Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Transplantation of thymus tissue in complete DiGeorge syndrome.

BACKGROUND The DiGeorge syndrome is a congenital disorder that affects the heart, parathyroid glands, and thymus. In complete DiGeorge syndrome, patients have severely reduced T-cell function. METHODS We treated five infants (age, one to four months) with complete DiGeorge syndrome by transplantation of cultured postnatal thymus tissue. Follow-up evaluations included immune phenotyping and proliferative studies of peripheral-blood mononuclear cells plus biopsy of the thymus allograft. Thymic production of new T cells was assessed in peripheral blood by tests for T-cell-receptor recombination excision circles, which are formed from excised DNA during the rearrangement of T-cell-receptor genes. RESULTS After the transplantation of thymus tissue, T-cell proliferative responses to mitogens developed in four of the five patients. Two of the patients survived with restoration of immune function; three patients died from infection or abnormalities unrelated to transplantation. Biopsies of grafted thymus in the surviving patients showed normal morphologic features and active T-cell production. In three patients, donor T cells could be detected about four weeks after transplantation, although there was no evidence of graft-versus-host disease on biopsy or at autopsy. In one patient, the T-cell development within the graft was demonstrated to accompany the appearance of recently developed T cells in the periphery and coincided with the onset of normal T-cell function. In one patient, there was evidence of thymus function and CD45RA+CD62L+ T cells more than five years after transplantation. CONCLUSIONS In some infants with profound immunodeficiency and complete DiGeorge syndrome, the transplantation of thymus tissue can restore normal immune function. Early thymus transplantation - before the development of infectious complications - may promote successful immune reconstitution.
In Vitro Activities of Voriconazole in Combination with Three Other Antifungal Agents against Candida glabrata

ABSTRACT Candida glabrata has recently emerged as a significant pathogen involved in both superficial and deep-seated infections. In the present study, a checkerboard broth microdilution method was performed to investigate the in vitro activities of voriconazole (VOR) in combination with terbinafine (TRB), amphotericin B (AMB), and flucytosine (5FC) against 20 clinical isolates of C. glabrata. Synergy, defined as a fractional inhibitory concentration (FIC) index of ≤0.50, was observed in 75% of VOR-TRB, 10% of VOR-AMB, and 5% of VOR-5FC interactions. None of these combinations yielded antagonistic interactions (FIC index > 4). When synergy was not achieved, there was still a decrease in the MIC of one or both drugs used in the combination. In particular, the MICs were reduced to ≤1.0 μg/ml as a result of the combination for all isolates for which the AMB MIC at the baseline was ≥2.0 μg/ml. By a disk diffusion assay, the halo diameters produced by antifungal agents in combination were greater that those produced by each drug alone. Finally, killing curves showed that VOR-AMB exhibited synergistic interactions, while VOR-5FC sustained fungicidal activities against C. glabrata. These studies demonstrate that the in vitro activity of VOR against this important yeast pathogen can be enhanced upon combination with other drugs that have different modes of action or that target a different step in the ergosterol pathway. Further studies are warranted to elucidate the potential beneficial effects of such combination regimens in vivo.
Design of the Rosuvastatin Pretreatment to Reduce Embolization during Carotid Artery Stenting trial

Background Carotid artery stenting (CAS) is a worldwide diffuse intervention, but may be associated with distal plaque component embolization, and sometimes major and minor stroke. Statin use has been demonstrated to reduce atherosclerotic plaque burden, but its effect in reducing distal embolization during carotid stenting has not yet been well validated. Aims With the Rosuvastatin Pretreatment to Reduce Embolization during Carotid Artery Stenting trial, we aim to discover if a pretreatement with high doses of rosuvastatin in dyslipidemic patients is able to reduce periprocedural cerebral ischemic complications following carotid stenting. Methods This is a phase III prospective, randomized controlled trial. All consecutive patients with asymptomatic carotid stenosis at least 80% will be randomized to a 6-week rosuvastatin treatment followed by carotid stenting, and to direct carotid stenting. Carotid stenting will be performed following common practice with distal or proximal embolic protection. The primary efficacy end point of the trial will be the prevalence of ‘relevant’ embolization during CAS, as a surrogate end point for cerebral ischemic complications. Other laboratory and clinical data will be registered and patients will be followed up to 1 year. In order to obtain the expected superiority of statin pretreatment on primary end point, a population of 130 patients will be enrolled into the study. Conclusion In conclusion, with the Rosuvastatin Pretreatment to Reduce Embolization during Carotid Artery Stenting trial, we want to evaluate whether a high dose of rosuvastatin for 6 weeks before CAS in asymptomatic patients with severe carotid stenosis is able to reduce the rate of plaque embolization during the procedure, thus suggesting a possible reduction in cerebral ischemic complications.
Antiangiogenic effects of spironolactone and other potassium-sparing diuretics in human umbilical vein endothelial cells and in fibrin gel chambers implanted in rats

Objective Potassium-sparing diuretics have different effects on angiogenesis that may mediate some abilities to treat cardiovascular diseases. The aim of the current study was to compare the effects of spironolactone and an active metabolite, canrenone, or a derivative, eplerenone, and amiloride, a diuretic without affecting mineralocorticoid activity, on the proliferation of human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC) and on angiogenesis in fibrin gel chambers implanted in rats. Materials and methods We measured the effects of spironolactone, canrenone, eplerenone, and amiloride on the proliferation of HUVEC in the presence or absence of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF). We also examined the effects of these compounds on migration and capillary tube formation by HUVEC. Finally, the effects of the compounds on neovessel formation in vivo were investigated by implanting Wistar rats for 14 days with perforated Plexiglas chambers containing rat fibrin. Results Spironolactone and amiloride inhibited the proliferation of HUVEC, but canrenone and eplerenone had no effect. The inhibitory effect of spironolactone was not prevented by VEGF or bFGF. Aldosterone had no effect on spironolactone-induced inhibition of HUVEC proliferation. Spironolactone induced a dose-dependent reduction of both cell chemotaxis and capillary tube formation. In fibrin gel chambers, spironolactone and amiloride significantly reduced the numbers of both peripheral and central neovessels. Canrenone and eplerenone, in contrast, had no antiangiogenic effect. Conclusion Spironolactone and amiloride significantly inhibited angiogenesis in vitro and in the fibrin gel chamber in vivo. Spironolactone antiangiogenic effects are unrelated to antimineralocorticoid activity.
Bullous allergic contact dermatitis to lidocaine

A 54-year-old woman developed a severe perianal eczematous reaction a few days after applying a lidocaine cream for haemorrhoids. She had used this cream approximately once a year, without any problem. The general practitioner prescribed TriAnal® (WillPharma BV, Zwanenburg, The Netherlands) to treat the perianal dermatitis. This worsened the dermatitis with bullae, swelling, erosions, and extending it to the genital region. An internal cause was suspected and the patient was referred to a proctologist after the dermatitis resolved. She was examined twice, using Urogliss® (Montavit
Management of Incidental Findings in Clinical Genomic Sequencing

Genomic sequencing is becoming accurate, fast, and inexpensive, and is rapidly being incorporated into clinical practice. Incidental findings, which result in large numbers from genomic sequencing, are a potential barrier to the utility of this new technology due to their high prevalence and the lack of evidence or guidelines available to guide their clinical interpretation. This unit reviews the definition, classification, and management of incidental findings from genomic sequencing. The unit focuses on the clinical aspects of handling incidental findings, with an emphasis on the key role of clinical context in defining incidental findings and determining their clinical relevance and utility. Curr. Protoc. Hum. Genet. 77:9.23. 1‐9.23. 13. © 2013 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Digital control of isolated two-stage DC-DC converter with synchronization considered

The green energy transfer with isolation is used to transfer the energy which can not be used directly to the energy which can be utilized directly. This is achieved via switching control, i.e. duty-cycle control. However, by this way, the low-duty cycle is likely to deteriorate the utilization effectiveness of semiconductor devices and magnetic components. Consequently, to conquer this problem, a novel control topology is proposed herein and applied to a two-stage isolated voltage-boosting DCDC converter with synchronization of gate driving signals considered, along with some simulated and experimental results provided to demonstrate its feasibility.
Selenium content in the blood serum and urine of ewes receiving selenium-enriched unicellular alga Chlorella

The effect of selenium supplementation in inorganic and organic form was investigated in three five-member groups of ewes and their lambs in the course of 7 months. The basal feed ration contained 55 µg Se, ewes of experimental group E1 received a supplement of 180 µg Se in sodium selenite, and ewes of experimental group E2 were applied a supplement of 180 µg selenium bound in the biomass of the alga Chlorella. Control group C did not receive any selenium. The ewes were in the stage of non pregnant, pregnancy and lactation during the experiment. Average contents of Se in the blood serum of ewes were as follows: E1 114.2 ± 23.6; E2 103.1 ± 20.3; C 68.6 ± 16.8 µg/l (P < 0.001). A decrease in serum Se was recorded in all groups in the last third of pregnancy and in the first week post partum. Average contents of urinary selenium contents were also higher in experimental groups: E1 25.4 ± 13.5; E2 18.7 ± 9.6; C 13.3 ± 4.5 µg/l (P < 0.001). The positive effect of supplementation of Se to ewes was reflected in its higher average concentration in the blood serum of born lambs: E1 48.5 ± 7.3; E2 53.5 ± 3.4; C 30.3 ± 7.4 µg/l (P < 0.05). The effect of selenium bound in Chlorella biomass was higher and persisted until 30 days of lamb age: E1 52.9 ± 3.4; E2 59.0 ± 7.0; C 35.5 ± 5.8 µg/l (P < 0.01). The average number of lambs born per ewe was 1.0 in group C and E1, and 1.8 in group E2.
Strategic Alliances in Health Care: The Challenges of Cooperation

Summary As many industries face uncertain and changing environments, strategic alliances are rapidly emerging as a vehicle for interorganizational cooperation. Similarly in health care, alliances represent a mechanism for organizations to seek collaborative solutions to common problems. Drawing on a general typology, alliances in health care are categorized as service, opportunistic, or stakeholder alliances. Existing health care alliances serve to illustrate and characterize the purpose, structure, and operation of each of the three types. Strategic alliances offer significant challenges in managing the inherently fragile relationships within these emerging organizational forms. These challenges center around issues of commitment (v. control) as the underlying managerial philosophy; expectations for alliance performance; managing relationships, communication, and operations; member participation in alliance programs and activities; and stability of alliances over time. Alliances require new ways of thinking about organizations. Sensitivity to their unique characteristics and understanding the factors that can lead to their success are essential to managing them effectively.
Effect of doubly fed induction generator based wind farms on the small signal stability of multi-machine power system

Wind energy is considered to be the most technically and economically viable among all renewable energy sources. Recent technologies related to wind energy are mostly equipped with doubly fed induction generator (DFIG) because of its several advantages. In this paper a study on the impacts of DFIGs on large multi-machine system on aspects of small signal stability is presented. It is shown that improvement in small signal stability of a large multi machine system is location dependent. Also the optimum loading of DFIG is determined in terms of some sensitivity analysis.
Human Cytomegalovirus Infection Induces Rapamycin-Insensitive Phosphorylation of Downstream Effectors of mTOR Kinase

ABSTRACT Signaling mediated by the cellular kinase mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) activates cap-dependent translation under normal (nonstressed) conditions. However, translation is inhibited by cellular stress responses or rapamycin treatment, which inhibit mTOR kinase activity. We show that during human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) infection, viral protein synthesis and virus production proceed relatively normally when mTOR kinase activity is inhibited due to hypoxic stress or rapamycin treatment. Using rapamycin inhibition of mTOR, we show that HCMV infection induces phosphorylation of two mTOR effectors, eucaryotic initiation factor 4E (eIF4E) binding protein (4E-BP) and eIF4G. The virally induced phosphorylation of eIF4G is both mTOR and phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) independent, whereas the phosphorylation of 4E-BP is mTOR independent, but PI3K dependent. HCMV infection does not induce mTOR-independent phosphorylation of a third mTOR effector, p70S6 kinase (p70S6K). We show that the HCMV-induced phosphorylation of eIF4G and 4E-BP correlates with the association of eIF4E, the cap binding protein, with eIF4G in the eIF4F translation initiation complex. Thus, HCMV induces mechanisms to maintain the integrity of the eIF4F complex even when mTOR signaling is inhibited.
PU text classification enhanced by term frequency–inverse document frequency‐improved weighting

Term frequency–inverse document frequency (TF–IDF), one of the most popular feature (also called term or word) weighting methods used to describe documents in the vector space model and the applications related to text mining and information retrieval, can effectively reflect the importance of the term in the collection of documents, in which all documents play the same roles. But, TF–IDF does not take into account the difference of term IDF weighting if the documents play different roles in the collection of documents, such as positive and negative training set in text classification. In view of the aforementioned text, this paper presents a novel TF–IDF‐improved feature weighting approach, which reflects the importance of the term in the positive and the negative training examples, respectively. We also build a weighted voting classifier by iteratively applying the support vector machine algorithm and implement one‐class support vector machine and Positive Example Based Learning methods used for comparison. During classifying, an improved 1‐DNF algorithm, called 1‐DNFC, is also adopted, aiming at identifying more reliable negative documents from the unlabeled examples set. The experimental results show that the performance of term frequency inverse positive–negative document frequency‐based classifier outperforms that of TF–IDF‐based one, and the performance of weighted voting classifier also exceeds that of one‐class support vector machine‐based classifier and Positive Example Based Learning‐based classifier. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
THE EFFECTS ON INTELLECTUAL FUNCTIONING OF OPEN PREFRONTAL LEUCOTOMY

The Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale and the Wechsler Memory Scale were administered to 32 patients both before and six months after they received open prefrontal leucotomies. The preoperative and postoperative test results are compared, consideration being given to individual patients as well as to the group. The mean results for the group provide no evidence of any postoperative intellectual deterioration. However, it seems probable that in individual cases such deterioration occurred. In most of these cases brain damage would appear to be responsible, and the ability “to comprehend and size up a total situation” is seen as the area of functioning primarily affected.
Regulation of Stomatal Defense by Air Relative Humidity1[OPEN]

High relative humidity suppresses Pseudomonas syringae-triggered stomatal closure by regulating hormone signaling in guard cells. It has long been observed that environmental conditions play crucial roles in modulating immunity and disease in plants and animals. For instance, many bacterial plant disease outbreaks occur after periods of high humidity and rain. A critical step in bacterial infection is entry into the plant interior through wounds and natural openings, such as stomata, which are adjustable microscopic pores in the epidermal tissue. Several studies have shown that stomatal closure is an integral part of the plant immune response to reduce pathogen invasion. In this study, we found that high humidity can effectively compromise Pseudomonas syringae-triggered stomatal closure in both Phaseolus vulgaris and Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana), which is accompanied by early up-regulation of the jasmonic acid (JA) pathway and simultaneous down-regulation of salicylic acid (SA) pathway in guard cells. Furthermore, SA-dependent response, but not JA-dependent response, is faster in guard cells than in whole leaves, suggesting that the SA signaling in guard cells may be independent from other cell types. Thus, we conclude that high humidity, a well-known disease-promoting environmental condition, acts in part by suppressing stomatal defense and is linked to hormone signaling in guard cells.
Infectivity of hepatic allografts with antibodies to hepatitis B virus.

BACKGROUND Since suitable recipients for hepatic allografts from donors with antibodies to hepatitis B virus (HBV) have not been determined, a review of our 7-year experience with donors positive for hepatitis B surface antibody (anti-HBs), hepatitis B core antibody (anti-HBc), or both was undertaken. METHODS Recipients of hepatic allografts from donors with antibodies to HBV were identified by a retrospective review of procurement records and screened for HBV infection. RESULTS From January 1, 1990, to January 1, 1997, 2578 liver transplants were performed and 140 (5.4%) recipients received an allograft from a donor with antibodies to HBV. Twenty-five of 48 recipients of a hepatic allograft from a donor positive only for anti-HBs were screened and none developed HBV infection. Twenty-five of 41 naive recipients of a hepatic allograft from an anti-HBc positive donor were screened and 18/25 (72%) developed HBV infection. Four of these 18 naive recipients with HBV infection received an allograft from a donor positive for both anti-HBc and anti-HBs. Seven of 13 anti-HBs-positive recipients of an allograft from an anti-HBc-positive donor were screened and none developed HBV infection. Fifteen of 16 recipients positive only for anti-HBc who received a hepatic allograft from an anti-HBc-positive donor were screened and 2/15 (13%) developed HBV infection. CONCLUSIONS Hepatic allografts from donors positive only for anti-HBs do not transmit HBV infection. Hepatic allografts from anti-HBc-positive donors frequently transmit HBV infection to naive recipients regardless of the donor anti-HBs status, and antiviral prophylaxis may be indicated. Anti-HBs-positive recipients appear resistant to HBV infection after orthotopic liver transplantation with an allograft from an anti-HBc-positive donor. Recipients positive only for anti-HBc infrequently develop HBV infection when transplanted with an allograft from an anti-HBc-positive donor; however, HBV prophylaxis may be justified.
Reducing the measurement time of the Best Linear Approximation of a nonlinear system using improved averaging methods

The Best Linear Approximation to a nonlinear system is traditionally measured as a sample mean, considering that for linear systems it is the minimum variance Maximum Likelihood estimate for Gaussian excitations. This minimum variance is the basis of the usual measurement time vs. measurement quality trade-off and design. However due to a nonlinearity the sample mean is no more an optimal estimate and in consequently its variance is not an attainable theoretical minimum and can be improved. By using a limited a priori knowledge about the measured system the measurement time vs. measurement quality trade-off can be made sharper and we present a method where the reduction in the measurement variance can be realized solely as a part of the data processing, without affecting the measurement setup and protocol.
RNA Processing During Early Embryogenesis: Managing Storage, Utilisation and Destruction

The classical model of the life of a messenger RNA (mRNA) is generally depicted as a cascade of typical cellular events initiated with the transcription of the genomic sequence followed by the usual maturation of the produced transcript through splicing of the intronic regions, addition of the cap structure on its 5’ end and polyadenylation of the 3’ end. The mature mRNA is then exported out of the nucleus and sent for translation in the endoplasmic reticulum where it will serve as template/blueprint for the production of the encoded protein. The typical life cycle of an mRNA is then concluded by its decay in cellular structures that take the shape of granules called processing bodies. These well accepted steps offer a general perspective of the life and death of most mRNAs in most cellular contexts. Nonetheless, this general model does not fit well with embryogenesis mainly due to the presence of transcriptionnaly impaired cells composing the early stage embryos. In fact, the stage at which the embryo acquires the potential to transcribe its genome is widely variable between species. For instance, the mouse genome is readily activated following fertilization while in Human; transcription is initiated between the 6 and 8-cell stage. Other non-mammalian species provide more extreme situations amongst which Xenopus leavis represents a prime example of non-classical RNA management as the early embryogenesis is accomplished through 12 cell cycles conducted in the absence of transcriptional activity. In this model organism, the first embryonic cells become transcriptionally active once the embryo is composed of roughly 4,000-8,000 cells. In the absence of transcription, the embryonic cell sustains its protein production using mRNAs found in the stocks that were stored during oogenesis. These stockpiles of transcripts are accumulated during the oocyte growth that took place in the ovary, and are generally accepted as a large component of the maternal legacy that is associated with developmental competence of the resulting embryo once the egg is fertilized. The mechanisms by which the oocyte stores these transcripts are still only partly understood.