Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Rush hymenoptera venom immunotherapy is efficacious and safe.

BACKGROUND Although rapid venom immunotherapy (VIT) protocols have been shown to be safe and effective, this issue has not yet been clarified in Turkey. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to evaluate the side effects of rush VIT as well as early clinical and immunological responses in patients with a venom allergy. METHODS Eighteen patients who had a history of severe systemic reactions after Hymenoptera sting were included in the study. The diagnosis was made on the basis of positive skin test reactivity and the presence of specific IgE in serum to either bee or vespid venoms. Fourteen patients underwent an average 7-day rush VIT regimen under careful monitoring in our clinic. Among them 7 patients were treated with Vespula species and 7 with Apis mellifera venom extracts. Four patients were followed up as a control group. Skin test response, specific IgE and IgG4 levels were determined before and after a year of VIT. Local and systemic reactions due to injections were monitored during the induction and maintenance phases of VIT. RESULTS Specific IgG4 levels significantly increased after 1 year compared with levels before VIT (mean concentration before and after; 13.04 vs 21.85 mg/L, respectively; P < .05) whereas specific IgE levels did not change (11.54 vs. 13.32 kU/L). No significant differences were observed before and after one year of VIT in skin prick (2.34 vs 3.66 mm) and intradermal (0.12-0.11 microg/mL) test reactivities (P > .05). A single patient treated with bee venom developed 4 mild systemic reactions (4/469 injections, 0.85%) during the course of VIT. More local reactions occurred in patients receiving bee venom extract (3.33%) than in those receiving yellow jacket venom (1.33%). Two patients tolerated field stings without reactions. CONCLUSION Our experience confirms that rush VIT is safe and has a low systemic reaction. It can be considered for patients requiring rapid protection.
Cyclic variation in myocardial gray level as a marker of viability in man. A videodensitometric study.

Experimental and human studies have shown that a preserved cyclic (diastolic-to-systolic) echoreflectivity variation, assessed by radiofrequency sampling of backscatter signal with non-commercially available prototypes, identifies viability in a myocardial segment with a resting dyssynergy. The objective of this study was to assess whether a videodensitometric analysis of myocardial gray level variation during cardiac cycle might identify viable but dyssynergic myocardium in a clinical setting. Thirty-four patients with a resting dyssynergy (akinesis in 26, marked hypokinesis in eight) in the septum and/or inferno-posterior wall were evaluated by videodensitometry. All echo studies were performed with commercially available instruments in the long axis parasternal view, with quantitative analysis of gray levels performed off-line on digitized images. Segmental wall motion was assessed with a 16 segment model of the left ventricle, each scored from 1, normal, to 4, dyskinetic. A follow-up echo study was obtained in all patients > 4 weeks after successful revascularization (in 22 by angioplasty, in 12 by bypass surgery). Two groups of segments were identified: 18 viable segments (contractile improvement of 1 grade or more in resting function after revascularization); 16 necrotic segments (no contractile improvement in resting function after revascularization). The % cyclic variation was higher in viable vs necrotic segments (26 +/- 16 vs 1 +/- 13%, P < 0.01), in spite of similar % systolic thickening (5 +/- 5 vs 4 +/- 6%, P = ns) and end-diastolic thickness (10 +/- 2 vs 10 +/- 2 mm, P = ns). When individual patient analysis was performed, % cyclic variation was below the 95% confidence limits obtained from normal control regions (n = 34; % cyclic variation = 38 +/- 14) in two out of 18 viable and in 14 out of 16 necrotic segments. A cut-off of > or = 9.4% cyclic variations in a dyssynergic segment yielded 89% sensitivity and 88% specificity for predicting functional recovery following successful revascularization. In conclusion, viable dyssynergic myocardial segments show a cyclic gray level variation at rest, which can be detected by simple videodensitometric analysis, much less technologically demanding than radiofrequency backscatter evaluation.
An Ultra Low Energy Biomedical Signal Processing System Operating at Near-Threshold

This paper presents a voltage-scalable digital signal processing system designed for the use in a wireless sensor node (WSN) for ambulatory monitoring of biomedical signals. To fulfill the requirements of ambulatory monitoring, power consumption, which directly translates to the WSN battery lifetime and size, must be kept as low as possible. The proposed processing platform is an event-driven system with resources to run applications with different degrees of complexity in an energy-aware way. The architecture uses effective system partitioning to enable duty cycling, single instruction multiple data (SIMD) instructions, power gating, voltage scaling, multiple clock domains, multiple voltage domains, and extensive clock gating. It provides an alternative processing platform where the power and performance can be scaled to adapt to the application need. A case study on a continuous wavelet transform (CWT)-based heart-beat detection shows that the platform not only preserves the sensitivity and positive predictivity of the algorithm but also achieves the lowest energy/sample for ElectroCardioGram (ECG) heart-beat detection publicly reported today.
Training-induced modifications in cardiorespiratory and ventilatory measurements in thoroughbred horses.

The effects of training and detraining on ventilation during a standardised exercise test were investigated. Ten healthy Thoroughbred horses underwent 5 standardised treadmill exercise tests (SET): SET1, at the start of the experimental period; SET2, after 3 weeks acclimatisation; SET3, after 3 week of aerobic training; SET4 after 3 weeks of anaerobic (i.e. interval) training; and SET5, after 3 weeks of detraining. The SETs were carried out in an air-conditioned laboratory on a treadmill inclined at 6 degrees. Respiratory airflow, tidal volume (VT), respiratory frequency (RF) and expired minute volume (VE) were obtained using a face mask and 2 ultrasonic pneumotachographs. Peak oxygen uptake (VO2 peak) and carbon dioxide production (VCO2 peak) values were calculated on a breath-by-breath basis, using a mass spectrometer. Heart rate (HR) was continuously measured with a polar horse tester. Oxygen pulse (VO2/HR) and ventilatory equivalent for O2 were calculated from the collected data. Venous blood was sampled before and after the SET for lactate, pH and haemoglobin determinations. The results indicated that trained horses showed significant modifications of all values, except VT, RF and VE. This study suggests that, in horses, the increase in VO2 induced by training seems to be mainly due to cardiovascular and haematological changes rather than to ventilatory changes. Consequently, while all the other systems implicated in exercise physiology can be efficiently improved and trained, the ventilatory capacity has only limited ability to adapt to training.
Evidence of the transient nature of the Th17 phenotype of CD4+CD161+ T cells in the synovial fluid of patients with juvenile idiopathic arthritis.

OBJECTIVE To investigate the phenotype and function of CD4+ T cells in synovial fluid (SF) from the affected joints of children with oligoarticular-onset juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA), and to establish a possible link with disease activity. METHODS CD4+ T cells were obtained from the peripheral blood (PB) and SF of 23 children with oligoarticular-onset JIA, as well as from the PB of 15 healthy children. The cells were analyzed for the expression of CXCR3, CCR6, and CD161 and for the production of interferon-γ and interleukin-17A (IL-17A). Spectratyping and clonotype analyses were performed to assess different T cell subsets. RESULTS The numbers of CD4+CD161+ cells showing either the Th1 or the Th17/Th1 phenotype were higher in the SF than in the PB of children with JIA. The few Th17 cells from JIA SF underwent a spontaneous shift to the Th1 phenotype in vitro, whereas Th17 cells from the PB of healthy children shifted only in the presence of JIA SF; this effect was neutralized by antibody blockade of IL-12 activity. Spectratyping and clonotype analyses showed a similar skewing of the T cell receptor V(β) repertoire in both CD161+ Th17 cells and CD161+ Th1 cells derived from the SF of the same JIA patient. The frequencies of CD4+CD161+ cells, particularly the Th17/Th1 cells, in the JIA SF positively correlated with the erythrocyte sedimentation rate and levels of C-reactive protein. CONCLUSION These findings suggest that a shifting of CD4+CD161+ T cells from Th17 to the Th17/Th1 or Th1 phenotype can occur in the SF of children with oligoarticular-onset JIA, and indicate that the accumulation of these cells is correlated with parameters of inflammation. Thus, the results support the hypothesis that these cells may play a role in JIA disease activity.
Multiple Pathways to the Same End: Mechanisms of Myonuclear Apoptosis in Sarcopenia of Aging

Sarcopenia, the age-related decline in muscle mass and function, represents a significant health issue due to the high prevalence of frailty and disability associated with this condition. Nevertheless, the cellular mechanisms responsible for the loss of muscle mass in old age are still largely unknown. An altered regulation of myocyte apoptosis has recently emerged as a possible contributor to the pathogenesis of sarcopenia. Studies in animal models have shown that the severity of skeletal muscle apoptosis increases over the course of aging and correlates with the degree of muscle mass and strength decline. Several apoptotic pathways are operative in aged muscles, with the mitochondria- and TNF-α-mediated pathways likely being the most relevant to sarcopenia. However, despite the growing number of studies on the subject, a definite mechanistic link between myocyte apoptosis and age-related muscle atrophy has not yet been established. Furthermore, the evidence on the role played by apoptosis in human sarcopenia is still sparse. Clearly, further research is required to better define the involvement of myocyte apoptosis in the pathogenesis of muscle loss at advanced age. This knowledge will likely help in the design of more effective therapeutic strategies to preserve muscle mass into old age, thus fostering independence of the elderly population and reducing the socioeconomic burden associated with sarcopenia.
HOOFR: An enhanced bio-inspired feature extractor

Feature matching plays an important role in many computer vision applications, such as object recognition, scene reconstruction or image mosaicing. In this paper, we propose an algorithm called Hessian ORB - Overlapped FREAK (HOOFR) which is based on the combination of the ORB detector and the FREAK bio-inspired descriptor. We address some modifications related to the detection and the description processes in order to enhance HOOFR reliability, speed and memory fingerprint. The experiments on a widely used dataset demonstrate the considerable performance of HOOFR compared to SIFT, SURF or ORB in terms of the execution time and the matching quality, in various matching contexts.
Gallium nitrate (NSC‐15200) induced toxicity in the rat. A pharmacologic, histopathologic and microanalytical investigation

Administration of gallium nitrate to rats resulted in the formation of renal precipitates which occluded tubular lumina. When analyzed with a combination of scanning electron microscopy and x‐ray energy spectrometry, these precipitates were found to contain gallium complexed with calcium and phosphate. Injection of gallium nitrate also resulted in hypercalciuria, although serum calcium levels remained unaltered. Administration of an osmotic diuretic, isosorbide, prior to gallium treatment resulted in the formation of fewer renal precipitates and histopathologic changes than in the nondiuresed animals. Diuresis did not alter gallium serum pharmacokinetics, the 24 hour cumulative renal excretion of gallium or the extent of the drug‐induced hypercalciuria. However, isosorbide pretreatment significantly reduced the urinary concentrations of both gallium and calcium. The data presented indicate that diuresis reduces the severity of gallium‐induced renal lithiasis and subsequent renal accumulation of gallium by diluting the urinary concentration of gallium and calcium thereby lowering the incidence of interaction of these two elements within the kidney tubule.
CUNI System for WMT17 Automatic Post-Editing Task

Following upon the last year’s CUNI sys-tem for automatic post-editing of machine translation output, we focus on exploiting the potential of sequence-to-sequence neural models for this task. In this sys-tem description paper, we compare several encoder-decoder architectures on a smaller-scale models and present the sys-tem we submitted to WMT 2017 Automatic Post-Editing shared task based on this preliminary comparison. We also show how simple inclusion of synthetic data can improve the overall performance as measured by an automatic evaluation metric. Lastly, we list few example outputs generated by our post-editing system.
Expression of Hepatocyte Growth Factor/Scatter Factor Receptor in IUGR Fetuses’ Placentas: An Immunohistochemical Analysis

Objective: We aimed to evaluate the expression sta tus of c-met, receptor for the hepatocyte growth factor (HGF), in the placentas of intrauterine growth retardation (IUGR) fetuses. Materials and Methods: Placentas were obtained during delivery from both third trimester normal and IUGR complicated pregnancies. Ultrasonographic estimation of fetal birth weight has been done and placentas of those under the fifth percentile for their gestational ages were enrolled in the study group. Eighteen fetuses with IUGR and 6 uncomplicated pregnancies were subjected to the study. Histological sections from placentas were immunohistochemically evaluated for the expression status of c-met. Results: Seventeen of the eighteen patients (94.4%) in the study group were found to have overexpression of the c-met while this figure was only 16.7% (1/6) in the control group (p < 0.0001). There was a strong statistically significant difference between the two groups regarding degree of c-met expression. Conclusion: Our present findings suggest that c-met is an important cell membrane receptor in human placenta. Deregulation of the interaction between HGF and its receptor c-met during placentation may be the cause responsible for the growth retardation of the fetus due to the impaired placental functions.
An efficient binomial method for pricing asian options

We construct an efficient tree method for pricing path-dependent Asian options. The standard tree method estimates option prices at each node of the tree, while the proposed method defines an interval about each node along the stock price axis and estimates the average option price over each interval. The proposed method can be used independently to construct a new tree method, or it can be combined with other existing tree methods to improve the accuracy. Numerical results show that the proposed schemes show superiority in accuracy to other tree methods when applied to discrete forward-starting Asian options and continuous European or American Asian options.
The geographic distribution of measles in the United States, 1980 through 1989.

OBJECTIVE To describe the geographic distribution of measles cases in the United States by county for the 10-year period from 1980 through 1989. DESIGN Ecological analysis of national measles surveillance data. METHODS Measles cases reported to the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report from 1980 through 1989 were analyzed. Data from the 1980 and 1990 US censuses were used to produce demographic profiles for each of the 3137 countries. Outcome variables examined included mean annual incidence and number of years reporting measles, with use of Spearman's rank correlation coefficients to examine the association between the demographic and the two outcome variables. RESULTS A total of 56,775 measles cases were reported during the decade. Of the nation's 3137 counties, 1690 (53.9%) did not report any cases; only 17 (0.5%) reported measles in all 10 years. Counties reporting measles more frequently during the decade had higher median populations, population densities, and percentage of black and Hispanic populations than those counties reporting less frequently. Population size, population density, and percentage of Hispanic population were associated with number of years reporting measles and mean annual measles incidence rate. Measles cases in counties reporting measles every year predominantly occurred in unvaccinated preschoolers; cases in counties reporting less frequently predominantly occurred in vaccinated school-aged children. CONCLUSIONS This analysis illustrates the focal nature of measles in the United States during the past decade. Most counties have not reported a single case of measles during the entire decade, and only 17 counties reported measles every year. Targeted strategies are needed to improve age-appropriate immunization levels among preschool-aged children living in large inner-city areas.
Evolution of Plasma D-Dimer and Fibrinogen in Witnessed Onset of Paroxysmal Atrial Fibrillation

Background: Although increased D-dimer and fibrinogen have been proved to be related with atrial fibrillation (AF), their evolution in the course of time remains unclear. Methods: To elucidate the evolution of plasma D-dimer and fibrinogen in AF of different duration. 56 patients (group A) of 3,524 patients in whom the onset of AF had been witnessed in a chest pain clinic were enrolled for study. Plasma D-dimer and fibrinogen concentrations were checked within 30 min after the onset of AF and followed up as scheduled. Another 50 patients (group B) with chronic AF underwent the same protocol and served as controls. Results: In group A, the D-dimer levels reached a plateau at the 18th hour (382 ± 52 vs. 840 ± 280 ng/ml, p < 0.001 by ANOVA) and the fibrinogen level increased gradually from 4.1 ± 0.6 g/ml at baseline to 6.1 ± 0.9 g/ml at the 48th hour (p < 0.001). No subjects had evidence of intra-cardiac thrombi by transesophageal echocardiography. There were significant differences in plasma D-dimer and fibrinogen levels between the two groups at each measurement. At the cut- off value of 500 ng/ml, plasma D-dimer had a sensitivity of 100%, a specificity of 93% in defining AF lasting for less than 12 h. The positive and negative predictive values were 52% and 100%, respectively. Plasma D-dimer increased above the normal range prior to the 12th hour after the onset of AF. Conclusion: The observations support its use as a screening tool for identifying patients with short duration AF capable of being safely converted.
Promoter polymorphism of IL‐10 and severity of multiple sclerosis

Functional polymorphisms of the genes for interleukin‐10 (IL‐10; promoter position −1082), chemokine receptor‐5 (CCR5 32 bp deletion), tumor necrous factor‐α (TNFα promoter position −308) and cytotoxic T‐lymphocyte antigen‐4 (CTLA‐4 exon 1 position 49) were investigated for possible influence on susceptibility and outcome of multiple sclerosis (MS). The polymorphisms were typed by polymerase chain reaction based methods or by direct sequencing in MS patients (n = 93–116) and controls (n = 109–400). The studied genes were not associated with MS susceptibility. Patients were classified as suffering from a mild/moderate [Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS) 0–5.5] or severe (EDSS 6–8.0) form of MS. The AG genotype of IL‐10 proved to be protective against severe MS in all patients (OR = 0.32, P = 0.010), the effect being increased over the years (10 years; OR = 0.33, P = 0.043, 15 years; OR = 0.21, P = 0.025 or 20 years; OR = 0.14, P = 0.026). Our results suggest that differential production of IL‐10 might be a factor in the severity of MS.
Pulmonary function following aortic valve replacement: a comparison between ministernotomy and median sternotomy.

BACKGROUND AND AIM OF THE STUDY Minimally invasive aortic valve replacement (AVR) has several theoretical advantages over standard median sternotomy, but the effects of these techniques on postoperative pulmonary function have not been determined. METHODS Twenty-six patients undergoing AVR through either a ministernotomy (group M; n = 12) or a median sternotomy (group S; n = 14) underwent pulmonary function tests. Forced vital capacity (FVC), forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1), PaO2 and PaCO2 were determined preoperatively and before hospital discharge (at a mean of five days). Data regarding time to extubation, degree of pain and opening of the pleura were collected prospectively. Both groups had similar preoperative characteristics. RESULTS There was a significant decrease in FVC, FEVJ, PaO2 and PaCO2 during the postoperative period in all patients, though differences between the groups were not significant. Patients in group M referred less pain than those in group S. In this group, the fall in FVC and FEV1 correlated with the degree of pain, while preoperative FVC correlated with early extubation. Pleurotomy did not affect pulmonary function or pain. CONCLUSION FVC, FEV1, PaO2 and PaCO2 are reduced significantly following AVR, but a minimally invasive approach does not prevent postoperative pulmonary dysfunction.
Effect of Feedback from Peripheral Movements on Neuron Activity in the Aplysia Abdominal Ganglion

We have made reasonably comprehensive measurements of action potential activity in the Aplysia californica abdominal ganglion to determine the amount of feedback the central nervous system (CNS) receives from a movement which it initiates. Voltage‐sensitive dye measurements of action potential activity of cells in the ganglion were made during the gill‐withdrawal reflex elicited by siphon stimulation. We compared recordings in two situations which differed dramatically in the amount the gill moved. In the control sea water, the gill withdrawal was normal; in low‐Ca2+, high‐Mg2+ sea water, the gill movement was blocked. Both the timing and the number of spikes of the individual neurons were similar in the two situations. Histograms of the summed spike activity versus time and histograms of the number of active neurons versus time in the two conditions were also similar. Finally, two numerical measures of trial‐to‐trial differences, a paired t‐test and a measure we named fractional similarity, did not indicate larger differences between two trials in the different sea waters than two trials in the same sea water. Feedback from sensory neurons activated by the gill movement itself does not make a large contribution to the spike activity in the abdominal ganglion. Apparently the Aplysia CNS issues the command for the withdrawal and does not make adjustments for the magnitude of the actual withdrawal. It may not even receive the information necessary for such adjustments to be made. A second motivation for these experiments was to test whether removing the feedback might simplify the neuronal activity that occurs during the gill‐withdrawal reflex. This did not occur.