Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Microbial Reductive Dechlorination of Aroclor 1260 in Anaerobic Slurries of Estuarine Sediments

ABSTRACT Reductive dechlorination of Aroclor 1260 was investigated in anaerobic slurries of estuarine sediments from Baltimore Harbor (Baltimore, Md.). The sediment slurries were amended with 800 ppm Aroclor 1260 with and without the addition of 350 μM 2,3,4,5-tetrachlorobiphenyl (2,3,4,5-CB) or 2,3,5,6-tetrachlorobiphenyl (2,3,5,6-CB) and incubated in triplicate at 30°C under methanogenic conditions in an artificial estuarine medium. After 6 months, extensivemeta dechlorination and moderate orthodechlorination of Aroclor 1260 occurred in all incubated cultures except for sterilized controls. Overall, total chlorines per biphenyl decreased by up to 34%. meta chlorines per biphenyl decreased by 65, 55, and 45% and ortho chlorines declined by 18, 12, and 9%, respectively, when 2,3,4,5-CB, 2,3,5,6-CB, or no additional congener was supplied. This is the first confirmed report of microbial ortho dechlorination of a commercial polychlorinated biphenyl mixture. In addition, compared with incubated cultures supplied with Aroclor 1260 alone, the dechlorination of Aroclor 1260 plus 2,3,4,5-CB or 2,3,5,6-CB occurred with shorter lag times (31 to 60 days versus 90 days) and was more extensive, indicating that the addition of a single congener stimulated the dechlorination of Aroclor 1260.
The impact of irritable bowel syndrome on health-related quality of life.

BACKGROUND & AIMS Few data are available to evaluate health-related quality of life (HRQOL) of people with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). We evaluated and compared the impact of IBS on HRQOL using previously reported HRQOL data for the U.S. general population and for people with selected chronic diseases. METHODS Using the SF-36 Health Survey, we compared the HRQOL of IBS patients (n = 877) with previously reported SF-36 data for the general U.S. population and for patients with gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), diabetes mellitus, depression, and dialysis-dependent end-stage renal disease (ESRD). RESULTS On all 8 SF-36 scales, IBS patients had significantly worse HRQOL than the U.S. general population (P < 0. 001). Compared with GERD patients, IBS patients scored significantly lower on all SF-36 scales (P < 0.001) except physical functioning. Similarly, IBS patients had significantly worse HRQOL on selected SF-36 scales than patients with diabetes mellitus and ESRD. IBS patients had significantly better mental health SF-36 scale scores than patients with depression (P < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS IBS patients experience significant impairment in HRQOL. Decrements in HRQOL are most pronounced in energy/fatigue, role limitations caused by physical health problems, bodily pain, and general health perceptions. These data offer further insight into the impact of IBS on patient functional status and well-being.
Nontraditional Protection Solutions Permit Tap Transmission Connections of Nonutility Generators

Traditional connection of a generating station to the transmission grid typically requires either a new transmission line to an existing substation or building a new substation to segment an existing transmission line. Both of these options are capital intensive which often hurts economic viability especially small- or medium-size nonconventional generating stations. The direct connection to an existing transmission line, without the switching station, is the most economical solution to interconnect the generating station but it desensitizes the line protection and poses a risk to the ability of the protection to detect faults, particularly ground faults involving fault resistances. Multifunction relays, combined with communication-assisted schemes, now offer innovative solutions to overcome protection desensitization concerns. This paper describes these solutions which are successfully implemented by a large Canadian electric utility over the last two decades to tap connect numerous generators to the transmission grid.
Atomic Description of an Enzyme Reaction Dominated by Proton Tunneling

We present an atomic-level description of the reaction chemistry of an enzyme-catalyzed reaction dominated by proton tunneling. By solving structures of reaction intermediates at near-atomic resolution, we have identified the reaction pathway for tryptamine oxidation by aromatic amine dehydrogenase. Combining experiment and computer simulation, we show proton transfer occurs predominantly to oxygen O2 of Asp128β in a reaction dominated by tunneling over ∼0.6 angstroms. The role of long-range coupled motions in promoting tunneling is controversial. We show that, in this enzyme system, tunneling is promoted by a short-range motion modulating proton-acceptor distance and no long-range coupled motion is required.
[Study of cerebral blood flow in patients with cerebral infarction by 133Xe inhalation method--comparison between affected and unaffected hemispheres, and sequential changes].

Cerebral blood flow in both hemispheres was studied by the 133Xe inhalation method in 49 patients with cerebral infarction in the unilateral hemisphere. They were classified into three groups by computed tomographic findings as follows; relatively large low density lesion including the cerebral cortex and subcortex (cortical: C group), relatively large low density lesion including the subcortical white matter and basal ganglia (large subcortical: L group), and small low density lesion including the subcortical white matter (small subcortical: S group), respectively. Mean cerebral blood flow (mCBF) in the affected hemispheres was markedly low in C group, moderately low in L group, and slightly low in S group, in all of the examinations. Several cases in C and L groups revealed remarkable changes of mCBF less than one month after the onset. MCBF in both hemispheres was lower in C group than in L and S groups less than one week after the onset. Seven to twelve weeks after the onset, mCBF in the affected hemisphere was lower in C and L groups than in S group, and than in the unaffected hemisphere of C and L groups. There was no difference between mCBF in the affected hemisphere and that in the unaffected hemisphere in most of S group. Sequential changes of mCBF in both hemispheres were divided into seven types in 27 cases, who were examined first less than one week and repeatedly then. However, the sequential changes were classified roughly into two patterns. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Bounds on the Extreme Eigenvalues of Real Symmetric Toeplitz Matrices

We derive upper and lower bounds on the smallest and largest eigenvalues, respectively, of real symmetric Toeplitz matrices. The bounds are first obtained for positive-definite matrices and then extended to the general real symmetric case. They are computed as the roots of rational and polynomial approximations to spectral, or secular, equations for the symmetric and antisymmetric parts of the spectrum; this leads to separate bounds on the even and odd eigenvalues. We also present numerical results.
Switchover to generic cyclosporine in stable renal transplant recipients: A single unit experience

Background: The introduction of the immunosuppressant cyclosporine has significantly improved renal transplant survival. It is an expensive drug and generic alternatives may offer cost advantages. However, generic alternatives must be shown to provide equivalent therapeutic efficacy and safety. This study reports our experience of a switch from the microemulsion formulation of cyclosporine, Neoral (Novartis), to the generic equivalent, Cysporin (Mayne Pharma).
Erythrocyte variants and the nature of their malaria protective effect

The malaria threat to global health is exacerbated by widespread drug resistance in the Plasmodium parasite and its insect vector, and the lack of an efficacious vaccine. Infection with Plasmodium parasites can cause a wide spectrum of pathologies, from a transient mild form of anaemia to a severe and rapidly fatal cerebral disease. Epidemiological studies in humans and experiments in animal models have shown that genetic factors play a key role in the onset, progression, type of disease developed and ultimate outcome of malaria. The protective effect of polymorphic variants in erythrocyte‐specific structural proteins or metabolic enzymes against the blood‐stage of the disease is one of the clearest illustrations of this genetic modulation, and has suggested co‐evolution of the Plasmodium parasite with its human host in areas of endemic disease. Here, we present a brief overview of erythrocyte polymorphisms with biological relevance to malaria pathogenesis, and current work on the mechanism(s) by which these mediate their protective effect. The recent addition of erythrocyte pyruvate kinase to this group of protective genes will also be discussed.
Research on Financing Strategy and Financial Support Pattern for Small and Medium Size Enterprise Innovation

Lack of financial support has been a prime obstacle to the transformation process of the technological innovation in small and medium enterprises and two factors are responsible for this phenomenon: the juvenility of their financing strategies and insufficiency of financial support from the government. This article analyses the proper financing strategy which the corporations should take during innovation and also suggest the governmental policy of national financial support pattern.
Dominant negative mutator mutations in the mutS gene of Escherichia coli

The MutS protein of Escherichia coli is part of the dam-directed MutHLS mismatch repair pathway which rectifies replication errors and which prevents recombination between related sequences. In order to more fully understand the role of MutS in these processes, dominant negative mutS mutations on a multicopy plasmid were isolated by screening transformed wild-type cells for a mutator phenotype, using a Lac+ papillation assay. Thirty-eight hydroxylamine- and 22 N-methyl-N'-nitro-N-nitrosoguanidine-induced dominant mutations were isolated. Nine of these mutations altered the P-loop motif of the ATP-binding site, resulting in four amino acid substitutions. With one exception, the remaining sequenced mutations all caused substitution of amino acids conserved during evolution. The dominant mutations in the P-loop consensus caused severely reduced repair of heteroduplex DNA in vivo in a mutS mutant host strain. In a wild-type strain, the level of repair was decreased by the dominant mutations to between 12 to 90% of the control value, which is consistent with interference of wild-type MutS function by the mutant proteins. Increasing the wild-type mutS gene dosage resulted in a reversal of the mutator phenotype in about 60% of the mutant strains, indicating that the mutant and wild-type proteins compete. In addition, 20 mutant isolates showed phenotypic reversal by increasing the gene copies of either mutL or mutH. There was a direct correlation between the levels of recombination and mutagenesis in the mutant strains, suggesting that these phenotypes are due to the same function of MutS.
CUDA: Scalable parallel programming for high-performance scientific computing

Graphics processing units (GPUs) originally designed for computer video cards have emerged as the most powerful chip in a high-performance workstation. Unlike multicore CPU architectures, which currently ship with two or four cores, GPU architectures are "manycore" with hundreds of cores capable of running thousands of threads in parallel. NVIDIA's CUDA is a co-evolved hardware-software architecture that enables high-performance computing developers to harness the tremendous computational power and memory bandwidth of the GPU in a familiar programming environment - the C programming language. We describe the CUDA programming model and motivate its use in the biomedical imaging community.
Bacterial Serine/Threonine Protein Kinases in Host-Pathogen Interactions*

In bacterial pathogenesis, monitoring and adapting to the dynamically changing environment in the host and an ability to disrupt host immune responses are critical. The virulence determinants of pathogenic bacteria include the sensor/signaling proteins of the serine/threonine protein kinase (STPK) family that have a dual role of sensing the environment and subverting specific host defense processes. STPKs can sense a wide range of signals and coordinate multiple cellular processes to mount an appropriate response. Here, we review some of the well studied bacterial STPKs that are essential virulence factors and that modify global host responses during infection.
Invasive Mucormycosis Induced Pneumopericardium: A Rare Cause of Pneumopericardium in an Immunocompromised Patient

Mucor and Rhizopus cause life-threatening infections primarily involving the lungs and sinuses, which disseminate very rapidly by necrosis and infarction of the contiguous tissues. We present a case of a 64-year-old African American posttransplant patient who presented with a productive cough and weight loss. He had a past surgical history of renal transplant for renal cell carcinoma and was on dual immunosuppressive therapy, that is, mycophenolate and tacrolimus. During his hospital stay, he developed a pneumopericardium due to the direct extension of a lung lesion. The diagnosis was made by radiological imaging and PCR result which was consistent with Mucor species. He was treated with antifungal therapy. The purpose of this report is to highlight the unusual association of mucormycosis with pneumopericardium.
Mechanism of the stimulatory effect of growth hormone on longitudinal bone growth.

I. Introduction AT THE beginning of this century Aschner (1) demonstrated a relationship between a factor in the pituitary and body growth. In subsequent experiments Evans and Long (2) produced supranormal growth in intact rats with administration of bovine pituitary extracts. In the 1940s a highly purified protein was isolated from bovine pituitaries (3, 4) that produced somatic growth when administered to hypophysectomized or normal rats. This protein exhibited no or small effects on the gonads and the thyroid gland and was called GH or somatotropin. The molecular structure of GH was not revealed until the beginning of the 1970s when the total amino acid sequence of GH was determined (5, 6). As early as 1923 Dott and Fraser (7) observed a decrease in epiphyseal cartilage width in cats and dogs after hypophysectomy. Dott (8) also found that treatment with extracts from the anterior pituitary lobe partially reversed this effect. Freud and co-workers (9) found that GH increased the nose-tail length in hypo.
EMPLEO DE PATH-CONTROL TOOLS EN UNA RED EMPRESARIAL MODERNA MEDIANTE POLÍTICAS DE ENRUTAMIENTO

La correcta implementacion de un conjunto de herramientas denominadas “ path-control tools” utilizadas para mejorar el desempeno de una red de informacion convergente en entornos de enrutamiento complejo debe formar parte de todo diseno de redes empresariales resilentes, es por ello que el trabajo investigativo empieza con un analisis de las necesidades y complicaciones que tienen dichas redes, asi como de las tecnicas mas importantes a ser usadas como base de una politica de enrutamiento creada a partir de modelos de diseno estructurado para permitir una conectividad automatizada y eficiente de extremo a extremo en negocios en pleno crecimiento, alineados a los requerimientos corporativos, sin descuidar a la seguridad de la informacion, eje transversal de toda infraestructura de transmision de informacion en el siglo XXI.
Preliminary experiments of a human-portable underwater gripper robot for dexterous tasks

This paper reports the development and experiments of an underwater 6-DOF gripper robot. The developed gripper robot is a human-portable remotely operated vehicle (ROV) that weighs approximately 31 kg in air. The most important feature of this robot is that it can grasp cylindrical objects of 50-500 mm diameter, and handle them in 6 DOF. We also developed a dedicated operating device to use the gripper robot effectively. To reduce the operator burden during underwater tasks, several software functions of the operating device are provided, such as thrust allocation, depth control, and pitch angle control. Experiments in a test tank demonstrated the motion performance of the developed robot and the effectiveness of the operating device.
Chapter 2 Mitochondrial Calcium Handling in Physiology and Disease

In all multicellular organisms, a precise and efficient cell-to-cell communication is required for coordinating the vast majority of physiological processes. Hundreds of diverse molecules (e.g. ions, metabolites, peptides and proteins) can carry information from one cell to another, thus acting as signaling entities that interact with specific receptors generally located on the plasma membrane. Despite this huge complexity, only a small number of intracellular transduction pathways (e.g. Ca2+, cAMP or phosphorylation cascades) can ensure the proper decoding of all these diverse signals. One of the most important intracellular messengers is Ca2+. Indeed, between cytosol and the extracellular environment there are both chemical and electrical gradients that represent the main driving force for changes of intracellular Ca2+ concentration ([Ca2+]). Cells invest a substantial quota of their energy to guarantee this electrochemical gradient to allow rapid and transient changes in [Ca2+] that can largely differ through space and time [1], thus generating a plethora of signaling patterns that can be differentially decoded. Ca2+-dependent signal transduction requires the binding to buffering proteins, the compartmentalization into intracellular compartments and the extrusion outside the cells [2]. Ca2+ binding triggers changes in protein shape and charge and consequently activates or inhibits protein functions. The best known Ca2+-binding protein is calmodulin that, in concert with other Ca2+ buffers and intracellular compartments, controls the spatiotemporal patterning of Ca2+ signals [3]. These dynamic changes of [Ca2+] thus trigger a number of cellular events, including muscle contraction, hormone secretion, synaptic
Roles of Multifunctional COP9 Signalosome Complex in Cell Fate and Implications for Drug Discovery

The eight subunits containing COP9 signalosome (CSN) complex, is highly conserved among eukaryotes. CSN, identified as a negative regulator of photomorphogenesis, has also been demonstrated to be important in proteolysis, cellular signal transduction and cell cycle regulation in various eukaryotic organisms. This review mainly summarizes the roles of CSN in cell cycle regulation, signal transduction and apoptosis, and its potential as diagnostic biomarkers, drug targets for cancer and infectious diseases. J. Cell. Physiol. 232: 1246–1253, 2017. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Frequency of Blood Cultures Performed in a Community Hospital

Background: Blood cultures (BCs) are obtained to identify etiologic organisms, demonstrate antibiotic efficacy, determine duration of treatment, and/or suggest further interventions. Published guidelines do not clearly state indications and timing for obtaining BCs. As a result, clinicians may obtain too many BCs, increasing cost and patient discomfort. Objective: To determine frequency of BCs performed at our hospital as part of a quality improvement project. Design: Retrospective review of all BCs submitted during a randomly selected month. Setting: A New York City 535-bed, university-affiliated community hospital. Measurements: Patient demographics and BC data were obtained from medical and laboratory records. Results: During the selected month, 2280 BCs were performed for 379 patients. Negative BCs were seen in 221 patients (58%) with one-half having multiple BCs performed within 48 hours of admission and prior to obtaining results of initial BCs. Repeat BCs frequently did not reveal further pathogens among patients with either negative or positive initial BCs. Conclusions: Two-thirds of BCs were obtained from less than one-half of patients without added clinical utility. Often, BCs were repeated prior to results of initial BCs or repeated in patients receiving antibiotics in spite of known low yield following antibiotic initiation. Clinical assessment and review of initial BCs prior to obtaining further BCs is necessary. Staff education regarding appropriate clinical setting for BCs and indications for repeat BCs is required to maximize utilization of resources, improve diagnostic yield, and limit patient discomfort.
Summary of 2016 ESC guidelines on heart failure, atrial fibrillation, dyslipidaemia and cardiovascular prevention

Abstract During the ESC congress in September 2016 in Rome, the new ESC guidelines were presented and are now available on the ESC website (http://www.escardio.org/guidelines). The new guidelines cover management recommendations on following cardiovascular items: Heart failure, atrial fibrillation, dyslipidemia and cardiovascular prevention. The present document gives a summary of these guidelines and highlights the most important recommendations and changes in the management of these diseases. It will help to increase awareness about the new guidelines and may stimulate to consult the full document for specific items. Ultimately, the authors hope that this document will enhance implementation of new ESC guidelines in daily clinical practice.
Systemic vaccination with anti‐oligomeric monoclonal antibodies improves cognitive function by reducing Aβ deposition and tau pathology in 3xTg‐AD mice

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a devastating disorder that is clinically characterized by a comprehensive cognitive decline. Accumulation of the amyloid‐beta (Aβ) peptide plays a pivotal role in the pathogenesis of AD. In AD, the conversion of Aβ from a physiological soluble monomeric form into insoluble fibrillar conformation is an important event. The most toxic form of Aβ is oligomers, which is the intermediate step during the conversion of monomeric form to fibrillar form. There are at least two types of oligomers: oligomers that are immunologically related to fibrils and those that are not. In transgenic AD animal models, both active and passive anti‐Aβ immunotherapies improve cognitive function and clear the parenchymal accumulation of amyloid plaques in the brain. In this report we studied effect of immunotherapy of two sequence‐independent non‐fibrillar oligomer specific monoclonal antibodies on the cognitive function, amyloid load and tau pathology in 3xTg‐AD mice. Anti‐oligomeric monoclonal antibodies significantly reduce the amyloid load and improve the cognition. The clearance of amyloid load was significantly correlated with reduced tau hyperphosphorylation and improvement in cognition. These results demonstrate that systemic immunotherapy using oligomer‐specific monoclonal antibodies effectively attenuates behavioral and pathological impairments in 3xTg‐AD mice. These findings demonstrate the potential of using oligomer specific monoclonal antibodies as a therapeutic approach to prevent and treat Alzheimer's disease.