Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Management of histoplasmosis

Histoplasmosis is a systemic fungal infection that infects millions of people living in areas where the infection is endemic. However, most people with histoplasmosis have a self-limited illness that does not require treatment with an antifungal agent. Patients who do require treatment are those who are immunosuppressed, those who are exposed to a large fungal inoculum that overwhelms their immune system, and those who have symptomatic disseminated infection, chronic pulmonary infection, or focal organ involvement. The treatment of choice for severe histoplasmosis is amphotericin B, while itraconazole is given for mild to moderate histoplasmosis. Most patients who require initial treatment with amphotericin B respond quickly and can then be switched to itraconazole to finish the course of therapy.
Collecting Material Folklore: Motivations and Methods in the Owen and Hasluck Collections

This paper will examine two early folklore collections: the Mary Alicia Owen Collection of Mesquakie beadwork and the Margaret Hasluck collection of Balkan textiles and folklore. The collections will be analysed within the historical context of the collecting of material folklore and its place within museums. The focus will be upon the methods the collectors used to create their collections, addressing the extent of indigenous agency within the collection process. The paper will demonstrate how alternative angles on cultural interactions can be provided by using collections as social testimony.
Visceral Fat Accumulation Is Associated With Circadian Blood Pressure in Japanese Patients With Impaired Glucose Tolerance

A central pattern of body fat distribution is generally considered to play an important role in the metabolic syndrome, which involves insulin resistance and hypertension (1). The patients of hypertension, especially nondippers, are at increased risk of hypertension associated with cardiovascular events compared with dippers patients whose nocturnal blood pressure is reduced (2). An increased visceral fat accumulation (VFA) is also a risk factor for cardiovascular disease, however, no studies have examined a relationship between VFA and 24-h ambulatory blood pressure (ABP). In the current study, therefore, we analyzed the VFA and 24-h ABP in patients with impaired glucose tolerance (IGT). The blood pressure monitoring program recruited 255 consecutive subjects (139 men and 116 women, aged between 48 and 66 years). …
Clinical Variants of Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis: When Does Liver Biopsy Make the Diagnosis?

Primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC) is a cholestatic disorder of unknown aetiology, characterized by inflammation and obliterative fibrosis involving the intrahepatic, extrahepatic bile ducts or both (1). It predominates among men and is frequently associated with inflammatory bowel diseases, particularly with ulcerative cholitis. Although there are animal models of PSC, pathogenesis is still poorly characterized (2). The target of the immune reaction is the medium and large bile ducts. Sensitized bile ducts are damaged by different immune cells that are activated in the gastro-intestinal tract and lymph nodes. Cholangiocytes become activated to express adhesion molecules, inflammatory and profibrogenic cytokines, together growth factors that stimulate the production of fibrous tissue. The diagnosis of PSC is based in patients who present with an alteration of cholestatic enzymes on the basis of magnetic resonance (MRN) cholangiography or direct cholangiography (ERCP) which show the typical changes of the biliary tree with multifocal strictures and segmental dilatation (3). PSC, however, is a heterogeneous disease characterized by at least four variants: 1. “Classical” PSC (involving the intrahepatic, extrahepatic biliary tree or both) 2. Small-duct PSC 3. PSC/autoimmune hepatitis (AIH) overlap syndrome 4. IgG4 associated cholangitis (IAC)
Pesticides and Breast Cancer

Along with other etiological factors like genetics, family history, age, etc. there is growing scientific evidence that exposure to chemicals, including pesticides is associated with increased incidence of breast cancer among women. Various animal studies have demonstrated the carcinogenic effect of pesticides byacting as Xenoestrogen, interacting and disrupting estrogen receptors or by damaging breast tissue DNA inducing malignancy/catalyzing existing DNA mutation in susceptible individuals. Pesticide’s role as a contributing etiological factor in growing incidence of breast cancer is of particular concern as pesticides is one of the chemicals to which humans get exposed every day in significant concentration. In this review we describe various kinds of pesticides and their respective associations to breast cancer.
Complementary Domain Prioritization: A Method to Improve Biologically Relevant Detection in Multi-Omic Data Sets

As the speed and quality of different analytical platforms increase, it is more common to collect data across multiple biological domains in parallel (i.e., genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics). There is a growing interest in algorithms and tools that leverage heterogeneous data streams in a meaningful way. Since these domains are typically non-linearly related, we evaluated whether results from one domain could be used to prioritize another domain to increase the power of detection, maintain type 1 error, and highlight biologically relevant changes in the secondary domain. To perform this feature prioritization, we developed a methodology called Complementary Domain Prioritization that utilizes the underpinning biology to relate complementary domains. Herein, we evaluate how proteomic data can guide transcriptomic differential expression analysis by analyzing two published colorectal cancer proteotranscriptomic data sets. The proposed strategy improved detection of cancer-related genes compared to standard permutation invariant filtering approaches and did not increase type I error. Moreover, this approach detected differentially expressed genes that would not have been detected using filtering alone while also highlighted pathways that might have otherwise been overlooked. These results demonstrate how this strategy can effectively prioritize transcriptomic data and drive new hypotheses, though subsequent validation studies are still required.
Local Intraarterial Thrombolysis in the Carotid Territory

A new series of 142 patients treated by local intraarterial thrombolysis is presented. After haemorrhage was ruled out by CT, all patients had an emergency angiogram. Patients with occlusion of the lenticulostriate arteries were not treated after the sixth hour (79 cases). Patients without involvement of these arteries were treated up to the 12th hour (61 cases). This selection led to a dramatic reduction of pos-thrombolysis intraparenchymatous haemorrhage (0.7%) compared to other series. All deaths (7 cases) were related to vasogenic oedema due to incomplete reduction of infarcted cerebral volume, in most cases (4 cases) in intracerebral extension of a cervical internal carotid occlusion. Digitized parenchymography proved to be a reliable technique to document the exact location and extent of brain ischaemia before and after thrombolysis. It also allows a prognosis of spontaneous recovery without using thrombolysis. By reducing the infarcted cerebral volume, local intraarterial thrombolysis seems beneficial to the patient as long as a strict selection based on the angiographic location of the occlusion and the time delay is respected.
Characterization of myelination in the developing zebrafish

Myelination, the process by which glial cells ensheath and electrically insulate axons, has been investigated intensely. Nevertheless, knowledge of how myelination is regulated or how myelinating cells communicate with neurons is still incomplete. As a prelude to genetic analyses of these processes, we have identified zebrafish orthologues of genes encoding major myelin proteins and have characterized myelination in the larval zebrafish. Expression of genes corresponding to proteolipid protein (PLP/DM20), myelin protein zero (P0), and myelin basic protein (MBP) is detected at 2 days postfertilization (dpf), first in the ventral hindbrain, close to the midline. During the next 8 days, expression spreads rostrally to the midbrain and optic nerve, and caudally to the spinal cord. DM20 is expressed in the CNS only, while MBP transcripts are detected both in the CNS and in Schwann cells of the lateral line, cranial nerves, and spinal motor nerves. Unlike its closest homologue, trout IP1, zebrafish P0 transcripts were restricted to the CNS. Ultrastructurally, the expression of myelin genes correlated well with myelination, although myelination showed a temporal lag. Myelinated axons were first detected at 4 dpf in the ventral hindbrain, where they were loosely wrapped by processes of glia cells. By 7 dpf, bundles of heavily myelinated axons were observed in the same region. Axons in the lateral line and optic nerves were also surrounded by compact myelin. Conservation in gene expression patterns and the early appearance of myelinated axons, support using the zebrafish to dissect the process of myelination by a genetic approach. GLIA 39:47–57, 2002. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Choice of Disagreement Pointin Enterprises Cooperative Games

After a bargaining process, enterprises come to promissory contracts. The final payoffs of negotiation depend greatly on the payoff value of the bargaining disagreement point (viz. base point). Based on the analysis of the significances of enterprises cooperation, a new method of choosing the optimal base point is proposed in this paper, where bargaining starts at the optimal base point is expected to achieve the optimal utility allocation. Compared with other common methods in practice, the method of choosing the optimal base point mentioned in this paper successfully avoid the problem of unsymmetry in Nash solution
Topical Review: Fetal Testosterone and Sex Differences in Typical Social Development and in Autism

Experiments in animals leave no doubt that androgens, including testosterone, produced by the testes in fetal and/or neonatal life act on the brain to induce sex differences in neural structure and function. In human beings, there is evidence supporting a female superiority in the ability to read nonverbal signals, specific language-related skills, and theory of mind. Even more striking than the sex differences seen in the typical population is the elevated occurrence of social and communicative difficulties in human males. One such condition, autism, occurs four times more frequently in boys than in girls. Recently, a novel theory known as the ``extreme male brain'' has been proposed. It suggests that the behaviors seen in autism are an exaggeration of typical sex differences and that exposure to high levels of prenatal testosterone might be a risk factor. In this article, we argue that prenatal and neonatal testosterone exposures are strong candidates for having a causal role in sexual dimorphism in human behavior, including social development, and as risk factors for conditions characterized by social impairments, particularly autism spectrum conditions. (J Child Neurol 2006;21:825—845; DOI 10.2310/7010.2006.00213).
Contactless mode-selective resonance ultrasound spectroscopy: Electromagnetic acoustic resonance

A noncontacting resonant-ultrasound-spectroscopy (RUS) method for measuring elastic constants and internal friction of conducting materials is described, and applied to monocrystalline copper. This method is called electromagnetic acoustic resonance (EMAR). Contactless acoustic coupling is achieved by energy transduction between the electromagnetic field and the ultrasonic vibrations. A solenoidal coil and static magnetic field induce Lorentz forces on specimen surfaces without using a coupling agent. By changing the field direction, a particular set of vibration modes can be selectively excited and detected, an advantage in identifying the vibration modes of the observed resonance peaks. Contactless coupling allows the measure of intrinsic internal friction free from energy loss associated with contact coupling. The elastic constants and internal friction measured by EMAR are compared with those by the usual RUS method for a rectangular-parallelepiped copper monocrystal. Both methods yielded the same ela.
At the Edge of Intonation: The Interplay of Utterance-Final F0 Movements and Voiceless Fricative Sounds

Abstract The paper is concerned with the ‘edge of intonation’ in a twofold sense. It focuses on utterance-final F0 movements and crosses the traditional segment-prosody divide by investigating the interplay of F0 and voiceless fricatives in speech production. An experiment was performed for German with four types of voiceless fricatives: /f/, /s/, /ʃ/ and /x/. They were elicited with scripted dialogues in the contexts of terminal falling statement and high rising question intonations. Acoustic analyses show that fricatives concluding the high rising question intonations had higher mean centres of gravity (CoGs), larger CoG ranges and higher noise energy levels than fricatives concluding the terminal falling statement intonations. The different spectral-energy patterns are suitable to induce percepts of a high ‘aperiodic pitch’ at the end of the questions and of a low ‘aperiodic pitch’ at the end of the statements. The results are discussed with regard to the possible existence of ‘segmental intonation’ and its implication for F0 truncation and the segment-prosody dichotomy, in which segments are the alleged troublemakers for the production and perception of intonation.
Construction and Analysis of a Multimodal Chat-talk Corpus for Dialog Systems Considering Interpersonal Closeness

There are high expectations for multimodal dialog systems that can make natural small talk with facial expressions, gestures, and gaze actions as next-generation dialog-based systems. Two important roles of the chat-talk system are keeping the user engaged and establishing rapport. Many studies have conducted user evaluations of such systems, some of which reported that considering the relationship with the user is an effective way to improve the subjective evaluation. To facilitate research of such dialog systems, we are currently constructing a large-scale multimodal dialog corpus focusing on the relationship between speakers. In this paper, we describe the data collection and annotation process, and analysis of the corpus collected in the early stage of the project. This corpus contains 19,303 utterances (10 hours) from 19 pairs of participants. A dialog act tag is annotated to each utterance by two annotators. We compare the frequency and the transition probability of the tags between different closeness levels to help construct a dialog system for establishing a relationship with the user.
OpusTools and Parallel Corpus Diagnostics

This paper introduces OpusTools, a package for downloading and processing parallel corpora included in the OPUS corpus collection. The package implements tools for accessing compressed data in their archived release format and make it possible to easily convert between common formats. OpusTools also includes tools for language identification and data filtering as well as tools for importing data from various sources into the OPUS format. We show the use of these tools in parallel corpus creation and data diagnostics. The latter is especially useful for the identification of potential problems and errors in the extensive data set. Using these tools, we can now monitor the validity of data sets and improve the overall quality and consitency of the data collection.
Myeloperoxidase Functions as a Major Enzymatic Catalyst for Initiation of Lipid Peroxidation at Sites of Inflammation*

Initiation of lipid peroxidation and the formation of bioactive eicosanoids are pivotal processes in inflammation and atherosclerosis. Currently, lipoxygenases, cyclooxygenases, and cytochrome P450 monooxygenases are considered the primary enzymatic participants in these events. Myeloperoxidase (MPO), a heme protein secreted by activated leukocytes, generates reactive intermediates that promote lipid peroxidation in vitro. For example, MPO catalyzes oxidation of tyrosine and nitrite to form tyrosyl radical and nitrogen dioxide (⋅NO2), respectively, reactive intermediates capable of initiating oxidation of lipids in plasma. Neither the ability of MPO to initiate lipid peroxidation in vivo nor its role in generating bioactive eicosanoids during inflammation has been reported. Using a model of inflammation (peritonitis) with MPO knockout mice (MPO−/−), we examined the role for MPO in the formation of bioactive lipid oxidation products and promoting oxidant stressin vivo. Electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry was used to simultaneously quantify individual molecular species of hydroxy- and hydroperoxy-eicosatetraenoic acids (H(P)ETEs), F2-isoprostanes, hydroxy- and hydroperoxy-octadecadienoic acids (H(P)ODEs), and their precursors, arachidonic acid and linoleic acid. Peritonitis-triggered formation of F2-isoprostanes, a marker of oxidant stress in vivo, was reduced by 85% in the MPO−/− mice. Similarly, formation of all molecular species of H(P)ETEs and H(P)ODEs monitored were significantly reduced (by at least 50%) in the MPO−/− group during inflammation. Parallel analyses of peritoneal lavage proteins for protein dityrosine and nitrotyrosine, molecular markers for oxidative modification by tyrosyl radical and ⋅NO2, respectively, revealed marked reductions in the content of nitrotyrosine, but not dityrosine, in MPO−/−samples. Thus, MPO serves as a major enzymatic catalyst of lipid peroxidation at sites of inflammation. Moreover, MPO-dependent formation of ⋅NO-derived oxidants, and not tyrosyl radical, appears to serve as a preferred pathway for initiating lipid peroxidation and promoting oxidant stress in vivo.
To Case or not to case: Evaluating Casing Methods for Neural Machine Translation

We present a comparative evaluation of casing methods for Neural Machine Translation, to help establish an optimal pre- and post-processing methodology. We trained and compared system variants on data prepared with the main casing methods available, namely translation of raw data without case normalisation, lowercasing with recasing, truecasing, case factors and inline casing. Machine translation models were prepared on WMT 2017 English-German and English-Turkish datasets, for all translation directions, and the evaluation includes reference metric results as well as a targeted analysis of case preservation accuracy. Inline casing, where case information is marked along lowercased words in the training data, proved to be the optimal approach overall in these experiments.
Curing dental resins and composites by photopolymerization.

UNLABELLED The development and continued evolution of photopolymerizable dental materials, particularly dental composite restoratives, represent a significant, practical advance for dentistry. The highly successful integration of the light-activated curing process for dental applications is described in this review. The basic mechanisms by which the photoinitiators efficiently convert monomers into polymers are discussed along with the variety of factors that influence the photopolymerization process. The conventional camphorquinone-amine visible light photoinitiator system used in most dental restorative materials is illustrated in addition to some alternative initiator systems that have been studied for dental materials applications. CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE Photopolymerization has become an integral component of the practice of dentistry. A better appreciation of the photopolymerization process as well as its potential and limitations may aid the dentist in the delivery of both esthetic and restorative dental care.
Intraoperative Modulation of Alveolar Macrophage Function during Isoflurane and Propofol Anesthesia

Background Alveolar macrophages are a critical part of the defense against pulmonary infection. Thus the authors determined time‐dependent changes in alveolar macrophage functions in patients having surgery who were anesthetized with isoflurane or propofol. Methods Patients anesthetized with propofol (n = 30) or isoflurane (n = 30) during orthopedic surgery were studied. Alveolar macrophages were harvested by bronchoalveolar lavage immediately, and 2, 4, and 6 h after induction anesthesia and at the end of surgery. The fraction of aggregated and nonviable macrophages was determined. Then phagocytosis was measured by ingestion of opsonized and unopsonized particles. Finally, microbicidal activity was determined as the ability of the macrophages to kill Listeria monocytogenes directly. Results Demographic and morphometric characteristics of the patients given propofol and isoflurane were similar, as were their levels of pulmonary function and hemodynamic responses. The fraction of alveolar macrophages ingesting opsonized and unopsonized particles, and the number of particles ingested, decreased significantly over time, with the decrease slightly but significantly greater during isoflurane anesthesia. Microbicidal function decreased progressively during anesthesia and surgery, with the decrease almost twice as great during isoflurane compared with propofol anesthesia. The fraction of aggregated macrophages and recovered neutrophils increased over time in the patients given each anesthetic. Conclusions Pulmonary immunologic function changed progressively during anesthesia and surgery. The data from this study suggest that pulmonary defenses are modulated by the type of anesthesia and by the duration of anesthesia and surgery.
Presurgical Unilateral Cleft Lip Anthropometrics: Implications for the Choice of Repair Technique

Background: It has been stated that height of the lateral lip is difficult to obtain with the rotation advancement repair only when the lateral lip is short in both its vertical and horizontal dimensions. The authors studied preoperative cleft lip anthropometry to determine the frequency of the “geometrically unfavorable lateral lip”—short in both vertical and transverse dimensions. Methods: Direct caliper measurements were taken by a single observer of the heights and of the transverse lengths in 100 consecutive patients (age ≥3 months and <6 months) with unilateral cleft lip (51 complete and 49 incomplete) who were under general anesthesia just before cleft lip repair. Results: In 75 patients, the height of the lateral lip was less than that of the noncleft side; on average, 2.1 mm less than (or 82 percent of) the noncleft side (range, 50 to 133 percent). In 86 patients, the lateral lip transverse length was less than on the noncleft side; on average, 2.7 mm less than (or 86 percent of) the noncleft side (range, 66 to 114 percent). Of the 75 patients with height deficiency, 63 patients also had transverse length deficiency. There were 19 patients who exhibited vertical height deficiency of 4 mm or more (>1 SD from the mean), and 79 percent of these patients with extreme height deficiency also exhibited transverse length deficiency. Conclusions: The lateral lip is frequently short in both vertical and transverse dimensions. These findings warrant consideration for the use of repairs other than rotation advancement (and its variations) in the setting of lateral lip deficiency.