a visual analog scale (VAS). Data from 73 subjects were available for final analysis. Timolol maleate gel‐forming solution 0.5% was used in 85% (62/73) of patients, the remainder being treated with 0.1%. The median age at treatment initiation was 4.27 months (interquartile range [IQR] 2.63–7.21 mos), and patients were treated for a mean of 3.4 ± 2.7 months. All patients except one improved, with a mean improvement of 45 ± 29.5%. Predictors of better response were superficial type of hemangioma (p = 0.01), 0.5% timolol concentration (p = 0.01), and duration of use longer than 3 months (p = 0.04). Sleeping disturbance was noted in one patient. This study further demonstrates the efficacy and tolerability of topical timolol maleate and gradual improvement with longer treatment in patients with superficial IH.
Development and evolution of adult feeding structures in Caenogastropods: overcoming larval functional constraints

SUMMARY Comparative study of the developing foregut in three species of caenogastropods, including an herbivorous grazer (Lacuna vincta) and two carnivores (Euspira[Polinices]lewisii and Nassarius mendicus), suggests how the specialized adult foregut of a carnivorous neogastropod evolved within a life cycle having a planktotrophic larva. Postmetamorphic feeding structures (buccal cavity and radular sac) in all three species achieve advanced differentiation in the larval stage, permitting juvenile feeding at 3 days postmetamorphosis. Recent phylogenetic hypotheses for the Gastropoda predict that foregut developmental patterns in E. lewisii and N. mendicus are derived, relative to that of L. vincta. In hatching larvae of these three, the anlage of postmetamorphic feeding structures is a small patch of nonciliated cells embedded in the ventral wall of the larval foregut and the patch soon forms an outpocketing. During subsequent morphogenesis, Euspira lewisii and N. mendicus share a developmental novelty that involves semi‐isolation of the developing, postmetamorphic buccal cavity and radular sac from the larval foregut and formation of a new, definitive mouth at metamorphosis. Nassarius mendicus, a neogastropod, embellishes this novelty by adding the entire anterior esophagus and valve of Leiblein (de novo structures) to the semi‐isolated buccal cavity. Therefore, a valve and long stretch of muscular anterior esophagus, which are necessary for feeding with a pleurembolic proboscis, are preformed in the larval stage of this neogastropod without interfering with larval feeding. The inferred evolutionary events leading to postmetamorphic feeding specialization in N. mendicus are invisible in adults; they require reconstruction from comparative developmental analysis.
Multidetector computed tomography pulmonary angiography pitfalls in the evaluation of pulmonary embolism with emphasis in technique.

Pulmonary embolism (PE) is considered the third most common acute cardiovascular disease after myocardial infarction and stroke.Most preventable deaths associatedwith PE can be attributed to missed diagnosis, rather than therapy failure; thus, accurate and fast diagnosis of PE is important and greatly influences patient outcome. Computed tomography pulmonary angiography (CTPA) was first introduced as a diagnostic test for PEwith the arrival of helical CT scanners in the early 1990s. Less than a decade later, with improvements in resolution, acquisition speed, and image quality, multidetector CTPA (MDCTPA) became the most used diagnostic modality in the evaluation of PE. In 2007, the Fleischner Society declared that MDCTPA had fulfilled the conditions to replace conventional pulmonary angiography as the standard of reference for diagnosing acute PE. The recent introduction of dual-source MDCT technology adds functional assessment to the established anatomical evaluation, potentially further enhancing the capability of CTPA to determine the presence and clinical significance of pulmonary thromboembolism. The sensitivity and specificity for the diagnosis of PE since the era of single-slice helical CTPA has improved from 53%91% and 78%-97%, respectively, to 83%-100% and 89%97%, respectively, with MDCTPA. Several studies on single-slice and early-generation MDCTPA have reported “indeterminate” results ranging from 0.5%-10%, with a mean at approximately 6%. In a more recent study with 40-slice MDCT, 3.2% of 220 consecutive reports were deemed
Delayed Sodium Channel Inactivation Mimics Long QT Syndrome 3

&NA; DPI 201–106 delays sodium channel inactivation. Acute administration of DPI 201–106 prolonged the QT interval, provoked spontaneous torsades de pointes in one patient, and facilitated stimulation‐induced polymorphic ventricular tachyarrhythmias in two patients. Similar to the observations in animal studies, delaying sodium channel inactivation is a new form of the acquired long QT syndrome, mimicking long QT syndrome type 3.
Mobile Service Selection for Composition: An Energy Consumption Perspective

Due to the limits of battery capacity of mobile devices, how to select cloud services to invoke in order to reduce energy consumption in mobile environments is becoming a critical issue. This paper addresses the problem of mobile service selection for composition in terms of energy consumption. It formally models this problem and constructs energy consumption computation models. Energy consumption aggregation rules for composite services with different structures are presented. It adopts the genetic algorithm to resolve it. A replanning mechanism is also proposed to deal with the changeable conditions and user behavior. A series of experiments are conducted to evaluate the performance of our method. The results show that our service selection method significantly outperforms traditional methods. Even if the conditions or user behavior is changeable, this method is still effective to recommend services. Moreover, the service selection method performs good scalability as the experimental scale increases.
Particle-Based Anisotropic Sampling for Two-Dimensional Tensor Field Visualization

We present a particle-based approach to generate unstructured distributions of elliptical samples. Size and shape of the samples are determined by a local metric that is derived from a two-dimensional tensor ﬁeld. In contrast to previous methods, we propose the use of an anisotropic Delaunay triangulation of particle positions. It guarantees exact neighbor computations and provides a good means for an explicit and automatic control of prominent holes and overlaps, which otherwise would result in unpleasant visualizations. We use the ﬁnal distribution to compute a generalized Voronoi diagram, which represents a novel and ﬂexible visualization technique for two-dimensional tensor ﬁelds. Via texturing of Voronoi regions, many possibilities arise to design the ﬁnal image.
DC microgrid islands on ships

Since shipboard power systems are inherently islanded and consist of energy intensive sources and loads, it is an interesting application for dc microgrids. The object of this paper is to explore the merits of dc based shipboard power distribution as compared to conventional ac solutions. A survey of current initiatives, emerging concepts and design challenges is carried out. Based on the review, insight is offered on different aspects like efficiency, safety, and reliability and their relevant tradeoffs. It will be discussed how the interplay of reliability and availability, driven by the computational cost of optimization and restoration goals, forms the heart of reconfigurability.
Dietary intake of phosphorus modulates the circadian rhythm in serum concentration of phosphorus. Implications for the renal production of 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D.

We recently reported that in healthy men, changes in the production rate (PR) of 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D [1,25-(OH)2D] accounted for the 80% increase and the 30% decrease in its serum concentration that was induced by restriction and supplementation, respectively, of dietary phosphorus. These changes in PR and serum concentration of 1,25-(OH)2D could be mediated by changes in serum concentrations of phosphorus that occur after the morning fasting period. To examine this hypothesis, we measured serum concentrations of phosphorus in blood drawn at hourly intervals for 24 h in six healthy men in whom dietary phosphorus was initially maintained at 1,500 mg/70 kg body weight per day for 9 d, then restricted to 500 mg/d (coupled with orally administered aluminum hydroxide) for 10 d, and then supplemented to 3,000 mg/d for 10 d. When dietary phosphorus was normal, the serum concentration of phosphorus exhibited the normal circadian rhythm: a rapid decrease in early morning to a nadir at 1100, followed by an increase to plateau at 1600 h and a further increase to an acrophase (peak) at 0030 h. The variation in serum levels of phosphorus can be described as the sum of sinusoidal functions with periodicities of 24 and 12 h. Phosphorus restriction for 10 d induced a 40% reduction in the 24-h mean serum level of phosphorus, abolished the early afternoon rise in its serum level (i.e., the 12-h periodic component of the time series), and delayed the acrophase by 3 h to 0330 h. Phosphorus supplementation for 10 d induced a 14% increase in the 24-h mean serum level of phosphorus but no significant change in its morning fasting level, exaggerated the early afternoon rise in serum phosphorus, and advanced the acrophase by 9 h to 1530 h. The changes in the PR of 1,25-(OH)2D induced by restriction and supplementation of dietary phosphorus varied inversely and significantly with those induced in the 24-h mean serum level of phosphorus (R = -0.88, P less than 0.001). These data demonstrate that in healthy men, dietary phosphorus is an important determinant of the serum concentration of phosphorus throughout most of the day. The data suggest that diet-induced changes in serum levels of phosphorus mediate the changes in PR and serum concentration of 1,25(OH)2D.
Tremulous arytenoid movements predict severity of glottic stenosis in multiple system atrophy

To determine whether tremulous arytenoid movements predict the severity of glottic stenosis in patients with multiple system atrophy (MSA), 28 MSA patients and 14 age‐matched controls underwent fiberoptic laryngoscopy with video monitoring during wakefulness and under anesthesia induced by intravenous injection of propofol. Presence or absence of tremulous arytenoid movements was recorded during wakefulness. The ratio of glottic stenosis (%), which represents the extent of airway narrowing under anesthesia, was obtained by measuring the inspiratory glottic angle during wakefulness and under anesthesia. The median ratio of glottic stenosis was significantly higher in patients with MSA (57.5%) than in control subjects (0.5%). Tremulous arytenoid movements were characterized by shaking movements of the arytenoid region including the vocal folds, which are most apparent in the arytenoid cartilage. In this study, tremulous arytenoid movements were observed in 18 (64.2%) of 28 patients with MSA, who displayed a significantly higher median ratio of glottic stenosis (71.2%) than other patients (34.9%). None of the control subjects exhibited tremulous arytenoid movements. A clear correlation existed between the ratio of glottic stenosis and disease duration. Our observations indicate that tremulous arytenoid movements are a marker of the severity of glottic stenosis, which confers an increased risk of upper airway obstruction in patients with MSA. © 2010 Movement Disorder Society
Safety and efficacy of therapeutic early onset granulocyte transfusions in pediatric patients with neutropenia and severe infections

BACKGROUND: Bacterial and fungal infections in profound neutropenia after chemotherapy are associated with high mortality despite appropriate antibacterial and antifungal treatment. Granulocyte transfusions are used as a therapeutic addendum, but concern regarding pulmonary reactions often results in delayed use in clinical practice. Accordingly, many patients are already at advanced stages of their infectious disease once granulocytes are transfused. Thus, a prospective Phase II trial was conducted to test the safety and efficacy of therapeutic early‐onset granulocyte transfusions in immunocompromised children with neutropenia and severe infections.
Chesapeake Bay Anoxia: Origin, Development, and Significance

Anoxia occurs annually in deeper waters of the central portion of the Chesapeake Bay and presently extends from Baltimore to the mouth of the Potomac estuary. This condition, which encompasses some 5 billion cubic meters of water and lasts from May to September, is the result of increased stratification of the water column in early spring, with consequent curtailment of reoxygenation of the bottom waters across the halocline, and benthic decay of organic detritus accumulated from plankton blooms of the previous summer and fall. The Chesapeake Bay anoxia appears to have had significant ecological effects on many marine species, including several of economic importance.