Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Immune system and the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis. Common words for a single language.

Neuroendocrine and immune systems are now recognized to be strictly related in a bidirectional linkage. The most significant evidences of neuroendocrine-immune system interactions are as follows: (1) immune and neuroendocrine system cells share common signal molecules and receptor; (2) hormones and neuropeptides can alter functional activities of immune system cells; and (3) the immune system and its products, such as cytokines, can modulate neuroendocrine functions.
miR-181a is associated with poor clinical outcome in patients with colorectal cancer treated with EGFR inhibitor

Aims miR-181a expression is frequently altered in different types of cancer. Members of the Wnt/β-catenin signalling pathway, which is commonly altered in colorectal cancer (CRC), have been reported as molecular interaction partners of miR-181. However, the role of miR-181a expression in CRC and its ability to predict survival and response to agents targeting the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) have not been explored yet. Methods In this study, we analysed 80 patients with wild type KRAS CRC undergoing treatment with the EGFR-targeting monoclonal antibodies cetuximab and panitumumab for metastatic CRC. The KRAS mutational status was determined by pyrosequencing and miR-181a expression was measured by quantitative RT-PCR in CRC tumour tissue and corresponding non-neoplastic colon tissue. The microRNA expression levels were correlated with clinicopathological characteristics. Cancer-specific survival was calculated by univariate and multivariate analyses, and progression-free survival (PFS) during treatment with EGFR-targeting agents was also evaluated. Results A low miR-181a expression level was associated with poor differentiation of CRC (p=0.04). A Kaplan-Meier curve showed a decreased survival time for patients with low miR-181a expression (p=0.019). Low miR-181a expression was furthermore associated with poor PFS (p=0.015). Conclusions In conclusion, our data suggest that the miR-181a expression level is associated with poor survival in patients with CRC. Furthermore, miR-181a expression might predict PFS in EGFR-targeted therapy.
Fully-automatic tool for morphometric analysis of myelinated fibers

The morphometric analysis of myelinated fibers is known to produce relevant information for the evaluation of several phenomena, which range from nerve demyelization/remyelization to the aging process. This analysis can be achieved manually or using computer-based image analysis systems which vary to a certain degree of automation. However, systems which are manual or semi-automated are extremely laborious, highly tedious and time-consuming. Therefore, the aim of this paper is the proposal, implementation and evaluation of a computational tool capable of automatically performing the morphometry of myelinated fibers. We have implemented and tested various methods for the segmentation of images from different types of nerve, which present differences in form, color and size. Then, we implemented an algorithm capable of extracting the required morphometric features. The developed tool has shown maximum area overlap accuracy of 83.1% and sensitivity of 90.7% for our database. The tool has widespread potential in experimental and clinical applications eliminating many of the tedious and time-consuming tasks associated with nerve morphometry.
Immunologic Effects of Insulin Lispro [Lys (B28), Pro (B29) Human Insulin] in IDDM and NIDDM Patients Previously Treated With Insulin

Insulin lispro [Lys (B28), Pro (B29) human insulin] is a rapidly absorbed analog that has diminished tendency to self-associate. In four open-label, 1-year-long international randomized trials, we contrasted the immunogenicity of insulin lispro versus regular human insulin (RHI) in patients previously treated with insulin who had IDDM or NIDDM. Using a self-blank subtraction assay, we assessed sera for the presence of insulin-specific antibodies (ISA), insulin lispro-specific antibodies (LSA), and cross-reactive antibodies (CRA). Basal insulin needs were provided either with human ultralente (UL) or NPH insulins. After 2 to 4 weeks of therapy with RHI plus UL or RHI plus NPH, 50% of patients were randomly assigned to begin insulin lispro or continue on RHI. At baseline, few pretreated patients had LSA (0–4%) and ∼ 10% had ISA, whereas 41–45% of patients with IDDM and 23–27% of patients with NIDDM had CRA (IDDM vs. NIDDM, P < 0.001). Within studies, no significant differences were noted over time in ISA, LSA, or CRA attributable to the type of short-acting insulin. When data were pooled, inconsistent changes were noted in ISA and LSA (LSA were greater in NIDDM vs. IDDM at baseline, P = 0.001, and ISA were greater in IDDM vs. NIDDM at 6 months, P = 0.007). Significant levels of CRA were more common in IDDM at all times (P < 0.001, P = 0.022, and P = 0.002 at baseline, 6 months, and 12 months, respectively). For patients receiving insulin lispro, no significant changes occurred in antibody status among IDDM and NIDDM patients throughout the study (became positive, remained positive, became negative, or remained negative). IDDM patients were more likely to develop or maintain CRA levels (P = 0.008 vs. NIDDM), whereas antibody levels were comparable among positive individuals. No evidence was noted that insulin lispro differs in immunogenicity from RHI in previously treated IDDM and NIDDM patients.
Y chromosome length related to fetal loss

The Y/20 ratio (length of Y chromosome/length of chromosome 20) was examined among 216 males, 108 of whose wives had a history of repeated abortions (study group), and 108 who were mentally retarded (controls). There was no significant difference in frequency of long Y (Y/20 equal to or greater than 1) between the study group and controls. Also, there was the expected male: female ratio among normal living children of couples in the study group, and the Y/20 ratio was not significantly increased among fathers with abnormal male offspring. However, wives of long Y males were more likely to have at least one abnormal male birth, compared with other wives (this approached statistical significance, p < 0.08). In addition, a significantly higher frequency of long Y was found in a subset of affected males whose wives had 2 or more spontaneous abortions plus some other abnormal pregnancy outcome. Although the findings reported here do not strongly support a causal relationship, they at least suggest an association between long Y chromosome and abnormal fetal development.
Distributive spirals: negotiation impasses and the moderating role of disputant self-efficacy.

Negotiations do not always end in agreements. Yet, we know little about impasses and how they affect negotiators. In three studies, we compare how negotiators experience impasses and agreements, paying particular attention to the moderating role of disputant self-efficacy. Specifically, we propose and find that negotiators who impasse find themselves caught in a distributive spiral-they interpret their performance as unsuccessful, experience negative emotions, and develop negative perceptions of their counterpart and the process. In terms of their future behavioral intentions, they are less willing to work together in the future, plan to share less information, plan to behave less cooperatively, and they lose faith in negotiation as an effective means of managing conflicts. As predicted, negotiators with relatively high levels of self-efficacy were insulated from some of these negative outcomes.
Hibachi: A Cooperative Hybrid Cache with NVRAM and DRAM for storage arrays

Adopting newer non-volatile memory (NVRAM) technologies as write buffers in slower storage arrays is a promising approach to improve write performance. However, due to DRAM’s merits, including shorter access latency and lower cost, it is still desirable to incorporate DRAM as a read cache along with NVRAM. Although numerous cache policies have been proposed, most are either targeted at main memory buffer caches, or manage NVRAM as write buffers and separately manage DRAM as read caches. To the best of our knowledge, cooperative hybrid volatile and non-volatile memory buffer cache policies specifically designed for storage systems using newer NVRAM technologies have not been well studied. This paper, based on our elaborate study of storage server block I/O traces, proposes a novel cooperative HybrId NVRAM and DRAM Buffer cACHe polIcy for storage arrays, named Hibachi. Hibachi treats read cache hits and write cache hits differently to maximize cache hit rates and judiciously adjusts the clean and the dirty cache sizes to capture workloads’ tendencies. In addition, it converts random writes to sequential writes for high disk write throughput and further exploits storage server I/O workload characteristics to improve read performance. We evaluate Hibachi on real disk arrays as well as our simulator. The results show that Hibachi outperforms existing work in both read and write performance.
Adolescents With Cerebral Palsy

Data from the 2009-2010 US National Survey of Children with Special Health Care Needs were examined to determine the health, developmental and behavioral status of adolescents with cerebral palsy (CP) and to assess how well pediatric health care providers were preparing them for transition to adult health care services. Adolescents with CP had no higher rates of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, depression, anxiety, oppositional or conduct disorders, or autism spectrum than a comparison group. However, those with CP participated less in sports, clubs, or other organized activities (P < .001). Neither group reported much help in coordinating health services or preparing for transition to adult health care services. Inadequate adult health care services have a direct and unsatisfactory impact on the adult life span. Physicians and other health care providers who include adolescents with CP in their practices should begin discussion and planning for transition to adult health care early in adolescence.
The Value Landscape in Ecosystem Services: Value, Value Wherefore Art Thou Value?

Ecosystem services has risen to become one of the preeminent global policy discourses framing the way we conceive and articulate environment–society relations, integral to the form and function of a number of far-reaching international policies such as the Aichi 2020 Biodiversity Targets and the recently adopted Sustainable Development Goals. Value; its pursuit, definition, quantification, monetization, multiplicity and uncertainty, both in terms of meaning and attribution, is fundamental to the economic foundations of ecosystem services and a core feature driving its inclusion across multiple policy domains such as environmental management and conservation. Distilling current knowledge and developments in this arena are thus highly prescient. In this article, we cast a critical eye over the evidence base and aim to provide a comprehensive synthesis of what values are, why they are important and the methodological approaches employed to elicit them (including their pros and cons and the arguments for and against). We also illustrate the current ecosystem service value landscape, highlight some of the fundamental challenges in discerning and applying values, and outline future research activities. In so doing, we further advance ecosystem valuation discourse, contribute to wider debates linking ecosystem services and sustainability and strengthen connections between ecosystem services and environmental policy.
Pathophysiology, Clinical Presentation, and Treatment of Psoriasis: A Review.

Importance Approximately 125 million people worldwide have psoriasis. Patients with psoriasis experience substantial morbidity and increased rates of inflammatory arthritis, cardiometabolic diseases, and mental health disorders. Observations Plaque psoriasis is the most common variant of psoriasis. The most rapid advancements addressing plaque psoriasis have been in its pathogenesis, genetics, comorbidities, and biologic treatments. Plaque psoriasis is associated with a number of comorbidities including psoriatic arthritis, cardiometabolic diseases, and depression. For patients with mild psoriasis, topical agents remain the mainstay of treatment, and they include topical corticosteroids, vitamin D analogues, calcineurin inhibitors, and keratolytics. The American Academy of Dermatology-National Psoriasis Foundation guidelines recommend biologics as an option for first-line treatment of moderate to severe plaque psoriasis because of their efficacy in treating it and acceptable safety profiles. Specifically, inhibitors to tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α) include etanercept, adalimumab, certolizumab, and infliximab. Other biologics inhibit cytokines such as the p40 subunit of the cytokines IL-12 and IL-13 (ustekinumab), IL-17 (secukinumab, ixekizumab, bimekizumab, and brodalumab), and the p19 subunit of IL-23 (guselkumab, tildrakizumab, risankizumab, and mirikizumab). Biologics that inhibit TNF-α, p40IL-12/23, and IL-17 are also approved for the treatment of psoriatic arthritis. Oral treatments include traditional agents such as methotrexate, acitretin, cyclosporine, and the advanced small molecule apremilast, which is a phosphodiesterase 4 inhibitor. The most commonly prescribed light therapy used to treat plaque psoriasis is narrowband UV-B phototherapy. Conclusions and Relevance Psoriasis is an inflammatory skin disease that is associated with multiple comorbidities and substantially diminishes patients' quality of life. Topical therapies remain the cornerstone for treating mild psoriasis. Therapeutic advancements for moderate to severe plaque psoriasis include biologics that inhibit TNF-α, p40IL-12/23, IL-17, and p19IL-23, as well as an oral phosphodiesterase 4 inhibitor.
Liver fat quantification using fast kVp-switching dual energy CT

Nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) is a liver disease that occurs in patients that lack a history of the well-proven association of alcohol use. A major symptom of NASH is increased fat deposition in the liver. Gemstone Spectral Imaging (GSI) with fast kVp-switching enables projection-based material decomposition, offering the opportunity to accurately characterize tissue types, e.g., fat and healthy liver tissue, based on their energy-sensitive material attenuation and density. We describe our pilot efforts to apply GSI to locate and quantify the amount of fat deposition in the liver. Two approaches are presented, one that computes percentage fat from the difference in HU values at high and low energies and the second based on directly computing fat volume fraction at each voxel using multi-material decomposition. Simulation software was used to create a phantom with a set of concentric rings, each composed of fat and soft tissue in different relative amounts with attenuation values obtained from the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Monte Carlo 80 and 140 kVp X-ray projections were acquired and CT images of the phantom were reconstructed. Results demonstrated the sensitivity of dual energy CT to the presence of fat and its ability to distinguish fat from soft tissue. Additionally, actual patient (liver) datasets were acquired using GSI and monochromatic images at 70 and 140 keV were reconstructed. Preliminary results demonstrate a tissue sensitivity that appears sufficient to quantify fat content with a degree of accuracy as may be needed for non-invasive clinical assessment of NASH.
Proteus: a runtime reconfigurable distributed shared memory system

This paper describes a Distributed Shared Memory (DSM) system called Proteus, which aims to support runtime node reconfiguration. To make the system execute efficiently after node reconfiguration and reduce the overhead of reconfiguration, Proteus employs an adaptive workload redistribution strategy to perform workload redistribution as well as an affinity page movement strategy to redistribute memory pages. Furthermore, a forced update technique and a set of scalable synchronization mechanisms are developed to keep memory consistent and to perform a correct synchronization, respectively.
Initial Shape Pool Construction for Facial Landmark Localization Under Occlusion

Recently, a local binary patterns-based initialization scheme for robust cascaded pose regression was proposed, which selects the most correlated shapes with the estimated face from training set as the initial shapes. Nevertheless, due to the massive samples in training set, the operation of selecting the most correlated shapes with the estimated shape turns out to be time-consuming. To reduce the quantity of the faces in training set for correlation analyzing in the training set, the faces should be divided into latent classes, and a face in each class could be chosen to form a smaller initial shape pool. In this paper, we view the faces and the latent classes as the latent Dirichlet allocation model. We first extract scale-invariant feature transform features from each face and employ $k$ -means algorithm on the features to obtain a fixed number of clusters. The features in each cluster are represented by its centroid, which can be used to generate the probability distribution of a face belonging to the latent classes via Gibbs sampling. The performance of the proposed scheme is evaluated on the challenging data set of Caltech Occluded Faces in the Wild. The experimental results show that the proposed scheme can significantly reduce time cost on landmark localization by 65.84% without dropping accuracy.
[PM10 exposure-related respiratory symptoms and disease in children living in and near five coal-mining areas in the Cesar department of Colombia].

OBJECTIVES Establishing the prevalence of respiratory symptoms and disease in children aged less than 12 years-old living within the Cesar department's coal-mining area and possible associated factors. METHODS This was a cross-sectional study of 1,627 children aged less than 10 years-old living in and near coal-mining areas in the Cesar department who were exposed to different levels of PM10 from 2008-2010; their PM10 exposure-related symptoms and respiratory diseases were measured, seeking an association with living in areas exposed to particulate material. RESULTS Children living in areas close to coal-mining activity which also had high traffic volume had a higher rate of probable cases of asthma; those living in areas with traffic (not no coal-mining) were absent from school for more days due to acute respiratory disease. Respiratory symptoms were most commonly found in children experiencing living conditions which exposed them to cigarette or firewood smoke indoors, living in houses made with wattle and daub or adobe walls, living where animals were kept, living in damp housing and diesel-powered dump trucks operating within 100 m or less of their housing. Living in areas having high traffic volume increased the risk of respiratory symptoms, acute respiratory disease and being absent from school. DISCUSSION All the effects studied were associated with intramural conditions, individual factors or those associated with the immediate surroundings thereby coinciding with results found in similar studies regarding air pollution and health. It is thus suggested that regional strategies and policy be created for controlling and monitoring the air quality and health of people living in the Cesar department.
Association of Reduced eGFR and Albuminuria with Serious Fall Injuries among Older Adults.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Falls are common and associated with adverse outcomes in patients on dialysis. Limited data are available in earlier stages of CKD. DESIGN, SETTING, PARTICIPANTS, & MEASUREMENTS We analyzed data from 8744 Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke Study participants ≥65 years old with Medicare fee for service coverage. Serious fall injuries were defined as a fall-related fracture, brain injury, or joint dislocation using Medicare claims. Hazard ratios (HRs) for serious fall injuries were calculated by eGFR and albumin-to-creatinine ratio (ACR). Among 2590 participants with CKD (eGFR<60 ml/min per 1.73 m(2) or ACR≥30 mg/g), cumulative mortality after a serious fall injury compared with age-matched controls without a fall injury was calculated. RESULTS Overall, 1103 (12.6%) participants had a serious fall injury over 9.9 years of follow-up. The incidence rates per 1000 person-years of serious fall injuries were 21.7 (95% confidence interval [95% CI], 20.3 to 23.2), 26.6 (95% CI, 22.6 to 31.3), and 38.3 (95% CI, 31.2 to 47.0) at eGFR levels ≥60, 45-59, and <45 ml/min per 1.73 m(2), respectively, and 21.3 (95% CI, 20.0 to 22.8), 31.7 (95% CI, 27.5 to 36.5), and 42.2 (95% CI, 31.3 to 56.9) at ACR levels <30, 30-299, and ≥300 mg/g, respectively. Multivariable adjusted HRs for serious fall injuries were 0.91 (95% CI, 0.76 to 1.09) and 1.09 (95% CI, 0.86 to 1.37) for eGFR=45-59 and <45 ml/min per 1.73 m(2), respectively, versus eGFR≥60 ml/min per 1.73 m(2) and 1.31 (95% CI, 1.11 to 1.54) and 1.81 (95% CI, 1.30 to 2.50) for ACR=30-299 and ≥300 mg/g, respectively, versus ACR<30 mg/g. Among participants with CKD, cumulative 1-year mortality rates among patients with a serious fall and age-matched controls were 21.0% and 5.5%, respectively. CONCLUSIONS Elevated ACR but not lower eGFR was associated with serious fall injuries. Evaluation for fall risk factors and fall prevention strategies should be considered for older adults with elevated ACR.
Compact modeling of normally-on mosfet applicable for any technology generations

A physics-based, compact modeling approach is applied to normally-on MOSFET, resulting to a complete description of the device internal potential distribution. The surface current and the resistive current in the neutral region are expressed as a function of the calculated potential distribution. The model is verified to reproduce total drain current as well as capacitances for different device generations. It is demonstrated that the coupling between the charge induced at the surface and that induced due to the p/n junction modify the potential distribution under different conditions, which leads to the carrier mobility modification as well.
Immune Effect of Viable and Heat Killed Lactobacillus acidophilus in Mice Infected with Salmonella typhimurium

This study was designed to evaluate the immunological effect of viable and heat killed Lactobacillus acidophilus in mice infected with Salmonella typhimurium. The immunological parameters were total and absolute counts of leucocytes and phagocytic index of peritoneal cells. Twelve mice were divided into four groups. Each group consists of 3 mice. Group 1 was used as a negative control. Group 2 was infected with Salmonella typhimurium and use as positive control. Group 3 was fed with viable Lactobacillus acidophilus culture, and infected with culture of Salmonella typhimurium. Group4 was fed with heat killed Lactobacillus acidophilus culture, and infected with Salmonella typhimurium. Results indicated that treatment mice with viable Lactobacillus acidophilus were effective in enhancing the immune responses against Salmonella typhimurium as compared to negative (distilled water) and positive (Salmonella typhimurium) controls. While, mice fed with heat killed Lactobacillus acidophilus showed no enhancing immune effect on mice infected with Salmonella typhimurium.
Author's reply

Cite this article as: Kaya A. Comment to: Dual effect hypothesis of insulin analogs on diabetic retinopathy. Indian J Ophthalmol 2016;64:476-7. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution‐NonCommercial‐ShareAlike 3.0 License, which allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon the work non‐commercially, as long as the author is credited and the new creations are licensed under the identical terms.