Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Prostate cancer mortality risk in relation to working underground in the Wismut cohort study of German uranium miners, 1970–2003

Objective A recent study and comprehensive literature review has indicated that mining could be protective against prostate cancer. This indication has been explored further here by analysing prostate cancer mortality in the German ‘Wismut’ uranium miner cohort, which has detailed information on the number of days worked underground. Design An historical cohort study of 58 987 male mine workers with retrospective follow-up before 1999 and prospective follow-up since 1999. Setting and participants Uranium mine workers employed during the period 1970–1990 in the regions of Saxony and Thuringia, Germany, contributing 1.42 million person-years of follow-up ending in 2003. Outcome measure Simple standardised mortality ratio (SMR) analyses were applied to assess differences between the national and cohort prostate cancer mortality rates and complemented by refined analyses done entirely within the cohort. The internal comparisons applied Poisson regression excess relative prostate cancer mortality risk model with background stratification by age and calendar year and a whole range of possible explanatory covariables that included days worked underground and years worked at high physical activity with γ radiation treated as a confounder. Results The analysis is based on miner data for 263 prostate cancer deaths. The overall SMR was 0.85 (95% CI 0.75 to 0.95). A linear excess relative risk model with the number of years worked at high physical activity and the number of days worked underground as explanatory covariables provided a statistically significant fit when compared with the background model (p=0.039). Results (with 95% CIs) for the excess relative risk per day worked underground indicated a statistically significant (p=0.0096) small protective effect of −5.59 (−9.81 to −1.36) ×10−5. Conclusion Evidence is provided from the German Wismut cohort in support of a protective effect from working underground on prostate cancer mortality risk.
Organo-mineral interactions in contrasting soils under natural vegetation

Organo-mineral interactions are important for the cycling and preservation of organic carbon (OC) in soils. To understand the role of soil mineral surfaces in organo-mineral interactions, we used a sequential density fractionation procedure to isolate 2.6 g cm-3 density fractions from topsoils (0-10 cm) of contrasting mineralogies. These soils were under natural vegetation of four major Australian soil types - Chromosol, Ferrosol, Sodosol and Vertosol. The soils and their organic matter (OM) contents were found to be partitioned in four distinct pools: i) particulate organic matter 2.6 g cm-3; and iv) Fe oxides dominant >2.0 g cm-3 (in the Ferrosol.) X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy was used to investigate organic C and N bonding environments associated within each density fraction. Mineral pools were shown to be enriched in distinct organic functional groups: phyllosilicate dominant fractions were enriched with oxidized OC species (C-O, C=O, O-C=O) and protonated amide forms; quartz and feldspar dominated fractions were enriched in aliphatic C and protonated amide forms; Fe oxides dominant fractions had the greatest proportions of oxidized OC species and were low in protonated amide forms. The enrichment of different C species was related to the interaction of functional groups with the mineral surfaces. These results demonstrate the potential of mineral surfaces in influencing the chemical composition of OM bound in surfaces reactions and subsequently the stability of OM in organo-mineral interactions.
JRC Eurovoc Indexer JEX - A freely available multi-label categorisation tool

EuroVoc (2012) is a highly multilingual thesaurus consisting of over 6,700 hierarchically organised subject domains used by European Institutions and many authorities in Member States of the European Union (EU) for the classification and retrieval of official documents. JEX is JRC-developed multi-label classification software that learns from manually labelled data to automatically assign EuroVoc descriptors to new documents in a profile-based category-ranking task. The JEX release consists of trained classifiers for 22 official EU languages, of parallel training data in the same languages, of an interface that allows viewing and amending the assignment results, and of a module that allows users to re-train the tool on their own document collections. JEX allows advanced users to change the document representation so as to possibly improve the categorisation result through linguistic pre-processing. JEX can be used as a tool for interactive EuroVoc descriptor assignment to increase speed and consistency of the human categorisation process, or it can be used fully automatically. The output of JEX is a language-independent EuroVoc feature vector lending itself also as input to various other Language Technology tasks, including cross-lingual clustering and classification, cross-lingual plagiarism detection, sentence selection and ranking, and more.
The Influence of Coronary Bypass Graft Surgery on the Marital Relationship and Family Functioning of the Patient

The primary aim of this study was to assess the effect of coronary bypass graft surgery on certain aspects of the marital relationship and on family functioning of patients. The secondary aim was to determine which coping strategies families used postoperatively. An experimental pre- and posttest research design was used. We collected data using the Enriching and Nurturing Relationship Issues, Communication and Happiness Scale, the Family Adaptability and Cohesion Evaluation Scale II, and the Family Crisis Oriented Personal Evaluation Scales. The results indicated that bypass surgery had a negative effect on the patients marital satisfaction, cominunication, and attitudes toward the division of roles in the marriage and family. Bypass surgery had a further negative influence on the emotional bonding of the patients and their spouses with other members of the family. The patients adaptability regarding new challenges facing the family was also affected negatively. The patients who were still working also showed a greater decline in some of the measured variables than the retired patients. The coping strategies used most often by the families were the seeking of spiritual support and the reframing of the problem. The results also indicated that if passive appraisal was used as a coping strategy, the patients marital satisfaction would decrease, and if reframing of the problem was used, the patients adaptability regarding new challenges facing the family would increase.
Real‐SPINE: An integrated system of neural networks for real‐value prediction of protein structural properties

Proteins can move freely in three‐dimensional space. As a result, their structural properties, such as solvent accessible surface area, backbone dihedral angles, and atomic distances, are continuous variables. However, these properties are often arbitrarily divided into a few classes to facilitate prediction by statistical learning techniques. In this work, we establish an integrated system of neural networks (called Real‐SPINE) for real‐value prediction and apply the method to predict residue‐solvent accessibility and backbone ψ dihedral angles of proteins based on information derived from sequences only. Real‐SPINE is trained with a large data set of 2640 protein chains, sequence profiles generated from multiple sequence alignment, representative amino‐acid properties, a slow learning rate, overfitting protection, and predicted secondary structures. The method optimizes more than 200,000 weights and yields a 10‐fold cross‐validated Pearson's correlation coefficient (PCC) of 0.74 between predicted and actual solvent accessible surface areas and 0.62 between predicted and actual ψ angles. In particular, 90% of 2640 proteins have a PCC value greater than 0.6 between predicted and actual solvent‐accessible surface areas. The results of Real‐SPINE can be compared with the best reported correlation coefficients of 0.64–0.67 for solvent‐accessible surface areas and 0.47 for ψ angles. The real‐SPINE server, executable programs, and datasets are freely available on http://sparks.informatics. iupui.edu. Proteins 2007. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Taxonomy of Attacks for Agent-Based Smart Grids

Being the most important critical infrastructure in Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs), a smart grid exhibits the complicated nature of large scale, distributed, and dynamic environment. Taxonomy of attacks is an effective tool in systematically classifying attacks and it has been placed as a top research topic in CPS by a National Science Foundation (NSG) Workshop. Most existing taxonomy of attacks in CPS are inadequate in addressing the tight coupling of cyber-physical process or/and lack systematical construction. This paper attempts to introduce taxonomy of attacks of agent-based smart grids as an effective tool to provide a structured framework. The proposed idea of introducing the structure of space-time and information flow direction, security feature, and cyber-physical causality is innovative, and it can establish a taxonomy design mechanism that can systematically construct the taxonomy of cyber attacks, which could have a potential impact on the normal operation of the agent-based smart grids. Based on the cyber-physical relationship revealed in the taxonomy, a concrete physical process based cyber attack detection scheme has been proposed. A numerical illustrative example has been provided to validate the proposed physical process based cyber detection scheme.
Pain assessment in nonverbal older adults with advanced dementia.

TOPIC Pain assessment is a particular challenge among individuals with advanced dementia who lack the ability to formulate and express their experience of discomfort. PURPOSE Awareness of pain scales and methods specifically designed for use with nonverbal individuals with dementia is critical to expanded use and testing in clinical settings. SOURCES Computerized literature searches using four databases revealed the five observational scales and two caregiver reports methods reviewed. CONCLUSIONS A small number of valid, reliable, and sensitive scales are available for use by nurses and allied health personnel. Each has strengths and limitations and all would benefit from additional testing.
Controlled trial of Japanese acupuncture for chronic myofascial neck pain: assessment of specific and nonspecific effects of treatment.

OBJECTIVE This article examines the specific and nonspecific effects of Japanese acupuncture on chronic myofascial neck pain in a randomized single-blind trial. DESIGN Forty-six patients were randomly assigned to receive relevant acupuncture, irrelevant acupuncture, or no-acupuncture control treatment consisting of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medication. The two acupuncture groups underwent comparable light shallow needling. The irrelevant acupuncture group received acupuncture at specific sites not relevant for cervical pain. OUTCOME MEASURES The study measures included the McGill Pain Questionnaire-Short Form (SF-MPQ), the Short-Form Health Survey (SF-36), the Symptom Checklist 90-Revised (SCL-90-R), medication diary, and physiologic measures. The factors examined as predictors of outcome pain ratings were experience with, beliefs about, and knowledge of acupuncture before treatment; perceived efficacy, credibility, and logic of acupuncture; perceived competence of the acupuncturist; and painfulness of acupuncture. RESULTS No differences were found among the three groups at baseline, except that the relevant acupuncture group reported having had more previous acupuncture treatments. No significant differences in terms of perceived credibility or perceived effectiveness of treatment were found between the two acupuncture groups. The relevant acupuncture group had significantly greater pre-/posttreatment differences in pain than the irrelevant acupuncture and control groups (p < .05). The nonspecific effects of confidence in the acupuncturist, willingness to try any treatment, mood, and physiologic effect of needling were not predictive of treatment outcome, whereas confidence in the treatment and past experiences with acupuncture did correlate significantly with a decrease in pain. CONCLUSIONS Relevant acupuncture with heat contributes to modest pain reduction in persons with myofascial neck pain. Previous experience with and confidence in treatment help to predict benefit. Measurement of nonspecific effects of alternative therapy is recommended in future clinical trials.
A General Model of Animated Shape Perturbation

Stochastic shape–perturbation, called shape– or hyper– texturing, represents an attractive way for renderingmany complex surface structures including fur, fire, cotton or rocks. While current methods often limit applications to static, isolated and rather simple objects, this paper attempts to provide a more general approach, based on projection schemes. The presented technique not only permits to deal with various shapes, but furthermore combines perturbation with animation using 3D deformation models based on a principle of smoothed particles. The parameters of the deformation are controlled by the user through ”projection primitives”. Examples of animated surface behaviors (applied to usual polyhedrons such as the Utah teapot) including morphing, fluttering, burning and waving illustrate the possibilities of the approach.
Integrin-Linked Kinase Regulates Endothelial Cell Survival and Vascular Development

ABSTRACT Integrin-linked kinase (ILK) is a phosphoinositide 3-kinase-dependent serine/threonine kinase that interacts with β integrins. Here we show that endothelial cell (EC)-specific deletion of ILK in mice confers placental insufficiency with decreased labyrinthine vascularization, yielding no viable offspring. Deletion of ILK in zebra fish using antisense morpholino oligonucleotides results in marked patterning abnormalities of the vasculature and is similarly lethal. To dissect potential mechanisms responsible for these phenotypes, we performed ex vivo deletion of ILK from purified EC of adult mice. We observed downregulation of the active-conformation of β1 integrins with a striking increase in EC apoptosis associated with activation of caspase 9. There was also reduced phosphorylation of the ILK kinase substrate, Akt. However, phenotypic rescue of ILK-deficient EC by wild-type ILK, but not by a constitutively active mutant of Akt, suggests regulation of EC survival by ILK in an Akt-independent manner. Thus, endothelial ILK plays a critical role in vascular development through integrin-matrix interactions and EC survival. These data have important implications for both physiological and pathological angiogenesis.
Restrictive Deferred Hydration Combined with Preemptive Norepinephrine Infusion during Radical Cystectomy Reduces Postoperative Complications and Hospitalization Time: A Randomized Clinical Trial

Background:Anesthetics and neuraxial anesthesia commonly result in vasodilation/hypotension. Norepinephrine counteracts this effect and thus allows for decreased intraoperative hydration. The authors investigated whether this approach could result in reduced postoperative complication rate. Methods:In this single-center, double-blind, randomized, superiority trial, 166 patients undergoing radical cystectomy and urinary diversion were equally allocated to receive 1 ml·kg−1·h−1 of balanced Ringer’s solution until the end of cystectomy and then 3 ml·kg−1·h−1 until the end of surgery combined with preemptive norepinephrine infusion at an initial rate of 2 µg·kg−1·h−1 (low-volume group; n = 83) or 6 ml·kg−1·h−1 of balanced Ringer’s solution throughout surgery (control group; n = 83). Primary outcome was the in-hospital complication rate. Secondary outcomes were hospitalization time, and 90-day mortality. Results:In-hospital complications occurred in 43 of 83 patients (52%) in the low-volume group and in 61 of 83 (73%) in the control group (relative risk, 0.70; 95% CI, 0.55–0.88; P = 0.006). The rates of gastrointestinal and cardiac complications were lower in the low-volume group than in the control group (5 [6%] vs. 31 [37%]; relative risk, 0.16; 95% CI, 0.07–0.39; P < 0.0001 and 17 [20%] vs. 39 [48%], relative risk, 0.43; 95% CI, 0.26–0.60; P = 0.0003, respectively). The median hospitalization time was 15 days [range, 11, 27d] in the low-volume group and 17 days [11, 95d] in the control group (P = 0.02). The 90-day mortality was 0% in the low-volume group and 4.8% in the control group (P = 0.12). Conclusion:A restrictive-deferred hydration combined with preemptive norepinephrine infusion during radical cystectomy and urinary diversion significantly reduced the postoperative complication rate and hospitalization time.
The Shuttle Radar Topography Mission

The Shuttle Radar Topography Mission produced the most complete, highest‐resolution digital elevation model of the Earth. The project was a joint endeavor of NASA, the National Geospatial‐Intelligence Agency, and the German and Italian Space Agencies and flew in February 2000. It used dual radar antennas to acquire interferometric radar data, processed to digital topographic data at 1 arc sec resolution. Details of the development, flight operations, data processing, and products are provided for users of this revolutionary data set.
Using Dye Tracer for Visualization of Preferential Flow at Macro‐ and Microscales

The detection of a nonequilibrium water flow and solute transport in structured soil at various scales is essential for better understanding of these phenomena. This study focused on the visualization of preferential flow in a Haplic Luvisol and Haplic Cambisol and their horizons by performing field ponding dye infiltration experiments. In addition, thin soil sections were made and micromorphological images were used to study soil aggregate structure and dye distribution at the microscale. The staining patterns within the vertical and horizontal field‐scale sections documented the different nature of preferential flow in different soil types and also within the soil profiles. While preferential flow in the Haplic Luvisol was caused by soil aggregation and biopores, preferential flow in the Haplic Cambisol was caused only by biopores, large soil fractures, and incorporated straw material. Micromorphological images showed that, in the case of the Haplic Luvisol, the dye was primarily distributed either in the interaggregate pores and then in the pores inside the aggregates or in the isolated large pores connected to the dye source and then into the matrix pores. The dye distribution in the soil matrix was uneven as well. Accumulated organic matter, clay coating, and isolated larger capillary pores, which initially did not contain the dye tracer, behaved as less‐permeable or impermeable barriers. Uneven distribution was caused by hierarchical pore size distribution of the soil matrix. Results indicated a multimodal character of preferential flow in this soil. In the case of the Haplic Cambisol, the dye pattern studied at the microscale was mostly affected by fractures and the size and shape of mineral grains.
Extensional faults that localize Irish syndiagenetic Zn-Pb Deposits and their reactivation during Variscan compression

Abstract The syndiagenetic Zn-Pb deposits of south-central Ireland, which are hosted by Lower Carboniferous carbonate sediments, occur along generally northeast trending, segmented normal fault arrays which were active during sedimentation. Individual sulphide bodies are located at points of maximum throw on east-west trending faults within the northeast trending fault arrays. All of the known major Irish Zn-Pb deposits in the south-central Midlands occur on north-side-down normal faults. The Irish Midlands underwent compressive shortening during the Variscan phase of the Hercynian orogeny. North-side-down normal faults were largely unaffected by this event while favourably oriented, south-side-down, Early Carboniferous normal faults were reactivated and transformed into reverse faults. The absence of significant sulphide deposits along south-side-down Chadian-Arundian extensional faults is probably due mainly to dismemberment, and/or compressional uplift and erosion, of such zones during Variscan deformation.
Breast Arterial Calcifications on Mammography Do Not Predict Myocardial Ischemia on Myocardial Perfusion Single-Photon Emission Computed Tomography

Background The aim of this study was to determine if breast arterial calcification (BAC) on mammography predicts myocardial ischemia (MI) on stress myocardial perfusion single-photon emission computed tomography (MPS). BAC is a type of medial artery calcification that can be seen incidentally on mammography, but the relationship between coronary artery calcification and MI on MPS is yet unknown. Methods A total of 435 consecutive women underwent mammography and stress MPS within 1 year of each other. BAC was quantitatively evaluated (0 - 13). Patients with known coronary artery diseases (CADs) such as coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG), percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), MI, positive coronary angiogram or positive MPS were excluded from the study. Risk factors for CAD were obtained from a chart review. Results The mean age was 58 ± 8 years. BAC was found in 258 (59%) of the study population. BAC-positive patients were significantly older than BAC-negative patients (P < 0.0001), there were strong associations between BAC and hypertension (P = 0.0309), chronic kidney disease (CKD) (P = 0.0001), and diabetes (P = 0.0309), but there were significant associations between BACV and hyperlipidemia, family history of CAD, and smoking (P = 0.6856, P = 0.9642, and P = 0.087, respectively). The mean score of BAC was 5 ± 5 in patients with normal MPS and was 6 ± 6 in patients with abnormal MPS. There were no associations between total BAC and MPS results (P = 0.2095), and between BAC categories and MPS result (P = 0.3069). Conclusions Based on our study, the presence and severity of BAC on screening or diagnostic mammography do not predict MI on stress MPS, and further cardiac workup based on the presence of BAC is not warranted. BAC is very common in mammography up to 59% and associated with age, diabetes, CKD, and hypertension. In contrast, the prevalence of MI is only 13% in women with BAC and associated with age, diabetes, CKD, hyperlipidemia, and impaired left ventricular function.
Influence of APOE Genotype on Hippocampal Atrophy over Time - An N=1925 Surface-Based ADNI Study

The apolipoprotein E (APOE) e4 genotype is a powerful risk factor for late-onset Alzheimer’s disease (AD). In the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) cohort, we previously reported significant baseline structural differences in APOE e4 carriers relative to non-carriers, involving the left hippocampus more than the right—a difference more pronounced in e4 homozygotes than heterozygotes. We now examine the longitudinal effects of APOE genotype on hippocampal morphometry at 6-, 12- and 24-months, in the ADNI cohort. We employed a new automated surface registration system based on conformal geometry and tensor-based morphometry. Among different hippocampal surfaces, we computed high-order correspondences, using a novel inverse-consistent surface-based fluid registration method and multivariate statistics consisting of multivariate tensor-based morphometry (mTBM) and radial distance. At each time point, using Hotelling’s T2 test, we found significant morphological deformation in APOE e4 carriers relative to non-carriers in the full cohort as well as in the non-demented (pooled MCI and control) subjects at each follow-up interval. In the complete ADNI cohort, we found greater atrophy of the left hippocampus than the right, and this asymmetry was more pronounced in e4 homozygotes than heterozygotes. These findings, combined with our earlier investigations, demonstrate an e4 dose effect on accelerated hippocampal atrophy, and support the enrichment of prevention trial cohorts with e4 carriers.