Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Hypertension in the Very Elderly Trial – latest data

Early trials in the field of hypertension focused on adults in their fifties and sixties. However, with the passage of time, a progressive effort has been made to expand the evidence base for treatment in older adults. 2008 saw publication of data from the Hypertension in the Very Elderly Trial which demonstrated significant mortality and morbidity benefits from antihypertensive therapy in octogenarians. More recently, additional data from this cohort has been published suggesting that appropriate anti‐hypertensive therapy may lead to a reduction in incident cognitive impairment and fractures, whilst a 1 year open label extension of the main study confirmed many of the original trial findings. This review provides an overview of the Hypertension in the Very Elderly Trial whilst also discursively evaluating the latest data.
Duke Twins Study of Memory in Aging in the NAS-NRC Twin Registry

Abstract The Duke Twins Study of Memory in Aging is an ongoing, longitudinal study of cognitive change and dementia in the population-based National Academy of Sciences-National Research Council (NAS-NRC) Twin Registry of World War II Male Veterans. The primary goal of this study has been to estimate the overall genetic and environmental contributions to dementia with a specific focus on Alzheimer's disease. An additional goal has been to examine specific genetic and environmental antecedents of cognitive decline and dementia. Since 1989, we have completed 4 waves of data collection. Each wave included a 2-phase telephone cognitive screening protocol, followed by an in-home standardized clinical assessment for those with suspected dementia. For many participants, we have obtained postmortem neuro-pathological confirmation of the diagnosis of dementia. In addition to data on cognition, we have also collected information on occupational history, medical history, medications and other lifetime experiences that may influence cognitive function in late life. We provide an overview of the study's methodology and describe the focus of recent research.
Immunophenotype and function of CD38-expressing CD4+ and CD8+ T cells in HIV-infected patients undergoing suppressive combination antiretroviral therapy.

TO THE EDITOR—We have read with great interest the recent articles by Tenorio et al and Hunt et al that investigated inflammation , coagulation, and T-cell activation as predictors of clinical outcome in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-positive patients receiving combination antiretroviral therapy (cART) [1, 2]. Interestingly, while inflammation/coagu-lation and gut damage were independently associated with mortality and non-AIDS morbidity, T-cell activation was not significantly related to these outcomes. CD38 is commonly regarded as a T-cell activation marker, and circulating CD38 + CD8 + T cells have been strongly correlated with disease progression in untreated HIV infection [3, 4]. Upon sup-pressive cART, levels of CD38 + CD8 + T cells remain abnormally elevated [5], and yet their prognostic significance is less clear [6, 7]. Whether activated T cells are associated with increased mor-bidity/mortality is not a trivial question, given the need for novel interventions to contain excessive inflammation/immune activation during cART and surrogate biomarkers of clinical outcome. The data reported by Tenorio et al and Hunt et al for relatively large cohorts of virolog-ically suppressed subjects seem to conclude that CD38 expression on CD8 + T cells does not associate with disease outcome. The apparent discrepancy with results from untreated patients led us to speculate regarding the existence of CD38 + CD8 + subpopulations with a distinctive phenotype and function in cART-naive HIV-positive individuals, compared with HIV-positive cART recipients. We therefore investigated the immune phenotype and function of CD4 + /CD8
Multiple antibiotic resistance gene recruitment onto the enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli virulence plasmid

Enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC) strains are zoonotic pathogens responsible for a range of severe human disease. The repertoire of virulence determinants promoting EHEC disease is encoded on both the main chromosome and virulence plasmid. We examined a multiply antibiotic‐resistant O26 EHEC strain for carriage of resistance genes on the virulence plasmid. The EHEC virulence plasmid containing a complex antibiotic‐resistance gene locus, designated as pO26‐CRL, was purified from EHEC O26:H− (patient with hemorrhagic colitis) and subjected to shotgun‐sequencing and bioinformatic analysis. Determination of the 111,481‐bp sequence of pO26‐CRL revealed genes encoding a functional enterohemolysin operon (ehxCABD), STEC‐specific extracellular serine protease (espP), putative EHEC adhesin (tooxB)ļ catalase/peroxidase (katP), and myristoyl transferase (msbB) involved in lipid A synthesis. A 22,609‐bp Tn21 derivative is inserted within the conjugal transfer gene traC and encodes resistance to trimethoprim, streptomycin, sulfathiozole, kanamycin, neomycin, β‐lactams, and mercuric chloride. Plasmid pO26‐CRL is nonconjugative but is mobilizable. This is the first report of an EHEC virulence plasmid containing a complex antibiotic resistance locus, and raises the concern that antibiotic use will coselect for virulence determinants, leading to increased disease potential in both commensal and pathogenic E. coli populations. —Venturini, C. , Beatson, S. A. , Djordjevic, S. P., Walker, M. J. Multiple antibiotic resistance gene recruitment onto the enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli virulence plasmid. FASEB J. 24, 1160–1166 (2010). www.fasebj. org
Characterization of Microtubule‐Associated Protein 2 from Mouse Brain and Its Localization in the Cerebellar Cortex

Abstract: Microtubule‐associated protein (MAP) 2 was purified from the microtubule fraction of mouse brain by heat treatment and BioGel A‐5m gel nitration. The purified preparation showed a single protein band on sodium dodecyl sul‐fate‐polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis using both a gradient gel (3.75–12.5%) and a low‐percentage gel (5%), a finding indicating that MAP2B was absent under the conditions used. Amino acid analysis revealed that mouse MAP2 was an acidic protein with an isoelectric point (pI 4.5) and amino acid composition similar to close of porcine brain MAP2. Im‐munoblot analysis indicated that the antigens that reacted with MAP2 antiserum were present in large quantities in mouse brain. However, we also found a weak reaction in various tissues other than brain, and the major antigens involved were recognized to be common molecular species with the same molecular mass, 162 and 170 kilodaltons. Using antiserum against mouse brain MAP2, the developmental localization patterns of MAP2 in the mouse cerebellar cortex were studied by immunohistochemistry. MAP2 was mainly localized in the neuronal cells throughout development, with the expression in Purkinje cell dendrites being especially remarkable in the growth of arborization from postnatal day 3 to day 20. At the mature stage, the reaction was strong in the dendritic tree but very weak in the proximal dendrites and cell bodies.
Active Warming During Cesarean Delivery

We tested the hypothesis that 15 min of forced-air prewarming, combined with intraoperative warming, prevents hypothermia and shivering in patients undergoing elective cesarean delivery. We simultaneously tested the hypothesis that maintaining maternal normothermia increases newborn temperature, umbilical vein pH, and Apgar scores. Thirty patients undergoing elective cesarean delivery were randomly assigned to forced-air warming or to passive insulation. Warming started 15 min before the induction of epidural anesthesia. Core temperature was measured at the tympanic membrane, and shivering was graded by visual inspection. Patients evaluated their thermal sensation with visual analog scales. Rectal temperature and umbilical pH were measured in the infants after birth. Results were compared with unpaired, two-tailed Student’s t-tests and &khgr;2 tests. Core temperatures after 2 h of anesthesia were greater in the actively warmed (37.1°C ± 0.4°C) than in the unwarmed (36.0°C ± 0.5°C;P < 0.01) patients. Shivering was observed in 2 of 15 warmed and 9 of 15 unwarmed mothers (P < 0.05). Babies of warmed mothers had significantly greater core temperatures (37.1°C ± 0.5°C vs 36.2°C ± 0.6°C) and umbilical vein pH (7.32 ± 0.07 vs 7.24 ± 0.07).
The forward and inverse problems of electrocardiography.

This article summarizes the theoretical underpinnings of both the forward and inverse problems of electrocardiography. Space limitations prohibit describing all of the research work done in these areas, and the author apologizes in advance for any omissions on this account or due to oversight. The article should enable one to gain a better qualitative and quantitative understanding of the heart's electrical activity.
Fostering independence in health-promoting exercise

The Integrated Model of Physical Activity and Disability was used to design a strength and aerobic exercise program for adults with intellectual disability participating in Special Olympics. This study examined the extent to which four participants could acquire exercise skills in a face-to-face context and apply these skills at home with indirect support. Adherence to the program, as well as program satisfaction, was examined. Participants were able to acquire the strength skills and most were able to use these skills at home with minimal support. The participants liked the approach, in particular the individualized planning and follow-up via telephone calls. These participants were able to use an exercise DVD independently at home and three of the four participants showed a threefold increase in exercise frequency. The utility of the approach lies in the capacity to extend the reach of face-to-face programs beyond tangible constraints such as facilities and staff availability.
Low expression of interferon regulatory factor‐1 and identification of novel exons skipping in patients with chronic myeloid leukaemia

Summary. Chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML) is a malignant clonal disorder of the haematopoietic stem cell. Treatment of CML patients with interferon alpha (IFN‐α) has induced haematological and cytogenetic remission. Interferons transcriptionally activate target genes through the JAK–STAT and interferon regulated factors (IRFs) family pathways. Interferon regulated factor‐1 (IRF‐1) is a transcriptional activator of genes critical for cell growth, differentiation and apoptosis. The skipping of exons 2 or 2 and 3 of IRF‐1 in patients with myelodysplastic syndromes and acute myelogenous leukaemia suggests that this factor may have a critical role in leukaemogenesis. The role of IRF‐1 in CML is currently unknown. Therefore, mutational analysis of IRF‐1 was performed and its expression pattern was also studied in CML patients. We studied IRF‐1 in peripheral blood mononuclear cells of 21 patients in chronic phase CML. No point mutations were identified at the cDNA level. Surprisingly, fourfold reduction of full‐length IRF‐1 mRNA expression was established in 17/21 patients compared with normal individuals. Low expression of full‐length IRF‐1 was observed in conjunction with high levels of aberrantly spliced mRNAs, reported for the first time. In three patients who were also analysed during blastic transformation, further reduction of full‐length IRF‐1 mRNA was observed. These findings demonstrate that, in CML patients, IRF‐1 can produce high levels of aberrant spliced mRNAs with subsequent reduction in the levels of full‐length IRF‐1 mRNA. This observation is consistent with the notion that exon skipping may constitute another mechanism of tumour suppressor gene inactivation in this disease.
Effects of gender, alcohol, smoking, and dairy consumption on bone mass in Wisconsin adolescents.

INTRODUCTION Failure to attain peak bone mass during adolescence may be an important contributor to the development of osteoporosis. METHODS This prospective, descriptive study evaluated the relationship between osteoporosis risk factors and attainment of bone mass in 239 Wisconsin high school students. Students completed an annual risk assessment questionnaire that included questions about dairy intake, alcohol use, and smoking. Heel bone mineral density (BMD) was measured in the 9th grade (year 1) and 12th grade (year 4). RESULTS A total of 109 students were included in the final analysis of a covariance model used to predict year 4 BMD. The model included separate year 1 BMD slope and intercept terms for males and females and indicator variables for adequate dairy intake and combined alcohol habits or smoking habits (overall P<0.001, multiple r2=0.871). The predicted year 4 BMD for females was 0.07 g/cm2 plus 85.6% of their year 1 BMD. For males, predicted year 4 BMD was 0.008 g/cm2 plus 110% of their year 1 BMD. Self-reported dairy intake of > or = 4 servings per day was associated with a 0.032 g/cm2 increase in BMD, while self-reported smoking or alcohol use was associated with a decrease in BMD of 0.028 g/cm2. CONCLUSIONS Alcohol or smoking had a significant negative effect on bone density, whereas adequate dairy intake (>4 servings per day) had a favorable effect in Wisconsin adolescents. Sex differences in bone density growth were clearly identified, with males tending to gain BMD and females tending to lose BMD by year 4.
Análise de trilha sob multicolinearidade em pimentão

The main goals of this work were: a) to display genotype correlations in direct and indirect effects of primary and secondary components on the production of fruits, in green pepper (Capsicum annuum L.) genotypes, by mean of path analysis; b) to compare alternative methods of estimation of the path coefficients to avoid the adverse effects of multicollinearity. Based on the magnitude of direct and indirect effects, none of the primary or secondary components showed to be more important in the selection of more productive genotypes. In segregating populations, the character height of the plant might be useful in correlated response, by means of indirect selection. In the occurrence of moderate to severe multicollinearity between the characters, the elimination of variables from the regression model and the ridge path analysis showed to be efficient in reducing the high variances of the path coefficients found. However, when several variables need to be eliminated, the disposal process becomes difficult and many analysis might be necessary. Ridge path analysis, although, should by-pass the adverse effects of multicollinearity, without having great reduction on the coefficient determination values of the regression models.
In vivo platelet activation in ischemic stroke patients.

To the Editor: Recently, Marquardt et al1 addressed the important issue of evaluating markers for monitoring patients after ischemic stroke. They evaluated the expression of the platelet activation markers CD62P and CD63 by flow cytometry for 90 days after ischemic stroke. They showed that although both markers are initially increased, the expression of CD62P decreases rapidly and by day 14 is no longer significantly increased, while that of CD63 remains elevated for the study period. The expression of both antigens was independent of the inflammation markers studied, indicating that expression of platelet neoantigens might be used as an additional marker for monitoring these patients. Expression was not influenced by the different medications for secondary stroke prevention, suggesting that they might reflect mechanisms that could predict future vascular events. These results are very interesting because definition of reliable laboratory markers for diagnosing ischemic stroke, monitoring treatment, and predicting recurrence is a very important issue, particularly in the view of new and effective treatments that, however, are associated with significant complications.2,3 We performed a study investigating the expression of CD62P and CD63 antigens on circulating platelets in patients with acute ischemic disease on admission and after initiation of …
BRAF mutations are detectable in conjunctival but not uveal melanomas

Activating mutations in exon 15 of BRAF have been detected in a high proportion of cutaneous melanomas. To determine whether such mutations are a feature of conjunctival or uveal melanomas, we screened DNA from these tumours. Twenty-one conjunctival and 88 uveal tumours were included in the study. Mutation analysis of BRAF exons 11 and 15 was undertaken using a combination of conformationally sensitive gel electrophoresis and direct sequencing. Mutations in exon 15 were detected in three of the conjunctival tumours (two V599E and one E585 K). None of the uveal tumours possessed a BRAF mutation in either exon 15 or 11. We conclude that uveal melanomas arise independently of oncogenic BRAF mutations, but the development of a proportion of conjunctival tumours involves mutation of this gene.
A modification of jerne's theory of antibody production using the concept of clonal selection

There are three current theoretical inter pretations of antibody production which, following Talmage (1957), may be referredto as the directtemplate theoryinwhich theantigenservesasa template against which the specific pat tern of the antibody is synthesized, the indirect template theory which postu lates a secondary template incorporated intothegenetic-synthetic processesof the antibody producing cells (Burnet, 1956), and the natural selection theory in which the antigen acts essentially by selection for excess production of natu ral antibody molecules of corresponding type (Jerne, 1955). The two latter theories were devised primarily to account for two sets of phe nomena for which the direct template theory seems quite irrelevant. The first is the absence of immunological re sponse to â€œ¿ selfâ€• constituents and the related phenomena of immunological tolerance; thesecondistheevidencethat antibody production can continue in the absence of antigen. Some means for the recognition anddifferentiation ofpoten tially antigenic components of the body from foreign organic material must be provided in any acceptable formulation. In Burnet and Fenner's (1949) account, a positive recognition of â€œ¿ selfâ€• material was ascribed to the presence of â€œ¿ self markersâ€• in all potentially antigenic macromolecules, and corresponding recognition units in the scavenger cells of the body. At the time it was regarded as inconceivable that a mechanism could exist which would recognise in positive fashion all foreign material and no at tempt was made to devise one, despite the fact that we have always recognised the clumsy character of the self-marker, self-recognition scheme. It is the great virtue of Jerne's hypoth esis that it provides an approach to this alternative method of recognising self from not self. There is no doubt about the presence in all mammalian or avian sera of a wide range of reactive globulins whichcan legitimately be calledâ€œ¿ natu ral antibodies. â€• Jerne assumed that amongst these globulin molecules were all the possible patterns needed for spe cific immunological type reaction with any antigen, except for those patterns corresponding to body antigens which would be eliminated by in vivo absorp tion. When a foreign antigen enters the blood it unites, according to Jerne's scheme, with one of the corresponding natural antibody molecules. The com plex is taken up by a phagocytic cell in which the antigen plays no further part, but the antibody globulin provokes the Reprinted from The Australian Journal of Science 20 (3): 67-69, 1957.
Different Models and Approaches of Textual Entailment Recognition

Variability of semantic expression is a fundamental phenomenon of a natural language where same meaning can be expressed by different texts. The process of inferring a text from another is called textual entailment. Textual Entailment is useful in a wide range of applications, including question answering, summarization, text generation, and machine translation. The recognition of textual entailment is one of the recent challenges of the Natural Language Processing (NLP) domain. This paper summarizes key ideas from the area of textual entailment recognition by considering in turn the different recognition models. The paper points to prominent testing data, training data, resources and Performance Evaluation for each model. Also this paper compares between textual entailment models according to the method which used, the result of each method and the strong and weakness of each method.
Centrin/Cdc31 Is a Novel Regulator of Protein Degradation

ABSTRACT Rad23 is required for efficient protein degradation and performs an important role in nucleotide excision repair. Saccharomyces cerevisiae Rad23, and its human counterpart (hHR23), are present in a complex containing the DNA repair factor Rad4 (termed XPC, for xeroderma pigmentosum group C, in humans). XPC/hHR23 was also reported to bind centrin-2, a member of the superfamily of calcium-binding EF-hand proteins. We report here that yeast centrin, which is encoded by CDC31, is similarly present in a complex with Rad4/Rad23 (called NEF2). The interaction between Cdc31 and Rad23/Rad4 varied by growth phase and reflected oscillations in Cdc31 levels. Strikingly, a cdc31 mutant that formed a weaker interaction with Rad4 showed sensitivity to UV light. Based on the dual function of Rad23, in both DNA repair and protein degradation, we questioned if Cdc31 also participated in protein degradation. We report here that Cdc31 binds the proteasome and multiubiquitinated proteins through its carboxy-terminal EF-hand motifs. Moreover, cdc31 mutants were highly sensitive to drugs that cause protein damage, failed to efficiently degrade proteolytic substrates, and formed altered interactions with the proteasome. These findings reveal for the first time a new role for centrin/Cdc31 in protein degradation.
A Method for Modeling the Battery State of Charge in Wireless Sensor Networks

In this paper, we propose a method for obtaining an analytic model of the battery state-of-charge in wireless sensor nodes. The objective is to find simple models that can be used to estimate accurately the real battery state and consequently the node lifetime. Running the model in the network nodes, we can provide the motes with the required information to implement applications that can be considered as battery-aware. The proposed methodology reduces the computational complexity of the model avoiding complicated electrochemical simulations and treating the battery as an unknown system with an output that can be predicted using simple mathematical models. At a first stage, during a setup period, the method starts with the measurement of several battery parameters under different environmental and operational conditions. After that, the method uses the previous collected data for building mathematical models, considering the linear regression or multilayer perceptron as the most appropriated. Finally, the models are validated experimentally with new measures. Results show the suitability of the method that produces accurate and simple models, capable of being implemented even in low cost and very constrained real motes.
Risk Management Skills Needed in A Packaged Software Environment

Abstract More organizations than ever are licensing software, contracting out development projects, and using purchased components in their development efforts. Such innovations can speed development time, reduce project costs, and enable an organization to prosper with a smaller development staff. However, the new development techniques also pose risks. IS managers can help mitigate the danger to their organizations by honing their hard-won abilities, applying them to the new software environment, and learning some new skills.