Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
High-Sensitivity Troponins in Liver Transplantation: How Will They Change Our Practice?

In this issue of the journal, Dr. Park and his research team present evidence that increased serum cardiac troponinenzymes (Tn) measured after liver transplant surgery are associated with worse patient and graft outcome. The association between increased serum Tn and adverse outcomes after liver transplantation was previously reported by other investigators.However, the current study providesmore rigorous evidence to support this association by propensity testing of demographic characteristics and other cardiovascular morbidities in patients with and without troponin elevation. This important step improves specificity of the observations by reducing the independent effects other conditions could have on serum Tn. The time to detection of Tn elevation was also markedly shortened by use of a high-sensitivity troponin (hs-Tn) assay. Although the findings are interesting, it is not clear how this information will improve clinical care of liver transplant patients receiving deceased or living donor organs. High-sensitivity troponin assays are clinical biomarkers that are primarily used as predictive analytic tools for the diagnosis and outcome of myocardial infarction. They have been widely available throughout the world but were only approved for clinical use in the USA in 2017. Assays are defined as high sensitivity if the coefficient of variation for the upper reference limit is <10% at the 99th percentile in the population of interest. This minimizes false-positive results but can reduce diagnostic specificity. All biomarkers, including Tn enzyme assays, need welldefined reference parameters for the clinical condition and the population of interest. There are no known reference values for unusual populations such as preand postoperative transplant recipients. The reference ranges used for diagnosis of myocardial infarction may not have equal predictive value for overall early mortality or graft loss. It is also
Consensus tracking of multi-agent systems with constrained time-delay by iterative learning control

This paper investigates the consensus tracking problem for the discrete multi-agent system (DMAS) with time-delay. By using iterative learning control (ILC) method and convergence in discrete system, the convergence properties for total system can be analyzed based on the time-domain analysis, frequency-domain analysis and matrix theory. The result shows that the proposed methods depend on each agent's self-delay time, the weights of the edges to each agent's neighbors, and the interconnection topology of the network. The iterative number of learning control relies on the sampling period and self-delay time for the discrete multi-agent system. Finally, numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the theoretical results.
Haemophilus influenzae type b conjugate vaccines: a review of efficacy data.

BACKGROUND The development of a vaccine against Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) was stimulated by its recognition as a major pathogen of early childhood. The first vaccine to be developed was composed of the capsular polysaccharide of the organism, polyribosylribitol phosphate (PRP), and although effective in older children, it failed to protect those <2 years of age, the group with the highest burden of disease. The conjugation of PRP to protein led to a group of vaccines with enhanced immunogenicity and the ability to induce immunologic memory and thus the potential to protect in infancy. OBJECTIVES To review the trials of Hib conjugate vaccines in which protective efficacy in infants has been assessed and the experience in countries in which Hib conjugate vaccines have been introduced into the routine infant immunization schedule. DISCUSSION Each of the Hib conjugate vaccines [PRP-diphtheria toxoid conjugate (PRP-D), PRP conjugated to outer membrane protein of Neisseria meningitidis group B (PRP-OMP), PRP oligosaccharides conjugated to mutant diphtheria toxin CRM197, (HbOC) and PRP conjugated to tetanus toxoid (PRP-T)] has been subjected to prospective clinical trials and all have demonstrated high protective efficacy with one exception: that of the least immunogenic vaccine, PRP-D, when used in a Native American population with a high level of natural disease. The trials have used different populations and different schedules, which limits conclusions about relative efficacies. However, it seems likely that all the vaccines are capable of high efficacy in populations with low levels and late age of Hib disease. Three vaccines (PRP-D, PRP-OMP, PRP-T) have been tested in populations with high rates of disease and only PRP-D has been found lacking. As predicted by immunogenicity data, PRP-OMP affords efficacy after one dose, and PRP-T is efficacious with an accelerated schedule. Of more practical significance the effectiveness of these vaccines when introduced into populations has been uniformly impressive. CONCLUSIONS Particularly where vaccine coverage is high, it is now likely that Hib disease can be eliminated using Hib conjugate vaccines in infancy.
The effect of intranasal exposure of chickens to the Fahey-Crawley virus on the development of synovial lesions.

SUMMARY Chickens were exposed to Fahey-Crawley virus via the respiratory route. No gross lesions developed in the inoculated birds but one contact control showed a slight swelling in the digital flexor tendons. Microscopic examination of the synovium taken from the metatarsal region revealed inflammatory changes in about half of the birds at 3 weeks but in only one at 7 weeks postinoculation (PI). The number of synovial smears with inflammatory cells and the number of virus isolations from the synovia were greater at 3 weeks than at 7 weeks PI.
Design of LQR controller for Ballbot and hardware implementation

A Ballbot is a single spherical wheeled robot with single point of contact with ground. This makes the system statically unstable. It attains stability only with the help of a sophisticated controller. For the controller design and to analyze the behavior of the system, the ballbot was modelled using Lagrangian formulation and a state-space model is derived. LQR controllers for each plane of instability are designed and then tuned from simulation results and was implemented on hardware. The controller is implemented as a computer algorithm that reads/senses various physical parameters of the robot and generates a computed control signal. Ballbot structure is designed using Solidworks software and the hardware model is fabricated. The system
Cutting Edge: Responder T Cells Regulate Human DR+ Effector Regulatory T Cell Activity via Granzyme B1

MHC class II expression identifies an effector subset of human CD4+CD25highFoxP3high natural regulatory T cells (DR+ Tregs) that induces more rapid suppression and exhibits higher FoxP3 expression than the remaining Treg population. Although Tregs are known to be highly sensitive to apoptosis, in this study we demonstrate that this sensitivity is primarily a feature of DR+ Tregs. Granzyme B (GzmB) is strongly expressed by nonregulatory responder CD4 T cells, whereas effector DR+ Tregs express little GzmB. Strong TCR stimulation markedly increases the expression of GzmB in all dividing responder CD4 T cells and mitigates the suppression by DR+ Tregs. DR+ Treg suppressive activity reemerges if GzmB is neutralized. We show that responder cells actively kill effector Tregs by producing GzmB in response to strong TCR stimulation. Thus, the production of GzmB by strongly activated CD4 T cells represents a mechanism by which CD4 T cells resist Treg suppression.
Enhancing Scientific Collaboration Through Knowledge Base Population and Linking for Meetings

Recent research on scientific collaboration shows that distributed interdisciplinary collaborations report comparatively poor outcomes, and the inefficiency of the coordination mechanisms is partially responsible for the problems. To improve information sharing between past collaborators and future team members, or reuse of collaboration records from one project by future researchers, this paper describes systems that automatically construct a knowledge base of the meetings from the calendars of participants, and that then link reference to those meetings found in email messages to the corresponding meeting in the knowledge base. This is work in progress in which experiments with a publicly available corporate email collection with calendar entries show that the knowledge base population function achieves high precision (0.98, meaning that almost all knowledge base entities are actually meetings) and that the accuracy of the linking from email messages to knowledge base entries (0.90) is already quite good.
Human Neuron-Committed Teratocarcinoma NT2 Cell Line Has Abnormal ND10 Structures and Is Poorly Infected by Herpes Simplex Virus Type 1

ABSTRACT Herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) immediate-early regulatory protein ICP0 stimulates the initiation of lytic infection and reactivation from quiescence in human fibroblast cells. These functions correlate with its ability to localize to and disrupt centromeres and specific subnuclear structures known as ND10, PML nuclear bodies, or promyelocytic oncogenic domains. Since the natural site of herpesvirus latency is in neurons, we investigated the status of ND10 and centromeres in uninfected and infected human cells with neuronal characteristics. We found that NT2 cells, a neuronally committed human teratocarcinoma cell line, have abnormal ND10 characterized by low expression of the major ND10 component PML and no detectable expression of another major ND10 antigen, Sp100. In addition, PML is less extensively modified by the ubiquitin-like protein SUMO-1 in NT2 cells compared to fibroblasts. After treatment with retinoic acid, NT2 cells differentiate into neuron-like hNT cells which express very high levels of both PML and Sp100. Infection of both NT2 and hNT cells by HSV-1 was poor compared to human fibroblasts, and after low-multiplicity infection yields of virus were reduced by 2 to 3 orders of magnitude. ICP0-deficient mutants were also disabled in the neuron-related cell lines, and cells quiescently infected with an ICP0-null virus could be established. These results correlated with less-efficient disruption of ND10 and centromeres induced by ICP0 in NT2 and hNT cells. Furthermore, the ability of ICP0 to activate gene expression in transfection assays in NT2 cells was poor compared to Vero cells. These results suggest that a contributory factor in the reduced HSV-1 replication in the neuron-related cells is inefficient ICP0 function; it is possible that this is pertinent to the establishment of latent infection in neurons in vivo.
Interactions between Orientation and Contrast Modulations Suggest Limited Cross-Cue Linkage

Recent studies of texture segmentation and second-order vision have proposed very similar models for the detection of orientation modulation and contrast modulation (OM and CM). From the similarity of the models it is tempting to assume that the two cues might be processed by a single generalised texture mechanism; however, recent results (Kingdom et al, 2003 Visual Neuroscience 2 65–76) have suggested that these cues are detected independently, or at least in a mechanism that is able to maintain an apparent independence between the cues. We tested new combinations of OM and CM and found that CM at 0.4 cycle deg−1 facilitates the detection of OM at 0.2 cycle deg−1 when the peaks of contrast align with the extremes of orientation. There is also some evidence of weak facilitation of CM by OM under the same conditions. Further, this facilitation can be predicted by filter-rectify-filter channels optimised for the detection of each cue, adding weight to the argument that texture cues are processed in a single generalised mechanism that nonetheless achieves cue independence or near-independence in many circumstances. We also found that the amount of suprathreshold masking produced by an orientation cue depends on the overall percept formed by that cue.
An examination of the information disclosure behavior of infertility bloggers: Patterns of self-disclosure and anonymity

Purpose – The study aimed to investigate the information disclosure behavior of women bloggers who suffer from infertility by examining their self-disclosure as it relates to the anonymity patterns they adopted. Design/methodology/approach – A survey was distributed to approximately 300 authors of infertility blogs, 135 bloggers answered the request to take part in the study. The survey gathered basic demographic and blogging practice data, and measured different elements of the bloggers' discursive and visual anonymity as well as their patters of self-disclosure. Findings – Findings reveal that the majority of respondents identify themselves on their blogs and only a small percentage decided to be totally anonymous, and about half of the bloggers post actual photos of themselves and their lives. The participants reported a high rate of self-disclosure, revealing sensitive information, letting their defenses down, disclosing highly intimate details about their lives, writing openly about their infertility.
Multimedia modeling of human exposure to chemical substances: The roles of food web biomagnification and biotransformation

The Risk Assessment IDentification And Ranking (RAIDAR) model is refined to calculate relative human exposures as expressed by total intake, intake fraction (iF), and total body burden (TBB) metrics. The RAIDAR model is applied to three persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and six petrochemicals using four mode‐of‐entry emission scenarios to evaluate the effect of metabolic biotransformation estimates on human exposure calculations. When biotransformation rates are assumed to be negligible, daily intake and iFs for the nine substances ranged over six orders of magnitude and TBBs ranged over 10 orders of magnitude. Including biotransformation estimates for fish, birds, and mammals reduced substance‐specific daily intake and iF by up to 4.5 orders of magnitude and TBB by more than eight orders of magnitude. The RAIDAR iF calculations are compared to the European Union System for the Evaluation of Substances (EUSES) model iF calculations and differences are discussed, especially the treatment of food web bioaccumulation. Model selection and application assumptions result in different rankings of human exposure potential. These results suggest a need to critically consider model selection and to include reliable biotransformation rate estimates when assessing relative human exposure and ranking substances for priority setting. Recommendations for further model evaluations and revisions are discussed. Environ. Toxicol. Chem. 2010;29:45–55. © 2009 SETAC
A sentiment analysis of Singapore Presidential Election 2011 using Twitter data with census correction

Abstract Sentiment analysis is a new area in text analytics where it focuses on the analysis and understanding of the emotions from the text patterns. This new form of analysis has been widely adopted in customer relation management especially in the context of complaint management. With increasing level of interest in this technology, more and more companies are adopting it and using it to champion their marketing efforts. However, sentiment analysis using twitter has remained extremely difficult to manage due to the sampling bias. In this paper, we will discuss about the application of using reweighting techniques in conjunction with online sentiment divisions to predict the vote percentage that individual candidate will receive. There will be in depth discussion about the various aspects using sentiment analysis to predict outcomes as well as the potential pitfalls in the estimation due to the anonymous nature of the internet. Introduction
Isolation of mucin from human submaxillary secretions.

Human submaxillary mucin isolated by precipitation with cetyltrimethylammonium bromide dissolved in 3 M sodium chloride was subjected to gel filtration on Sephadex G-200. This glycoprotein was free of contaminating proteins as determined by gel filtration, disc electrophoresis, and immunologic studies. The molecular weight was between 500,000 and 1,000,000. The amino acid composition was similar to submaxillary mucins from other species; however, the carbohydrate composition of human mucins varied significantly from different individuals. The mucin from secretor, blood group A individuals is completely absorbed by columns of anti-A antibody coupled with Sepharose 4B, indicating that the submaxillary mucin and the blood group substances in saliva are identical.
Genetic variation and population dispersal of Yangtze voles Microtus fortis calamorum in the Dongting Lake region

To understand genetic variation and population dispersal in the Yangtze vole Microtus fortis calamorum distributed in the Dongting Lake region, 144 individuals were collected from six habitat patches. The mitochondrial DNA control region was sequenced and 17 haplotypes were observed. Of the six investigated populations, haplotype and nucleotide diversities of those from larger patches were higher than those from smaller patches. Nonparametric correlation analysis showed that patch size had a positive correlation with haplotype diversity (r = 0.943, P < 0.01). A neighbour-joining tree of the 17 haplotypes showed no geo- graphic genetic structure among the six populations. Analysis of isolation by distance showed that genetic differentiation among the six populations was not positively related to geographic distance. Analysis of mismatch distribution indicated that the voles had passed through a population expansion. The pattern of haplotype distribution in the Changsha population suggests that the population was established by a founder effect (Current Zoology 58 (2): 211-220, 2012).
Weight Loss in Alzheimer's Disease: An International Review of the Literature

Alzheimer's disease affects an estimated 2 million elderly in the U.S. and challenges primary care physicians to assist caregivers in dealing with the daily management of these patients. To support the clinical observation of weight loss in Alzheimer patients despite adequate food intake, we reviewed the existing literature. To date, eight international studies have focused on nutrition in Alzheimer's disease and all have found weight loss. It is not clear whether this weight loss is a component of or a consequence of the disease. These findings suggest systemic, metabolic alterations in Alzheimer's disease. They require further investigation as to their nature and as to their appropriate recognition and management to retard the deteriorating effects of chronic weight loss and malnutrition. Finally, some reports lead to speculation that nutritional strategies may improve cognitive function.
Pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic considerations for the current chronic constipation treatments

Introduction: Chronic constipation is a frequent condition often treated pharmacologically. The laxatives available belong to very different pharmacologic groups. Areas covered: This is a short but comprehensive review of the pharmacology, efficacy and safety of currently available laxatives for chronic constipation. Pertinent publications were retrieved from reference lists of publications and by literature searches via PubMed, lastly performed in November 2012. Expert opinion: The most relevant laxative groups are the older representatives osmotic salts, sugars and sugar alcohols, macrogol, anthraquinones, diphenolic laxatives or diphenyl methanes (bisacodyl and sodium picosulfate) and the newer compounds prucalopride, lubiprostone and linaclotide. For all of these laxatives efficacy has been shown in controlled trials. Electrolyte losses do not occur when laxatives are given in therapeutic doses (rare exceptions with phosphate salts and salinic laxatives). The older laxatives are also safe regarding teratogenicity, abortion and lactation. For the newer compounds no respective data are available as yet. It is questionable whether the newer compounds offer advantages over the older ones. Unfortunately, comparative trials are lacking.
Regulative ability of the prospective cardiogenic and vasculogenic areas of the primitive streak during avian gastrulation

Four types of microsurgical experiments were conducted to analyze heart and blood vessel development during gastrula stages of avian embryos, stages during which prospective cardiogenic and vasculogenic cells reside within the primitive streak. Experiments addressed whether cells not normally destined to form heart could form heart when given the opportunity to do so and vice versa; cells destined to form rostral levels of the heart (or, alternatively, head blood vessels) could form caudal levels of the heart (or, alternatively, trunk blood vessels) and vice versa; the early endoderm imparts rostrocaudal organization to the heart and associated blood vessels; and ingression of cells from the primitive streak and their subsequent migration into the mesodermal mantle is a cell‐autonomous event for migrating cells. Our results demonstrate the lability of prospective cardiogenic and vasculogenic cells of the primitive streak, both in terms of the type of mesodermal structures they are capable of forming (or of being formed from) and in terms of the rostrocaudal patterning of the cardiovascular system. In addition, our results show that cell ingression and migration is directed by environmental cues and is not a cell‐autonomous process for migrating cells. Finally, our results suggest that patterning of the cardiovascular system occurs after cells enter the mesodermal mantle, presumably through cell‐cell inductive interactions. However, the early endoderm is not the primary source of the patterning influence. What is the source remains to be established. © 1993 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Eating disorders in the elderly

ABSTRACT Background: Eating disorders in the elderly are often overlooked. When they occur, significant morbidity and mortality result. In this study we review all existing literature on eating disorders in the elderly and provide practical guidelines for clinicians in recognizing and managing eating disorders in the elderly. Methods: A literature search using Medline(R), PubMed(R), Web of Knowledge(R), and PsychINFO(R) revealed 48 published cases of eating disorders in people over the age of 50 years. Results: The mean age was 68.6 years (range 50–94), and the majority (88%) of cases were females. The majority (81%) of cases had anorexia nervosa, and 10% had bulimia nervosa. Late onset eating disorders were more common (69%) than early onset. Comorbid psychiatric conditions existed in 60%, most commonly major depression. Management with a combination of behavioral and pharmacologic interventions was most successful, although only 42% were treated successfully. Mortality was high (21%) secondary to the eating disorder and its complications. Conclusion: Eating disorders do occur in the elderly and should be included in the differential diagnosis of unexplained weight loss in the elderly.