Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Prevalence and characterization of renal tubular acidosis in patients with osteopenia and osteoporosis and in non-porotic controls.

BACKGROUND Chronic metabolic acidosis may increase alkali mobilization from the bone and thus promote the development of osteoporosis. The objective of the current study was to compare urinary acidification in patients with reduced bone mineral content with that in control subjects with normal bone density. METHODS Forty-six subjects (41 females, 5 males) with osteopenia or osteoporosis were studied. In none of the subjects were overt metabolic acidosis, derangement of potassium homeostasis, or renal insufficiency present. Distal tubular acidification was studied by means of oral ammonium chloride loading test (0.1 g/kg body weight) and the oral frusemide test (40 mg). In addition the frusemide test was performed in 20 healthy age- and sex-matched controls (17 females, 3 males). RESULTS In all control subjects a urinary pH <5. 5 was observed following the ingestion of 40 mg frusemide. In contrast, in patients with reduced bone mineral density incomplete renal tubular acidosis type I (RTA I) was diagnosed in 10 of 46 subjects (22%) by oral ammonium chloride loading test. Disorders possibly related to RTA I were detected in eight of these 10 patients. Thirty-six patients had a normal urinary pH response following oral ammonium chloride loading. Oral frusemide, 40 mg, failed to lower urinary pH <5.5 in sixteen patients (35%), these included 10 subjects with incomplete RTA I, and six subjects with a normal oral ammonium chloride loading test. An abnormal frusemide test was found in 35% of patients with reduced bone mass and in none of the normal controls (chi(2)=7.39; P<0.01). With the ammonium chloride test as the gold standard for diagnosis of distal RTA, the frusemide test showed a sensitivity of 1.0 (95% CI, 0.69-1.0) and a specificity of 0.89 (95% CI, 0.78-0.96) for the diagnosis of distal RTA. Patients with incomplete RTA I were younger than those without incomplete RTA I (42+/-16 vs 54+/-14 years; P=0.025; mean+/-SD). Basal serum bicarbonate concentrations and capillary pH did not differ between the groups. CONCLUSION Incomplete RTA I may be prevalent in a significant proportion of patients suffering from osteopenia or osteoporosis. The outcome of the frusemide test suggests either a defect of the H(+)ATPase in the cortical collecting tubule (CCT) or a defective Na(+) reabsorption in the CCT. Prospective studies are needed to further elucidate the impact of incomplete RTA I on the development of reduced bone mineral content.
Personalization for Location-Based E-Learning

Personalization has proven to be of significant value to educational systems, which provide learning contents tailored to the knowledge, interests and other characteristics of the learners. Location-based E-Learning raises new opportunities and challenges in this field, as learning activities become mobile and location-aware. Integration of personalization and location-awareness even context-awareness will greatly improve the effectiveness of E-Learning. In this paper, we introduce the process of personalization for location-based E-Learning, discuss the personalization techniques regarding learning context modeling, content organization and selection, recommendations and ranking as well as personalized multimedia presentation. A prototypical application is presented at the end of the paper.
Sterically shielded pyramidal amino groups in two 4,4'-(arylmethylene)bis(6-allyl-3-chloro-2-methylaniline) derivatives.

4,4'-(Phenylmethylene)bis(6-allyl-3-chloro-2-methylaniline), C(27)H(28)Cl(2)N(2), (I), and 4,4'-(2-thienylmethylene)bis(6-allyl-3-chloro-2-methylaniline), C(25)H(26)Cl(2)N(2)S, (II), adopt similar molecular conformations, although the thienyl group in (II) exhibits orientational disorder over two sets of sites with occupancies of 0.614 (3) and 0.386 (3). The amino groups in both compounds are pyramidal. A single N-H.N hydrogen bond links the molecules of (I) into cyclic centrosymmetric dimers. Molecules of (II) are linked by an ordered C-H.pi(arene) hydrogen bond to form cyclic centrosymmetric dimers, and these dimers are linked into statistically interrupted chains by a second C-H.pi(arene) hydrogen bond involving a donor in the minor component of the disordered thienyl unit.
Mobility in a future Internet

Mobility of users in a future Internet has become a reality due to highly mobile end-systems. However, the new dimension of protocol functionality, Mobile IP, resource control, quality of service (QoS) support and AAA (authentication, authorization and accounting) features extended by charging schemes are still to be integrated effectively. Therefore, this position paper addresses these three areas of research concern, discusses basic concepts and outlines major problem fields still to be worked on.
A Note on the Early History of Renal Transplantation: Emerich (Imre) Ullmann

In January 1902 at the Vienna Medical Society Meeting, the surgeon Emerich Ullmann reported the first case of renal autotransplantation performed in the neck of a dog. In the same year, he presented the first xenotransplantation of the kidney (a goat with a dog’s kidney). These publications immediately had a great impact on the medical word. After his failed attempt to transplant a pig’s kidney into a young uraemic woman he stopped his research in this field in order to devote himself to other lines of surgical research. However, his idea survived him, because, nowadays, nearly 100 years later, pigs appear to be the most suitable donors for human renal xenotransplantation. Ullmann was born in Pécs, Hungary, on February 23, 1861. After a distinguished undergraduate career in 1878 his father (being also a medical doctor) sent him to study medicine at the world-famous Vienna Medical School. He graduated in 1884 and was immediately invited to the Surgical Department where Billroth worked. Next year, because of his interest in bacteriology he visited Pasteur in Paris and successfully volunteered to serve as a healthy subject to prove the effectiveness of Pasteur’s antisera against rabies. Although Ullmann did not succeed in doing a human transplantation he gave birth to the era of the organ transplantation, stimulated vascular surgery and the development of transplantation immunology.
Hepatic ischemia reperfusion injury: Pathogenic mechanisms and basis for hepatoprotection

Abstract This review highlights recent advances in our understanding of mechanisms underlying reperfusion injury to the liver after warm hepatic ischemia. Sinusoidal endothelial cells and hepatocytes are targets of injury in the early ‘cytotoxic’ phase, although participation of apoptosis in the cell‐death process remains contentious. Kupffer cells may play an important role as the initial cytotoxic cell type and are likely a source of reactive oxygen species and proinflammatory mediators, particularly tumor necrosis factor (TNF)‐α. The latter are involved with subsequent neutrophil activation and recruitment. Microcirculatory disruption results from an imbalance between the actions of vasoconstrictors and vasodilators, such as nitric oxide, and also has a major impact on reperfusion injury. There is growing evidence that a brief prior ischemia–reperfusion period, termed ‘ischemic preconditioning’, is hepatoprotective. This can be mimicked by drugs that produce oxidative stress, and by interleukin‐6 and TNF‐α; both these cytokines are involved with priming hepatocytes to enter the cell cycle. Several mechanisms have been implicated including mobilization of adenosine and activation of adenosine type 2 receptors, nitric oxide, abrogation of TNF synthesis, preservation of energy metabolism, protection of the microcirculation and accelerated cell‐cycle entry. A better understanding of preconditioning mechanisms will lead to novel approaches to improve outcomes of liver surgery.
HERITABILITY OF LINEAR TYPE TRAITS IN THE AUTOCHTHONOUS RENDENA DUAL PURPOSE BREED

The aim of the study was to estimate heritabilities (h 2 ) of type traits and linear description scores in Rendena breed. Five traditional summary traits and 20 linear descriptions were recorded on 9,776 Rendena primiparous cows. All available pedigree information (16,234 animals) was used to set up the relationship matrix among animals. Data were analyzed using a single-trait animal model, accounting for the following effects: herd-year-classifier, days in milk, age at first calving, and the genetic additive cow effect. The most heritable trait was the stature (h 2 = 0.53), whereas the lowest value was found for feet (0.13). Other considerable values of heritability were found for body size (0.45), body length (0.40), and udder width (0.43). Medium-high heritability estimates were obtained for fleshiness (0.33), and udder (0.35), and regarding linear description for thigh-buttocks traits (0.32, and 0.33), thinness and rump angle (0.36 for both traits), as well as teat length (0.33). On the other hand suspensory ligament (0.17), and thorax length (0.16) showed low heritability values. However, the general good heritability estimates suggest the possibility to use linear description or type traits in genetic evaluation of Rendena cattle.
Comparison of animal infectivity and excystation as measures of Giardia muris cyst inactivation by chlorine

In this study, in vitro excystation and mouse infectivity were compared as methods for quantitatively determining the viability of Giardia muris cysts before and after exposure to free residual chlorine. The mouse infectivity results show that very few cysts (1 to 15) constitute an infectious dose. The results of the inactivation studies indicate that in vitro excystation is an adequate indication of G. muris cyst infectivity for the host and can be used to determine the effects of disinfectants on cyst viability.
Spatial integration and sensitivity changes in the human rod visual system.

1. The factor by which increment threshold rises with increasing background intensity is less if the target is small than if it is large. The difference is usually attributed to a reduction in the area over which visual signals are integrated as the visual system light adapts. Recently, however, it has been argued that the difference in slope may instead be caused by an increase in the gain of the local response function with light adaptation. 2. To test this hypothesis in the rod‐driven visual system, we compared monoptic, small and large target increment thresholds, and dichoptic, large target brightness matches, measured as a function of background intensity in a typical, complete achromat, who has no cone vision. 3. The dichoptic brightness matches were made using a large target of a similar intensity to the threshold intensity of the small target. If local intensity is important, the large target brightness matching curve should be more similar to the shallow, small target threshold curve. But, if changes in spatial integration are important, the brightness matching curve should be similar to the steeper, large target threshold curve. 4. The slope of the large (1.85 deg) target increment threshold functions measured with either 200 or 50 ms test flashes were steeper than those of the small (10 min of arc) target functions by 0.10 (on logarithmic co‐ordinates) or about 15%. 5. The logarithmic slopes of the dichoptic brightness curves were also slightly steeper than the small target increment functions. This is contrary to the local response (only) hypothesis, which predicts that the brightness curve should have the same slope as the small target function because the luminance of the targets in the two cases is the same. 6. We conclude that there must be a change in spatial integration in the rod visual system during light adaptation, over and above that due to local gain changes.
Comparison of a New Magnetic Resonance Imaging Protocol and Magnetic Resonance Follow-Through in Patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease—A Prospective Pilot Study

Objective: Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a chronic disease, consisting of two main subgroups: Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC). Imaging is an essential component in the treatment of IBD and is used repeatedly to determine activity and severity of inflammatory lesions. The aim of our study was to prospectively obtain pilot data on the accuracy of magnetic resonance imaging with no oral contrast (MRI-NOC) and magnetic resonance follow-through (MRFT) using endoscopy as the reference standard. Materials and Methods: Patients diagnosed with CD and UC referred to magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) were included in this study population. For the evaluation, the bowel was divided into 9 segments. Two radiologists, blinded to clinical findings, evaluated bowel wall thickness, diffusion weighted imaging and mural hyperenhancement. Results: 14 patients (9 males and 5 females; median age 41; range 20 - 62) underwent both type of MRI examinations; 9 had CD and 5 had UC. The overall sensitivity for small bowel was zero for both MRI protocols, as neither identified any lesions, whereas in colon the sensitivity ranged from 7% to 29% in MRI-NOC and 14% - 29% in MRFT. Specificity and accuracy in MRI-NOC ranged from 78% to 98% and 74% - 93%, respectively, in small bowel, and from 90% to 96% and 77% - 82%, respectively, in colon. Specificity and accuracy in MRFT ranged from 83% to 100% and 79% - 95%, respectively, in small bowel, while it ranged from 93% to 97% and 81% - 85%, respectively, in colon. Conclusion: The location of lesions in the colon combined with the lack of oral contrast in the colon renders MRFT and MRI-NOC functionally identical.
EVOLUTIONARY GENETICS OF A GYNOGENETIC FISH, POECILIA FORMOSA, THE AMAZON MOLLY

The application of allozyme and other genetic techniques to the study of unisexual vertebrates has led to the realization that all or nearly all of them possess genomes with a relatively high proportion of loci essentially fixed in the heterozygous state (e.g., Parker and Selander, 1976; Schultz, 1977; Vrijenhoek et al., 1977, 1978); this is apparently a consequence of their interspecific hybrid ancestry coupled with thelytokous breeding systems. The "Amazon Molly," Poecilia (formerly Mollienesia) formosa (Fig. 1), the first known unisexual vertebrate (Hubbs and Hubbs, 1932), has been under more or less continuous study since the discovery of its unusual reproductive biology (Table 1), but several basic features of its evolutionary biology have not yet been elucidated. For example, hybrid ancestry is strongly suggested by morphological evidence and by electrophoretic data from a single serum albumin locus, but a detailed analysis of the heterozygosity or possible ancestry of the P. formosa genome has not been available. What proportion of loci are heterozygous? What proportion of loci are variable within populations? Is a particular hybrid ancestry unambiguously suggested by the specific alleles at fixed heterozygous loci? This paper presents the results of an allozyme survey of the protein products of more than 30 loci in samples of P. formosa, its putative ancestral bisexual species, and some other forms closely related to them. The data reveal that while some aspects of the evolutionary genetics of P. formosa are rather similar to those of other unisexual animals, others appear unique: there are several seemingly invariant components of the P. formosa genome that are thus far not identifiable in the genomes of any potential parental bisexual species which we have been able to survey. The results thus suggest that the origin of vertebrate parthenoforms by interspecific hybridization may be biologically more complex than hitherto appreciated.
Anthracycline dose intensification in adult acute lymphoblastic leukemia

In previous studies of frontline therapy for adult acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), early treatment with higher doses of anthracyclines has been reported to improve outcome. The current study was conducted to evaluate whether addition of anthracycline‐based consolidation chemotherapy (Course 2) with liposomal daunorubicin (150 mg/m2 intravenously [IV] on Days 1 and 2) and cytarabine (1.5 g/m2 IV on Days 1 and 2) to the standard hyper‐CVAD regimen (fractionated cyclophosphamide, vincristine, doxorubicin, and dexamethasone alternating with high dose methotrexate and cytarabine) would improve outcome.
The Small Heat Shock Protein αB-Crystallin Inhibits Differentiation-Induced Caspase 3 Activation and Myogenic Differentiation

Myoblasts respond to growth factor deprivation either by diffentiation into multinucleated myotubes or by undergoing apoptosis. The induction of apoptosis and differentiation in myogenic lineage may use overlapping cellular mechanisms. Here we demonstrate that the expression of the small heat shock protein alphaB-crystallin as well as MyoD and myogenin is induced during myogenic differentiation in C2C12 cells, and these inductions occur at an early stage in the differentiation in vitro. To investigate the effect of alphaB-crystallin on myogenic differentiation and apoptosis, C2C12 cells were infected with adenovirus vector bearing full-length alphaB-crystallin cDNA. Overexpression of alphaB-crystallin in C2C12 cells suppressed differentiation-induced apoptosis and activation of caspase 3, and also decreased the expression of MyoD and myogenin during myogenic differentiation of C2C12 cells induced by the differentiation medium. Our findings suggest that stress such as growth factor deprivation plays an important role in triggering apoptosis associated with myogenic differentiation and alphaB-crystallin suppressed the differentiation, apoptosis and caspase 3 activity.
11 Folding and Aggregation of Cu , Zn-Superoxide Dismutase

1.1 ALS and SOD1 In 1993, a genetic link was established between amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and mutant forms of Cu,Zn superoxide dismutase (SOD1) (Deng et al. 1993; Rosen et al. 1993), an antioxidant enzyme that catalyzes the dismutation of the damaging free radical superoxide anion (O2-) to hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) and diatomic oxygen (O2) via cyclic reduction and oxidation of a protein-bound Cu ion (Valentine et al. 2005). Today, over 150, predominantly missense mutations have been identified at ~75 sites spread throughout the protein (http://alsod.iop.kcl.ac.uk/). SOD1 mutations are found in ~1520% of inherited or familial ALS (fALS) cases and in a small percentage of sporadic ALS (sALS) cases (Rosen et al. 1993; Kato et al. 2000; Liu et al. 2009; Forsberg et al. 2011). fALS accounts for ~10% of all ALS cases and so SOD1 mutations comprise ~1.5-2% of all ALS cases, but nevertheless represent a major known cause of the disease. The clinical symptoms of fALS and sALS are similar, yet fALS patients with SOD1 mutations have an earlier age of disease onset than sALS (by ~10 years) (Wijesekera and Leigh 2009). Furthermore, while the age of disease onset has not been identified as statistically different between different SOD1 mutations, disease duration for each mutation is often different, ranging from shorter (e.g. ~1 year for A4V, the most common mutation in North America) than the typical 3-5 years to longer (e.g. ~18 years for H46R) (Cudkowicz et al. 1997; Valentine et al. 2005; Wang et al. 2008). In humans and murine models of ALS, mutations in the gene encoding SOD1 are typically autosomal dominant and are associated with a toxic gain of function. Despite extensive research, the molecular basis for mutant SOD1 toxicity remains unclear (Valentine et al. 2005; Boillee et al. 2006; Ilieva et al. 2009). Extensive research has been conducted on SOD1-linked fALS, as understanding and treatment of this disease may be relevant to ALS in general. While ALS patients share many clinical symptoms, numerous genes have been linked to ALS, and there is evidence for differences in pathology related to both genetic and environmental factors; hence, ALS is a syndrome and not a single disease with unique pathology (Cozzolino et al. 2008).
DESIGNING EXPERIMENTS TO MAXIMIZE THE POWER OF DETECTING CORRELATIONS

Studies investigating correlations among traits are increasingly common in evolutionary biology. By providing power calculations, minimum sample sizes, and standard errors of correlation coefficients in a variety of contexts, this note provides guidelines to insure that nonzero correlations will not be erroneously dismissed as nonsignificant in properly designed experiements. Forty individuals is often sufficient for reasonable estimation of correlation coefficients, although 100 or more individuals may be nexessary if a large number of traits are involved or comparisons are to be made among the coefficients.
Delineation of Inflammatory Bowel Disease by Molecular Biometrics : Verification versus Validation

Dysregulated immune responses to the gut microbiota are believed to be the driving force in the development of inflammatory bowel diseases. Even with combined modern and newer diagnostic technologies, it is difficult to accurately differentiate colonic inflammatory bowel disease, namely ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s colitis. Regardless of current advanced clinical and pathological criteria available to identify factors possible to help delineate the two entities, a subgroup of Crohn’s colitis cases are still diagnosed as ulcerative colitis. Current classification criteria as well as diagnostic modalities such as serologic, genetic and inflammatory markers fail to differentiate ulcerative colitis from Crohn’s colitis among patients with indeterminate colitis. The definitive diseases share demographic and clinical features, yet differ in tissue inflammation and damage suggesting distinct trigger and mechanisms. Since treatments differ, a biological dysregulation underlying the two forms of inflammatory bowel disease need to be elucidated in order to develop appropriate treatment strategies that achieve long-term remission and minimize risk of relapse. A molecular diagnostic tool would greatly benefit indeterminate colitis patients. Herewith, we summarize advances and explain the attempts to resolve indeterminate colitis into Crohn’s colitis and ulcerative colitis; and ascertain whether Crohn’s colitis patients mistakenly operated for definitive ulcerative colitis can molecularly be identifiable prior to surgery.
A study on face recognition with applications in prosopagnosia and management of patients

This paper presents a face recognition approach integrated in a simplified system used for profile administration of patients and prosopagnosia applications. The recognition system is based on three successive filters to properly retrieve frontal faces in various illumination conditions and pose variations, a single multi-layer perceptron (MLP) classifier per user and a global comparator of features to take the final decision. The facial features are extracted with two image descriptors: the abstract representation of the scene (GIST) - invariant to illumination, blur effect, and the Scale Invariant Feature Transform (SIFT) - robust to affine transformation. The experiments conducted highlight the GIST performances compared with Local Binary Pattern (LBP), Histogram of Gradient (HOG) and the state-of-art convolutional neural network (pre-trained AlexNet CNN). In addition, these experiments led to the implementation of the recognition system which was tested on computer and smartphone.