Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Patient Outcome at Long-term Follow-up after Aggressive Microsurgical Resection of Cranial Base Chordomas

OBJECTIVE:In this study, we evaluated patients' clinical outcome and recurrence rates at long-term follow-up after aggressive microsurgical resection of cranial base chordomas. METHODS:Seventy-four patients with chordomas underwent operations during a 16-year period from 1988 to 2004. The philosophy was to perform complete resection whenever possible and to provide adjuvant radiotherapy for remnants. Staged operations were performed for extensive tumors or if a sizable tumor remnant was noted after the first resection. Patients included primary (previously untreated) and previously operated or irradiated cases. Information was prospectively gathered concerning the patients' neurological condition, Karnofsky Performance Scale score, and tumor status on magnetic resonance imaging scans. RESULTS:There were 47 primarily operated patients (63.5%) and 27 patients (36.5%) who had previously undergone surgery or radiotherapy. A total of 121 procedures were performed in 74 patients. The mean follow-up period was 96 months, with a range of 1 to 198 months. A single stage removal was performed in 41 (55.4%) of the patients and multiple stage removal was performed in 33 (44.5%) of the patients. Gross total removal was accomplished in 53 (71.6%) of the patients, and subtotal resection was accomplished in 21 (28.4%) of the patients. During the follow-up period, 24 (32%) of the patients had no evidence of disease, 37 (50%) of the patients were alive with evidence of disease, 11 (14.8%) of the patients died of disease, and two (2.7%) of the patients died of complications. Recurrence-free survival at 10 years was 31% for the whole group, 42% for the primarily operated patients, and 26% for the reoperation cases (P = 0.0001). The average Karnofsky Performance Scale score was 80 ± 11.7 preoperatively, 84 ± 8.9 at the 1-year follow-up, and 86 ± 12.8 at the last follow-up in surviving patients. No conclusion could be drawn regarding the value of radiotherapy because of the treatment philosophy and the small number of patients. CONCLUSION:Aggressive microsurgical resection of chordomas can be followed by long-term, tumor-free survival with good functional outcome. A more conservative strategy is recommended in reoperation cases, especially after previous radiotherapy, to reduce postoperative complications.
Rapid In Situ Evolution of Nodulating Strains for Biserrula pelecinus L. through Lateral Transfer of a Symbiosis Island from the Original Mesorhizobial Inoculant

ABSTRACT Diverse rhizobia able to nodulate Biserrula pelecinus evolved following in situ transfer of nodA and nifH from an inoculant to soil bacteria. Transfer of these chromosomal genes and the presence of an identical integrase gene adjacent to a Phe tRNA gene in both the inoculant and recipients indicate that there was lateral transfer of a symbiosis island.
The Design of Differentially Expressed Gene Recognition Software Based on Meta-analysis

As the traditional analysis of differentially expressed genes can only handle a single data sets, we designed and developed the differentially expressed genes recognition software based on meta-analysis to analyze differentially expressed gene. The Software integrated Rank Product meta-analysis algorithm and improvement RSDM algorithm with filtering techniques based on standard deviation. The software has realized the data import and the analysis of differentially expressed gene. Experimental results show that: the software can effectively analyze heterogeneous data sets, find differentially expressed genes, and thus verify the effectiveness of the algorithm.
IgG4‐related disease: Historical overview and pathology of hematological disorders

IgG4‐related diseases comprise a recently recognized systemic syndrome characterized by mass‐forming lesions in mainly exocrine tissue that consist of lymphoplasmacytic infiltrates and sclerosis. There are numerous IgG4‐positive plasma cells in the affected tissues, and the serum IgG4 level is increased in these patients. The present study describes the history, autoimmune pancreatitis (AIP), IgG4‐related lymphadenopathy and lymphomagenesis based upon ocular adnexal IgG4‐related disease. Lymphoplasmacytic sclerosing pancreatitis, a prototypal histological type of AIP, is now recognized as a systemic IgG4‐related disease. Lymph node lesions can be subdivided into at least five histological subtypes, and systemic IgG4‐related lymphadenopathy should be distinguished from multicentric Castleman's disease. Interleukin‐6 and CRP levels are abnormally high in multicentric Castleman's disease, but are normal in the majority of systemic IgG4‐related lymphadenopathy. Ocular adnexal IgG4‐related disease frequently involves bilateral lacrimal glands swelling, and obliterative phlebitis is rare. Moreover, some malignant lymphomas, especially mucosa‐associated lymphoid tissue lymphoma, arise from ocular adnexal IgG4‐related disease. In addition, IgG4‐producing lymphoma also exists.
Divergent manifestations of irritability in patients with mild and moderate-to-severe traumatic brain injury: Perspectives of awareness and neurocognitive correlates

Abstract Primary objectives: To evaluate irritability in patients with mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) and moderate-to-severe traumatic brain injury (msTBI), respectively. Research design: A prospective study was conducted at a level I trauma centre. Methods and procedures: A total of 160 participants, which included 80 healthy subjects and 80 patients with TBI, were recruited. Irritability was assessed by the National Taiwan University Irritability Scale and other cognitive functions, which included memory, executive function and information processing, were also evaluated. Main outcomes and results: The results showed post-injury self-reported irritability in patients with mTBI and family-reported irritability in patients with msTBI were significantly higher than irritability reported by healthy participants. Irritability was significantly associated with information processing ability in patients with mTBI, but it was not associated with any cognitive functions in patients with msTBI. Conclusions: Irritability was found to be prominent after TBI. Divergent causes of irritability seemed apparent in patients with mTBI and msTBI. Irritability after mTBI appeared might be related to the cognitive functions disrupted after the injury, whereas irritability after msTBI appeared to result directly from the brain lesions involved.
The impact research of online reviews' sentiment polarity presentation on consumer purchase decision

Purpose Because online shopping is risky, there is a strong need to develop better presentation of online reviews, which may reduce the perceived risk and create more pleasurable shopping experiences. To test the impact of online reviews’ sentiment polarity presentation, the purpose of this paper is to adopt a scenario experiment to study consumers’ decision-making process under the two scenarios of mixed presentation and classified presentation of online reviews collected from Jingdong.com in China: focusing on the comparative analysis on the differences of the consumers’ perceived risk, purchase intention and purchase delay, and further studying the interaction effect of involvement and online reviews’ sentiment polarity presentation. Design/methodology/approach This paper employed a 2×2 factorial experiment to test the hypothesis. The experimental design is divided into four groups: 2 (online reviews’ sentiment polarity presentation: mixed presentation vs classified presentation) × 2 (involvement: low vs high), each of which contains 90 samples. Through the data analysis, the main effect, mediation effect and moderating effect were examined. Findings The results show that compared with mixed presentation, classified presentation can reduce purchase intention and increase purchase delay due to the existence of loss aversion and availability heuristic. Furthermore, the paper also confirms that there is a significant interaction effect between involvement and online reviews’ sentiment polarity presentation. Originality/value The existing research pays less attention to the impact of online reviews presentation on consumers’ decision making, especially the lack of discussion on the interaction effect between involvement and online reviews presentation. For this reason, this paper proposes a problem, which concerns whether mixed presentation and classified presentation of online reviews will affect consumers’ decision making differently.
A novel multiple kernel boosting method for hyperspectral image classification

Multiple kernel learning (MKL) combines multiple base kernels and is becoming more and more popular in machine learning. The choice of kernels is crucial importance for classification performance. In this paper, we propose a new RMKL (RMKBoost) framework for classification in hyperspectral images. The classification is performed in separate two steps. The key boosting strategy is embedded in the first step, which aims to learn an optimally or suboptimally linear combined kernel from the predefined base kernels. Then, the proposed boosting framework generates weak multiple kernel classifiers using a part of the base kernels randomly selected rather than using all base kernels with randomly training samples. Experiments are conducted on the real hyperspectral data set, and the corresponding experimental result shows that RMKBoost algorithm provides the best performances compared with the state-of-the-art kernel methods.
Palladium-catalyzed allylic sulfinylation and the Mislow-Braverman-Evans rearrangement.

Sulfoxides play important roles in organic and medicinal chemistry, as chiral handles, ligands, or bioisosteres. The most common method for sulfoxide preparation is controlled sulfide oxidation, but a more convergent approach would be to make them by formation of the C S bond. Poli, Madec and co-workers recently disclosed a method for direct sulfoxide formation involving a Pd-catalyzed allylation or arylation of an intermediate sulfenate anion. This strategy is illustrated by the reaction between tertbutyl 3-p-tolylsulfinylpropionate and cinnamyl acetate, which gave the cinnamyl p-tolyl sulfoxide. In this reaction, the sulfenate anion and h-allyl complex are generated in situ and react with each other to afford the final product. Herein, we disclose our theoretical results for the formation of the allyl sulfoxides (Scheme 1).
Toxicity Evaluation of Dextran Coated Ferrite Nanomaterials After Acute Oral Exposure to Wistar Rats

Dextran Coated Ferrite Nanomaterials (DFNM) of size <25 nm was synthesized, characterized and the acute oral toxicity along with antioxidant enzymes activities were evaluated in Wistar rats. The healthy adult rats were orally administered with 300 and 2000 mg/kg body weight of DFNM using a gastric needle and observed for 14 days. None of the animals showed any adverse effects/toxicity at the end of observation period. After two weeks of administration, blood was collected and subjected to haematological and biochemical analysis. Animals were sacrificed and gross necropsy was done on all animals. Liver was dissected; homogenized (10% homogenate) and rate of formation of lipid peroxides were evaluated. In addition, the concentration of reduced glutathione and the activity of vital antioxidant enzymes like glutathione reductase, glutathione peroxidase and superoxide dismutase was determined. The result of the study indicates that even at 2000 mg/kg body weight, DFNM was non-toxic. It was also observed that there was a slight fluctuation in the level of antioxidant enzymes activity, lipid peroxidation, haematological and biochemical parameters but it was not significant. Hence, it can be concluded that the in-house synthesized DFNM was non-toxic and shows no lethal effects when orally exposed to rats.
Adsorption and folding dynamics of MPER of HIV‐1 gp41 in the presence of dpc micelle

Membrane‐proximal ectodomain region (MPER) of HIV‐1 gp41 is known to have several epitopes of monoclonal antibodies. It also plays an important role in the membrane fusion process that is well‐evidenced, though not well‐elucidated. There are also disputes over the true structure of MPER. In this study, MPER NMR structure in the presence of dodecylphosphatidylcholine micelle is used in the molecular dynamic simulation to elucidate structural dynamics and adsorption to model MPER interaction in a membrane environment. Polarized protein‐specific charge derived from its NMR structure is found to better preserve the helical structure found in the NMR structure compared to AMBER03 calculation. The preserved helical structure also adsorb to the micelle using the hydrophobic side‐chains, consistent to the NMR structure. Ab initio folding of MPER predicts a structure quite in well agreement with the NMR structure (RMSd 3.9 Å) and shows that the micelle plays a role in the folding process. Proteins 2013; © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
The Impact of Mobile Monitoring Technologies on Glycosylated Hemoglobin in Diabetes: A Systematic Review

Background: A new development in the field of telehealth is the use of mobile health technologies (mhealth) to help patients record and track medical information. Mhealth appears particularly advantageous for conditions that require intense and ongoing monitoring, such as diabetes, and where people are of working age and not disabled. This review aims to evaluate the evidence for the effectiveness of mhealth interventions in diabetes management on glycosylated hemoglobin. Method: A comprehensive search strategy was developed and applied to eight electronic databases to identify studies that investigated the clinical effectiveness of mobile-based applications that allowed patients to record and send their blood glucose readings to a central server. The eligibility of 8543 papers was assessed against the selection criteria, and 24 papers were reviewed. All studies reviewed were assessed for quality using a standardized quality assessment tool. Results: Results for patients with type 1 and type 2 diabetes were examined separately. Study variability and poor reporting made comparison difficult, and most studies had important methodological weaknesses. Evidence on the effectiveness of mhealth interventions for diabetes was inconsistent for both types of diabetes and remains weak.
The long QT syndrome in pediatric age: prognosis and risk factor.

AIM Long QT syndrome is a rare arrhythmic disease with a low incidence in the general population. There are no sure clinical or electrocardiographic parameters that could lead to a correct prognostic stratification in patients affected by this syndrome. The correlation between the incidence of a sudden death or dangerous ventricular arrhythmias and the duration of QTc interval is still a controversial topic. METHODS Twenty nine children affected by QT long syndrome were admitted to the Division of Pediatric Cardiology of the Casa del Sole Hospital of Palermo (Italy). Their diagnosis was made by electrocardiogram (ECG). The average age of the patients was 7.6 years. The average follow-up was 4 years and three months. A therapy with beta-blocker was administered to all the children. During the follow-up of 4 year and three months, patients were genotyped. Twenty-three out of 29 children had at least one relative affected by the syndrome. Three of them had a familiar dead because of this syndrome and everyone had a duration of maximum QTc higher than the cut off (P=0.0002). All the people who died had not followed the therapy with beta-blocker. Patients with a maximum QTc recorded <500 had not familiar death by this syndrome. RESULTS Holter and echocardiogram recorded periodically during the observation did not show dangerous arrhythmic events. All children maintained a good health during the follow-up. CONCLUSION Although conducted on a small study population, the data analysis recorded during this study suggests that in patients affected by QT long syndrome younger than 16 years old undergoing a beta-blocker therapy the prognosis is excellent. The duration of QTc interval appears as a negative prognostic factor, although the beta-blocker therapy has been reduced considerably the incidence of sudden death.
ormal Vascular Aging: Differential Effects n Wave Reflection and Aortic Pulse Wave Velocity

OBJECTIVES The aim of the current investigation was to test the hypothesis that age-related changes in augmentation index (AIx) are more prominent in younger individuals ( 50 years), whereas changes in aortic stiffness per se are more marked in older individuals ( 50 years). BACKGROUND Aging exerts a number of deleterious changes in the cardiovascular system, and, in particular, on the large arteries. Previous studies have suggested that AIx and pulse wave velocity (PWV) increase linearly with age, yet epidemiological data concerning pulse pressure suggest that large artery stiffening predominantly occurs later in life. METHODS Peripheral and central blood pressure, augmentation pressure (AP), and AIx were determined in 4,001 healthy, normotensive individuals, aged 18 to 90 years. Aortic and brachial PWV were also determined in a subset of 998 subjects. RESULTS Peripheral and central pulse pressure, AP, AIx, and aortic and brachial PWV all increased significantly with age; however, the age-related changes in AIx and aortic PWV were non-linear, with AIx increasing more in younger individuals, whereas the changes in PWV were more prominent in older individuals. CONCLUSIONS These data suggest that AIx might be a more sensitive marker of arterial stiffening and risk in younger individuals but aortic PWV is likely to be a better measure in older individuals. (J Am Coll Cardiol 2005;46:1753–60) © 2005 by the American College of ublished by Elsevier Inc. doi:10.1016/j.jacc. 2005.07. 037
Estimation of natural and anthropogenic contributions to twentieth century temperature change

[1] Using a coupled atmosphere/ocean general circulation model, we have simulated the climatic response to natural and anthropogenic forcings from 1860 to 1997. The model, HadCM3, requires no flux adjustment and has an interactive sulphur cycle, a simple parameterization of the effect of aerosols on cloud albedo (first indirect effect), and a radiation scheme that allows explicit representation of well-mixed greenhouse gases. Simulations were carried out in which the model was forced with changes in natural forcings (solar irradiance and stratospheric aerosol due to explosive volcanic eruptions), well-mixed greenhouse gases alone, tropospheric anthropogenic forcings (tropospheric ozone, well-mixed greenhouse gases, and the direct and first indirect effects of sulphate aerosol), and anthropogenic forcings (tropospheric anthropogenic forcings and stratospheric ozone decline). Using an “optimal detection” methodology to examine temperature changes near the surface and throughout the free atmosphere, we find that we can detect the effects of changes in well-mixed greenhouse gases, other anthropogenic forcings (mainly the effects of sulphate aerosols on cloud albedo), and natural forcings. Thus these have all had a significant impact on temperature. We estimate the linear trend in global mean near-surface temperature from well-mixed greenhouse gases to be 0.9 ± 0.24 K/century, offset by cooling from other anthropogenic forcings of 0.4 ± 0.26 K/century, giving a total anthropogenic warming trend of 0.5 ± 0.15 K/century. Over the entire century, natural forcings give a linear trend close to zero. We found no evidence that simulated changes in near-surface temperature due to anthropogenic forcings were in error. However, the simulated tropospheric response, since the 1960s, is ∼50% too large. Our analysis suggests that the early twentieth century warming can best be explained by a combination of warming due to increases in greenhouse gases and natural forcing, some cooling due to other anthropogenic forcings, and a substantial, but not implausible, contribution from internal variability. In the second half of the century we find that the warming is largely caused by changes in greenhouse gases, with changes in sulphates and, perhaps, volcanic aerosol offsetting approximately one third of the warming. Warming in the troposphere, since the 1960s, is probably mainly due to anthropogenic forcings, with a negligible contribution from natural forcings.
Drought-Induced Amplification and Epidemic Transmission of West Nile Virus in Southern Florida

Abstract We show that the spatial-temporal variability of human West Nile (WN) cases and the transmission of West Nile virus (WNV) to sentinel chickens are associated with the spatial-temporal variability of drought and wetting in southern Florida. Land surface wetness conditions at 52 sites in 31 counties in southern Florida for 2001–2003 were simulated and compared with the occurrence of human WN cases and the transmission of WNV to sentinel chickens within these counties. Both WNV transmission to sentinel chickens and the occurrence of human WN cases were associated with drought 2–6 mo prior and land surface wetting 0.5–1.5 mo prior. These dynamics are similar to the amplification and transmission patterns found in southern Florida for the closely related St. Louis encephalitis virus. Drought brings avian hosts and vector mosquitoes into close contact and facilitates the epizootic cycling and amplification of the arboviruses within these populations. Southern Florida has not recorded a severe, widespread drought since the introduction of WNV into the state in 2001. Our results indicate that widespread drought in the spring followed by wetting during summer greatly increase the probability of a WNV epidemic in southern Florida.
Predictors of low back pain disability.

Low back pain has major socioeconomic implications; much of the costs relate to disability and compensation. Theoretically, the early identification of patients at risk to become disabled from a low back episode would lead to more aggressive intervention and reduction of subsequent disability. Low back disability is related to occupational, psychosocial, diagnostic, demographic, anthropometric, health behavior, and injury factors that have been reported in the literature. The multiattribute utility model is a new experimental approach to prediction of disability. The relative weights of the various factors that might be predictive of low back disability are determined by a panel of experts. Although this model is not yet scientifically proven, it offers a promising method of answering the question, "Can low back disability be predicted? "
Gene Expression Profiling and Protein Biomarkers for Prostate Cancer Management Policy # 00403

©2017 Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana An independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without permission from Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana. Page 1 of 33 Applies to all products administered or underwritten by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana and its subsidiary, HMO Louisiana, Inc.(collectively referred to as the “Company”), unless otherwise provided in the applicable contract. Medical technology is constantly evolving, and we reserve the right to review and update Medical Policy periodically.