Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Plasma carotenoids and risk of breast cancer over 20 y of follow-up.

BACKGROUND Increasing evidence suggests that carotenoids, which are micronutrients in fruit and vegetables, reduce breast cancer risk. Whether carotenoids are important early or late in carcinogenesis is unclear, and limited analyses have been conducted by breast tumor subtypes. OBJECTIVES We sought to examine issues of the timing of carotenoid exposure as well as associations by breast tumor subtypes. DESIGN We conducted a nested case-control study of plasma carotenoids measured by using reverse-phase high-performance liquid chromatography and breast cancer risk in the Nurses' Health Study. In 1989-1990, 32,826 women donated blood samples; in 2000-2002, 18,743 of these women contributed a second blood sample. Between the first blood collection and June 2010, 2188 breast cancer cases were diagnosed (579 cases were diagnosed after the second collection) and matched with control subjects. RRs and 95% CIs were calculated by using conditional logistic regression adjusted for several breast cancer risk factors. RESULTS Higher concentrations of α-carotene, β-carotene, lycopene, and total carotenoids were associated with 18-28% statistically significantly lower risks of breast cancer (e.g., β-carotene top compared with bottom quintile RR: 0.72; 95% CI: 0.59, 0.88; P-trend < 0.001). Associations were apparent for total carotenoids measured ≥10 y before diagnosis (top compared with bottom quintile RR: 0.69; 95% CI: 0.50, 0.95; P-trend = 0.01) as well as those <10 y before diagnosis (RR: 0.79; 95% CI: 0.64, 0.98; P-trend = 0.04, P-interaction = 0.11). Carotenoid concentrations were strongly inversely associated with breast cancer recurrence and death (e.g., β-carotene top compared with bottom quintile RR: 0.32; 95% CI: 0.21, 0.51; P-trend < 0.001) compared with not recurrent and not lethal disease (P-heterogeneity < 0.001). CONCLUSION In this large prospective analysis with 20 y of follow-up, women with high plasma carotenoids were at reduced breast cancer risk particularly for more aggressive and ultimately fatal disease.
The influence of emotion on immediate and delayed retention: Levinger & Clark reconsidered

The experiment reported here examines the effect of emotion on the recall of self-generated paired associates under conditions of both immediate and delayed retention. The paradigm used was that of Levinger & Clark (1961). The results showed that, with immediate retention, the recall of associates to emotional stimuli was significantly lower than that made to neutral stimuli whilst with delayed retention associations to emotional stimuli were better recalled. It is concluded that the pattern of forgetting shown in the current study can be explained in terms of the known interaction between input arousal and retention interval and, as such, the data do not support the existence of any specific emotional mechanism within the memory system.
Origins of phase contrast in the atomic force microscope in liquids

We study the physical origins of phase contrast in dynamic atomic force microscopy (dAFM) in liquids where low-stiffness microcantilever probes are often used for nanoscale imaging of soft biological samples with gentle forces. Under these conditions, we show that the phase contrast derives primarily from a unique energy flow channel that opens up in liquids due to the momentary excitation of higher eigenmodes. Contrary to the common assumption, phase-contrast images in liquids using soft microcantilevers are often maps of short-range conservative interactions, such as local elastic response, rather than tip-sample dissipation. The theory is used to demonstrate variations in local elasticity of purple membrane and bacteriophage ϕ29 virions in buffer solutions using the phase-contrast images.
The Glass Ceiling Revisited: Determinants of Federal Job Advancement

Using the results of a recent survey of federal employees and focus groups of the same population, this article extends previous research on the existence of a glass ceiling in the federal bureaucracy. Even when controlling for differences between the sexes in human capital factors, work habits, work opportunities, and personal circumstances, women who have been in the federal bureaucracy from zero to 10 years and from 20 to 30 years have not advanced in their professions as successfully as have men. In contrast to and departing from previous research, there is little evidence that a glass ceiling has been experienced among women who have worked in the bureaucracy between 10 and 20 years. Additional findings consistent with past literature include the fact that among women who have faced gender-based barriers, those who chose to have children during their careers have been especially disadvantaged. We conclude that the glass ceiling on the federal level, where apparent, has been multidimensional and quite subtle. Copyright 1994 by The Policy Studies Organization.
Relationship between attitudes and evaluative space: A critical review, with emphasis on the separability of positive and negative substrates.

Evaluative processes refer to the operations by which organisms discriminate threatening from nurturant environments. Low activation of positive and negative evaluative processes by a stimulus reflects neutrality, whereas high activation of such processes reflects maximal conflict. Attitudes, an important class of manifestations of evaluative processes, have traditionally been conceptualized as falling along a bipolar dimension, and the positive and negative evaluative processes underlying attitudes have been conceptualized as being reciprocally activated, making the bipolar rating scale the measure of choice. Research is reviewed suggesting that this bipolar dimension is insufficient to portray comprehensively positive and negative evaluative processes and that the question is not whether such processes are reciprocally activated but under what conditions they are reciprocally, nonreciprocally, or independently activated
Reconceptualising Structure and Agency in the Sociology of Education: structuration theory and schooling

Since the 1970s there has been considerable debate among sociologists of education about the macro‐micro gap in educational analyses. However, educational research remains divided largely into the study of large‐scale phenomena such as social systems and national policies on the one hand, and case‐studies of individual schools and social interaction on the other. This split has had a number of unfortunate consequences for the development of the field. Most importantly, the dominant conceptions of structure and agency employed in the sociology of education are characterised by a dualism which makes it difficult to conceptualise adequately the processes involved in social change. In this paper, I briefly describe this structure‐agency dualism before critically examining three attempts which have been made to address this problem. The ability of structuration theory to overcome this dualism is then examined, and I conclude by arguing that this approach offers an important new direction for the sociology of e.
Sex differences and blood pressure regulation in humans

What is the topic of this review? Over the past decade, our team has investigated interindividual variability in human blood pressure regulation. What advances does it highlight? In men, we have found a tight relationship between indices of sympathetic activity and vascular resistance across the age span. This relationship is absent in young women but seen in postmenopausal women. These sex and age differences in vascular resistance are largely a result of changes in the balance of vasodilating and vasoconstricting adrenergic receptor tone. When these changes are considered along with cardiac output, a coherent picture is beginning to emerge of why blood pressure rises more with age in women than men.
News media and the (de)construction of risk: How Flemish newspapers select and cover international disasters

News media play an important role in giving publicity and meaning to global suffering, as it is mainly through media reports that the world perceives international risk situations. This article focuses on natural and technological disasters as part of the contemporary risk society and their (de)construction by Flemish news media. Applying quantitative content analysis, the study reveals that 70.8 per cent of all disasters occurring between 1986 and 2006 are neglected by the newspapers, for the large part disasters in less developed countries. Regarding news coverage, proximity appears to be the guiding principle. Disasters developing in western or high-income countries are well covered while distant crises in the peripheral south are struggling to get attention, unless they affect a huge number of (western) people. In general, this article supports the claim that disasters and other instances of risk are essentially media constructs: they exist only when covered by the media.
What is Recovery? Functioning and Recovery Stories of Self-Identified People in Recovery in a Services User Group and Their Peer Networks in Birmingham England

The study was based on a peer snowballing method involving members of a service users group in Birmingham, United Kingdom, who were asked to identify and interview members of their peer networks who had achieved “sustained recovery” of one year. Two hundred and nineteen individuals were recruited who defined themselves as being in recovery, consisting of 132 individuals in medication maintained recovery and 87 in abstinent recovery. Those in maintained recovery were more anxious about using heroin and had lower self-efficacy, worse physical health, poorer quality of life, and more peer group members still using. Being older was associated with greater quality of life (rather than time since last use) supporting a “maturing out” hypothesis.
Morphometric investigations of terminal villi of diabetic placentas in relation to the White classification of diabetes mellitus

In this morphometric study, terminal villi of 22 placentas of maternal diabetes mellitus were compared with the results in terminal villi of 22 normal placentas. The results demonstrate that there is a distinct retardation in maturation, statistically significant with bigger cross sectional surfaces of the terminal villi, particularly, when classified in 3000 mu2-steps, the number of the villous vessels and number of epithelial plates. Only slightly decreased in diabetic placentas is the villous vessels cross sectional surface as well as the degree of vascularization. The correlation between the degree of histometric changes and the severity and duration of the disease was separately investigated (classification was done according to White). It could be shown, that the degree of morphologic changes in the terminal villi does not run strictly parallel to the severity and duration of diabetes. The retardation in maturation of the terminal villi increases from White group A to C. In White group D, which is the most severe stage of diabetes mellitus which we investigated, the values of measured parameters are close to the normal placentas. This observation is interpreted as a compensatory reaction of the fetal organ placenta to the reduction in utero placental blood flow in diabetes caused by the diabetic angiopathy.
Achieving the Stationary Feedback Capacity for Gaussian Channels

AbstractIn this paper, we study a Gaussian channel with memory and wit h noiseless feedback, for which we present a coding scheme to achieve the stationary feedback capacity (the maximum information rate over all stationaryinput distributions, conjectured to be the asymptotic feed back capacity). The coding scheme essentially implements the celebrated Kalman filter algorithm; is equiv alent to an estimation system over the same channel without feedback; and reveals that the achievable informat ion rate of the feedback communication system can be alternatively given by the decay rate of the Cramer-Rao boun d of the associated estimation system. Thus, combined with the control theoretic characterizations of feedback c ommunication (proposed by Elia), this implies that the fundamental limitations in feedback communication, estim a on, and control coincide. In addition, the proposed coding scheme simplifies the coding complexity and shortens he coding delay, and its construction amounts to solving a finite-dimensional optimization problem. We also pr vide a further simplification to the optimal input distribution developed by Yang, Kavcic, and Tatikonda.
Bringing Our Brains to the Humanities: Increasing the Value of Our Classes while Supporting Our Futures

This article argues that English faculty do not avail themselves sufficiently of research on cognition and learning in their classrooms or in their training of graduate students. The tenets of brain-based learning would enhance our ability to teach practical skills and to hone aesthetic appreciation, but most faculty and graduate students are not familiar with this research and do not incorporate it into their pedagogy.
The clinical use of therapeutic disjunctions

[abstract] Disjunctions are subtle blocks to therapeutic progress. At any moment analysis can be derailed as the analyst and patient work at cross-purposes. Disjunctions may arise from internal conflict dealt with, for example, through repression coupled with projection, splitting, or dissociation, from surface incongruities such as differences between the therapist’s and patient’s styles and cultural dissimilarities, or from harder to classify factors separating therapist and patient. The concept disjunction is descriptive. Disjunction refers strictly to the restricted capacity of the analyst and patient to work together therapeutically. Conceptualizing therapeutic impasses as disjunctions, rather than, primarily manifestations of transference-countertransference, adds depth and texture to the analytic operation. It encourages partners to work cooperatively, as they resolve analytic blocks regardless of their nature.
Media coverage of ‘decades of disparity’ in ethnic mortality in Aotearoa

For some time we have known that factors such as economic prosperity, community cohesion, and social justice bear on health. These societal influences are particularly pertinent to the health of indigenous groups, such as Maori, who are still responding to processes of colonization. In July 2003 the New Zealand Ministry of Health published a report entitled ‘Decades of Disparity’, which proposed (among other things) that neoliberal policies of the last two decades impacted negatively on mortality rates for Maori and Pacific peoples, when compared with Pakeha. In this article we explore media coverage of this report through analyses of media releases, radio, television and newspaper items. It is argued that as the story evolved media increasingly challenged the importance of societal determinants of health, preferring individual level explanations. As a result coverage failed to give due emphasis to structural health concerns for Maori, which necessitate social change. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Civic Disparities: Exploring Students' Perceptions of Citizenship within Singapore's Academic Tracks

Drawing on individual interviews with 62 students from three secondary schools, the authors of this study investigate how Singapore students from different educational tracks understand their role as citizens in a democracy. In contrast to most countries, the constitutionally democratic state of Singapore explicitly assigns separate citizenship roles to students from different education tracks. Premised on the principle of meritocracy, the Singapore state has also developed separate citizenship education programs incorporating different values, skills, and knowledge for students from the academic and vocational tracks. The study illustrates sharp disparities in how citizenship and democracy is conceptualized by students from the different education tracks. The differences in civic efficacy, learning outcomes, knowledge, and skills also closely parallel the different goals of the social studies and citizenship education programs for students from the academic and vocational tracks.
Assessing change: can organizational learning “work” for schools?

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to measure the effectiveness and practical utility of an organizational learning intervention for an organization that was not progressive, was not specifically chartered as a learning organization, and was situated in an urban, culturally diverse, and under‐privileged community.Design/methodology/approach – In this empirical case study, employees were surveyed pre‐ and post‐intervention on measures of organizational learning, school climate and morale. Archival data on turnover rates were also collected for the years bracketing the intervention (2003‐2005). Findings – Analyses show the center reduced turnover and improved in organizational learning, morale, and to a lesser degree, organizational climate. Analyses demonstrate relationships between change in organizational climate dimensions (e.g. supportive leadership, appraisal and recognition, goal congruence) and change toward organizational learning.Originality/value – This research suggests that organizational le.
Positive Feedback Regulation between Transglutaminase 2 and Toll-Like Receptor 4 Signaling in Hepatic Stellate Cells Correlates with Liver Fibrosis Post Schistosoma japonicum Infection

Liver fibrosis induced by Schistosoma japonicum (Sj) infection is characterized by the accumulation of extracellular matrix (ECM). The activated and differentiated hepatic stellate cells (HSCs) are the predominant ECM-producing cell type in the liver. Toll-like receptor (TLR) 4 pathway activation plays a key role in mice liver fibrosis models induced by alcohol, biliary ligation, and carbon tetrachloride 4. In this work, we found that TLR4 pathway activation correlated with the severity of liver fibrosis post Sj infection. The TLR4 receptor inhibitor TAK242 reduced the extent of liver fibrosis. The increased expression of TLR4, α-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA), and cytoglobin was observed in the HSCs of mouse liver after Sj infection. In response to stimulation with either lipopolysaccharide or Sj’s soluble egg antigen (SEA), high levels of TLR4 and α-SMA were induced in HSCs and were inhibited by TAK242 treatment. In previous work, we had reported that a high level of transglutaminase 2 (TGM2) is crucial for liver fibrosis post Sj infection. Herein, we found that TLR4 signaling also controlled Tgm2 expression. Inhibition of TGM2 activity by cystamine (CTM) in Sj-infected mice or in HSCs induced with all-trans-retinoic acid (ATRA) stimulation led to a lowered activation of TLR4 signaling and a reduced α-SMA expression. These results were confirmed by downregulating the Tgm2 gene by specific siRNA. These observations implied the presence of a positive feedback regulation between TGM2 and TLR4 signaling in HSCs that correlated with liver fibrosis post Sj infection. This novel connection between TGM2 and TLR4 pathway activation in liver fibrosis induced by Sj infection enhances our understanding of liver diseases.
Differential Effect of Reward and Punishment on Procedural Learning

Reward and punishment are potent modulators of associative learning in instrumental and classical conditioning. However, the effect of reward and punishment on procedural learning is not known. The striatum is known to be an important locus of reward-related neural signals and part of the neural substrate of procedural learning. Here, using an implicit motor learning task, we show that reward leads to enhancement of learning in human subjects, whereas punishment is associated only with improvement in motor performance. Furthermore, these behavioral effects have distinct neural substrates with the learning effect of reward being mediated through the dorsal striatum and the performance effect of punishment through the insula. Our results suggest that reward and punishment engage separate motivational systems with distinctive behavioral effects and neural substrates.
Topotecan, paclitaxel, and carboplatin in advanced ovarian cancer: A phase II trial of the Minnie Pearl Cancer Research Network.

15015 Background: Topotecan (T) is standard therapy for patients (pts) with relapsed platinum refractory ovarian cancer (OC). The addition of T to paclitaxel/carboplatin (PC) may improve the first-line therapy for pts with stage III/IV OC. METHODS The primary endpoints were to assess the toxicity and response rate of TPC in previously untreated pts with advanced OC. Pts with previously untreated stage III/IV OC with performance (PS) 0 or 1, normal hematologic and organ function were eligible. Topotecan 1mg/m2 per day IV days 1, 2, and 3; paclitaxel 175mg/m2 IV on day 3 and carboplatin (AUC=5) IV on day 3 were administered at 21-day intervals for 6 cycles with standard dose modifications for toxicities. Responses were assessed clinically after 2 cycles and at completion of therapy. Second look laporatory (SLL) was required for pts without evaluable tumor. RESULTS 50 pts were enrolled: age range 27-79 (median 63); performance status 0=16, 1=34; suboptimal debulking surgery (tumor > 1 cm) 32; 70% high grade tumors. Intent to treat response rates: complete response (CR) 20 pts (40%); partial response (PR) 12 pts (24%); stable (S) 13 pts (26%); progression 2 pts (4%); not evaluable 3 pts (6%). 13 pts had SLL with 5 CR, 5 PR and 3 S. Toxicities included: grade 3/4 neutropenia/thrombocytopenia 84%/44%; grade 3/4 fatigue/infection 10%/10%; no treatment-related deaths. Median progression-free survival (PFS) for all pts was 13.6 months and 1-, 2-, 3-year PFS 60%, 42%, 36%. Median survival 33.9 months for all pts with 1-, 2-, 3-year survivals 90%, 65%, 49%. CONCLUSIONS The combination of TPC is active and relatively well tolerated with PC given on day 3. The response rates, PFS, and survivals appear similar to standard regimens. Randomized prospective trials will be required to determine the value of T added to PC for first-line therapy of advanced OC. [Table: see text].
Adaptation of Subtype A Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 Envelope to Pig-Tailed Macaque Cells

ABSTRACT The relevance of simian/human immunodeficiency virus (SHIV) infection of macaques to HIV-1 infection in humans depends on how closely SHIVs mimic HIV-1 transmission, pathogenesis, and diversity. Circulating HIV-1 strains are predominantly subtypes C and A and overwhelmingly require CCR5 for entry, yet most SHIVs incorporate CXCR4-using subtype B envelopes (Envs). While pathogenic subtype C-based SHIVs have been constructed, the subtype A-based SHIVs (SHIV-As) constructed to date have been unable to replicate in macaque cells. To understand the barriers to SHIV-A replication in macaque cells, HIVAQ23/SIVvif was constructed by engineering a CCR5-tropic subtype A provirus to express SIV vif, which counters the macaque APOBEC3G restriction. HIVAQ23/SIVvif replicated poorly in pig-tailed macaque (Ptm) lymphocytes, but viruses were adapted to Ptm lymphocytes. Two independent mutations in gp120, G312V (V3 loop) and A204E (C2 region), were identified that increased peak virus levels by >100-fold. Introduction of G312V and A204E to multiple subtype A Envs and substitution of G312 and A204 with other residues increased entry into Ptm cells by 10- to 100-fold. G312V and A204E Env variants continued to require CCR5 for entry but were up to 50- and 200-fold more sensitive to neutralization by IgG1b12 and soluble CD4 and had a 5- to 50-fold increase in their ability to utilize Ptm CD4 compared to their wild-type counterparts. These findings identify the inefficient use of Ptm CD4 as an unappreciated restriction to subtype A HIV-1 replication in Ptm cells and reveal amino acid changes to gp120 that can overcome this barrier.