Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Polyurethane heart valves: past, present and future

Replacement cardiac valves have been in use since the 1950s, and today represent the most widely used cardiovascular devices. One type of replacement cardiac valve, the polyurethane heart valve, has been around since the first stages of prosthesis development, and has made advances along with the development of biological and mechanical heart valves over the past 60 years. During this time, problems with durability and biocompatibility have held back polyurethane valves, but progress in materials and manufacturing techniques can lead the way to a brighter future for these devices and their huge potential. This article describes previous efforts to manufacture polyurethane heart valves, highlights the challenges of manufacturing and explains the factors influencing durability and successful functioning of such a device.
Síndrome de compresión medular por cáncer

1Radio-Oncologa, Medico Adscrito Unidad de Radioterapia, Servicio de Oncologia, Hospital General de Mexico, OD. Mexico, DF. 2Cirujano Oncologo, Hospital Angeles Metropolitano, Grupo Angeles Servicios de Salud. Director Medico Centro Oncologico Betania. Correspondencia: Dr. Efrain A. Medina Villasenor. Cirujano Oncologo, Hospital Angeles Metropolitano. Tlacotalpan No. 59, Torre Diamante, Consultorio 735, Col. Roma Sur, 06760, Mexico, DF. Telefono: 5858 4039. Pagina web: www.oncologiabetania. com Correo electronico: efra73@hotmail.com T RESUMEN
Impact de la représentation graphique de points d'intérêt sur la perception des distances en réalité augmentée

This paper presents preliminary results of a study aimed at evaluating the effect of different ways of presenting points of interests (POI) in an augmented reality system on distance estimation. Each presentation applies specific combination of depth cues (relative size, occlusion, height, partial occlusion). Preliminary results from seven participants indicate that depth cues included in the design of the POI reduces the underestimation of the distances of the POI. The interfaces that facilitate distance estimation are those that rely both on the use of height in the visual field and relative size but not on occlusion.
RNA recognition by a human antibody against brain cytoplasmic 200 RNA

An efficient strategy for panning and affinity maturation of anti-RNA human monoclonal antibodies from a naïve antigen binding fragment (Fab) combinatorial phage library is described. BC200 RNA was used as an RNA antigen. It is shown that an optimal binding antibody recognizes a domain of BC200 in a structure- and sequence-dependent manner and that, in breast cancer cells, the amount of antibody-recognizable RNA is not correlated with the cellular level of BC200 RNA, indicating that BC200 RNA exists as two distinct forms.
tRNA 3′ processing in yeast involves tRNase Z, Rex1, and Rrp6

It has been known that mRNA 3′-end formation in yeast proceeds through either an endonucleolytic or an exonucleolytic pathway, but the identity of the endonuclease has not been established. This paper demonstrates that tRNase Z is the endonuclease and shows that the enzyme has roles in both the nucleus and the mitochondrian.
Video-based emotion identification using face alignment and support vector machines

This abstract introduces an efficient method for identifying various facial expressions from image inputs. To recognize the emotions of the facial expressions, a number of facial feature points were extracted. The extracted feature points are then transformed to 49-dimensional feature vectors which are robust to scale and translational variations, and the facial emotions are recognized by a support vector machine (SVM). Based on the experimental results, SVM performance was obtained by 50.8% for 6 emotion classification, and 78.0% for 3 emotions.
Diagnosis and management of community-associated MRSA infections in children

The history of antibiotic resistance in Staphylococcus aureus spans more than half a century. Methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) has emerged as an almost ubiquitous pathogen in both the community and hospital settings. The predominant clone responsible for community-associated MRSA, USA300, is a highly successful pathogen, as demonstrated by its rapid global spread and associated morbidity and mortality. The management of MRSA infections in pediatric patients is complicated by the limited number of effective antibiotics that have been well-studied in children. The gold standard antimicrobial, vancomycin, has several shortcomings that have prompted the development of newer agents for the treatment of MRSA disease. Moreover, the emergence of vancomycin-intermediate or -resistant S. aureus, while uncommon, portends a potential new era of resistance that will require research and development of the next generation of antibiotics that act by novel mechanisms.
Overlapping and distinct functions of CstF64 and CstF64τ in mammalian mRNA 3′ processing

The functional relationship between CstF64 and CstF64τ, two paralogous mammalian mRNA 3′ processing factors, is not well understood. Our comprehensive characterization revealed that these two factors are widely expressed in mammalian tissues, have highly similar RNA-binding specificities, but they have overlapping and distinct protein interactomes as well as roles in regulating mRNA alternative polyadenylation.
Doripenem: position in clinical practice

Doripenem is a novel carbapenem with a broad spectrum of activity against Gram-positive pathogens, anerobes and Gram-negative bacteria, including Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Doripenem exhibits rapid bactericidal activity with two- to fourfold lower MIC values for Gram-negative bacteria, compared with other carbapenems such as imipenem. Doripenem is approved for the treatment of complicated intra-abdominal infection and urinary tract infections. It has been successfully used in the treatment of nosocomial and ventilator-associated pneumonia. It has a potential to be the drug of choice for these conditions. This evaluation focuses on the general review of the drug, including mechanisms of resistance, clinical efficacy and the position of doripenem in clinical practice. Stability against numerous β-lactamases, low adverse-event potential and more potent in vitro and possibly in vivo activity against P. aeruginosa and Acinetobacter baumanni compared with existing carbapenems are attractive features.
TB diagnostic tests: how do we figure out their costs?

Tuberculosis continues to be a major global health problem. Lack of accurate, rapid and cost-effective diagnostic tests poses a huge obstacle to global TB control. While several new diagnostic tools are being developed and evaluated for TB, it is important that new tools are introduced for widespread use only after careful validation of accuracy, impact as well as cost–effectiveness in real-world settings. While there are large numbers of studies on the accuracy of TB diagnostic tests, there are few studies that are focused on cost and cost–effectiveness. There are currently no widely accepted standards on how to evaluate costs of a TB test. In this review, we describe the basic approach for computing the costs of TB diagnostic tests, and provide templates for various data elements and parameters that go into the costing analysis. We hope this will pave the way for a standardized methodology for costing of TB diagnostic tests. Such a tool would enable improved and more generalizable costing analyses that can provide a strong foundation for more sophisticated economic analyses that evaluate the full economic and epidemiological impact resulting from the implementation and routine use of performance-verified new and innovative diagnostic tools. This, in turn, will facilitate evidence-based adoption and use of new diagnostics, especially in resource-limited settings.
A Breakthrough Therapy in Relapsed Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia: the Combination of Idelalisib and Rituximab

In a multi-center, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled phase III study reported in the New England Journal of Medicine 1 , the combination of idelalisib and rituximab shows outstanding clinical activity as well as adequate safety in the treatment of relapsed chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) patients.
Over-Qualified or Under-Skilled: A Review of Existing Literature

Mismatches between workers’ competences and what is required by their job are widespread in OECD countries. Studies that use qualifications as proxies for competences suggest that as many as one in four workers could be over-qualified and as many as one in three could be under-qualified for their job. However, there is significant variation across countries and socio-demographic groups. Our meta-analysis of country studies suggests that over 35% of workers are over-qualified in Sweden compared with just 10% in Finland, with most other OECD countries located between these two extremes. There is also extensive evidence that youth are more likely to be over-qualified than their older counterparts and the same is found to be true for immigrant workers compared with a country’s nationals. On the other hand, no definitive evidence has been found of the persistence of qualification mismatch, with some papers showing that over-qualification is just a temporary phenomenon that most workers overcome through career mobility and others finding infrequent transitions between over-qualification and good job matches. Across the board, over-qualified workers are found to earn less than their equally-qualified and well-matched counterparts but more than appropriately-qualified workers doing the same job. Under-qualified workers are found to earn more than their equally-qualified and well-matched counterparts but less than appropriately-qualified workers doing the same job. Over-qualified workers are also found to be less satisfied about their job and more likely to leave their work than well-matched workers with the same qualifications….
Comparison between phenylephrine and ephedrine in preventing hypotension during spinal anesthesia for cesarean section

Background: Maternal hemodynamic changes are common during spinal anesthesia for cesarean delivery. Many agents are used for treating hypotension. In this study we compared the efficacy of ephedrine and phenylephrine in preventing and treating hypotension in spinal anesthesia for cesarean section and their effect on fetal outcome. Materials and Methods: A total of 100 ASA Grade I patients undergoing elective cesarean section under spinal anesthesia with a normal singleton pregnancy beyond 36 weeks gestation were randomly allocated into two groups of 50 each. Group I received prophylactic bolus dose of ephedrine 10 mg IV at the time of intrathecal block with rescue boluses of 5 mg. Group II received prophylactic bolus dose of phenylephrine 100 μg IV at the time of intrathecal block with rescue boluses of 50 μg. Hemodynamic variables like blood pressure and heart rate was recorded every 2 minutes up to delivery of baby and then after every 5 minutes. Neonatal outcome was assessed using Apgar score at 1 and 5 minutes and neonatal umbilical cord blood pH values. Results: There was no difference found in managing hypotension between two groups. Incidence of bradycardia was higher in phenylephrine group. The differences in umbilical cord pH, Apgar score, and birth weight between two groups were found statistically insignificant. Conclusion: Phenylephrine and ephedrine are equally efficient in managing hypotension during spinal anesthesia for elective cesarean delivery. There was no difference between two vasopressors in the incidence of true fetal acidosis. Neonatal outcome remains equally good in both the groups.
Snail: a target for treating basal-like breast cancer

259 ISSN 1758-1923 10.2217/BMT.13. 32 © 2013 Future Medicine Ltd Breast Cancer Manage. (2013) 2(4), 259–262 Breast cancer is a heterogeneous disease that can be divided into five biological subtypes based on gene-expression profiling: luminal A, luminal B, ErbB2, normallike and basal-like [1]. Of all the molecular subtypes, basal-like breast cancer (BLBC) is of particular clinical significance, as it associates with an aggressive clinical history, development of recurrence, distant metastasis and shorter survival, and usually occurs in younger women [2,3]. The terminology ‘basal-like’ stems from the similarity between the molecular profiling of tumors pertaining to this subgroup with that of undifferentiated breast stem cells, which reside with basal/myoepithelial cells (termed basal-like cells) of the normal breast [3]. In addition to BRCA1 germline mutations or a dysfunctional BRCA1 pathway [3], BLBC is commonly characterized by the lack of expression of estrogen receptor, progesterone receptor and HER2, and positive expression of basal markers (CK5/6 and CK14) [2,3]. The consequent absence of effective targeted therapies, such as endocrine and anti-HER2 therapies, and poor response to standard chemotherapy, which is common among patients, often results in a rapidly fatal clinical outcome for this disease. This type of breast cancer has a tendency towards early metastatic spread to the brain and lung, which are sites known to be associated with a poor prognosis and short survival [2,3]. Thus, novel treatment strategies based on the biology of BLBC are urgently needed to combat this life-threatening disease. Intriguingly, BLBC possesses many epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT) characteristics and exhibits robust cancer stem cell (CSC)-like features [4,5]. EMT is an essential phenotypic conversion during embryonic development, tissue remodeling, wound healing and metastasis [6,7]. In these EMT processes, epithelial cells acquire f ibroblast-like properties and exhibit reduced intercellular adhesion and increased motility; they can also break through the basal membrane and migrate over long distances, owing to profound changes in their cytoskeletal architecture. Activation of this normally latent EMT program confers a distinct advantage on cancer cells for invasion and metastasis to distant organs or tissues. In addition to enhancing the invasiveness and metastatic
Conserved RNA secondary structures and long-range interactions in hepatitis C viruses

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a hepatotropic virus with a plus-strand RNA genome of ∼9.600 nt. Due to error-prone replication by its RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) residing in nonstructural protein 5B (NS5B), HCV isolates are grouped into seven genotypes with several subtypes. By using whole-genome sequences of 106 HCV isolates and secondary structure alignments of the plus-strand genome and its minus-strand replication intermediate, we established refined secondary structures of the 5′ untranslated region (UTR), the cis-acting replication element (CRE) in NS5B, and the 3′ UTR. We propose an alternative structure in the 5′ UTR, conserved secondary structures of 5B stem–loop (SL)1 and 5BSL2, and four possible structures of the X-tail at the very 3′ end of the HCV genome. We predict several previously unknown long-range interactions, most importantly a possible circularization interaction between distinct elements in the 5′ and 3′ UTR, reminiscent of the cyclization elements of the related flaviviruses. Based on analogy to these viruses, we propose that the 5′–3′ UTR base-pairing in the HCV genome might play an important role in viral RNA replication. These results may have important implications for our understanding of the nature of the cis-acting RNA elements in the HCV genome and their possible role in regulating the mutually exclusive processes of viral RNA translation and replication.
Roles of nuclear factor‐κB in postischemic liver

Hepatic ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) results in a chain of events that culminate in liver dysfunction and injury. I/R injury is characterized by early oxidant stress followed by an intense acute inflammatory response that involves the transcription factor nuclear factor (NF)‐κB. In addition to being a primary regulator of pro‐inflammatory gene expression, NF‐κB may play other roles in the hepatic response to I/R, such as mediating the expression of anti‐apoptotic genes, preventing the accumulation of damaging reactive oxygen species, facilitating liver regeneration, and mediating the protective effects of ischemic preconditioning. In the present study, we review the diverse functions of NF‐κB during hepatic I/R injury.
DcpS is a transcript-specific modulator of RNA in mammalian cells

The scavenger decapping enzyme DcpS is a multifunctional protein initially identified by its property to hydrolyze the resulting cap structure following 3′ end mRNA decay. In Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the DcpS homolog Dcs1 is an obligate cofactor for the 5′-3′ exoribonuclease Xrn1 while the Caenorhabditis elegans homolog Dcs-1, facilitates Xrn1 mediated microRNA turnover. In both cases, this function is independent of the decapping activity. Whether DcpS and its decapping activity can affect mRNA steady state or stability in mammalian cells remains unknown. We sought to determine DcpS target genes in mammalian cells using a cell-permeable DcpS inhibitor compound, RG3039 initially developed for therapeutic treatment of spinal muscular atrophy. Global mRNA levels were examined following DcpS decapping inhibition with RG3039. The steady-state levels of 222 RNAs were altered upon RG3039 treatment. Of a subset selected for validation, two transcripts that appear to be long noncoding RNAs HS370762 and BC011766, were dependent on DcpS and its scavenger decapping catalytic activity and referred to as DcpS-responsive noncoding transcripts (DRNT) 1 and 2, respectively. Interestingly, only the increase in DRNT1 transcript was accompanied with an increase of its RNA stability and this increase was dependent on both DcpS and Xrn1. Importantly, unlike in yeast where the DcpS homolog is an obligate cofactor for Xrn1, stability of additional Xrn1 dependent RNAs were not altered by a reduction in DcpS levels. Collectively, our data demonstrate that DcpS in conjunction with Xrn1 has the potential to regulate RNA stability in a transcript-selective manner in mammalian cells.
Panton–Valentine leukocidin antibodies for the treatment of MRSA skin infections?

Evaluation of: Hermos CR, Yoong P, Pier GB. High levels of antibody to Panton–Valentine leukocidin are not associated with resistance to Staphylococcus aureus-associated skin and soft-tissue infection. Clin. Infect. Dis. 51(10), 1138–1146 (2010). Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) has recently caused epidemic outbreaks of community-associated (CA) skin infections. The infecting strains frequently contain the genes encoding the staphylococcal toxin, Panton–Valentine leukocidin (PVL). On that ground, the use of PVL-based vaccines has been proposed for the treatment of CA-MRSA infections, despite experimental and epidemiological evidence that does not support a major role of the PVL toxin in CA-MRSA skin disease. Hermos et al. show that antibodies to PVL do not protect from CA-MRSA skin infections in children, strongly suggesting that PVL-based immunization is of little benefit for this most frequent disease caused by CA-MRSA.
Serologic assays for influenza surveillance, diagnosis and vaccine evaluation

Serological techniques play a critical role in various aspects of influenza surveillance, vaccine development and evaluation, and sometimes in diagnosis, particularly for novel influenza virus infections of humans. Because individuals are repeatedly exposed to antigenically and genetically diverse influenza viruses over a lifetime, the gold standard for detection of a recent influenza virus infection or response to current vaccination is the demonstration of a seroconversion, a fourfold or greater rise in antibody titer relative to a baseline sample, to a circulating influenza strain or vaccine component. The hemagglutination-inhibition assay remains the most widely used assay to detect strain-specific serum antibodies to influenza. The hemagglutination-inhibition assay is also used to monitor antigenic changes among influenza viruses which are constantly evolving; such antigenic data is essential for consideration of changes in influenza vaccine composition. The use of the hemagglutinin-specific microneutralization assay has increased, in part, owing to its sensitivity for detection of human antibodies to novel influenza viruses of animal origin. Neutralization assays using replication-incompetent pseudotyped particles may be advantageous in some laboratory settings for detection of antibodies to influenza viruses with heightened biocontainment requirements. The use of standardized protocols and antibody standards are important steps to improve reproducibility and interlaboratory comparability of results of serologic assays for influenza viruses.
Attention Retargeting by Color Manipulation in Images

Attention retargeting in images is a concept in which the content or composition of the image is altered in an effort to guide the viewer's attention to a specific location. In this paper, we propose a method that modifies the color of a selected region in an image to increase its saliency and draw attention towards it. To avoid many of the issues present in existing approaches to attention retargeting, including high computational complexity and unnatural-looking modifications to the images, we make the case for adjusting hue while leaving all remaining color components fixed. By representing the hue as an angle in CIE L*a*b* color space, we may express an adjustment in hue as a rotation in this space. The optimal hue adjustment is the rotation that maximizes the dissimilarity of hue distribution of the selected region relative to its surroundings. We apply our method on a set of natural images and confirm its effectiveness in guiding attention through eye-tracking. The naturalness of the results are evaluated in a separate set of subjective experiments.
A70: Medication Use in the Treatment of Juvenile Idiopathic Uveitis Patients Enrolled in the Childhood Arthritis and Rheumatology Research Alliance Registry

There is no clear standard of care for the treatment of juvenile uveitis when initial steroid therapy is insufficient. We sought to assess current prescribing practices in the treatment of this condition with steroid‐sparing medications. For this study, we focused on children with idiopathic, non‐infectious uveitis.