Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Histologic type of lung cancer and asbestos exposure

The histologic types of lung cancer in 855 patients (747 men and 107 women) from three hospitals and one international study of insulation workers were evaluated. Of these, 196 cases had asbestos exposure. About one half of the cases were diagnosed from surgical slides and one half from autopsy slides. Squamous cell carcinoma constituted the largest percentage of tumor types and was found with the same frequency in exposed and nonexposed groups. Small cell carcinoma was found in 25% of the exposed and in 15% of the nonexposed patients. Upper lung sites were involved in about two thirds of the cases with asbestos exposure and lower lobes in the other one third. There was little difference in histologic type in cases regardless of whether upper or lower lobes were involved. Cigarette smokers who smoked until their cancer diagnosis showed no difference in histologic type by amount smoked, and slight but not statistically significant differences from ex‐cigarette smokers.
Galaxy Selection and Clustering and Lyα Absorber Identification

The effects of galaxy selection on our ability to constrain the nature of weak Lyα absorbers at low redshift are explored. Current observations indicate the existence of a substantial population of gas-rich, low surface brightness (LSB) galaxies, and these galaxies may have large cross sections for Lyα absorption. Absorption arising in LSB galaxies is likely to be attributed to high surface brightness galaxies at larger impact parameters from quasar lines of sight, so that the observed absorption cross sections of galaxies may seem unreasonably large. Thus it is not currently possible to rule out scenarios in which LSB galaxies make substantial contributions to Lyα absorption using direct observations. Less direct tests, where observational selection effects are taken into account using simulations, should make it possible to determine the nature of Lyα absorbers by observing a sample of ~100 galaxies around quasar lines of sight with well-defined selection criteria. Such tests, which involve comparing simulated and observed plots of the unidentified absorber fractions and absorbing galaxy fractions versus impact parameter, can distinguish between scenarios where absorbers arise in particular galaxies and those where absorbers arise in gas that traces the large-scale galaxy distribution. Care must be taken to minimize observational selection effects even when using these tests. Results from such tests are likely to be dependent upon the limiting absorption-line equivalent width or neutral hydrogen column density. While not enough data are currently available to make a strong conclusion about the nature of moderately weak absorbers, some evidence is seen that such absorbers arise in gas that is around or between galaxies that are often not detected in surveys.
Psychosocial assessments for young people: a systematic review examining acceptability, disclosure and engagement, and predictive utility

Adolescence and young adulthood are often turbulent periods in a person’s life. There are high rates of accidental deaths, suicide, mental health concerns, substance use, and sexual experimentation. Health care professionals need to conduct holistic assessments of clients in these developmental life stages to identify psychosocial risks and provide targeted early intervention and implement prevention strategies. The most useful psychosocial assessments for most health care professionals are those that can provide a complete picture of the young person’s life and circumstances. This article identifies psychosocial assessment instruments that can be used as an initial assessment and engagement tool with the general population of young people presenting for health care. We review the psychometric properties of each of the instruments, determining what type of instrument is most acceptable to young people, whether any can increase disclosure and improve engagement between young people and health professionals, and whether they have predictive utility. The search strategy complied with the relevant sections of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) statement. A total of 89 published articles were identified, covering 31 different assessment instruments. Results indicated that those that were self-administered were most acceptable to young people, although it is unclear whether pen-and-paper or computer formats were preferred. Most psychosocial assessments can improve rates of disclosure and enhance engagement between young people and health professionals; however, worryingly, we found evidence that clinicians did not always respond to some of the most serious identified risks. Only for one instrument was there any mention of predictive utility. Future research should employ longitudinal approaches to determine the predictive utility of psychosocial assessments and focus on whether the use of new technologies can improve rates of disclosure.
Technique to process xenogenic tissues for cardiovascular implantation - : A preliminary report

Processing of xenograft, a biomaterial in clinical c ardiovascular surgery can influence implantation life and efficiency in desired function. Existing xenografts have a limited service time as they undergo degenerative changes. Degradation of xenografts occurs due to several deficiencies in processing and also due to in vivo enzymatic digestion and immune response. The objective of this study is to decellularize xenograft tissues and preserve their architecture using an eff icient method. This method can produce decellularized tissues that are durable and sturdy to withstand physiological stresses due to circulation during cardiovascular surgeries. Po rcine valves (40 pulmonary and eight aortic), bovine jugular veins (57 with and 41 without valves) and 29 bovine pericardia were treated chemically with diffe rent methods of decellulariza tion. Anti-calcium treatment was performed to reduce mineralization and further processing of ti ssues was performed to prevent bloodprotein seepage in the biological tissues during blood circulation. The most effective decellul arization process was determined by a microscopic examination of the decellularized tissues. One per cent DCA and enzymatic treatment for 50 and 15 h respectively, decellularized the xenografts in an efficient manner. This decellular ization along with enzymatic treatment was found to produce good results in comparison with other detergents. This can make them a suitable xenograft tissue for clinical use. Animal experiments can provide evidence of autologous cell seeding in the same processed tissues after implantation has taken place. These experiments can prove the ability of the tissue to grow cells in individuals inside whom the grafts are to be i mplanted.
Interannual Variability of the Dynamics and Thermodynamics of the Tropical Indian Ocean

Abstract Interannual variability of the tropical Indian Ocean is studied with a reduced gravity, primitive equation, ocean general circulation model (OGCM). The OGCM is coupled to an atmospheric mixed layer model for surface heat flux computation. The seasonal simulation of sea surface temperatures (SST), current, and thermocline structures are in good agreement with observations and other models. The seasonal cycle of SST along the equator exhibits an eastward propagation with larger variability in the west. The interannual simulations are carried out over 1980–95 with interannual wind stresses and wind speeds but climatological data for solar radiation and cloudiness. The SST anomalies are smaller than 1°C over most of the basin and the leading EOF shows an ENSO-related warming. However, the correlation between the Southern Oscillation index and the time series of the leading EOF is only −0.51 and SST anomalies of similar magnitudes as an El Nino year appear in other years too. ENSO-related equatorial w.
Cross species analysis of microarray expression data

MOTIVATION Many biological systems operate in a similar manner across a large number of species or conditions. Cross-species analysis of sequence and interaction data is often applied to determine the function of new genes. In contrast to these static measurements, microarrays measure the dynamic, condition-specific response of complex biological systems. The recent exponential growth in microarray expression datasets allows researchers to combine expression experiments from multiple species to identify genes that are not only conserved in sequence but also operated in a similar way in the different species studied. RESULTS In this review we discuss the computational and technical challenges associated with these studies, the approaches that have been developed to address these challenges and the advantages of cross-species analysis of microarray data. We show how successful application of these methods lead to insights that cannot be obtained when analyzing data from a single species. We also highlight current open problems and discuss possible ways to address them.
Climate change and the marine ecosystem of the western Antarctic Peninsula

The Antarctic Peninsula is experiencing one of the fastest rates of regional climate change on Earth, resulting in the collapse of ice shelves, the retreat of glaciers and the exposure of new terrestrial habitat. In the nearby oceanic system, winter sea ice in the Bellingshausen and Amundsen seas has decreased in extent by 10% per decade, and shortened in seasonal duration. Surface waters have warmed by more than 1 K since the 1950s, and the Circumpolar Deep Water (CDW) of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current has also warmed. Of the changes observed in the marine ecosystem of the western Antarctic Peninsula (WAP) region to date, alterations in winter sea ice dynamics are the most likely to have had a direct impact on the marine fauna, principally through shifts in the extent and timing of habitat for ice-associated biota. Warming of seawater at depths below ca 100 m has yet to reach the levels that are biologically significant. Continued warming, or a change in the frequency of the flooding of CDW onto the WAP continental shelf may, however, induce sublethal effects that influence ecological interactions and hence food-web operation. The best evidence for recent changes in the ecosystem may come from organisms which record aspects of their population dynamics in their skeleton (such as molluscs or brachiopods) or where ecological interactions are preserved (such as in encrusting biota of hard substrata). In addition, a southwards shift of marine isotherms may induce a parallel migration of some taxa similar to that observed on land. The complexity of the Southern Ocean food web and the nonlinear nature of many interactions mean that predictions based on short-term studies of a small number of species are likely to be misleading.
Characterisation of phosphate coacervates for potential biomedical applications

In this study, amorphous (Na2O) x (CaO)0.50− x (P2O5)0.50·yH2O (where x = ∼0.15 and y = ∼3) samples were prepared by a coacervate method. Thermal analysis showed that two types of water molecules were present in the coacervate structures: one type loosely bound and the other part of the phosphate structure. Structural studies using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and X-ray total diffraction revealed the samples to have very similar structures to melt-quenched glasses of comparable composition. Furthermore, no significant structural differences were observed between samples prepared using calcium nitrate as the calcium source or those prepared from calcium chloride. A sample containing ∼1 mol% Ag2O was prepared to test the hypothesis that calcium phosphate coacervate materials could be used as delivery agents for antibacterial ions. This sample exhibited significant antibacterial activity against the bacterium Psuedomonas aeruginosa. FTIR data revealed the silver-doped sample to be structurally akin to the analogous silver-free sample.
Trophic state and geographic gradients influence planktonic cyanobacterial diversity and distribution in New Zealand lakes

&NA; Cyanobacteria are commonly associated with eutrophic lakes, where they often form blooms and produce toxins. However, they are a ubiquitous component of phytoplankton in lakes of widely varying trophic status. We hypothesised that cyanobacterial diversity would vary among lakes of differing trophic status, but that the relative importance of geographical and hydromorphological characteristics driving these patterns would differ across trophic groups. DNA from 143 New Zealand lakes that spanned a range of geographic, hydromorphological and trophic gradients was analysed using automated rRNA intergenic spacer analysis and screened for genes involved in cyanotoxin production. Statistical analysis revealed significant delineation among cyanobacterial communities from different trophic classes. Multivariate regression indicated that geographical features (latitude, longitude and altitude) were significant in driving cyanobacterial community structure; however, partitioning of their effects varied among trophic categories. High‐throughput sequencing was undertaken on selected samples to investigate their taxonomic composition. The most abundant and diverse (71 operational taxonomic units) taxon across all lake types was the picocyanobacteria genus Synechococcus. Cyanotoxins (microcystins n = 23, anatoxins n = 1) were only detected in eutrophic lowland lakes. Collectively, these data infer that increasing eutrophication of lakes will have broad‐scale impacts on planktonic cyanobacteria diversity and the prevalence of cyanotoxins.
Rapid quantitative analysis of binary mixtures of Escherichia coli strains using pyrolysis mass spectrometry with multivariate calibration and artificial neural networks

Pyrolysis mass spectrometry (PyMS) and multivariate calibration were used to show the high degree of relatedness between Escherichia coli HB101 and E. coli UB5201. Next, binary mixtures of these two phenotypically closely related E. coli strains were prepared and subjected to PyMS. Fully interconnected feedforward artificial neural networks (ANNs) were used to analyse the pyrolysis mass spectra to obtain quantitative information representative of the level of E. coli UB5201 in E. coli HB101. The ANNs exploited were trained using the standard back propagation algorithm, and the nodes used sigmoidal squashing functions. Accurate quantitative information was obtained for mixtures with >3% E. coli UB5201 in E. coli HB101. To remove noise from the pyrolysis mass spectra and so lower the limit of detection, the spectra were reduced using principal components analysis (PCA) and the first 13 principal components used to train ANNs. These PCA‐ANNs allowed accurate estimates at levels as low as 1% E. coli UB5201 in E. coli HB101 to be predicted. In terms of bacterial numbers, it was shown that the limit of detection for PyMS in conjunction with ANNs was 3 × 104E. coli UB5201 cells in 1·6 × 107E. coli HB101 cells. It may be concluded that PyMS with ANNs provides a powerful and rapid method for the quantification of mixtures of closely related bacterial strains.
Preparing for a Changing Environment: Using Scenarios for Environmental Education

Scenarios are powerful tools for stimulating creative thinking about the future. Scenarios are especially valuable for planning and decision-making in complex and uncertain circumstances. This paper presents how Scenarios and Visioning are useful tools for environmental education, in particularly for changing environments (social and biophysical). We first outline the Scenarios methodology. We then present lessons learnt from applying Scenarios to environmental education with children and youth in Peru. We conclude with an analysis of the benefits and challenges of using scenarios for environmental education to accomplish environmental awareness objectives.
Periodicities of CaCO3 cycles in the Pliocene of Sicily: discrepancies with the quasi‐periods of the Earth's orbital cycles?

A high-resolution CaCO3 record in combination with a detailed magnetostratigraphy is presented for the rhythmically bedded marly sequence of the Pliocene Trubi Formation on Sicily (Italy). Magnetostratigraphic age calibration and subsequent spectral analysis of the variatrions in CaCO3 content yield a remarkably consistent discrepancy between the resulting periodicities and the corresponding quasi-periods of the Earth's orbital cycles. This discrepancy can only be explained by assuming that ages assigned to polarity reversal boundaries in the geomagnetic polarity time-scale lack sufficient precision. A new polarity time-scale is presented for the major part of the Gilbert and Gauss Chron using the radiometrically dated Gilbert-Gauss Chron boundary at 3.40 Ma as an age reference point and extrapolating an average quasi-period of 21.7 kyr of the precession cycle as the periodicity of small-scale colour annex CaCO3 cycles.
Oceanic variability in the western sector of Algoa Bay, South Africa

The city of Port Elizabeth lies in the western sector of Algoa Bay, and a number of projects have investigated the oceanic temperature, salinity and current structures in the vicinity. This paper analyses past results, and then incorporates measurements of salinity, sea temperatures and currents from projects over the years 1989 to 1998 in order to gain a better understanding of the oceanic variability in this region. Because of the limited inflow of freshwater from rivers, salinity variations from oceanic values were minimal, and it is surmised that the effects of freshwater influxes during floods are likely to be short-lived. The seasonal variation in temperature structures shows that intense thermoclines are established in summer in the deeper sections of the bay, with more isothermal conditions in winter. Marked variability occurred over spatial scales of kilometres, and over time scales of days. Average current speeds close to the coast were generally low, increasing farther offshore, though there was substantial variability. Moreover, in the lee of the harbour and close to the coast spatial scales were also small, and spectral analyses show that tidal and inertial currents were important at times. Driving forces were investigated, and it was found that wind is important in upwelling processes and in bringing colder water onshore from deeper regions of Algoa Bay and around Cape Recife. On the other hand, coastal-trapped waves do not appear to play a significant role. Sporadic intrusions of both warm and colder water were recorded at sites near the harbour, and are attributed to inputs of warm surface water from the Agulhas Current and the above-mentioned colder up-welled water. Such intrusions are probably important in flushing out accumulations of pollutants discharged to sea from Port Elizabeth. Dominant south-westward flow farther offshore at 40m depth also indicates that the Agulhas Current could be important in entraining water from the central areas of Algoa Bay.
Raman characterization of defects and dopants in graphene

In this article we review Raman studies of defects and dopants in graphene as well as the importance of both for device applications. First a brief overview of Raman spectroscopy of graphene is presented. In the following section we discuss the Raman characterization of three defect types: point defects, edges, and grain boundaries. The next section reviews the dependence of the Raman spectrum on dopants and highlights several common doping techniques. In the final section, several device applications are discussed which exploit doping and defects in graphene. Generally defects degrade the figures of merit for devices, such as carrier mobility and conductivity, whereas doping provides a means to tune the carrier concentration in graphene thereby enabling the engineering of novel material systems. Accurately measuring both the defect density and doping is critical and Raman spectroscopy provides a powerful tool to accomplish this task.
Anomaly detection using fuzzy association rules

Data mining techniques are a very important tool for extracting useful knowledge from databases. Recently, some approaches have been developed for mining novel kinds of useful information, such as anomalous rules. These kinds of rules are a good technique for the recognition of normal and anomalous behaviour, that can be of interest in several area domains such as security systems, financial data analysis, network traffic flow, etc. The aim of this paper is to propose an association rule mining process for extracting the common and anomalous patterns in data that is affected by some kind of imprecision or uncertainty, obtaining information that will be meaningful and interesting for the user. This is done by mining fuzzy anomalous rules. We present a new approach for mining such rules, and we apply it to the case of detecting normal and anomalous patterns on credit data.
Institutional Quality and International Trade

Institutions—quality of contract enforcement, property rights, shareholder protection, and the like—have received a great deal of attention in recent years. Yet trade theory has not considered the implications of institutional differences, beyond treating them simply as different technologies or taxes. The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, we propose a simple model of international trade in which institutional differences are modelled within the framework of incomplete contracts. We show that doing so reverses many of the conclusions obtained by equating institutions with productivity. Institutional differences as a source of comparative advantage imply, among other things, that the less developed country may not gain from trade and factor prices may actually diverge as a result of trade. Second, we test empirically whether institutions act as a source of trade, using data on U.S. imports disaggregated by country and industry. The empirical results provide evidence of “institutional content of trade”: institutional differences are an important determinant of trade flows. Copyright 2007, Wiley-Blackwell.
Tetracycline resistance gene tet(W) abundances in settled dust of North Carolina residences

As antibiotic resistance has become a notable public health issue, increasing studies have characterized antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) throughout environments with high risk for antibiotic resistance, particularly hospitals and confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs). However, relatively little research has been devoted to studying ARGs in the residential home, where the risk factors for non-nosocomial antibiotic resistant infections may be assessed. This study tested for ribosomal protection tetracycline resistance genes tet(O), tet(M), tet(Q), and tet(W) using PCR on community DNA of 90 homes in North Carolina. Only tet(W) was detected. Using quantitative PCR (qPCR), the abundance of tet(W) per bacterial genome was determined, and outdoor sample subsets were found to correlate to total livestock density and bacterial families Clostridiaceae, Streptococcaceae, and Bacteroidaceae. However, the central result of this study was the detection of tet(W) in the majority of samples but of none of the other genes, contrary to studies that find both tet(W) and tet(M) throughout environments unaffected