Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Trajectories of PTSD risk and resilience in World Trade Center responders: an 8-year prospective cohort study

Background Longitudinal symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are often characterized by heterogeneous trajectories, which may have unique pre-, peri- and post-trauma risk and protective factors. To date, however, no study has evaluated the nature and determinants of predominant trajectories of PTSD symptoms in World Trade Center (WTC) responders. Method A total of 10835 WTC responders, including 4035 professional police responders and 6800 non-traditional responders (e.g. construction workers) who participated in the WTC Health Program (WTC-HP), were evaluated an average of 3, 6 and 8 years after the WTC attacks. Results Among police responders, longitudinal PTSD symptoms were best characterized by four classes, with the majority (77.8%) in a resistant/resilient trajectory and the remainder exhibiting chronic (5.3%), recovering (8.4%) or delayed-onset (8.5%) symptom trajectories. Among non-traditional responders, a six-class solution was optimal, with fewer responders in a resistant/resilient trajectory (58.0%) and the remainder exhibiting recovering (12.3%), severe chronic (9.5%), subsyndromal increasing (7.3%), delayed-onset (6.7%) and moderate chronic (6.2%) trajectories. Prior psychiatric history, Hispanic ethnicity, severity of WTC exposure and WTC-related medical conditions were most strongly associated with symptomatic trajectories of PTSD symptoms in both groups of responders, whereas greater education and family and work support while working at the WTC site were protective against several of these trajectories. Conclusions Trajectories of PTSD symptoms in WTC responders are heterogeneous and associated uniquely with pre-, peri- and post-trauma risk and protective factors. Police responders were more likely than non-traditional responders to exhibit a resistant/resilient trajectory. These results underscore the importance of prevention, screening and treatment efforts that target high-risk disaster responders, particularly those with prior psychiatric history, high levels of trauma exposure and work-related medical morbidities.
[Uterine torsion in cattle - frequency, clinical symptoms and theories about the pathogenesis].

UNLABELLED Aim of the present study was to summarize the available literature about the incidence, frequency, clinical symptoms and ideas as to the pathogenesis of uterine torsion in the cow. MATERIALS AND METHODS Analysis of the literature using electronic libraries (Pub Med, Medline), German veterinary medicine journals and obstetrical textbooks. RESULTS Uterine torsion is a very important maternal reason for dystocia as most cases occur during parturition. The post-cervical torsion (combined uterine and vaginal torsion, Torsio uteri and vaginae) is more commonly diagnosed than an intra-cervical or pre-cervical torsion. Torsions to the left occur more frequently than to the right. Clinical symptoms clearly vary depending on the degree of torsion. The frequency in relation to all parturitions is described as between 0.5 and 1%, whereas the percentage of uterine torsions presented to the veterinarian as a reason for dystocia varies between 2.7 and 65%. The pathogenesis of uterine torsion remains unclear; however, general agreement exists that the cow is predisposed to uterine torsion due to its anatomy. It appears that the Brown Swiss is more often affected than other cattle breeds.
Comparing centralized Kalman filter schemes for indoor positioning in wireless sensor network

Sensor devices suffer severe interference due to multi path effect, non line of sight (NLOS) and variations of the wireless propagation environment in indoor positioning systems. These interferences lead to measurement error during sensor measurement. Kalman filter (KF) and extended Kalman filter (EKF) have been widely used in tracking systems to reduce measurement noise. However, KF and EKF assume the measurement noise follows normal distribution, and the real noise distribution should be based on experimental statistical results. Besides fluctuating wireless condition makes the system unstable in indoor environments. We analyze the time of flight (TOF) measurement statistic model in experiments and design KF and EKF models for indoor positioning system according to the statistic model. We introduce our system architecture for wireless sensor networks (WSN) to overcome KF's drawbacks, which divides the positioning system into three components: measurement, pre-processing and data-processing. Measurement component measures the range based on TOF method. We developed a voting filter (VF) and an averaging filter (AF) in preprocessing to reduce measurement noise for later processing. During data-processing, Kalman filter and extended Kalman filter are used to track the positions. We also implement another scheme, low pass filter (LPF) with KF or EKF, to estimate the positions with the knowledge of geographic information. Three realistic experiments are set up using the sensor equipment nanoPAN 5375 to evaluate these methods. Comparing the experimental results, low pass filter with EKF is most suitable for indoor positioning.
Ustekinumab: a novel therapeutic option in Crohn’s disease

ABSTRACT Introduction: Although anti-tumour necrosis factor (TNF) agents have caused a paradigm shift in the management of moderate-to-severe Crohn’s, they are sometimes associated with diminished or absent response in a considerable proportion of patients. Hence agents targeting pathways other than TNF are needed. Ustekinumab is a monoclonal antibody directed against the p40 subunit of IL-12 and 23. Areas covered: This manuscript summarises the available evidence on the efficacy and safety of Ustekinumab in Crohn’s disease through data available from randomised controlled trials and compassionate use programs across the world. Expert opinion: Current literature strongly supports the fact that ustekinumab is clinically efficacious and reasonably safe for induction and maintenance of remission in moderate-to-severe Crohn’s disease.
Abortive gap repair: underlying mechanism for Ds element formation

The mechanism by which the maize autonomous Ac transposable element gives rise to nonautonomous Ds elements is largely unknown. Sequence analysis of native maize Ds elements indicates a complex chimeric structure formed through deletions of Ac sequences with or without insertions of Ac-unrelated sequence blocks. These blocks are often flanked by short stretches of reshuffled and duplicated Ac sequences. To better understand the mechanism leading to Ds formation, we designed an assay for detecting alterations in Ac using transgenic tobacco plants carrying a single copy of Ac. We found frequent de novo alterations in Ac which were excision rather than sequence dependent, occurring within Ac but not within an almost identical Ds element and not within a stable transposase-producing gene. The de novo DNA rearrangements consisted of internal deletions with breakpoints usually occurring at short repeats and, in some cases, of duplication of Ac sequences or insertion of Ac-unrelated fragments. The ancient maize Ds elements and the young Ds elements in transgenic tobacco showed similar rearrangements, suggesting that Ac-Ds elements evolve rapidly, more so than stable genes, through deletions, duplications, and reshuffling of their own sequences and through capturing of unrelated sequences. The data presented here suggest that abortive Ac-induced gap repair, through the synthesis-dependent strand-annealing pathway, is the underlying mechanism for Ds element formation.
Impact of Inhalation Exposure Modality and Particle Size on the Respiratory Deposition of Ricin in BALB/c Mice

Ricin is a toxic lectin derived from the seed of Ricinus communis (castor plant). It is lethal in small quantities when disseminated as an aerosol. We determined the impact of using two types of exposure chambers and different particle sizes on the deposition of ricin aerosols in mice. Initially, two types of inhalation exposure chambers (whole-body [WB] or nose-only [NO]) were compared using the same size aerosol (1 µm) to determine the potential impact upon respiratory deposition and presented dose. We then assessed the role of particle size on deposition by using aerosols with two distinctly sized particle distributions. Selected organs were collected at four time points after exposure and were analyzed by quantitative enyzme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and epifluorescence microscopy. Results of the exposure chamber comparison, using 1-µm particles only, indicated approximately 50% of the total ricin in the 4 organs was detected in the lung tissue 1 h after exposure. The trachea and nasopharyngeal region of the animals exposed using the WB chamber contained significantly more ricin than those of animals exposed in the NO chamber. Histopathology indicated an accumulation of ricin in both the tracheobronchial and pulmonary regions with pronounced bronchiolar degradation 48 h postexposure. When particles larger than 3 µm were used, results indicated a considerable amount of ricin initially detected in the trachea, although this finding was discounted due to the heterodispersity of the particles generated. Interestingly, no animals died as a result of exposure to the equivalent of 4 LD50s (as determined using a 1-µm particle) when exposed to the larger size distribution of particles. This result indicates a differential lethality that is contingent upon aerosol size.
Influence of five years of antenatal screening on the paediatric cystic fibrosis population in one region

Editor,—The paper describing screening for cystic fibrosis (CF) by Cunningham and Marshall1 has a number of important flaws. Any screening programme is targeted at a defined population. The title refers to a “population in one region” without being geographically precise, but the study is of children born in two hospitals. If the total number of screened pregnancies in the hospitals had been stated then the incidence of CF conceptions in this group could have been calculated. The paper quotes without referencing a CF “gene frequency”, but the authors clearly mean CF carrier frequency of nearly 1 in 20. This gives an incidence of 1 in 1600 live births (not 1 in 2000). The only published long term population data estimating CF incidence in Scotland are the UK data, which at the time of this study was fractionally under 1 in 2500 live births. …
Can we prevent high-risk patients from getting type 2 diabetes?

Relevance to family physicians We seem to spend a good deal of our time providing reactive care and prescribing pills to our patients at risk of diabetes and coronary artery disease (CAD). We discuss lifestyle issues with our patients, but we seldom bring about changes in behaviour. Reasons for this include lack of training and knowledge, the insidious effects of diabetes, and health system factors, but one concern has always been the lack of evidence. It is, therefore, refreshing to review a paper that looks at whether lifestyle changes make a difference. Type 2 diabetes is becoming epidemic in Canada. Risk of developing type 2 diabetes increases with age, obesity, and lack of physical activity. Researchers predict that 3 million Canadians will be suffering from type 2 diabetes in 2010. Increased screening has certainly contributed to these numbers and has uncovered many patients with high fasting glucose levels (fasting blood sugar between 6 and 7; >7 indicates diabetes). These patients are often obese and at about a threefold risk for all the cardiovascular diseases inherent in type 2 diabetes. Most current evidence informs us about people who already have diabetes, but can we prevent it among people who are clearly on the path to getting it? Overview of study and outcomes This Finnish trial randomly assigned 522 middle-aged, overweight subjects (172 men and 350 women; mean age 55 years; mean body mass index 31) with impaired glucose tolerance to an intervention group or a control group. Subjects in the intervention group met with a nutritionist seven times during the first year and every 3 months thereafter. Counseling focused on five issues: reducing weight by 5% or more, reducing total intake of fat (< 30% of energy intake), reducing intake of saturated fat (< 10% of energy intake), increasing fibre intake (at least 15 g/1000 kcal), and increasing exercise (to at least 30 min/d). Participants completed 3-day food records four times a year to individualize feedback. Aerobic and supervised resistance training sessions were offered. An oral glucose-tolerance test was performed annually; diagnosis of diabetes was confirmed by a second test. Mean duration of follow up was 3.2 years.
Playfulness, Big five traits, and cyberloafing

Few IS studies have examined the phenomenon of cyberloafing, i.e., nonwork -related Internet use by employees during work time. This in-progressresearchproposes totake an individual trait approach and investigates the impact of g eneral traits, like the Big Five, as well as domain -specific ones, suc h as computer playfulness. It i s hypothesized that while the Big Five will be significant predictors of cyberloafing, computer playfulness, as a domain -specific trait, will explain sig nificant incremental variance above and beyond the Big Five. Expected contributions are discussed.
Attenuation of changes in Gi‐proteins and adenylyl cyclase in heart failure by an ACE inhibitor, imidapril

Cardiac dysfunction in animals with congestive heart failure due to myocardial infarction (MI) is known to be associated with a wide variety of defects in receptor and post‐receptor mechanisms. Since the heart function have been shown to be improved by treatment with different angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors, we examined the effects of imidapril, an ACE inhibitor, on changes in post‐receptor mechanisms involving adenylyl cyclase (AC) and G proteins in the failing heart. Heart failure in rats was induced by occluding the coronary artery and 3 weeks later the animals were treated daily with 1 mg/kg (orally) imidapril for 5 weeks. The animals were assessed for their left ventricular function and crude membranes were isolated from the viable left ventricle and examined for AC activities as well as G‐protein activities and expression. Animals with heart failure exhibited depressions in ventricular function and AC activities in the absence or presence of forskolin, NaF and Gpp(NH)p. The AC activity in the presence of pertussis toxin was increased whereas that in the presence of cholera toxin was decreased in the failing heart. Protein contents and mRNA levels for Gi‐proteins were increased whereas those for Gs‐proteins were unaltered in the infarcted heart. All these changes due to MI were prevented by imidapril treatment. The results indicate that the depressed cardiac function in the failing heart may partly be due to the direct effects of changes in AC and Gi proteins.
Pronunciation ambiguity vs. pronunciation variability in speech recognition

It is widely acknowledged that pronunciations in spontaneous speech differ significantly from citation form. For this reason, pronunciation modeling has received considerable attention in recent automatic speech recognition literature. Most of the attention however has focused on describing an alternate pronunciation as a different sequence of phonetic units using the same inventory of phones which describe canonical pronunciations. Analysis of manual phonetic transcription of conversational speech reveals a large number (>20%) of cases of genuine ambiguity: instances where human labelers disagree on the identity of the surface form. The authors investigate and characterize the acoustic evidence in the context of this ambiguity. They show that when a pronunciation change occurs, it is often the case that neither the canonical nor the alternate phone represent the acoustics very well. Based on this analysis, two methods for accommodating pronunciation ambiguity are developed. The first method attempts to resolve the ambiguity by separately modeling each baseform/surface-form pair. The second method treats the surface form as a hidden variable and "averages out" the ambiguity.
The effect of phagocytosis of poly(L-lactic acid) fragments on cellular morphology and viability.

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of phagocytosed poly(L-lactic acid) particles on the morphology and viability of phagocytes, mainly macrophages. Therefore, predegraded poly(L-lactic acid) (P-PLLA) and nontreated PLLA (N-PLLA) particles, both having diameters not exceeding 38 microns, were injected intraperitoneally in mice. P-PLLA particles were obtained by 25 kGy gamma-irradiation of N-PLLA particles. N-PLLA and P-PLLA particles were injected using an 0.3% ethanol/0.9% saline solution intraperitoneally to the mice. We also studied the release of the absorbed ethanol as a possible model for the release of low molecular weight, potentially toxic products. As control, nondegradable polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) particles and the carrier solution were used. After 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7 days, the cells of the abdominal cavity were harvested to study the effect of phagocytosis of polymer particles on phagocytic cell morphology and viability. Studies with transmission electron microscopy indicated that, upon injection of particles in the peritoneal cavity, macrophages demonstrated signs of cell damage, cell death, and cell lysis due to phagocytosis of a large amount of P-PLLA particles. The morphology of the cells that had phagocytosed the N-PLLA and PTFE particles did not differ substantially from those of control animals in which only the solution was injected. Also, in the controls, hardly any cell death and no debris was observed. When the PLLA particles were injected as a suspension in a 0.3% ethanol/0.9% saline solution, no difference was observed between N-PLLA and P-PLLA. After phagocytosis, both cause cell damage, sometimes leading to cell death. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Ein pragmatischer Ansatz zur individuellen Integration von IT-Risikomanagement in Unternehmen

In diesem Arbeitspapier werden die aktuellen Ergebnisse des Forschungsprojektes PAuR, Verbesserung der IT-Projektsachstandsverfolgung basieren auf Aufwandschatzungen und Risikomanagement, zusammengetragen. Das Projekt lauft seit 01.01. 2004 und endet zum 31.12. 2005. Prof. Dr. Stephan Kleuker leitet das Projekt und wird von der Wissenschaftlichen Mitarbeiterin Roya Ebrahim-Pour unterstutzt. IT-Projekte scheitern haufig, weil sie die Qualitatsanforderungen nicht erfullen, Zeitvorgaben uberschreiten oder weit mehr als die geplanten Ressourcen verbrauchen. Die Grunde liegen in der unzureichenden Betrachtung von verschiedenen internen und externen Randbedingungen. Diese Bedingungen werden im Projektalltag aus verschiedenen Anlassen vernachlassigt, ubersehen oder ignoriert, obwohl sie den Projektverlauf negativ beeinflussen konnen. Risikomanagement (RM) beschaftigt sich mit diesen Vernachlassigungen. Beginnend in der Angebotsphase und durchgehend bis zum Projektende werden die unterschiedlichen Problemquellen und ihre Ursachen systematisch erfasst, analysiert und ihre Bearbeitung in die Planung sowie Durchfuhrung aufgenommen.
Wingless inactivates glycogen synthase kinase‐3 via an intracellular signalling pathway which involves a protein kinase C.

The Drosophila gene product Wingless (Wg) is a secreted glycoprotein and a member of the Wnt gene family. Genetic analysis of Drosophila epidermal development has defined a putative paracrine Wg signalling pathway involving the zeste‐white 3/shaggy (zw3/sgg) gene product. Although putative components of Wg‐ (and by inference Wnt‐) mediated signalling pathways have been identified by genetic analysis, the biochemical significance of most factors remains unproven. Here we show that in mouse 10T1/2 fibroblasts the activity of glycogen synthase kinase‐3 (GSK‐3), the murine homologue of Zw3/Sgg, is inactivated by Wg. This occurs through a signalling pathway that is distinct from insulin‐mediated regulation of GSK‐3 in that Wg signalling to GSK‐3 is insensitive to wortmannin. Additionally, Wg‐induced inactivation of GSK‐3 is sensitive to both the protein kinase C (PKC) inhibitor Ro31–8220 and prolonged pre‐treatment of 10T1/2 fibroblasts with phorbol ester. These findings provide the first biochemical evidence in support of the genetically defined pathway from Wg to Zw3/Sgg, and suggest a previously uncharacterized role for a PKC upstream of GSK‐3/Zw3 during Wnt/Wg signal transduction.
Circumvention of natural killer cell and T‐cell mediated allogeneic target killing with tacrolimus (FK506) in small bowel transplantation related graft‐vs‐host disease

Abstract The role of simultaneous donor‐specific transfusion of unprocessed cellular bone marrow (BM) together with solid organ transplantation, a postulated concept to achieve long‐term graft acceptance, was investigated in an experimental setting of semiallogeneic transplantation of parental small bowel (SBTx) to F1 hybrids. The established graft‐vs‐host (GvH) model revealed that simultaneous transfer of SB/BM substantially enhanced GvH‐mediated immune responses in recipient target organs, e.g. skin, gut, and liver. In comparison to isolated SBTx, animal survival decreased from 16.l(± 0.9) to 10.1(± 0.8) days after additional BM transfusion, P < 0.001. Severe tissue injury of GvH‐susceptible target organs in the setting of simultaneous SB and BMTx was associated with significant changes in recruitment and tissue distribution of NKR‐P1 cells during the GvH‐related prolif‐erative immune response. Tacrolimus effectively suppressed these initial events and prevented recipient animals from clinically and his‐tologically observed damage caused by GvH disease.
Smart e-Patch for drugs monitoring in schizophrenia

Personalized medicine is experiencing an unprecedented growth in part driven by transformative advances in novel diagnostics tools helping both patients and healthcare professionals with prevention, detection, diagnosis, follow-up, and decision making. t. Biosensors (both implantable and wearable) are an important tool in this space providing direct detection of disease markers and therapeutic drugs. Perspiration analysis offers multiple differentiation opportunities for biosensor design due to the facts that it doesn't require invasive sampling and that mounting evidence to date support the relevance of relevant biomarkers in sweat too. While there is an ongoing research on wearable biosensors for sweat analysis, there is not any report so far on drug detection on the skin. In the present paper, we propose the new idea of a smart e-Patch with integrated electrochemical sensor designed for detection of a novel compound (F17464) developed by Pierre Fabre for the treatment of schizophrenia. This e-Patch is designed for continuous monitoring of drug intake of patients via monitoring of the drug concentration in their perspiration. Our preliminary studies performed to detect this drug in perspiration liquid showed that a direct detection is feasible with a limit of detection of 0.82 μM despite the presence of other electroactive interfering compounds in the perspiration. It is also shown that the designed biosensor is selective for F17464 even when the drug is in presence of a potentially co-administered product (compound B).