Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
CD25+ Natural Regulatory T Cells Are Critical in Limiting Innate and Adaptive Immunity and Resolving Disease following Respiratory Syncytial Virus Infection

ABSTRACT Regulatory CD4+ T cells have been shown to be important in limiting immune responses, but their role in respiratory viral infections has received little attention. Here we observed that following respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infection, CD4+ Foxp3+ CD25+ natural regulatory T-cell numbers increased in the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid, lung, mediastinal lymph nodes, and spleen. The depletion of CD25+ natural regulatory T cells prior to RSV infection led to enhanced weight loss with delayed recovery that was surprisingly accompanied by increased numbers of activated natural killer cells in the lung and bronchoalveolar lavage fluid on day 8 postinfection. Increased numbers of neutrophils were also detected within the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid and correlated with elevated levels of myeloperoxidase as well as interleukin-6 (IL-6) and gamma interferon (IFN-γ). CD25+ natural regulatory T-cell depletion also led to enhanced numbers of proinflammatory T cells producing IFN-γ and tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) in the lung. Despite these increases in inflammatory responses and disease severity, the viral load was unaltered. This work highlights a critical role for natural regulatory T cells in regulating the adaptive and innate immune responses during the later stages of lung viral infections.
Scale, Rotation and Pose Invariant 3D Object Detection using Log-polar Transform and Singular Value Decomposition

This paper proposed a novel biologically motivated 3D object detection algorithm which works robustly in the presence of large scale changes, rotation, occlusion, and pose changes. The robustness to scale and rotation is achieved through log-polar transformation procedure. Singular value decomposition (SVD) in conjunction with the distance-to-feature space measure is used to handle the pose variations and reduce the computational complexity. The system was evaluated using 3D object with varying scale and pose on different complex backgrounds. The experimental results show that the object detector was quite robust to all these variations
Validity and reliability of the sagittal abdominal diameter as a predictor of visceral abdominal fat.

OBJECTIVES To evaluate the reliability of the sagittal abdominal diameter and its validity as a predictor of visceral abdominal fat, as well as to identify the most appropriate cut-off points to identify the area of visceral fat that is known to represent a risk factor for cardiovascular disease. DESIGN Validation study. SUBJECTS 92 healthy volunteers (57 women, 35 men), age: 20-83 y, body mass index: 19.3 to 35.9 kg/m2. MEASUREMENTS Sagittal abdominal diameter (SAD), weight, height, circumferences (waist, hip, and thigh), sub-scapular skinfold thickness, abdominal diameter index, and waist-hip ratio (WHR). METHOD OF CHOICE: Computed tomography (CT). STATISTIC Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. RESULTS The reliability for SAD measurement was very high (Inter-class coefficient = 0.99). Visceral fat as measured by VAF through CT was highly correlated with SAD (women r = 0.80; men r = 0.64, p < 0.001), waist circumference (women r = 0.77; men r = 0.73, p < 0.001), and WHR (women r = 0.72; men r = 0.58, p < 0.001). The ROC curve indicated 19.3 cm and 20.5 cm as the threshold values for abdominal sagittal diameter in women and men (sensitivity 85% and 83%, specificity 77% and 82%, respectively). CONCLUSIONS There was a high correlation between SAD and VAF. The cut-off values identified for SAD presented a sensitivity and specificity that were considered adequate.
Deep Vein Thrombosis

At St Thomas's we have mainly used phlebography to demonstrate thrombus in patients who have had a pulmonary embolus (Browse et al. 1967) and in the investigation of the postphlebitic syndrome (Cockett et al. 1967). We have also used it in a small controlled trial of the effectiveness of thrombolytic agents (Browse et al. 1968) and in a comparative study with radioactive fibrinogen. Because patients with pulmonary embolism are often ill and unable to lie flat, we have tried to make the procedure as simple as possible. In particular, we use single anteroposterior projections only.
Extreme reduction of chromosome-specific alpha-satellite array is unusually common in human chromosome 21.

Human centromeres contain large arrays of alpha-satellite DNA that are thought to provide centromere function. The arrays show size and sequence variation, but the extent to which extremely low levels of this DNA can occur on normal centromeres is unclear. Using a set of chromosome-specific alpha-satellite probes for each of the human chromosomes, we performed interphase fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) in a population-screening study. Our results demonstrate that extreme reduction of chromosome-specific alpha satellite is unusually common in chromosome 21 (screened with the alphaRI probe), with a prevalence of 3.70%, compared to < or =0.12% for each of chromosomes 13 and 17, and 0% for the other chromosomes. No analphoid centromere was identified in >17,000 morphologically normal chromosomes studied. All of the low-alphoid centromeres are fully functional as indicated by their mitotic stability and binding to centromere proteins CENP-B, CENP-C, and CENP-E. Sensitive metaphase FISH analysis of the low-alphoid chromosome 21 centromeres established the presence of residual alphaRI as well as other non-alphaRI alpha-satellite DNA suggesting that centromere function may be provided by (1) the residual alphaRI DNA, (2) other non-alphaRI alpha-satellite sequences, (3) a combination of 1 and 2, or (4) an activated neocentromere DNA. The low-alphoid centromeres, in particular those of chromosome 21, should provide unique opportunities for the study of the evolution and the minimal DNA requirement of the human centromere.
SY 16-3 HEALTHY ALCOHOL CONSUMPTION: MYTH OR REALITY?

The health effects of alcohol have been studied for decades. While it is clear that excessive alcohol consumption is harmful, hundreds of studies have demonstrated that light to moderate alcohol consumption may reduce the risk of certain cardiovascular conditions. Light to moderate alcohol consumption has been consistently associated with lower risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) among a wide variety of population groups including men and women, those with hypertension, diabetes and heart disease. Alcohol has been associated with increases in HDL cholesterol and lower risks of diabetes. It is felt that this is one important mechanism by which alcohol could lower the risk of heart disease.A key issue to understanding the complex relationships of alcohol intake is the shape of the relationship. For example, the shape of the associations appears to be bimodal with lower risk at light to moderate levels of consumption and higher risk at heavy levels of consumption. This strongly suggests that mechanisms for benefit and harm may be distinct. These types of relationships are unusual in epidemiology and make recommendations challenging.Cardiovascular disease is only one component of total mortality. Alcohol has other health effects. For example heavy alcohol has been shown to increase the risk of certain cancers and can cause cardiomyopathy. This makes the overall relationship of alcohol intake on total mortality complicated. Recent meta-analyses suggest that careful attention to the subpopulation may need to be taken when considering specific alcohol recommendations. In this presentation, the factors that go into the complex relationship of alcohol and other conditions will be carefully explored.
Assessment of characteristic of the vasomotor control dynamics based on plethysmographic blood flow measurement

Enhancing the knowledge about the characteristic of the vasomotor control can help physicians to improve the treatment of cardiovascular diseases and their consequences in people's daily activities. Vessels are generally evaluated from a static point of view, where some vascular features are obtained in a given space of time, or expressed as an average of some evaluation. The present study presents a method to assess some characteristics of the vasomotor control dynamics. Such a method is based on a mathematical description of the temporal profile of the blood flow observed during a reactive hyperemia condition induced by a protocol of 5 min of ischemia. The parameters for such a mathematical descriptive function were evaluated by searching for sensitivity to identify normal and vasomotor alterations induced by oral administration of ibuprofen (1200 mg) in ten healthy volunteers. The results indicated by the proposed mathematical description fitted appropriately experimental blood flow data (fitting-error of 0.18 ml/100 ml of tissue/min). Additionally, one parameter of the mentioned function was statistically different (P < 0.05) when one considers the normal and altered conditions of the vessel, even when the traditional peak and the basal flow values did not hint at the distinction.
An Approach for Managing Operating Assets for Humanitarian Development Programs

Every year, humanitarian organizations assign a sizable portion of their limited financial resources to procure, operate and maintain operating assets, without which service delivery would be nearly impossible. In this study, using vehicles to represent operating assets, we identify policies for sizing and allocating operational capacity to minimize the expected deprivation costs in a humanitarian development context. First, we develop a stochastic dynamic programming model, and then an efficient heuristic policy that considers the interaction of asset purchasing and operating decisions when the budget is uncertain. Based on a dataset provided by a large international organization, we estimate the parameters of our model to run numerical experiments. Results demonstrate the following: (i) Although budget uncertainty increases the expected deprivation costs and decreases capacity utilization, the negative impact of budget uncertainty is mitigated if budget savings between periods is allowed; (ii) a policy for minimizing the expected deprivation costs over time may avoid using all available assets in all periods; (iii) in situations in which the variation in the criticality of missions is large, both the expected deprivation costs and fleet utilization decrease; and (iv) in most conditions, a centralized asset procurement model outperforms a decentralized model, not only in terms of logistic costs but also in minimizing the expected deprivation costs.
Observer and Command-Filter-Based Adaptive Fuzzy Output Feedback Control of Uncertain Nonlinear Systems

In this paper, observer and command-filter-based adaptive fuzzy output feedback control is proposed for a class of strict-feedback systems with parametric uncertainties and unmeasured states. First, fuzzy logic systems are used to approximate the unknown and nonlinear functions. Next, a fuzzy state observer is developed to estimate the immeasurable states. Then, command-filtered backstepping control is designed to avoid the explosion of complexity in the backstepping design, and compensating signals are introduced to remove the effect of the errors caused by command filters. The proposed method guarantees that all signals in the closed-loop systems are bounded. The main contributions of this paper are the proposed control method can overcome two problems of linear in the unknown system parameter and explosion of complexity in backstepping-design methods and it does not require that all of the states of the system are measured directly. Finally, two examples are provided to illustrate its effectiveness.
STAPHYLOCOCCAL SENSITIZATION: SPECIFIC BIOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF PHAGE K ON THE BACTERIAL CELL WALL IN LYSIS-FROM-WITHOUT

Ralston, Doris J. (University of California, Berkeley). Staphylococcal sensitization: specific biological effects of phage K on the bacterial cell wall in lysis-from-without. J. Bacteriol. 85:1185–1193. 1963. —Phage K, shown previously to sensitize staphylococcal-wall mucopeptide to the action of a phage-induced enzyme, virolysin, was found to act in a specific manner in that its sensitizing effects were restricted to chemical linkages affected by three staphylococcal lysins. These caused an immediate lysis, whereas egg-white lysozyme, which could also digest the wall mucopeptide, exerted variable effects, even when in the absence of phage it produced some lysis. Evidence was presented that the K1 normal cell autolysin and the K phage virolysin could act synergistically with lysozyme on phage-sensitized cells, and that any effects observed with lysozyme were due to the simultaneous presence of trace amounts of these staphylococcal lysins. None of a series of lysozymelike agents from sea urchins, marine sepunculids, and from rabbit peritoneal histiocytes caused accelerated lysis of phage-sensitized cells, although like lysozyme they showed a slow lysis of phage-free living cells. Other enzymes which did not reduce the turbidity of sensitized cells included agents specific for intracellular components (proteins, lipids, nucleic acids), and enzymes, as decarboxylase, alkaline phosphatase, d-amino oxidase, and hyaluronidase. These results suggested that the main effects of the phage in sensitization were limited to areas of the cell wall involved in protection against the action of the staphylococcal lysins.
Prosthetic Rehabilitation of Patients with Maxillary Defects in a Nigerian Tertiary Hospital

Background: Maxillary defects are managed by prosthodontic rehabilitation using obturators. This rehabilitation goes through various stages, which invariably affects the quality-of-life of the patients. Aim: This study aims to analyze the types and design of obturators used in the rehabilitation of maxillary defects at a tertiary health institution in Nigeria. Materials and Methods: This is a retrospective study of all patients with maxillary defects treated at a tertiary institution between the period of October 2010 and May 2013. The data of interest collected from the patient′s register and case notes include age, gender, type of defects, design of obturators and conditions for which treatment was offered. The collected data were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 16.0 (Chicago, Illinois, 2010) and result presented in frequencies and tables. Results: A total of 19 case notes were retrieved. The age range was 5-73 years with the mean age of 46.37 ± 19.02 and peak age incidence at 41-60 years. The male: female ratio was 1:1.4. Surgical defects were the most common type of maxillary defects seen; accounting for 89.5% (17/19) of the cases, which were mostly associated with malignant tumors. Immediate surgical obturators were provided for 63.2% (12/19) of the subjects. Majority 70.6% (12/17) of those with surgical defects received immediate surgical obturators while all those with congenital defect were given feeding plate. There was a statistically significant association between the type of maxillary defect and type of obturator provided (P < 0.01). Conclusion: The results of this study suggest that majority of the obturators fabricated for patients with maxillary defect at the Tertiary health institution in Nigeria were immediate surgical obturators. Pre-surgical patient education and follow-up care is advocated.
Epidemiology of Spondyloarthritis in North America

Many challenges have made it difficult to determine the prevalence of spondyloarthritis (SpA) in North America. They include the ethnic heterogeneity of the population, the lack of feasibility of applying current criteria (such as requirements for human leukocyte antigen–B27 testing and imaging studies such as pelvic radiographs and magnetic resonance imaging scanning) and the transient nature of some SpA symptoms (ie, peripheral arthritis and enthesitis). Current estimates of the prevalence of SpA in the United States range between 0.2% and 0.5% for ankylosing spondylitis, 0.1% for psoriatic arthritis, 0.065% for enteropathic peripheral arthritis, between 0.05% and 0.25% for enteropathic axial arthritis and an overall prevalence of SpA as high as >1%. With newer population-based instruments becoming available, the availability of the widely validated European Spondyloarthropathy Study Group criteria and the lower cost and greater feasibility of genetic testing, opportunities for true population-based studies of SpA are possible and will likely soon ensue.
Scaling up research-for-development innovations in food and agricultural systems

ABSTRACT The last decade has seen a growing interest in scaling up innovations to realise wider benefits from development investments. While numerous proven technologies, products and models have been successfully piloted, scaling them up through expansion, adoption and replication has proved challenging, particularly in poor regions of the world. The low uptake of innovations is partially attributed to the design of technologies, in a manner that is not compatible with local farming practices. At the same time, proven innovations fail to generate large impacts at scale because implementing actors have not sufficiently understood or effectively engaged with the scaling process. This article shares lessons from the Canadian International Food Security Research Fund (CIFSRF) that supported applied research to develop, test and scale up promising food and nutrition security innovations. Key lessons include ensuring that innovations are embedded within local socio-ecological systems; engaging end users throughout the research process and enabling participatory decision-making; and considering the investment returns of innovations for end-users.
Experimental Infection of Muscovy Ducks with Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza Virus (H5N1) Belonging to Clade 2.2

Abstract Highly pathogenic (HP) H5N1 avian influenza (AI) is enzootic in several countries of Asia and Africa and constitutes a major threat, at the world level, for both animal and public health. Ducks play an important role in the epidemiology of AI, including HP H5N1 AI. Although vaccination can be a useful tool to control AI, duck vaccination has not proved very efficient in the field, indicating a need to develop new vaccines and a challenge model to evaluate the protection for duck species. Although Muscovy duck is the duck species most often reared in France, the primary duck-producing country in Europe, and is also produced in Asia, it is rarely studied. Our team recently demonstrated a good cross-reactivity with hemagglutinin from clade 2.2 and inferred that this could be a good vaccine candidate for ducks. Two challenges using two French H5N1 HP strains, 1) A/mute swan/France/06299/06 (Swan/06299), clade 2.2. 1, and 2) A/mute swan/France/070203/07 (Swan/070203), clade 2.2 (but different from subclade 2.2.1), were performed (each) on 20 Muscovy ducks (including five contacts) inoculated by oculo-nasal route (6 log10 median egg infectious doses per duck). Clinical signs were recorded daily, and cloacal and oropharyngeal swabs were collected throughout the assay. Autopsies were done on all dead ducks, and organs were taken for analyses. Virus was measured by quantitative reverse transcriptase–PCR based on the M gene AI virus. Ducks presented severe nervous signs in both challenges. Swan/070203 strain led to 80% morbidity (12/15 sick ducks) and 73% mortality (11/15 ducks) at 13.5 days postinfection (dpi), whereas Swan/06299 strain produced 100% mortality at 6.5 dpi. Viral RNA load was significantly lower via the cloacal route than via the oropharyngeal route in both trials, presenting a peak in the first challenge at 3.5 dpi and being more stable in the second challenge. The brain was the organ containing the highest viral RNA load in both challenges. Viral RNA load in a given organ was similar or statistically significantly higher in ducks challenged with Swan/06299 strain. Thus, the Swan/06299 strain was more virulent and could be used as a putative challenge model. Moreover, challenged ducks and contacts contained the same amounts of viral RNA load, demonstrating the rapid and efficient transmission of H5N1 HP in Muscovy ducks in our experimental conditions.
Electrochemical Regeneration of Various Graphitic Adsorbents in an Air Agitated Sequential Batch Reactor

With the aim to address the issues related to the regeneration of activated carbon used for wastewater treatment, a novel and state of the art water treatment technology (Arvia) was introduced at the University of Manchester, UK. This technology employs the adsorption of dissolved toxic pollutants present in water onto the surface of graphitic adsorbents followed by their quick and cheap electrochemical regeneration in a simple electrochemical reactor. The main mechanism of regeneration is based on the anodic oxidation of adsorbed species at the adsorbent surface. The adsorbed species are thought to be completely mineralized. However, some of the adsorbed organic contaminants may lead to the generation of toxic intermediate breakdown species owing to incomplete mineralization and/or indirect oxidation of organics present in solution. The former phenomenon may also depend upon the adsorption capacity of the adsorbent to be used. In this paper, a range of graphitic adsorbents including graphite intercalation compound-bisulphate (GIC-bisulpahte), recycled vein graphite (RVG) and exfoliated graphite (EG) were selected so as to investigate the formation of breakdown products during their electrochemical regeneration. Relatively fewer quantities of breakdown products in terms of p-benzoquinone and 4-chlorophenol were observed for EG. However, higher concentrations of oxalic acid were found for EG in comparison to GIC-bisulphate and RVG leading to conclude that the electrochemical degradation of phenol at the surface of exfoliated graphite could be through the direct oxidation of phenol into carboxylic acids.
Depression-executive dysfunction syndrome relates to poor poststroke survival.

BACKGROUND The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of poststroke depression and executive dysfunction on long-term survival after acute stroke. METHODS A total of 257 consecutive acute ischemic stroke patients were included in the study and followed up to 12 years. Depression was diagnosed 3 months after stroke in 99 patients (38.5%). FINDINGS In Kaplan-Meier analysis, there was no difference in survival of patients with and without poststroke depression (8.7 versus 8.3 years). Instead, patients with both depression and executive dysfunction had shorter median survival than patients with neither depression nor executive dysfunction (6.6 versus 10.3 years). Comparison between all patients with executive dysfunction and patients without it, not regarding depressive status, showed that executive dysfunction in itself was strongly associated with poor poststroke survival (6.4 versus 10.6 years). In stepwise Cox regression proportional hazards analysis adjusted with covariates, poststroke depression with executive dysfunction (hazard ratio [HR] 1.63) and advanced age (HR 1.11) remained as independent predictors of poor long-term survival. INTERPRETATION The authors' well-defined poststroke cohort with long-term follow-up indicates that in poststroke depression, the depression-executive dysfunction syndrome is the predictor of poor long-term survival rather than depression in itself.