Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Association study of TRAF1-C5 polymorphisms with susceptibility to rheumatoid arthritis and systemic lupus erythematosus in Japanese

Objective: The primary aim of this study was to investigate the association of polymorphisms of TRAF1-C5, a newly identified rheumatoid arthritis (RA) risk locus in Caucasians, with susceptibility to RA and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) in Japanese populations. Gene expression levels of TRAF1 and C5 to assess the functional significance of genotypes were also analysed. Methods: A multicentre association study consisting of 4 RA case-control series (4397 cases and 2857 controls) and 3 SLE case-control series (591 cases and 2199 shared controls) was conducted. Genotyping was performed using TaqMan genotyping assay for two single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that showed the best evidence of association in the previous Caucasian studies. Quantifications of TRAF1 and C5 expression were performed with TaqMan expression assay. Results: Significant differences in allele frequency for both SNPs were observed between RA and control subjects (combined odds ratio = 1.09), while no significant difference was detected between patients with SLE and controls. Interestingly, alleles rs3761847 A and rs10818488 G had increased the risk for RA in the present study, while they decreased the risk in the original studies. A significant difference was found between risk allele carriers and non-carriers of rs10818488 for the expression level of TRAF1 in phorbol myristate acetate-stimulated lymphoblastoid cell lines (p = 0.04). Conclusion: Association of TRAF1-C5 locus with RA susceptibility was detected in the Japanese populations with modest magnitude, while no significant association was observed for SLE. Significant positive effect of genotype on the expression of TRAF1 might support the genetic association between TRAF1 and RA.
Examining the Links Between Employee and Customer Variables of Service Profit Chain: A Case of Pakistani Banks

The purpose of this paper is to test the links between employee and customer variables of service profit chain in banking sector of Pakistan. This is an analytical study based mainly on the primary data collected through scientifically developed questionnaires. The questionnaires have been personally administered on a sample size of 188 in case of employees and 192 in case of customers, chosen on a random sampling basis from top five banks of Pakistan, i.e. NBP, HBL, MCB, UBL, ABL. SPSS was used to analyze the data. Findings of the study suggest that significant relationship was found between internal service quality perceived by employees, employee satisfaction and loyalty and service quality perceived by customers, customer satisfaction and loyalty. The study also concludes that private banks’ customers and employees are more satisfied with the service quality than that of public banks’.
Standing: a good remedy.

To the Editor. — In the July 6 issue ofThe Journal, Dr Paul Cutler 1 answers the question of treatment of cramps in the legs and feet. His advice is excellent except in one instance. He states that relief is afforded by massage. In my experience, both personal and with patients, I have found that massaging the cramped muscles only aggravates the pain. I have also found that the most effective immediate treatment is to get out of bed and to stand firmly on the flat foot and press down as hard as possible. Performing this act in most circumstances relieves the cramp within a very short time. If necessary, and available, an application of hot compresses to the affected area also gives rapid relief.
The risk of atherosclerosis in patients with impaired glucose tolerance.

OBJECTIVES Glucose metabolism disorders usually coexist with dyslipidemia and coagulation/fibrinolysis disturbances. Increase of insulin resistance followed by hyperinsulinemia leads to enhanced protein synthesis, including production of apolipoproteins. As a result, the structure of Low Density Lipoprotein (LDL) becomes small and dense. This augments lipid infiltration into the arterial wall. Following this process monocyte adhesion to endothelium initiates atherosclerotic injury. One of the markers of this inflammatory reaction is Monocyte Chemoattractant Peptide-1 (MCP-1). A lot of inflammatory mediators affect both oxidative modification of LDL and coagulation processes being responsible for anti-fibrinolytic predominance. Plasminogen Activator Inhibitor-1 (PAI-1) is a marker of this state. Therefore the aim of this study is to evaluate the marker of the oxidation processes (oxLDL) as well as prothrombotic (PAI-1) and inflammatory state (MCP-1) markers in patients with Impaired Glucose Tolerance (IGT). METHODS The study was carried out on 16 subjects: 10 with biochemically confirmed IGT and 6 age-matched healthy persons without such disorders. Following tests were performed: OGTT, HbA(1c) level as well as TCh, HDL, LDL and TG. Plasma concentrations of oxLDL, PAI-1 and MCP-1 were measured using ELISA method. RESULTS In patients with Impaired Glucose Tolerance plasma levels of oxLDL were significantly higher compared to control group (67.6 +/- 0.9 U/l vs. 57.8 +/- 4.0 U/l; p < 0.01) in spite of LDL levels, which did not reveal such difference. MCP-1 plasma concentration compared to control group occurred to be significantly increased in experimental group as well (156.4 +/- 9.2 ng/ml vs. 125.4 +/- 1.9 ng/ml; p < 0.05). PAI-1 level revealed most significant difference (84.0 +/- 1.8 ng/ml vs. 43.7 +/- 2.7 ng/ml; p < 0.0001). CONCLUSIONS It is concluded that patients with Impaired Glucose Tolerance should be considered as a group in which atherogenic modification of lipoproteins occurred. Also plasma inflammatory as well as prothrombotic markers concentration was elevated.
High prevalence of anti-hepatitis E virus antibodies in outpatients with chronic liver disease in a university medical center in Germany

Aim/Objectives/Background Hepatitis E virus (HEV) is an emerging disease in developed countries. HEV seroprevalence ranges from 3.2 to 10% in Europe, but is higher in endemic areas such as southern France. In Germany, an increasing incidence of HEV infections has been reported recently. Risk factors for the acquisition of HEV are incompletely understood. Methods We screened 295 consecutive patients with chronic liver disease attending the outpatient department at Charité University Hospital for HEV seroprevalence. Epidemiological characteristics were analyzed and patients were questioned for risk factors using a standardized questionnaire. A total of 78 patients without known liver disease were also tested for HEV IgG. Results Out of 295 screened patients, 62 tested positive for HEV-IgG. Overall, 50% of the HEV-positive patients were women and 23.8% had underlying liver cirrhosis. HEV-positive patients were older than HEV-negative patients (mean age 56 vs. 48.6 years). Seroprevalence increased with age from 13% in patients 30–39 years of age to 36.4% in patients 70–79 years of age. Of the total, 46.7% of HEV-IgG-positive patients had contact with domestic animals and 38.3% had received blood transfusions. A total of 50% of the HEV-IgG-positive patients had regularly consumed uncooked meat and 45% had regularly consumed wild game or wild boar, which was significantly more frequent than in HEV-IgG-negative patients. Conclusion HEV-IgG seroprevalence was 21% in a cohort of patients with chronic liver disease and 24.4% in a cohort of patients without known liver disease. The higher seroprevalence found among elderly patients suggests a lifetime accumulation of risk of exposure to HEV. The results from this study imply that regular testing should be performed for HEV in developed countries in case of liver disease of unknown etiology.
Spinopelvic Alignment After Interspinous Soft Stabilization With a Tension Band System in Grade 1 Degenerative Lumbar Spondylolisthesis

Study Design. Retrospective clinical study. Objective. The purpose of this study was to examine the changes in spinopelvic alignment after interspinous soft stabilization (ISS) with a tension band system and to identify the lumbosacral parameters related to those changes and to determine their impact on the clinical outcomes compared with posterior lumbar interbody fusion (PLIF) in patients with low-grade degenerative spondylolisthesis (DS). Summary of Background Data. The sacropelvic morphometric changes after fusion surgery have received much research attention. However, few reports have addressed the issue after use of dynamic or soft stabilization systems. Methods. From April 2001 to November 2003, 45 patients presenting with grade 1 DS with stenosis underwent either ISS with a tension band system (ISS group) or PLIF with pedicle screw fixation (PLIF group). The mean follow-up period was 76.8 months. Three pelvic parameters, the sacral slope (SS), pelvic tilt (PT), and pelvic incidence, were investigated to address the sacropelvic morphometric change. Clinical outcomes were assessed using the visual analog scale score, the Oswestry Disability Index, and the patient's satisfaction index. Results. Both groups showed significant improvements in all of the clinical outcomes, with no significant differences between groups. In the ISS group, the SS increased and PT decreased, whereas in the PLIF group, the SS decreased and PT increased, resulting in pelvic anteversion and retroversion, respectively, with significant intergroup differences in SS and PT (SS: P = 0.047; PT: P = 0.01). The positive association of lumbar lordosis with SS (r = 0.448) and its negative association with PT (r = −0.674) in the respective groups indicate the influence of changes in lumbar lordosis on pelvic positional changes. Significant correlations between follow-up segmental lumbar lordosis and the visual analog scale score for leg pain (r = −0.685) and Oswestry Disability Index score (r = −0.425) were found in the ISS group alone. Conclusion. Segmental lordotic change after ISS with a tension band system was the possible decisive factor in the development of pelvic anteversion while maintaining sagittal lumbar balance; lack of lumbar lordosis led to compensatory pelvic retroversion in the PLIF group. Considering the comparable clinical results with PLIF surgery and the achievement of physiologic sagittal spinopelvic balance, the ISS procedure can be a feasible alternative to fusion surgery in patients with grade 1 DS with stenosis.
An investigation of the natural balancing mechanisms of modular input-series-output-series DC-DC converters

Modular converters have many advantages, however the need to balance voltages and currents equally among the different cells requires careful consideration. Natural balancing occurs when all cells receive the same switching information and the inherent circuit operation balances the different voltages and currents. Natural balancing had been proposed for other modular topologies but it was stated that this method is not applicable to the input-series-output-series, ISOS, converter as it does not have any natural balancing abilities. In this study it is shown that the ISOS have a weak natural balancing ability similar in operation to that of the flying-capacitor converter. When the voltage dependent losses are included in the analysis an additional strong balancing mechanism is also identified.
Genotoxic‐Stress‐Response Genes and Growth‐Arrest Genes

As discussed throughout this paper, many mammalian DDI genes are associated with growth responses, including both positive responses to growth stimulation and negative responses involving transient growth arrest and terminal differentiation. It is interesting that several immediate-early genes encoding transcription factors, the jun genes, are DDI, are induced by terminal differentiation, and also are associated with positive growth responses. In negative growth-response genes, their control is complex and almost certainly involves multiple regulatory mechanisms. The role of growth-arrest genes after exposure to DNA-damaging agents is currently not known, but as growth arrest can have a protective effect on cells exposed to DNA-damaging agents in both bacteria and eukaryotes, some protective role(s) for the gadd genes may exist. Whatever the roles are for the individual gadd genes, the response of the gadd genes to DNA-damaging agents and other growth-arrest signals has been highly conserved during mammalian evolution, and it is likely that this stress response, as reflected by induction of one or more gadd genes, is present in most or perhaps all mammalian cells. Our findings that the gadd group overlaps with another group of growth-arrest genes, the MyD, indicate that these two groups combined define a new class of genes whose protein products are likely to play a role in cell growth cessation.
Kinetic resolution of the separate GLUT1 and GLUT4 glucose transport activities in 3T3-L1 cells.

A bis-mannose-photolabel-displacement method has been developed for resolving the separate kinetic properties of the glucose transporters GLUT1 and GLUT4, which are both present in 3T3-L1 cells. We have quantified the cell-surface transporter abundance (Bmax.) for the two isoforms by displacing radiolabelled 2-N-[4-(1-azi-2,2,2-trifluoroethyl)benzoyl]-1,3-bis-(D- mannos-4-yloxy)-2-propylamine (ATB-BMPA) by non-labelled ATB-BMPA. In cells acutely treated with insulin, the GLUT1 Bmax. was 0.19 microM and the GLUT4 Bmax. was 0.17 microM. In cells which were chronically treated with insulin, the GLUT1 Bmax. was increased by approximately 4-fold to 0.7 microM, whereas the GLUT4 was decreased by approximately 50% (Bmax. = 0.1 microM). However, this large increase in total concentrations of cell-surface transporters (the sum of GLUT1 and GLUT4 concentrations) was not reflected in a large increase in 3-O-methyl-D-glucose transport, suggesting that GLUT1 makes a smaller contribution to transport than does GLUT4. In acutely insulin-treated cells at 37 degrees C, the apparent kinetic parameters for 3-O-methyl-D-glucose transport were Vapp.max. = 0.52 mM.s-1 and Kapp.m = 12.3 mM. In chronically insulin-treated cells the Vapp.max. = 1.24 mM.s-1 and Kapp.m = 23.0 mM. We have measured the displacement of ATB-BMPA by different concentrations of 3-O-methyl-D-glucose to resolve the separate affinity constants of GLUT1 and GLUT4 for this transported ligand. In acute- and chronic-insulin-treated cells the GLUT1 Km for 3-O-methyl-D-glucose was approximately 20 mM, and the GLUT4 Km for 3-O-methyl-D-glucose was approximately 7 mM. An analysis of these data and the 3-O-methyl-D-glucose transport rates was carried out to calculate transport capacity (TK values) for the two isoforms at 37 degrees C. In acute- and chronic-insulin-treated cells the TK values were 0.36 x 10(4) mM-1.min-1 for GLUT1 and 1.13 x 10(4) mM-1.min-1 for GLUT4. Thus GLUT1 has an approximately 3-fold lower transport capacity than GLUT4 at low concentrations of transported sugar. The lower GLUT1 transport capacity was shown to be mainly due to the high Km of GLUT1. The calculated turnover numbers were 7.2 x 10(4) min-1 for GLUT1 and 7.9 x 10(4) min-1 for GLUT4.
A Writefriendly Writefriendly Writefriendly Hashing Scheme for Non-volatile Memory Systems

Emerging non-volatile memory technologies (NVMs) have been considered as promising candidates for replacing DRAM and SRAM, due to their advantages of high density, high scalability, and requiring near-zero standby power, while suffering from the limited endurance and asymmetric properties of reads and writes. The significant changes of low-level memory devices cause nontrivial challenges to high-level in-memory and in-cache data structure design due to overlooking the NVM device properties. In this paper, we study an important and common data structure, hash table, which is ubiquitous and widely used to construct the index and lookup table in main memory and caches. Based on the observations that existing hashing schemes cause many extra writes to NVMs, we propose a cost-efficient write-friendly hashing scheme, called path hashing, which incurs no extra writes to NVMs while delivers high performance. The basic idea of path hashing is to leverage a novel hash-collision resolution method, i.e., position sharing, which meets the needs of insertion and deletion requests without extra writes to NVMs. By further exploiting double-path hashing and path shortening techniques, path hashing delivers high performance of hash tables in terms of space utilization and request latency. We have implemented path hashing and used a gem5 full system simulator with NVMain to evaluate its performance in the context of NVMs. Extensive experimental results demonstrate that path hashing incurs no extra writes to NVMs, and achieves up to 95% space utilization ratio as well as low request latency, compared with existing state-of-the-art hashing schemes.
Histogram of dense subgraphs for image representation

Modelling spatial information of local features is known to improve performance in image categorisation. Compared with simple pairwise features and visual phrases, graphs can capture the structural organisation of local features more adequately. Besides, a dense regular grid can guarantee a more reliable representation than the interest points and give better results for image classification. In this study, the authors introduced a bag of dense local graphs approach that combines the performance of bag of visual words expressing the image classification process with the representational power of graphs. The images were represented with dense local graphs built upon dense scale-invariant feature transform descriptors. The graph-based substructure pattern mining algorithm was applied on the local graphs to discover the frequent local subgraphs, producing a bag of subgraphs representation. The results were reported from experiments conducted on four challenging benchmarks. The findings show that the proposed subgraph histogram improves the categorisation accuracy.
Régularisation parcimonieuse pour le problème d'intégration en traitement d'images

La reconstruction d'une surface ou image a partir d'un champ de gradient corrompu est une etape primordiale dans plusieurs applications en traitement d'images. Un tel champ peut contenir du bruit et des donnees aberrantes qui nuisent a la qualite de la reconstruction. On propose dans ce papier d'utiliser la parcimonie pour regulariser le probleme, ainsi qu'une methode efficace pour estimer une bonne solution du probleme d'optimisation qui en resulte. Les experiences montrent que la methode proposee permet d'ameliorer considerablement la qualite de la reconstruction comparee aux methodes precedentes.
Macromolecular oxidation in anisotonic suspensions of mouse spleen cells

Macromolecular oxidative alterations have been analysed in vitro in anisotonic suspensions of mouse splenocytes. Both hypertonicity and hypotonicity induced the generation of thiobarbituric acid reactive species (TBARS) and carbonylation of the proteins, which took place along with cell death. Addition of antioxidants partially inhibited oxidative changes in isotonic and hypotonic suspensions. Anisotonic shock of mouse splenocytes proved to be an inducer of oxidative stress. The oxidative macromolecular alterations might contribute to pathogenesis of cell death caused by osmotic stress. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Comparative ovule and megagametophyte development in Hydatellaceae and water lilies reveal a mosaic of features among the earliest angiosperms.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS The embryo sac, nucellus and integuments of the early-divergent angiosperms Hydatellaceae and other Nymphaeales are compared with those of other seed plants, in order to evaluate the evolutionary origin of these characters in the angiosperms. METHODS Using light microscopy, ovule and embryo sac development are described in five (of 12) species of Trithuria, the sole genus of Hydatellaceae, and compared with those of Cabombaceae and Nymphaeaceae. KEY RESULTS The ovule of Trithuria is bitegmic and tenuinucellate, rather than bitegmic and crassinucellate as in most other Nymphaeales. The seed is operculate and possesses a perisperm that develops precociously, which are both key features of Nymphaeales. However, in the Indian species T. konkanensis, perisperm is relatively poorly developed by the time of fertilization. Perisperm cells in Trithuria become multinucleate during development, a feature observed also in other Nymphaeales. The outer integument is semi-annular ('hood-shaped'), as in Cabombaceae and some Nymphaeaceae, in contrast to the annular ('cap-shaped') outer integument of some other Nymphaeaceae (e.g. Barclaya) and Amborella. The megagametophyte in Trithuria is monosporic and four-nucleate; at the two-nucleate stage both nuclei occur in the micropylar domain. Double megagametophytes were frequently observed, probably developed from different megaspores of the same tetrad. Indirect, but strong evidence is presented for apomictic embryo development in T. filamentosa. CONCLUSIONS Most features of the ovule and embryo sac of Trithuria are consistent with a close relationship with other Nymphaeales, especially Cabombaceae. The frequent occurrence of double megagametophytes in the same ovule indicates a high degree of developmental flexibility, and could provide a clue to the evolutionary origin of the Polygonum-type of angiosperm embryo sac.
Contractile properties and protein isoforms of single fibres from the chicken pectoralis red strip muscle.

1. The contractile properties of single muscle fibres of the red strip region of adult chicken pectoralis major (PM) muscle, some of which are known to express an embryonic isoform of myosin heavy chain (MHC), were determined and compared with the properties of the fast white fibres of the PM and the slow tonic fibres of the anterior latissimus dorsi (ALD) muscle. 2. The red strip fibres could be classified into two groups, fast and slow. The mean velocity of unloaded shortening (Vmax) in fast red strip fibres was approximately half the Vmax of fast white fibres. Vmax of slow red strip fibres was less than 20% of the value for fast red strip fibres and was not different from Vmax of ALD fibres. 3. The tension‐generating ability, i.e. the maximal isometric tension/fibre cross‐sectional area (P0/CSA), was the same in fast red strip fibres and fast white fibres. P0/CSA was approximately 30% lower in slow red strip fibres compared with fast red strip fibres but was 70% greater in slow red strip fibres compared with ALD fibres. 4. The tension‐pCa relation of fast red strip fibres was shifted to lower pCa values, indicating a lower calcium sensitivity compared with fast white fibres, and this difference was associated with a difference in troponin T isoform composition. The tension‐pCa relation of slow red strip fibres was not different from that in ALD fibres. 5. The difference in Vmax between fast red strip fibres and fast white fibres was associated with different MHC compositions of these fibres. 6. The myofibrillar protein isoform composition of slow red strip fibres was identical to that of the slow tonic fibres of ALD muscle and these two groups of fibres had very similar contractile properties.