Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Hyperdense Middle Cerebral Artery Sign: Can It Be Used to Select Intra-Arterial versus Intravenous Thrombolysis in Acute Ischemic Stroke?

Background: Stroke patients with a hyperdense middle cerebral artery sign (HMCAS) may respond less favorably to intravenous (IV) thrombolysis. Objective: To compare outcomes of patients with and without early CT findings treated with IV versus intra-arterial (IA) recombinant tissue plasminogen activator (rtPA). Methods: Initial and 24-hour CT scans of the head were evaluated in 83 consecutive stroke patients (66 on IV rtPA, 17 on IA rtPA). Time permitting, a CT angiogram was performed immediately after the initial CT scan to ascertain major cerebral artery occlusion. Demographics and etiological stroke subtype, times to thrombolysis and CT scan, baseline (prethrombolysis) and 24-hour National Institutes of Health stroke scale (NIHSS) score, discharge NIHSS score and 90-day modified Rankin scale (mRS) were recorded. The initial CT of these patients was examined for early signs of stroke. The 24-hour scan was reviewed for the presence of infarct, hemorrhage and persistence of HCMAS. Results: A favorable outcome, indicated by a significant improvement in the discharge NIHSS score, was noted with IA rtPA, irrespective of the presence (p = 0.001) or absence (p = 0.01) of HCMAS. A less favorable outcome in discharge NIHSS score was noted with IV rtPA in patients with HCMAS (p = not significant) than those without the sign (p < 0.001). A similar proportion of patients with HCMAS exhibited a neurological improvement at 24 h as those without the sign in the IA rtPA group (p = 0.9). However, a smaller proportion of patients with HCMAS exhibited a neurological improvement at 24 h than those without the sign in the IV rtPA group (p = 0.005). The results were similar using 90-day mRS ≤1 as an indicator of significant persistent improvement (p = 1.0 for IA rtPA and 0.04 for IV rtPA group). Conclusions: In a small sample, patients with HMCAS appeared to respond better to IA than IV rtPA.
Cooperative, ATP-dependent Association of the Nucleotide Binding Cassettes during the Catalytic Cycle of ATP-binding Cassette Transporters*

ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporters harvest the energy present in cellular ATP to drive the translocation of a structurally diverse set of solutes across the membrane barriers of eubacteria, archaebacteria, and eukaryotes. The positively cooperative ATPase activity (Hill coefficient, 1.7) of a model soluble cassette of known structure, MJ0796, fromMethanococcus jannaschii indicates that at least two binding sites participate in the catalytic reaction. Mutation of the catalytic base in MJ0796, E171Q, produced a cassette that can bind but not efficiently hydrolyze ATP. The equivalent mutation (E179Q) in a homologous cassette, MJ1267, had an identical effect. Both mutant cassettes formed dimers in the presence of ATP but not ADP, indicating that the energy of ATP binding is first coupled to the transport cycle through a domain association reaction. The non-hydrolyzable nucleotides adenosine 5′-(β,γ-imino)triphosphate and adenosine 5′-3-O-(thio)triphosphate were poor analogues of ATP in terms of their ability to promote dimerization. Moreover, inclusion of MgCl2, substitution of KCl for NaCl, or alterations in the polarity of the side chain at the catalytic base all weakened the ATP-dependent dimer, suggesting that electrostatic interactions are critical for the association reaction. Thus, upon hydrolysis of bound ATP and the release of product, both electrostatic and conformational changes drive the cassettes apart, providing a second opportunity to couple free energy changes to the transport reaction.
Targeting the VEGF pathway in metastatic bladder cancer

Introduction: Bladder cancer represents 7% of all new cancers diagnosed in the USA in 2015. Furthermore, the mortality of metastatic bladder cancer has not decreased substantially in the last four decades. Angiogenesis is known to play a major role in the pathogenesis of bladder cancer. Areas covered: The following article provides an overview of the first results of agents targeting the VEGF pathway in the treatment of metastatic bladder cancer. Expert opinion: Despite a few clinical trials providing preliminary encouraging results, the overall outcomes of the first published trials have been rather disappointing. In some instances, especially the case of trials which have investigated the use of new targeted agents as a single agent, no significant improvement in outcomes was seen, or was not sustained. In other cases, such as with combination trials, intolerable adverse effects have compromised the trials, due to overlapping toxicity between the targeted agent and chemotherapeutic agent(s). Further trials are warranted possibly combining different targeted agents or the use of sequential therapy. A better selection of the patient population may also be a key factor to improve patient outcomes, as many predictive factors of response seem to have already been identified.
Micropatterning as a tool to decipher cell morphogenesis and functions

In situ, cells are highly sensitive to geometrical and mechanical constraints from their microenvironment. These parameters are, however, uncontrolled under classic culture conditions, which are thus highly artefactual. Micro-engineering techniques provide tools to modify the chemical properties of cell culture substrates at sub-cellular scales. These can be used to restrict the location and shape of the substrate regions, in which cells can attach, so-called micropatterns. Recent progress in micropatterning techniques has enabled the control of most of the crucial parameters of the cell microenvironment. Engineered micropatterns can provide a micrometer-scale, soft, 3-dimensional, complex and dynamic microenvironment for individual cells or for multi-cellular arrangements. Although artificial, micropatterned substrates allow the reconstitution of physiological in situ conditions for controlled in vitro cell culture and have been used to reveal fundamental cell morphogenetic processes as highlighted in this review. By manipulating micropattern shapes, cells were shown to precisely adapt their cytoskeleton architecture to the geometry of their microenvironment. Remodelling of actin and microtubule networks participates in the adaptation of the entire cell polarity with respect to external constraints. These modifications further impact cell migration, growth and differentiation.
Prokaryotic Utilization of the Twin-Arginine Translocation Pathway: a Genomic Survey

ABSTRACT The twin-arginine translocation (Tat) pathway, which has been identified in plant chloroplasts and prokaryotes, allows for the secretion of folded proteins. However, the extent to which this pathway is used among the prokaryotes is not known. By using a genomic approach, a comprehensive list of putative Tat substrates for 84 diverse prokaryotes was established. Strikingly, the results indicate that the Tat pathway is utilized to highly varying extents. Furthermore, while many prokaryotes use this pathway predominantly for the secretion of redox proteins, analyses of the predicted substrates suggest that certain bacteria and archaea secrete mainly nonredox proteins via the Tat pathway. While no correlation was observed between the number of Tat machinery components encoded by an organism and the number of predicted Tat substrates, it was noted that the composition of this machinery was specific to phylogenetic taxa.
Assessing elder victimization--demonstration of a methodology.

BACKGROUND Research on epidemiological assessment of interpersonal violence in younger adults indicates that there are essential components of interview-based queries necessary to maximize the likelihood that episodes of physical and sexual assault will be identified. These include phrasing to prime comprehensive disclosure, combined with extremely behaviorally specific descriptive questions about assault events. Such methodology permits simultaneous assessment of violence perpetrated by intimates or caregivers (i. e., abuse) as well as that perpetrated by strangers (i. e., assault), and is easily conducted via telephone. However, these strategies have not been used to simultaneously measure both abuse and assault in older adults, and some question exists as to the applicability of telephone interview techniques to geriatric populations. METHODS A total of 106 elder respondents were surveyed, approximately half in person and half via the telephone, to evaluate the feasibility of using a telephone-based structured interview to measure both assault and abuse, as well as to screen for psychopathology in a geriatric population. In order to assure that a sufficient number of crime victims were available to assess the ability of dependent measures to detect a variety of abuse and assault types, approximately half of the group in each interview context was comprised of a victim oversample referred by local police departments, whereas the remainder of each group were randomly selected from local telephone directories. RESULTS Data indicated that the methodology was successfully adapted to the geriatric population. Rates of lifetime and recent abuse and assault detected by in-person and telephone methods were comparable, and medical problems associated with aging posed no significant problem. CONCLUSIONS The methodology was acceptable to older adults and very effective in identifying both abuse and assault events, perpetrator status, and psychopathology. Telephone-based interviewing appeared to be a valid alternative to in-person interviews in identifying victimization and psychopathology.
Blood pressure elevation associated with sleep-related breathing disorder in a community sample of white and Hispanic children: the Tucson Children's Assessment of Sleep Apnea study.

BACKGROUND The Tucson Children's Assessment of Sleep Apnea study (TuCASA) was designed to investigate the prevalence and correlates of objectively measured sleep-related breathing disorder (SBD) in preadolescent Hispanic and white children. OBJECTIVE To describe the associations of SBD and elevation in resting blood pressure in the first 239 children enrolled in TuCASA. DESIGN Children between the ages of 6 and 11 years (45% girls and 51% Hispanic) from elementary schools of the Tucson Unified School District were enrolled in this prospective cohort study. Resting systolic and diastolic blood pressure, sleep symptoms, and parental smoking status were obtained during evening home visits, followed by overnight unattended home polysomnography. RESULTS The mean (SD) systolic and diastolic blood pressures were 98.4 (10.6) mm Hg and 62.0 (8.9) mm Hg, respectively. Fifteen children had hypertension. The mean (SD) respiratory disturbance index (2%), defined as the number of apneas and hypopneas per hour of sleep associated with a 2% oxygen desaturation, was 2.3 (3.8) events per hour. Factors independently associated with systolic and diastolic blood pressure elevation were obesity, sleep efficiency, and respiratory disturbance index (2%). CONCLUSIONS In preadolescent children, elevated blood pressure is associated with SBD and obesity, as previously noted in adults. The control of obesity in childhood may be important to reduce the daytime consequences of SBD and to reduce the risks of life-long hypertension.
Efficiency of Public Education in a Multiproduct Context: The Case of Colombian Municipalities

This paper estimates the local efficiency of the public provision of education in Colombia between 2007 and 2014. The empirical analysis relies on a multiproduct function that assesses public performance considering two types of education products: quality and enrolment. Results for Colombian municipalities show efficiencies that vary between 10% and 90%, suggesting that better results in quality and enrolment in public education could be accomplished using the same resources. Sources of inefficiency are explored, such as institutional environment and fiscal autonomy. Differing regional patterns are observed for the cases of education quality and enrolment.
Technique for preserving privacy on friend recommendation system by using Naive bayes classifier in OSN

Recently, communication and sharing the information through online social network (OSN) grows very fast in day to day life. As user share important data through online social network, therefore providing security and privacy to the online social network becomes the challenging task for the researchers. Moreover, for increasing the social connections and get the information from the particular group of people user needs to search the new friends and add them in the friend list. Now a days there isa friend recommendation method which was used by many online social networks, this method recommended the friend list to the user. As the privacy of these friend recommendation methods is the most significance task for the researchers and for the online social networks. Basically an online social network focused on the millions people's profile to spend time on an online social network, also implementing an OSN clients social circles, by using recommended suggestions. In this system, the main focus is on privacy and security of the online social network. This system basically focuses to support the users of online social network by secure trust creation with a stranger. This is achieved with multi-hop recommendation process. In the proposed method, the system provides privacy to the online social network from which system is allowing users to enhance their social networks. Existing system used secure KNN algorithm for securing social network. By using KNN algorithm, distance based learning is unclear. It is sort of distance and their component to use for the best results and calculation is very expensive. To overcome this limitation and to improve the precision, the proposed frame-work makes use of secure social coordinate matching with a Naive Bayes classifier. Also the privcy of social coordinates is maintained with Pailier encryption algorithm. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed system is secure and time efficient than the existing one. Memory consumption is also improved with the proposed system.
Pride and Prejudice: Employment Discrimination against Openly Gay Men in the United States1

This article presents the first large-scale audit study of discrimination against openly gay men in the United States. Pairs of fictitious résumés were sent in response to 1,769 job postings in seven states. One résumé in each pair was randomly assigned experience in a gay campus organization, and the other résumé was assigned a control organization. Two main findings have emerged. First, in some but not all states, there was significant discrimination against the fictitious applicants who appeared to be gay. This geographic variation in the level of discrimination appears to reflect regional differences in attitudes and antidiscrimination laws. Second, employers who emphasized the importance of stereotypically male heterosexual traits were particularly likely to discriminate against openly gay men. Beyond these particular findings, this study advances the audit literature more generally by covering multiple regions and by highlighting how audit techniques may be used to identify stereotypes that affect employment decisions in real labor markets.
Occurrence of toxic Dinophysis acuminata (Dinophyceae) in Uranouchi Inlet, Japan

In the Uranouchi Inlet, which has a commercial fishery of littleneck clam Ruditapes philippinarum, potentially toxigenic species of Dinophysis acuminata showed an annual occurrence except for the summer of 2000–2002. Relatively high abundances of D. acuminata were observed in April 2000 and November 2002. Some samples of D. acuminata cells, which were collected from the inlet in autumn 2002, contained pectenotoxin-2 (0.9–2.8 pg/cell) and okadaic acid (1.9–2.8 pg/cell). Cell length and hypotheca width of D. acuminata found in the Uranouchi Inlet were 33.7–45.0 and 21.0–31.6 μm, respectively. The length-width ratios ranged 1.21–1.71. Sequences of the 5.8S ribosomal RNA gene and flanking internal transcribed spacers, 1 and 2 of cells of D. acuminata from the inlet fell into a D. acuminata complex clade that included, D. acuminata-D. sacculus-D. acuta reported by others. In the inlet, occurrences of D. acuminata were detected within a broad water temperature range between 13.0 and 26.9°C, and those showing more than 25 cells/L were within 16.4–17.3°C for temperature and 27.6 and 34.1 for salinity. This is the first report that cells of Dinophysis acuminata from southern Japanese coastal waters contained okadaic acid and pectenotoxin-2.
Cardiac Concussion: Definition, Differential Diagnosis, and Cases Presentation and the Legal Ramification of a Misdiagnosis

A cardiac concussion is caused by a sudden, nonpenetrating, localized impact to the chest that is theorized to result in almost simultaneous sudden death from a disruption to the conductive system. The detailed external/internal forensic examination of the body reveals no evidence of structural, pathologic, or histologic signs of trauma to the heart. A cardiac concussion is a rare and often overlooked cause of sudden death. This type of sudden death is typically seen among younger individuals participating in sports involving projectiles and, to a lesser degree, where collisions occur. Cardiac concussions are clinically, pathologically, and chemically different from a cardiac contusion. The objective of this paper will be to define cardiac concussion, differentiate between cardiac concussion and cardiac contusion, and describe the clinical and pathologic features of a 32-year-old white male who died of a cardiac concussion following a collision with a catcher during a softball game. The civil ramification of incorrectly diagnosing the manner of death in cases of death involving a cardiac concussion will also be addressed.
Freedom of choice as a critical success factor in destination marketing: Empirical evidence from a far-east gambling city

When people feel that their freedom of choice is eliminated or reduced, they may experience unpleasant arousal. Creative tourism and the quality of the tourism experience are more likely to occur when an individual has the opportunity and freedom to choose travel options and perceives control over the activity. While freedom of choice is an essential part of tourists’ enjoyment, less research attention has been given to freedom of choice in the context of tourism destinations. This study focused on mainland Chinese travelers at a recently emerging gambling capital of the world as a case for investigation and aims at filling this literature gap by proposing a “freedom of choice—satisfaction—destination loyalty” paradigm. Hence, the main purpose of this study is to evaluate a theoretical model by examining the relationship among freedom of choice, satisfaction, and destination loyalty and the mediating effect of satisfaction between freedom of choice and destination loyalty. The study also examines the potential moderating effects of gender on the aforementioned relationships. The structural model indicates that freedom of choice had a direct and positive impact on destination loyalty, but this relationship is partially mediated by satisfaction levels. However, the model did not discover a moderating effect of gender. Based on these findings, this study discusses conclusion and implications for research and practice in the context of tourism literature.
Evaluation of Wellness Detection Techniques using Complex Activities Association for Smart Home Ambient

Wireless Sensor Network based smart homes have the potential to meet the growing challenges of independent living of elderly people in smart homes. However, wellness detection of elderly people in smart homes is still a challenging research domain. Many researchers have proposed several techniques; however, majority of these techniques does not provide a comprehensive solution because complex activities cannot be determined easily and comprehensive wellness is difficult to diagnose. In this study’s critical review, it has been observed that strong association lies among the vital wellness determination parameters. In this paper, an association rules based model is proposed for the simple and complex (overlapped) activities recognition and comprehensive wellness detection mechanism after analyzing existing techniques. It considers vital wellness detection parameters (temporal association of sub activity location and sub activity, time gaps between two adjacent activities, temporal association of inter and intra activities). Activity recognition and wellness detection will be performed on the basis of extracted temporal association rules and expert knowledgebase. Learning component is an important module of our proposed model to accommodate the changing trends in the frequent pattern behavior of an elderly person and recommend a caregiver/expert to adjust the expert knowledgebase according to the found abnormalities.
RCT comparing minimally with moderately rough implants. Part 2: microbial observations.

BACKGROUND Most current implants have a moderately rough surface (compared with older minimally rough "turned" implants) to facilitate osseointegration. This randomized controlled trial (RCT), with split-mouth design, examined whether this increased surface roughness influenced the initial subgingival plaque formation. MATERIAL AND METHODS Ten fully edentulous and eight partially edentulous patients, all with a history of severe periodontitis, received 4-6 implants (mandible or maxilla). Per jaw, both minimally (turned) and moderately rough (TiUnite) implants (MKIII; Nobel Biocare) were alternated. Also, the healing and final abutments had similar surface characteristics. Subgingival biofilm formation was followed up for 1 year, and samples were analyzed by culture technique, qPCR and checkerboard RESULTS Over the entire period, no statistically significant differences could be detected in subgingival microbiota between the minimally and moderately rough surfaces. In partially edentulous patients, the biofilm matured to a higher concentration of pathogens when compared with fully edentulous patients. The subgingival implant composition and concentration in partially edentulous patients were comparable to the subgingival microbiota along teeth. CONCLUSION The roughness of the more modern implants did not influence the biofilm formation during the first year of implant loading.
At the Bedside: Innate immunity as an immunotherapy tool for hematological malignancies

The identification of an anti‐tumor effect displayed by cells of innate immunity has opened new scenarios, not only in the field of allo‐HSCT but also for nontransplanted patients with hematological malignancies or solid tumors. Donor‐derived NK cells have been shown to contribute to the eradication of malignant cells after allo‐HSCT, when recipients lack ligands for their inhibitory receptors. These alloreactive donor NK cells can also kill recipient APCs and CTLs, thus preventing the occurrence of GvHD and graft rejection. The role of activating receptors on the capacity of NK cells to kill leukemia targets has become evident in the last years. The adoptive infusion of ex vivo‐activated NK cells has been investigated recently in Phase I/II trials on patients with hematological malignancies and solid tumors, with promising results. γδ T lymphocytes are also able to display anti‐tumor activity—this providing the biological rationale for Phase I/II trials in lymphoproliferative disorders and solid tumors. Aminobisphosphonates are clinically available compounds able to boost γδ T cell function. As γδ T cells do not cause GvHD, they could also be transduced with tumor‐associated chimeric antigen receptors and safely infused in allo‐HSCT recipients. Basic aspects of innate immunity relevant to the field will be covered by a companion review article.