Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Association of ACE gene polymorphism with arterial stiffness in patients with type 2 diabetes.

OBJECTIVE To assess the relationship between the insertion (I)/deletion (D) polymorphism of the ACE gene and arterial distensibility in patients with type 2 diabetes and healthy control subjects. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Aortic and carotid arterial distensibility were evaluated by measuring aortic pulse-wave velocity (a-PWV) and carotid stiffness beta using an echo-tracking system in 137 patients with type 2 diabetes and 260 age-matched control subjects. RESULTS a-PWV and carotid stiffness beta were significantly higher in patients with type 2 diabetes than in age-matched control subjects (P < 0.05). Both stiffness beta and a-PWV were significantly higher in the patients with the II genotype than in those with the DD genotype (P < 0.001). In the control subjects, multiple regression analysis showed that age and decreased HDL cholesterol were independently associated with increased a-PWV (R2 = 0.244, P < 0.0001) and that age, systolic and diastolic blood pressure, and BMI were independently associated with increased carotid stiffness beta (R2 = 0.454, P < 0.0001). In the patients with type 2 diabetes, age, gene dose of the I allele, and systolic and diastolic blood pressure were independently associated with increased a-PWV (R2 = 0.545, P < 0.0001), and age, gene dose of the I allele, and systolic blood pressure were associated with increases in carotid stiffness beta (R2 = 0.314, P < 0.0001). CONCLUSIONS These results suggested that ACE polymorphism is associated with the impairment of aortic and carotid distensibility in patients with type 2 diabetes.
Letter: safe and effective cessation of long‐term nucleos(t)ide analogue therapy in noncirrhotic patients with HBeAg‐negative chronic hepatitis B

IBD is still controversial and has not been clarified definitely yet. Sham-controlled studies failed to demonstrate effectiveness. 5 Without any doubt there are several case reports, case series, uncontrolled studies and meta-analyses reporting a therapeutic benefit of leucocytapheresis for the treatment of IBD. 7 These reports include also a few pregnant patients as described by Yamamoto et al. While the absence of relevant side effects seems to be very promising and may support the use of leucocytapheresis in pregnant patients, it has not been formally studied in this situation, and is not licensed in the majority of countries outside Japan. Therefore, we believe that this treatment option should not be generally recommended to be used during pregnancy, before further data on its overall efficacy, and especially safety, in pregnant women are available. In our opinion, the evidence for effectiveness is too small and does not outweigh the absence of side effects to make a recommendation for its use in pregnancy. As summarised in our review, there are various therapeutic alternatives with more favourable scientific evidence and regulatory approval. The excellent results reported in case reports with pregnant women are very encouraging, but are ‘preliminary experiences’ as also suggested by Yamamoto and colleagues. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT The authors’ declarations of personal and financial interests are unchanged from those in the original article.
Diagnosis of suspected or occult pulmonary embolus.

I would like to make it quite clear that this is not an attack on my medical colleagues alone. I am aware that many of my pharmacist colleagues are in the same bewildered state as the more unobservant doctor. This Is deplorable. I would say that pharmacists who do not know their drugs really ought to ask themselves whether they can, in all conscience, still -call themselves " pharmaceutical chemists. " I would appeal to all, doctor and pharmacist alike, to take drugs more seriously. If we do not know our tools how can we pick the best for the task in hand and gauge the vigour with which to use them ? There are, these days, aids galoreour patients are entitled to expect us to use them. -I am, etc., A. P. LAUNCHBURY, Group Chief Pharmacist, South Birmingham Hospital Management Committee. Selly Oak Hospital, Birmingham.
Patterns of Drug Distribution: Implications and Issues

This article delineates various patterns of illicit sales of drugs, especially at the retail (and near-retail) level, addressing a variety of central issues about drug sales and distribution documented during the past 30 years, including: a) the links between drug consumption and drug distribution activities; b) the various distribution roles; c) various levels of the distribution hierarchy; d) types of retail and wholesale markets; e) the association of drug distribution with nondrug associated criminality and violence. The article also will address the implications of drug distribution: whether various public policies such as supply reduction and source interdiction affect illicit drug markets, and how policing strategies and various law enforcement strategies can influence the involvement of individual participation in drug distribution activities. The overlooked contribution of treatment for “drug abuse” to reducing drug sales and distribution activities also will be considered as will other critical unresolved issues.
Sports Brassiere: Is It a Solution for Mastalgia?

Abstract: Breast pain is a very common complaint in women presenting to the outpatient department. It causes a certain degree of discomfort, anxiety leading to repeated investigations, and to some degree disturbs their lifestyle. This prospective study was carried out at King Fahd Hospital of the University, Alkhobar. Two hundred women presenting to the outpatient surgical department with mastalgia were included; 100 women received treatment with danazole, and the other 100 were asked to wear sports brassieres for 12 weeks. They were requested to answer a structured questionnaire during the specified period, and an extensive review of the literature was also performed. Patients were compliant with the instructions. The first group had 58% relief of symptoms, but 42% experienced drug side effects; in the second group, all participants had some degree of initial discomfort followed by relief of symptoms in 85% of cases. Most patients claimed that their lifestyle had changed dramatically after using the sports brassieres. Mastalgia is a common disease that may run a chronic course. Many patients are unsatisfied with prescribed medications and tend to discontinue treatment when side effects develop. Active breast movement on its weak suspensory ligaments may contribute considerably to mastalgia. Good external support by sports brassieres can relieve most of the patient's symptoms.
Effect of Kampo medicine Juzen-taiho-to on adverse events induced by cetuximab.

396 Background: Cetuximab is now considered a standard treatment for advanced or unresectable colorectal cancer, unfortunately patients suffer a skin reaction as the main indication of the toxicity of cetuximab. It is recently reported that Kampo medicine (Goshajinkigan) is considered to be an effective agent for the neuropathy of oxaliplatin. Kampo medicine "Juzen-taiho-to" (TJ-48, Tsumura CO. Ltd.), which consists of 10 component herbs, is known as a tonic agent which improves the general systemic condition of cancer patients by reducing the adverse effects of chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and surgical treatment and to inhibit metastases. The aim of this study was to clarify the efficacy of TJ-48 for adverse events associated with cetuximab therapy. METHODS From 2009, cetuximab was administered initially at a dose of 400 mg/m2 followed by weekly infusions at 250 mg/m2 to 20 patients with non-resectable or recurrent colorectal cancer. Eighteen patients received oral administration of 7.5 g/day of TJ-48 (TJ-48 group) every day in the first course and 7 patients did not receive TJ-48 (Control group). Adverse events were evaluated for every course according to CTCAE version 3.0. RESULTS There was no statistically significant difference between the two groups based on any of patient characteristics. No patients complained of persistent Grade 3 infusion reaction. The percentage of Grade 2 or more skin reactions in each course tended to be lower in the TJ-48 group compared with the Control group (TJ-48 group 34% vs control group 57%). Incidence of Grade 2 anorexia in the TJ-48 group was significantly lower than in the Control group (TJ-48 group 34% vs control group 71%, p=0.03). There were no differences regarding tumor response between the two groups. CONCLUSIONS TJ-48 is useful to prevent anorexia in non-resectable or recurrent colorectal cancer patients treated with cetuximab regimen. [Table: see text].
Mass Expulsion of Zooxanthellae from Jamaican Reef Communities after Hurricane Flora

Very extensive bleaching of coral reef communities occurred after severe flood rains over eastern Jamaica. The loss of color was due to the mass expulsion of zooxanthellae from the tissues of Millepora, Scleractinia, Zoanthidea, and Actiniaria living in the shallow reef zones. The polyps of the bleached individuals continued to expand and feed in their normal fashion. It is believed that expulsion of the zooxanthellae was induced by contact with water of lowered osmotic pressure on the surface of the sea, rather than by sedimentation or fouling. Regeneration of the depleted zooxanthellar populations was very slow; many of the bleached colonies survived well despite the near total absence of zooxanthellae from their tissues for over 2 months.
A hybrid approach to semantic hashtag clustering in social media

The uncontrolled usage of hashtags in social media makes them vary a lot in the quality of semantics and the frequency of usage. Such variations pose a challenge to the current approaches which capitalize on either the lexical semantics of a hashtag by using metadata or the contextual semantics of a hashtag by using the texts associated with a hashtag. This thesis presents a hybrid approach to clustering hashtags based on their semantics, designed in two phases. The first phase is a sense-level metadata-based semantic clustering algorithm that has the ability to differentiate among distinct senses of a hashtag as opposed to the hashtag word itself. The gold standard test demonstrates that sense-level clusters are significantly more accurate than word-level clusters. The second phase is a hybrid semantic clustering algorithm using a consensus clustering approach which finds the consensus between metadata-based sense-level semantic clusters and text-based semantic clusters. The gold standard test shows that the hybrid algorithm outperforms both the text-based algorithm and the metadata-based algorithm for a majority of ground truths tested and that it never underperforms both baseline algorithms. In addition, a larger-scale performance study, conducted with a focus on disagreements in cluster assignments between algorithms, shows that the hybrid algorithm makes the correct cluster assignment in a majority of disagreement cases.
THE DISTRIBUTION OF COLLOIDAL THORIUM DIOXIDE IN MOUSE LIVER AFTER INTRAVENOUS INJECTION *

Thorotrast was first used as a tracer substance in electron microscopy about ten years ago1 and this compound, along with colloidal mercuric ~ u l f i d e ~ . ~ was quickly accepted as a way of following transport mechanisms in cells. Because of the wide use, although for a limited time, of thorium dioxide in human radiography and of the possibility of contamination of large segments of the population by other radioactive particles of colloidal size, the importance of the distribution and effects of thorium dioxide has received renewed interest, not from the standpoint of an effective tool to study transit pathways but rather to look for ways of clearing the reticuloendoth’elial system of radioactive materials. In a previous study3 the author reported that thorotrast and colloidal mercuric sulfide, when given intravenously in modest amounts, were quickly taken up by Kupffer cells and to some extent by hepatocytes and that within about 4 hours the plasma had been virtually cleared of the particles. Some of the thorotrast was excreted in the bile but most of it accumulated in Kupffer cells. At 3 months, Kupffer cells became so laden with particles and cell debris that in some instances sinusoidal lumens were nearly occluded. The effects of thorotrast on liver could be expected to become more severe as more of the compound becomes localized in liver, not only because of the radioactivity but also because of the obstruction of sinusoids and accompanying interference with liver function. This study attempted to accelerate the accumulation of Thoz and to simulate the onset, in livers of mice, of chronic effects which parallel those known to occur in man by administering large doses to these small animals. Hence, mice weighing approximately 20 g were injected with amounts of thorotrast equivalent to about 6-30% of the total blood volume of the animal.
Return to swimming protocol for competitive swimmers: a post-operative case study and fundamentals.

UNLABELLED A large percentage of swimmers report shoulder pain during their swimming career. Shoulder pain in swimmers has been attributed to duration of swim practice, total yardage, and break down in stroke technique. Rehabilitation programs are generally land-based and cannot adequately address the intricacies of the swimming strokes. Return to swimming protocols (RTSP) that address progression of yardage are scarce, yet needed. The purpose of this clinical commentary is to familiarize the clinician with the culture and vernacular of swimming, and to provide a suggested yardage based RTSP for high school and collegiate level swimmers. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE 5.
High Prevalence of cagA- and babA2-Positive Helicobacter pylori Clinical Isolates in Taiwan

ABSTRACT Two virulence markers, cagA and babA2, were characterized by PCR in 101 Helicobacter pylori isolates from a population in Taiwan. cagA was detected in 99% of the isolates, while babA2 was present in all of the isolates. Base deletions and substitutions at the forward babA2 primer annealing sites were found. Given their high prevalence, cagA and babA2 cannot be useful markers for predicting the high-risk patients of H. pylori infection in Taiwan.
Gap junction remodeling in hypertrophied left ventricles of aortic-banded rats: prevention by angiotensin II type 1 receptor blockade.

Remodeling of gap-junctional organization in hypertrophied left ventricle (LV) in response to pressure overload in rats induced by abdominal aorta banding was investigated by immunoconfocal and electron microscopy. Eight to 12 weeks after banding, rats developed significant LV hypertrophy. In contrast to control LV myocytes, which showed connexin43 (Cx43) labeling largely confined to the intercalated disks, LV myocytes from aortic-banded rats showed dispersion of punctate Cx43 labeling over the entire cell surface. In LV tissues sectioned longitudinally, the proportion of Cx43 label at the intercalated disk decreased significantly (control, 0.87 v aortic-banded, 0.62). En-face views of intercalated disks of hypertrophied myocardium revealed a reduction of Cx43 gap junctions in the disk center, giving rise to a significant decrease in the proportion of the disk occupied by gap-junctional membrane (control, 0.32 v aortic-banded, 0.24). Electron microscopy of hypertrophied LV tissue revealed that Cx43-containing gap junctions were frequently displaced from their usual locations to form side-to-side contacts distant from the disk, and also appeared as annular profiles. In aortic-banded rats treated with the angiotensin II (AII) type 1 receptor (AT1) antagonist, losartan (10 mg/kg/day, 11 weeks) not only LV hypertrophy, but also the gap junction disorganization was markedly reduced. These results suggest that LV hypertrophy induced by pressure overload is associated with Cx43 gap junction disorganization and that AII may play an important role either directly or indirectly in gap-junctional remodeling.
Acute Megakaryoblastic Leukemia in a Patient with Xeroderma Pigmentosum: Discussion of Pathophysiological, Prognostic, and Toxicological Aspects

Background: Xeroderma pigmentosum (XP) is an autosomal recessive inherited disease characterized by extreme sensitivity to sunlight. Normal individuals harboring XPD polymorphisms are at increased risk for developing acute lymphoblastic leukemia and acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Case Report: A 33-year-old male XP patient was diagnosed with acute megakaryoblastic leukemia with a complex karyotype. He received standard induction chemotherapy with cytarabine and daunorubicin. After the first cycle of chemotherapy, persistence of blasts was seen and a re-induction cycle with cytarabine, fludarabine, and idarubicin was administered resulting in complete remission. Due to the high-risk profile of his AML, allogeneic stem cell transplantation (SCT) was performed. Following a conditioning regimen with busulfan and cyclophosphamide, the patient received a matched related SCT from his HLA-identical sister. Despite the existence of his DNA repair gene mutation, chemotherapy was normally tolerated by the patient. Unfortunately, he died due to severe sepsis and relapse of AML 45 days after SCT. Conclusion: The XPD mutation in our patient may have contributed to the emergence of his high-risk AML. Despite the existence of a DNA repair gene mutation, our XP patient could be treated with full doses of AML-type chemotherapy including allogeneic SCT without encountering unusual toxicity.
Feeding birds in our towns and cities: a global research opportunity

Wild bird feeding is one of the most common forms of human-wildlife interactions in the Western world. Originally a practice providing nutritional assistance to over-wintering birds, especially in more northern latitudes, birds throughout the cities of the world are now provided with considerable amounts and a variety of foods year-round. Despite the global nature of the practice, remarkably little is known about the outcomes and implications of what may be seen as a supplementary feeding experiment on a massive scale. Although many claims are made about the benefits of feeding, there are growing concerns about the spread of disease, poor nutrition, risk of dependency and many other important issues. Constructive debate among increasingly vigorous proponents and opponents is currently constrained by a lack of reliable information. Here we argue that bird feeding provides an important, if challenging, opportunity for fundamental research in urban ecology.
Hyperchloremic acidosis in chronic pyelonephritis.

HYPERCHLOREMIC acidosis is a characteristic feature of a variety of kidney diseases that have in common impairment of urinary acidification with the excretion of an alkaline urine. These disorders, which include, prominently, renal tubular acidosis and the Fanconi syndrome, are characterized principally by minimal alterations in glomerular filtration rate, at least in early stages, and by disturbances in renal tubular function that affect not only urinary acidification but also the tubular transport of, variously, glucose, phosphate, urate, amino acids and potassium.1 2 3 The mechanisms responsible for these alterations have not been established. The loss of alkali in the urine or, alternatively, .
Global random early estimation for nipping cells in ATM networks

Asynchronous transfer mode was designed for multimedia communication networks. In multimedia networks, there are various kinds of data with different quality of service (QoS) requiring transmission. Consequently, the control of QoS in ATM becomes very important. Therefore, this paper proposes a novel buffer management algorithm named GREEN (Global Random Early Estimation for Nipping cells). In buffer management, to drop a cell randomly and early is the mainstream. Specifically, the designed random probability function considers not only network statuses but also QoS requirements. Also, GREEN speeds up the decision making by early estimation. The properties of global random and early estimation of the GREEN algorithm are obtained by globally considering the delay requirement and early estimating the queue length for decision making.
Comments on ‘Joint modeling of survival and longitudinal non‐survival data: current methods and issues. Report of the DIA Bayesian Joint Modeling Working Group’

I would like to congratulate the authors for producing a comprehensive overview of the current advances in the field of joint models for longitudinal and time-to-event data. These models constitute an attrac-tive modeling paradigm that currently enjoys great interest in the statistics and medical literature. In the following, I expand on three aspects regarding joint models mentioned by the authors. the the
A simple and rational twice daily insulin regime. Distinction between basal and meal insulin requirements.

A new insulin regime is described, in which the primary aim is to attain normal basal plasma glucose concentrations by means of a constant insulin delivery rate from the long-acting Ultratard insulin. Additional twice daily Actrapid insulin is given to cover meals, and we have investigated this regime in 29 insulin dependent diabetics, with control assessed by admission for 24 hour profiles. Patients with low insulin requirements only need a basal insulin supplement with Ultratard insulin. With increasing insulin requirements the dose of short-acting insulin increases more than the basal insulin supplement. Thus fixed combinations of short- and long-acting insulins cannot produce good control in all patients. Twenty-one patients were deemed ‘well controlled’ in that they had no symptomatic hypoglycaemia, an overnight plasma glucose concentration of <5·5 mmol/l and a mean late post-prandial glucose concentration of <6·5 mmol/l. Their average ‘mean excess glycaemic exposure’ (mean incremental plasma glucose above 5 mmol/l) was 0·7 mmol/l (normal range 0–0·5 mmol/l), which is considerably less than that found in many maturity-onset diabetics. The distinction between basal and meal insulin requirements simplifies rules of insulin therapy.
An Efficient Web Document Classification Algorithm Based on LPP and SVM

With the explosive growth of World Wide Web, it is of great importance to develop methods for the automatic classifying of large collections of documents. To efficiently tackle this problem, a novel document classification algorithm based on locality pursuit projection (LPP) and SVM is proposed in this paper. The high-dimensional document space are first mapped into lower-dimensional space with LPP, the SVM is then used to classify the documents into semantically different classes. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm achieves much better performance than other classification algorithms.
Integrated somatomotor, cardiovascular and gastrointestinal adjustments induced from the cerebellar fastigial nucleus.

Behavioural, cardiovascular and gastric responses induced by fastigial stimulation were observed in conscious cats with gastric fistulas, indwelling fastigial electrodes and arterial catheters. Fastigial stimulation elicited oral behaviours, e.g. grooming and chewing, together with tachycardia and pressor responses, while gastric motility was unaffected in most cases as was gastric hydrochloric secretion. In subsequent experiments on the anesthetized animals it was found that the same fastigial area could suppress the intestino-gastric inhibitory reflex. Fastigial influences on small intestinal motility were investigated in anesthetized cats, well recovered from surgical isolation of intestinal loops whose motility could therefore be recorded without laparotomy. Fastigial stimulation either depressed or did not influence ileal motility before laparotomy but after this procedure excitatory responses were uniformly recorded. This reversal is explained by a fastigial suppression of inhibitory intestinal reflexes, elicited by the laparotomy.