Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Accelerated conversion of heme to bile pigments caused in the liver by carbon disulfide and other sulfur-containing chemicals.

After CS 2 administration a slight loss of heme was demonstrated from the microsomal fraction of rat liver, and when the microsomal heme was prelabeled with 5-amino[4- 14 C]levulinate, a loss of heme radioactivity from the microsomes was observed after CS 2 treatment with accumulation of heme radioactivity in the cell sap. The conversion in vivo of 5-amino[4- 14 C]levulinate into bile bilirubin and the activity of liver heme oxygenase were both stimulated by CS 2 treatment. Phenobarbital pretreatment of the rats, prior to CS 2 administration, potentiated the stimulation of heme oxygenase caused by CS 2 , whereas cycloheximide pretreatment completely prevented it. A stimulation of liver heme oxygenase was also found after administration of diethylphenylphosphorothionate, pentothal, and phenylthiourea, whereas the oxygen-containing analogues of the last two drugs were inactive. It is concluded that the accelerated liver heme conversion to bile pigments caused by CS 2 , pentothal, and other sulfur-containing drugs is related to their metabolism by oxidative desulfuration and ensuing microsomal toxicity: the damage of the apoprotein of cytochrome P-450 may result in a reduced affinity for heme, with more liver heme being available for degradation.
Complications after Polyacrylamide Hydrogel Injection for Soft-Tissue Augmentation

Background: Polyacrylamide hydrogel has gained international attention as a new injectable permanent filler that appears to be ideal for soft-tissue augmentation. However, studies on the safety of polyacrylamide hydrogel injection are limited and inconsistent. In the authors' experience, polyacrylamide hydrogel injections can induce complications. Methods: The authors retrospectively reviewed all cases where patients injected with polyacrylamide hydrogel for cosmetic purposes between 2004 and 2007 at other clinics suffered complications that led them to come to the authors' facility. The authors retrieved the patient histories, the duration between injection and presentation in their clinic, the materials and sites that were injected, whether injection was combined with other procedures, the clinical findings of the complications, the preoperative imaging analysis results, the operative methods used to correct the problem, and the chemical analysis of the extirpated injected material. Results: Of the 15 cases, all were women, except for one man, who was injected in his penis. Four, two, four, and four of the women were injected in their cheeks, nose, eyelids, and breasts, respectively. The product names of the injected materials were Aquamid and Amazingel. Five patients underwent surgery to remove the injected material or a foreign body granuloma. Conclusions: There has recently been a steady increase in the number of cases in Asian countries where polyacrylamide hydrogel injection has led to complications necessitating treatment. This is the first report of this phenomenon in Japan. The authors found that once these complications occur, they are difficult to treat. Further studies are needed to elucidate the risks involved in this procedure.
The case for recycling and adapting anti-tobacco mass media campaigns

Effective mass media campaigns are hard to come by. A delicate blend of art and science is required to ensure content is technically accurate as well as being creatively engaging for the target audience. However, the most expensive component of a media campaign is not its development but its placement at levels that allow smokers to see, engage and respond to its content. This paper uses two examples to illustrate the process of adapting existing effective material to maximise the expenditure of precious resources on the placement of material.
Treatment of Depression in Primary Care: Where We Are, Where We Can Go

Depressive and anxiety disorders are major public health problems affecting approximately 16 and 20 million Americans respectively. ' Two of the most prevalent disorders, major depression and panic disorder, have been shown to be associated with medically unexplained physical symptoms2'3 (ie, pain and fatigue), decrements in functioning and quality of life,3,4 and increased medical utilization and costs.3'5 Patients with chronic medical illnesses have higher rates of depression and anxiety and these comorbid psychiatric disorders are associated with poor adherence to medical regimens and adverse medical outcomes.6
Sonographic size of uterus in postmenopausal Sudanese women

This study aimed to assess the role of sonography in Assessment of uterussize in post-menopausal Sudanese women.Study conducted in different hospitals in Khartoum State and White Nile State to determine the uterine size in postmenopausal Sudanese women from July 2010 to Feb 2011. Atotalof 100 postmenopausal women were selected by nonprobability sampling technique and had been scannedwith ultrasound machine using the international protocols.Different uterine measurementshad been taken such as Sagittal uterine length(minimum 4cm / maximum 9.3cm), antero-posterior diameter (minimum 1.6 cm and maximum 4.4cm), transverse diameter (minimum 1.5cm and maximum 4.9cm), cervical length (minimum 1.6cm and maximum 4.7cm), body to cervix ratio (minimum 1.4 and maximum 3.3) and the uterine volume (minimum 8.35cc and maximum94.46cc). All uterine measurements except cervical length were apparently decreased with increasing of age and years since menopause and that is similar to the literature (atrophy uterus occurs mainly in the body of uterus rather than cervix).
Suppressive Oligodeoxynucleotides Protect Mice from Lethal Endotoxic Shock1

Endotoxic shock is a life-threatening condition caused by exposure to bacterial LPS. LPS triggers the release of acute phase, proinflammatory, and Th1 cytokines that facilitate the development of endotoxic shock. Synthetic oligodeoxynucleotides (ODN) expressing suppressive TTAGGG motifs effectively down-regulate the production of proinflammatory and Th1 cytokines elicited by a variety of immune stimuli. The current results demonstrate that suppressive ODN protect mice from LPS-induced endotoxic shock. Underlying this protective effect is the ability of suppressive ODN to bind to and prevent the phosphorylation of STAT1 and STAT4, thereby blocking the signaling cascade mediated by LPS-induced IFN-β and IL-12. These findings suggest that suppressive ODN might be of use in the treatment of endotoxic shock.
The Status of Pulmonary Host Defense in the Neonatal Sheep: Cellular and Humoral Aspects a

In consideration of the sheep neonate as a compromised host, we have examined the status of cellular and humoral pulmonary host defense components at selected developmental time points. The dynamic character of the early neonatal LFC population, reflected in changes in subpopulations and proliferative capacity, most probably contributed to the observed changes in in vitro cell function. While certain cell responses, e.g., blood and LFC PMN chemotaxis, appeared intact by day 1, others developed subsequently. The ability of AMs to elaborate a chemotactic factor(s) was first noted at day 21. Bacteria binding and killing presented a biphasic maturation pattern, with full competence not present until day 180. Although the in vitro binding and killing activity of day 8 LFCs was comparable to that of the adult, it may be a poor indicator of in vivo host defense capacity, given the relative paucity of endogenous opsonins at that age. In fact, the interdependence of mediators suggests that the sheep neonate may remain a compromised host during the first 3 months of life. Thereafter, cellular and humoral parameters begin to approximate those of adult sheep and by 180 days of life pulmonary defense, as assessed in this study, is fully developed.
Unsupervised Change Detection in SAR Image Based on Gauss-Log Ratio Image Fusion and Compressed Projection

Multitemporal synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images have been successfully used for the detection of different types of terrain changes. SAR image change detection has recently become a challenge problem due to the existence of speckle and the complex mixture of terrain environment. This paper presents a novel unsupervised change detection method in SAR images based on image fusion strategy and compressed projection. First, a Gauss-log ratio operator is proposed to generate a difference image. In order to obtain a better difference map, image fusion strategy is applied using complementary information from Gauss-log ratio and log-ratio difference image. Second, nonsubsampled contourlet transform (NSCT) is used to reduce the noise of the fused difference image, and compressed projection is employed to extract feature for each pixel. The final change detection map is obtained by partitioning the feature vectors into “changed” and “unchanged” classes using simple k-means clustering. Experiment results show that the proposed method is effective for SAR image change detection in terms of shape preservation of the detected change portion and the numerical results.
Cytochemical tests to investigate sperm DNA damage: Assessment and review

Male factor infertility has been diagnosed as the cause of infertility in about 20% of infertile couples. Sperm analysis is the most common method for diagnosing infertility in a laboratory. However, approximately 15% of infertile men have a normal sperm analysis. Therefore, the result of a routine sperm analysis often cannot be a definitive diagnosis for male factor infertility. Also, approximately 8% of infertile men with normal sperm parameters have high levels of abnormal sperm DNA. This indicates the role of the integrity of sperm DNA in male infertility. Here, we review the current tests available to evaluate the sperm DNA integrity along with their benefits and limitations.
Optical Guided-Wave Devices

Optical fiber is rapidly becoming the transmission medium of choice for new telecommunication systems. For a true lightwave network to evolve, however, optical control devices such as optical switches and multiplexer-demultiplexers will be essential. Optical guided-wave devices built with photolithographic fabrication techniques and electro-optic substrates are compact, low drive power devices that provide these functions. Research is particularly advanced on integrated-optic devices based on waveguides formed by titanium diffused into lithium niobate. Switch arrays, tunable filters, and high-speed modulators have been demonstrated and used in research systems experiments.
Spatially indexed clustering for scalable tracking of remotely sensed drift ice

For operations in the Arctic, drift ice can be a major hazard. To be able to mitigate this, it is essential to know the position of viable threats. Many sensors can be employed, such as satellite Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), marine radar, air surveillance et cetera. At the core of the fusion of this sensor data is a Multi-Target Tracking (MTT) problem. This problem is studied in this paper through the implementation and application of the Multiple Hypothesis Tracking (MHT) algorithm. A major limiting factor in the application of multi-target tracking is scalability. A common method of handling the scaling is clustering, which separates the MHT filter into smaller independent parts. However, with growing scale, the association of sensor data to the “right” cluster can become resource intensive in itself. A method is explored, based on rectangular lower probability bounds, to efficiently index the clusters and compartmentalize the measurement update of the MHT. The method uses the bounding box of the lower probability bound of tracks and reports respectively, to perform an intersection lookup against the sensor field-of-view, efficiently selecting clusters of relevance. The method, as well as the MHT algorithm, has been implemented and published online under an open-source license. In this report, the implementation is described and tested on simulated data for statistics. Further, it is tested against data extracted from the polarimetric classification of ice using satellite imagery of the Arctic. Results show that computational speed improvements can be achieved, in comparison to the linear complexity of a naive search, but that comparable performance can be obtained using standard database lookups.
Plasmodium falciparum Drug Resistance in Madagascar: Facing the Spread of Unusual pfdhfr and pfmdr-1 Haplotypes and the Decrease of Dihydroartemisinin Susceptibility

ABSTRACT The aim of this study was to provide the first comprehensive spatiotemporal picture of Plasmodium falciparum resistance in various geographic areas in Madagascar. Additional data about the antimalarial resistance in the neighboring islands of the Comoros archipelago were also collected. We assessed the prevalence of pfcrt, pfmdr-1, pfdhfr, and pfdhps mutations and the pfmdr-1 gene copy number in 1,596 P. falciparum isolates collected in 26 health centers (20 in Madagascar and 6 in the Comoros Islands) from 2006 to 2008. The in vitro responses to a panel of drugs by 373 of the parasite isolates were determined. The results showed (i) unusual profiles of chloroquine susceptibility in Madagascar, (ii) a rapid rise in the frequency of parasites with both the pfdhfr and the pfdhps mutations, (iii) the alarming emergence of the single pfdhfr 164L genotype, and (iv) the progressive loss of the most susceptible isolates to artemisinin derivatives. In the context of the implementation of the new national policy for the fight against malaria, continued surveillance for the detection of P. falciparum resistance in the future is required.
Multiphasic Kinetics for D-Glucose Uptake by Assemblages of Natural Marine Bacteria

D-Gl~cose-6-[~H] uptake kinetics for marine microbial assemblages were multiphasic when the kinetics were determined over a broad concentration range (10-'M to I O ~ M). Maximum uptake velocity (V,,,,) and the sum of half saturation constant (K,) and ambient glucose concentration (S,), (K, + S,), increased gradually as the range of glucose concentration was increased. In all seawater samples examined the lowest (K, + SJ values were 2-5 x lO-'M; highest values were as high as 5.9 X 104 M. Simple diffusion into algae or bacteria cannot explain the non-linearity of kinetics curves. Removal of most algal cells did not change the kinetic pattern, and indirect estimates of diffusion into bacteria were too small to have greatly changed the uptake in 1 X 10 1 X 10-' M range of glucose. The kinetic diversity of marine bacterial assemblages has in~plications in the cycling of dissolved organic matter in the varied concentration regimes presumably present in production microzones. Turnover times of the glucose pool at elevated concentrations were in the order of 10'-103 h, suggesting that episodic high concentrations of substrate would diffuse out of the production microzones before significant uptake. Sustained concentration gradients might attract high K, h ~ g h V,, bacteria which might take up a significant fraction of substrate within the production zone. The observed kinetic diversity points to the need for a modified kinetic approach to account for the diversity of K, and V,.
Synthesis of Mn-doped AlN nanobelts via chemical vapor deposition

Mn-doped AlN nanostructures were grown on ceramic substrate by in situ doping of Mn via a catalyst-free chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method using Mn powder, Al powder and NH3 as the starting materials. X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoemission spectroscopy (XPS), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDX) and photoluminescence (PL) were employed to characterize the structure and morphology of the product. It was found that the as-prepared AlN product was wurtzite structure and had a ribbon shape with uniform geometry. The nanobelts were curled and flexible with length up to 10 μm, and the width-to-thickness ratio of these nanobelts was estimated to be 7 with 175 nm wide and 25 nm thick. EDX and XPS demonstrated that Mn was successfully doped into the AlN nanobelts.
Comprehensive electrical and thermal analysis of the stress grading system of a large hydro generator

In the slot portion of a generator core the installed stator bars are covered with a semi-conductive coating to prevent partial discharge (PD) activity between the main insulation surface and the grounded laminated sheets. Typically, this outer corona protection (OCP) layer ends a few centimeters outside the slot portion. To suppress PD-activity at the end of the OCP, a field grading is mandatory for machines with a rated voltage greater than approximately 6 kV. Figure 1 shows the effect of a stress grading layer on stator bars energized to high voltage. It suppresses potential creepage discharges at the OCP ends caused by field enhancement.
Exploiting salivary miR‐31 as a clinical biomarker of oral squamous cell carcinoma

Oral carcinoma is an important malignancy throughout the world. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are endogenously expressed, non‐coding RNAs that regulate post‐transcriptional levels of targeted mRNAs. MiRNA‐31(miR‐31) is significantly upregulated in oral carcinoma tissues and plays oncogenic roles in oral carcinogenesis.
Cytomorphology of giant cell glioblastoma: Report of a case and brief review of literature

Giant cell glioblastoma is a histological variant of glioblastoma that accounts for less than 1% of intracranial tumors and to 5% of glioblastoma. They occur at any age and are likely to affect the younger as well the older age group unlike the conventional glioblastoma multiforme (GBM). They are often located subcortically in the temporal and parietal lobes. Cytological descriptions of giant cell glioblastoma are extremely rare. We describe squash cytomorphology of giant cell glioblastoma of left posterior frontal region in 35‐year‐old male. The squash smears were moderately cellular displaying malignant astrocytic tumor cells disposed in cohesive clusters and dispersed population on a necrotic background. Most striking feature was numerous multinucleated giant cells. We also discuss the differential diagnosis in light of relevant literature. Diagn. Cytopathol. 2012;40:440–443. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
A Study on the Mineral Depletion of the Foods Available to us as a Nation over the Period 1940 to 1991*

In 1927 a study at King's College, University of London, of the chemical composition of foods was initiated by Dr McCance to assist with diabetic dietary guidance. The study evolved and was then broadened to determine all the important organic and mineral constituents of foods, it was financed by the Medical Research Council and eventually published in 1940. Over the next 51 years subsequent editions reflected changing national dietary habits and food laws as well as advances in analytical procedures. The most recent (5th Edition) published in 1991 has comprehensively analysed 14 different categories of foods and beverages. In order to provide some insight into any variation in the quality of the foods available to us as a nation between 1940 and 1991 it was possible to compare and contrast the mineral content of 27 varieties of vegetable, 17 varieties of fruit, 10 cuts of meat and some milk and cheese products. The results demonstrate that there has been a significant loss of minerals and trace elements in these foods over that period of time. It is suggested that the results of this study cannot be taken in isolation from recent dietary, environmental and disease trends. These trends are briefly mentioned and suggestions are made as to how the deterioration in the micronutrient quality of our food intake may be arrested and reversed.
Experience of liver transplantation for incurable alveolar echinococcosis: a 45-case European collaborative report

Background. Alveolar echinococcosis (AE) of the liver is a rare and severe parasitic disease. It behaves like a slow-growing liver cancer, and liver transplantation (LT) has been proposed in advanced cases since 1985. The aim of this retrospective study was to collect all AE transplant cases in Europe, analyze the results, and specify the usefulness of LT for this unusual indication. Methods. A questionnaire was sent to 83 LT centers from July 1996 to December 1999. Results. Sixty-five centers responded: 45 AE patients (mean age, 45.8 years) underwent an LT procedure at 16 LT centers. The mean interval between diagnosis and LT was 5 years. One patient died during the hepatectomy phase. Five-year survival was 71%. Five-year survival without recurrence was 58%. The nine early deaths were mostly related to bacterial or fungal infections, or both, in patients in bad condition when LT was performed. Six patients had a graft AE reinfection. Five late deaths were related directly to ongoing AE. In the other cases, benzimidazole (BZM) therapy seemed to stabilize AE residues. Conclusions. This unique experience indicates that LT is feasible for life-threatening AE. Specific management is needed to optimize the results: earlier decision for LT in incurable symptomatic biliary AE, pre- and post-LT BZM therapy, meticulous pre-LT evaluation to identify extrahepatic extension, and an immunosuppressive regimen kept to a minimum.
Build Efficient Query Services in the Cloud with RASP and Range Queries

Cloud computing is mainly used to store and retrieve data and also to host data query services has become an appealing solution for the advantages on scalability and cost-saving. However, Encryption is a well-established technology for protecting sensitive data. When data encrypted once, data can no longer be easily queried aside from exact matches . A secured query service reduce the inhouse workload to fully realize the benefits of cloud computing. The RASP data perturbation and kNN query services method provide secure range query and kNN query services for protected data in the cloud. Continuous K nearest neighbor queries (C-KNN) is defined as the nearest points of interest to all the points on a path. The kNN-R algorithm is designed to work with the RASP range query algorithm to process the queries. The attacks on data and queries under a precisely defined threat model and realistic security assumptions are analyzed. Extensive experiments have been conducted to show the advantages of this approach on efficiency and security.
Testing Asset Pricing Models: The Case of Athens Stock Exchange

This article applies a conditionally heteroskedastic asset pricing model to describe the time variation in the first and second moments of asset returns in an interdependent way in the emerging capital market of Greece. Depending on the observability of the factors and under the chosen parameterization it is possible to derive tests to address economically important questions that the models impose on the risk-return relationship. We apply the derived tests on the nine sectorial portfolios and the value weighted index of the Athens Stock Exchange, over the period 1985-1997. The evidence from the unconditional and conditional CAPM, with the Value Weighted Index as a benchmark portfolio, suggests the inefficiency of the Index. On the other hand, the dynamic latent factor model, considered here, describes sectorial returns in a much better way. However, there is still a shadow of doubt on the hypothesis that the price of risk is common across assets.