Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Improved Lung Function after Sinus Surgery in Cystic Fibrosis Patients with Moderate Obstruction

Objectives Cystic fibrosis (CF) is characterized by infection and inflammation of the sinorespiratory tract. Functional endoscopic sinus surgery (FESS) is an option for patients with severe sinusitis. We sought to evaluate pulmonary function testing after FESS in pediatric and adult patients with CF. Study Design Retrospective chart review using data from all patients with CF who underwent FESS from January 2009 to July 2014. Setting Patients were from a single institution. Subjects and Methods Data were extracted for 181 patients and 320 surgeries. Lung function data, including the forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1), forced vital capacity (FVC), and FEV1/FVC, were retrieved within 1 year before and after surgery. Mixed-effects regression was used to compare FEV1 trajectories before and after surgery. The effect of surgery was stratified by presurgery FEV1 to compare patients with mild/no lung disease (FEV1 >80%) and moderate/severe lung disease (FEV1 <80%). Results Of the 181 patients reviewed, 131 with primary FESS had FEV1 data. Presurgery average age was 16 years (95% confidence interval [CI], 14.27-17.73), and FEV1 mean was 85% (95% CI, 81.02-88.98). There were 88 patients with FEV1 >80% and 43 patients with FEV1 <80%. For the entire cohort, lung function did not change related to FESS. Among patients with FEV1 <80%, FEV1 declined presurgery by 3.5% per year (95% CI, −6.1% to −0.8%; P = .010), which halted after surgery with these patients, then showing no subsequent change in FEV1 (95% CI, 0.9%-3.7%; P = .240). No benefit was identified for patients with FEV1 >80%. Conclusion Pulmonary function testing improved in patients with moderate/severe lung disease 1 year following FESS. This suggests FESS may benefit pulmonary outcomes.
Text visualization techniques: Taxonomy, visual survey, and community insights

Text visualization has become a growing and increasingly important subfield of information visualization. Thus, it is getting harder for researchers to look for related work with specific tasks or visual metaphors in mind. In this paper, we present an interactive visual survey of text visualization techniques that can be used for the purposes of search for related work, introduction to the subfield and gaining insight into research trends. We describe the taxonomy used for categorization of text visualization techniques and compare it to approaches employed in several other surveys. Finally, we present results of analyses performed on the entries data.
Breast milk iodine and perchlorate concentrations in lactating Boston-area women.

CONTEXT Breastfed infants rely on adequate maternal dietary iodine intake. OBJECTIVE Our objective was to measure breast milk iodine and perchlorate, an inhibitor of iodide transport into the thyroid and potentially into breast milk, in Boston-area women. PARTICIPANTS The study included 57 lactating healthy volunteers in the Boston area. MEASUREMENTS Breast milk iodine and perchlorate concentrations and urine iodine, perchlorate, and cotinine concentrations were measured. For comparison, iodine and perchlorate levels in infant formulae were also measured. RESULTS Median breast milk iodine content in 57 samples was 155 microg/liter (range, 2.7-1968 microg/liter). Median urine iodine was 114 microg/liter (range, 25-920 microg/liter). Perchlorate was detectable in all 49 breast milk samples (range, 1.3-411 microg/liter), all 56 urine samples (range, 0.37-127 microg/liter), and all 17 infant formula samples (range, 0.22-4.1 microg/liter) measured. Breast milk iodine content was significantly correlated with urinary iodine per gram creatinine and urinary cotinine but was not significantly correlated with breast milk or urinary perchlorate. CONCLUSIONS Perchlorate exposure was not significantly correlated with breast milk iodine concentrations. Perchlorate was detectable in infant formula but at lower levels than in breast milk. Forty-seven percent of women sampled may have been providing breast milk with insufficient iodine to meet infants' requirements.
Zooplankton community responses to fish stock management of Lake Vesijärvi, southern Finland: changes in cladoceran body size in 1999–2003

Planktivorous fish feed selectively on large and conspicuous zooplankton; therefore, small-bodied zooplankton prevails in the presence o f intense predation by planktivorous fish (BROOKS & DoosoN 1965). Body size of cladocerans has been shown to be inversely related to fish planktivory, indicating changes in trophic interactions better than biomass (SORANNO et al. 1993). The capacity of cladocerans to excrete nutrients and graze algae is strongly size-dependent (KNOECHEL & HOLTBY 1986). Communities dominated by large zooplankton tend to have higher grazing rates than those dominated by small zooplankton (CYR & PACE 1992). Cladoceran body length has been shown as an important predictor ofwater clarity (STEMBERGER & MILLER 2003). Thus, one goal in lake management is to increase the abundance and body size offilter-feeding cladocerans by controlling planktivorous fish stocks. In the Enonselkã Basin o f Lake Vesijãrvi in southem Finland (61°02'N, 25°39'E), fish stock has been managed yearly since effective fishing was stopped in 1993 (KAIRESALO et al. 1999). Catches declined toward the end o f the 1990s and have been intensified since 2000 (RUUHIJÃRVI et al. this volume) due to water quality deterioration (KEro et al. this vol.). Hypolimnetic anoxia has further supported the fish management in 2002-03 by leading to a collapse of smelt, Osmerus eperlanus (L.), an important planktivorous fish species in the Enonselkã Basin (RUUHIJÃRVI et al. this vol.). This study aimed to examine changes in body size of pelagial cladocerans in 1999-2003, and how those changes are related to alterations in planktivorous fish stock and water quality.
Anticancer and Cancer Prevention Effects of Piperine-Free Piper nigrum Extract on N-nitrosomethylurea-Induced Mammary Tumorigenesis in Rats

Piper nigrum (P. nigrum) is commonly used in traditional medicine. This current study aimed to investigate the anticancer and cancer preventive activity of a piperine-free P. nigrum extract (PFPE) against breast cancer cells and N-nitrosomethylurea (NMU)–induced mammary tumorigenesis in rats. The cytotoxic effects and the mechanism of action were investigated in breast cancer cells using the MTT assay and Western blot analysis, respectively. An acute toxicity study was conducted according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development guideline. Female Sprague-Dawley rats with NMU-induced mammary tumors were used in preventive and anticancer studies. The results showed that PFPE inhibited the growth of luminal-like breast cancer cells more so than the basal-like ones by induction of apoptosis. In addition, PFPE exhibited greater selectivity against breast cancer cells than colorectal cancer, lung cancer, and neuroblastoma cells. In an acute toxicity study, a single oral administration of PFPE at a dose of 5,000 mg/kg body weight resulted in no mortality and morbidity during a 14-day observation period. For the cancer preventive study, the incidence of tumor-bearing rats was 10% to 20% in rats treated with PFPE. For the anticancer activity study, the growth rate of tumors in the presence of PFPE-treated groups was much slower when compared with the control and vehicle groups. The extract itself caused no changes to the biochemical and hematologic parameters when compared with the control and vehicle groups. In conclusion, PFPE had a low toxicity and a potent antitumor effect on mammary tumorigenesis in rats. Cancer Prev Res; 9(1); 74–82. ©2015 AACR.
Preliminary investigation of the influence of dopamine regulating genes on social working memory

Working memory (WM) refers to mental processes that enable temporary retention and manipulation of information, including information about other people (“social working memory”). Previous studies have demonstrated that nonsocial WM is supported by dopamine neurotransmission. Here, we investigated in 131 healthy adults whether dopamine is similarly involved in social WM by testing whether social and nonsocial WM are influenced by genetic variants in three genes coding for molecules regulating the availability of dopamine in the brain: catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT), dopamine active transporter (DAT), and monoamine-oxidase A (MAOA). An advantage for the Met allele of COMT was observed in the two standard WM tasks and in the social WM task. However, the influence of COMT on social WM performance was not accounted for by its influence on either standard WM paradigms. There was no main effect of DAT1 or MAOA, but a significant COMT x DAT1 interaction on social WM performance. This study provides novel preliminary evidence of effects of genetic variants of the dopamine neurotransmitter system on social cognition. The results further suggest that the effects observed on standard WM do not explain the genetic effects on effortful social cognition.
Phylogenetic trait conservatism and the evolution of functional trade-offs in arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi

The diversity of functional and life-history traits of organisms depends on adaptation as well as the legacy of shared ancestry. Although the evolution of traits in macro-organisms is well studied, relatively little is known about character evolution in micro-organisms. Here, we surveyed an ancient and ecologically important group of microbial plant symbionts, the arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi, and tested hypotheses about the evolution of functional and life-history traits. Variation in the extent of root and soil colonization by AM fungi is constrained to a few nodes basal to the most diverse groups within the phylum, with relatively little variation associated with recent divergences. We found no evidence for a trade-off in biomass allocated to root versus soil colonization in three published glasshouse experiments; rather these traits were positively correlated. Partial support was observed for correlated evolution between fungal colonization strategies and functional benefits of the symbiosis to host plants. The evolution of increased soil colonization was positively correlated with total plant biomass and shoot phosphorus content. Although the effect of AM fungi on infection by root pathogens was phylogenetically conserved, there was no evidence for correlated evolution between the extent of AM fungal root colonization and pathogen infection. Variability in colonization strategies evolved early in the diversification of AM fungi, and we propose that these strategies were influenced by functional interactions with host plants, resulting in an evolutionary stasis resembling trait conservatism.
A generalized framework of exploring category information for question retrieval in community question answer archives

Community Question Answering (CQA) has emerged as a popular type of service where users ask and answer questions and access historical question-answer pairs. CQA archives contain very large volumes of questions organized into a hierarchy of categories. As an essential function of CQA services, question retrieval in a CQA archive aims to retrieve historical question-answer pairs that are relevant to a query question. In this paper, we present a new approach to exploiting category information of questions for improving the performance of question retrieval, and we apply the approach to existing question retrieval models, including a state-of-the-art question retrieval model. Experiments conducted on real CQA data demonstrate that the proposed techniques are capable of outperforming a variety of baseline methods significantly.
PTK6 Promotes Cancer Migration and Invasion in Pancreatic Cancer Cells Dependent on ERK Signaling

Protein Tyrosine Kinase 6 (PTK6) is a non-receptor type tyrosine kinase that may be involved in some cancers. However, the biological role and expression status of PTK6 in pancreatic cancer is unknown. Therefore in this study, we evaluated the functional role of PTK6 on pancreatic cancer invasion. Five pancreatic cancer cell lines expressed PTK6 at varying levels. PTK6 expression was also observed in human pancreatic adenocarcinomas. PTK6 suppression by siRNA significantly reduced both cellular migration and invasion (0.59/0.49 fold for BxPC3, 0.61/0.62 for Panc1, 0.42/0.39 for MIAPaCa2, respectively, p<0.05 for each). In contrast, forced overexpression of PTK6 by transfection of a PTK6 expression vector in Panc1 and MIAPaCa2 cells increased cellular migration and invasion (1.57/1.67 fold for Panc1, 1.44/1.57 for MIAPaCa2, respectively, p<0.05). Silencing PTK6 reduced ERK1/2 activation, but not AKT or STAT3 activation, while PTK6 overexpression increased ERK1/2 activation. U0126, a specific inhibitor of ERK1/2, completely abolished the effect of PTK6 overexpression on cellular migration and invasion. These results suggest that PTK6 regulates cellular migration and invasion in pancreatic cancer via ERK signaling. PTK6 may be a novel therapeutic target for pancreatic cancer.
The response of the red mangrove rhizophora mucronata lam, to changes in salinity, inundation and light : predictions for future climate change

Mangrove forests are subjected to many environmental factors which influence species distribution, zonation patterns as well as succession. Important driving factors in these forests are salinity, water level fluctuations and available light. This study investigated the response of red mangrove (Rhizophora mucronata Lam.) seedlings to these factors in controlled laboratory experiments. Increase in salinity and prolonged inundation within estuaries are predicted impacts resulting from sea level rise due to climate change. The study investigated the effect of five salinity treatments (0, 8, 18, 35 and 45 ppt) with a semi-diurnal tidal cycle on seedling growth. In a separate experiment the effect of different inundation treatments: no inundation, 3, 6, 9 hour tidal cycles and continuous inundation (24 h) were investigated. Both morphological and physiological responses of R. mucronata seedlings were measured. There was a decrease in growth (plant height, biomass and leaf production) with increasing salinity. Seedlings in the seawater, hypersaline and no inundation treatments showed symptoms of stress, having increased leaf necrosis ("burn marks"). The highest growth occurred in the low salinity (8 ppt) treatment, but the highest photosynthetic performance and stomatal conductance occurred in the freshwater treatment (0 ppt). The typical response of stem elongation with increasing inundation was observed in the 24 hr inundation treatment. In the light and salinity combination study there were ten different treatments of five different light treatments (unshaded, 20 percent, 50 percent, 80 percent and 90 percent shade) combined with two salinity concentrations (18 and 35 ppt). In this study the seedling growth: plant height, biomass, leaf surface area and leaf production were higher in the moderate salinity (18 ppt) treatments compared to the seawater (35 ppt) treatments. Biomass in the 35 ppt experiment decreased with increasing shade as well as in the unshaded treatments. Photosynthetic performance and stomatal conductance were lower for the unshaded treatment in both 18 and 35 ppt salinity compared to all other treatments with the same salinity. This suggests that R. mucronata more shade than sun tolerant, but overall it can be concluded that the species has a broad tolerance range. The results may be relevant in mangrove rehabilitation and predicting responses to climate change. This is important as mangrove ecosystems may adapt to changing sea levels and in order to restore areas it will be necessary to choose the mangrove species which will grow best. The results may also help to increase the protection of existing mangrove habitats.
Author ' s personal copy Estimates of segregation and overlap of functional connectivity networks in the human cerebral cortex

In most cases authors are permitted to post their version of the article (e.g. in Word or Tex form) to their personal website or institutional repository. Authors requiring further information regarding Elsevier's archiving and manuscript policies are encouraged to visit: a b s t r a c t a r t i c l e i n f o The organization of the human cerebral cortex has recently been explored using techniques for parcellating the cortex into distinct functionally coupled networks. The divergent and convergent nature of cortico-cortical ana-tomic connections suggests the need to consider the possibility of regions belonging to multiple networks and hierarchies among networks. Here we applied the Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) model and spatial independent component analysis (ICA) to solve for functionally coupled cerebral networks without assuming that corti-cal regions belong to a single network. Data analyzed included 1000 subjects from the Brain Genomics Superstruct Project (GSP) and 12 high quality individual subjects from the Human Connectome Project (HCP). The organization of the cerebral cortex was similar regardless of whether a winner-take-all approach or the more relaxed constraints of LDA (or ICA) were imposed. This suggests that large-scale networks may function as partially isolated modules. Several notable interactions among networks were uncovered by the LDA analysis. Many association regions belong to at least two networks, while somatomotor and early visual cortices are especially isolated. As examples of interaction, the precuneus, lateral temporal cortex, medial prefrontal cortex and posterior parietal cortex participate in multiple paralimbic networks that together comprise subsystems of the default network. In addition, regions at or near the frontal eye field and human lateral intraparietal area homo-logue participate in multiple hierarchically organized networks. These observations were replicated in both datasets and could be detected (and replicated) in individual subjects from the HCP. Introduction Distributed neocortical brain areas form large-scale networks that exhibit complex patterns of divergent and convergent connectivity A major challenge in systems neuroscience is to make sense of these connectivity patterns to infer functional organization. In the visual system, connectivity patterns suggest a separation of processing into largely parallel, but interacting, hierarchical pathways (Felleman and Van Essen, 1991; Ungerleider and Desimone, 1986). In contrast, the association cortex comprises networks of widely distributed and densely interconnected areas without rigid hierarchical organization (Goldman-Rakic, 1988; Selemon and Goldman-Rakic, 1988; but see Badre and D'Esposito, 2009). Resting-state functional connectivity MRI (rs-fcMRI) provides a powerful , albeit …
Effect of ankle-foot orthoses on gait in typically developing children: Developmental trend in segmental coordination.

OBJECTIVE As orthoses, and particularly ankle-foot orthoses, are widely used in the management of children with motor disorders, including cerebral palsy, we aimed to study their effect in normal children in order to add to normative gait data, which are essential for diagnosing, understanding and treating abnormal gait patterns. DESIGN We analyzed the effect of ankle-foot orthoses on classical gait parameters and lower limb segments coordination patterns in typically developing children in two age groups reflecting different neuromaturational/developmental situations. We recorded 3D kinematic gait patterns in 9 children (4-5 years) and 11 children (9-10 years) walking barefoot or wearing bilateral solid ankle-foot orthoses maintaining the ankle joint angle at a neutral position. RESULTS Ankle-foot orthoses induced little change in cadence, step length, step width or walking velocity in younger children, though they altered intralimb coordination through the gait cycle. In older children, walking velocity was reduced, shank elevation amplitude increased, while lower limb coordination changed less significantly. In this age group, ankle-foot orthoses significantly reduced the variability of coordinative strategies. CONCLUSION Ankle-foot orthoses affect the gait pattern in children with a typical development at different levels in younger and older subjects, but the resulting changes are minimal.
Evaluation of an automated connective tissue disease screening assay in Korean patients with systemic rheumatic diseases

This study aimed to evaluate the diagnostic utilities of the automated connective tissues disease screening assay, CTD screen, in patients with systemic rheumatic diseases. A total of 1093 serum samples were assayed using CTD screen and indirect immunofluorescent (IIF) methods. Among them, 162 were diagnosed with systemic rheumatic disease, including rheumatoid arthritis (RA), systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), and mixed connective tissue disease (MCT). The remaining 931 with non-systemic rheumatic disease were assigned to the control group. The median ratios of CTD screen tests were significantly higher in the systemic rheumatic disease group than in the control group. The positive likelihood ratios of the CTD screen were higher than those of IIF in patients with total rheumatic diseases (4.1 vs. 1.6), including SLE (24.3 vs. 10.7). The areas under the receiver operating characteristic curves (ROC-AUCs) of the CTD screen for discriminating total rheumatic diseases, RA, SLE, and MCT from controls were 0.68, 0.56, 0.92 and 0.80, respectively. The ROC-AUCs of the combinations with IIF were significantly higher in patients with total rheumatic diseases (0.72) and MCT (0.85) than in those of the CTD screen alone. Multivariate analysis indicated that both the CTD screen and IIF were independent variables for predicting systemic rheumatic disease. CTD screen alone and in combination with IIF were a valuable diagnostic tool for predicting systemic rheumatic diseases, particularly for SLE.
A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Electronic Government Adoption in Spain and the USA

Electronic Government (e-government) is growing in popularity across the globe. Given the increasing relevance of electronic services in the public sector, there is a need for a global agreement on a consistent framework for assessing e-government. This study uses a cross-cultural comparison to assess the fundamentals of e-government adoption in the United States (USA) and Spain. In particular, the authors explore the effects of perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, compatibility and trust on intentions to use e-government services. A survey was administered to citizens in both countries to test the hypotheses derived from adoption literature and Hofstede's dimensions of culture. Results indicate that there are differences in the relationship between compatibility and use intention, with stronger effects in the USA sample. Furthermore, while perceived ease of use significantly impacts intentions for the USA sample, it does not for the Spain sample; and, while trust is not significant in the USA sample, it is for the Spain sample. The implications of these results, mostly consistent with the hypotheses as suggested by the dimensions of culture, are discussed for both research and practice.