Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
External validation on a prospective basis of a nomogram for predicting the time to first treatment in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia

A nomogram that incorporates traditional and newer prognostic factors to identify patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) who are at high risk of receiving therapy was developed by investigators at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center (MDACC). Because the model required validation before its extensive use could be recommended, the authors sought to externally validate the nomogram in an independent, community‐based cohort of patients with CLL.
Accurate human microsatellite genotypes from high-throughput resequencing data using informed error profiles

Repetitive sequences are biologically and clinically important because they can influence traits and disease, but repeats are challenging to analyse using short-read sequencing technology. We present a tool for genotyping microsatellite repeats called RepeatSeq, which uses Bayesian model selection guided by an empirically derived error model that incorporates sequence and read properties. Next, we apply RepeatSeq to high-coverage genomes from the 1000 Genomes Project to evaluate performance and accuracy. The software uses common formats, such as VCF, for compatibility with existing genome analysis pipelines. Source code and binaries are available at http://github.com/adaptivegenome/repeatseq.
Generalized Exchange and Social Dilemmas

In generalized exchange, the rewards that an actor receives usually are not directly contingent on the resources provided by that actor; therefore free riding can occur. The actor can receive benefit without contributing. Scholars interested in generalized exchange systems have often overlooked this inherent free-riding problem and thus have been overoptimistic in concluding that generalized exchange promotes mutual trust and solidarity among the participants. A more complete understanding of generalized exchange requires that the underlying social dilemma in such situations be appreciated fully. This paper represents our initial efforts to bridge two research traditions ― research on social exchange and research on social dilemmas
The interaction of calcitonin gene‐related peptide with angiotensin II on blood pressure and renin release

Calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) has been shown to be a potent vasorelaxant. We tested the interaction of CGRP with angiotensin II (Ang II) in conscious, unrestrained Wistar rats. Rat CGRP (rCGRP, 0.1 and 1.0 nmol/kg per min) dose-dependently lowered mean arterial blood pressure and increased the heart rate. The effects continued throughout the infusion period of 30 min. Moreover, rCGRP significantly attenuated the pressor responses to Ang II (100 ng/kg per min). High-dose rCGRP (1.0 nmol/kg per min) almost abolished the pressor action of Ang II, and a much higher dose of Ang II (1000 ng/kg per min) was needed to restore the pre-infusion pressure. Plasma renin activity was dose-dependently increased by rCGRP, but was attenuated by simultaneous Ang II infusion. Rat CGRP also increased the plasma aldosterone concentration, as did Ang II. These results suggest that CGRP may have a neuromodulatory role in cardiovascular regulation.
Cognitive Style and Self-Efficacy: Predicting Student Success in Online Distance Education

This study was designed to identify those learner attributes that may be used to predict student success (in terms of grade point average) in a Web-based distance education setting. Students enrolled in six Web-based, general education distance education courses at a community college were asked to complete the Group Embedded Figures Test for field dependence/independence and the Online Technologies Self-Efficacy Scale to determine their entry-level confidence with necessary computer skills for online learning. Although the students who were more field independent tended to have higher online technologies self-efficacy, they did not receive higher grades than those students who were field dependent and had lower online technologies self-efficacy. Cognitive style scores and online technologies self-efficacy scores were poor predictors of student success in online distance education courses.
Recovery of Erythropoiesis after Irradiation: A Quantitative Study in the Rat

IONIZING radiation can produce profound changes in haemopoietic tissue. Initially there is a loss of blood-forming cells and this aspect of radiation injury has been studied quantitatively in the rat in relation to the erythroid, lymphoid and myeloid cells of the marrow (Hulse, 1957, 19~9a, b). If the dose of radiation is sublethal the haemopoietic tissue eventually undergoes recovery and the present paper is concerned with the quantitative aspects of the recovery of erythropoiesis. The recovery of the myeloid cells has already been described (Hdse, 1961).
Autonomy-oriented computing (AOC): formulating computational systems with autonomous components

Autonomous multientity systems are plentiful in natural and artificial worlds. Many systems have been studied in depth and some models of them have been built as computational systems for problem solving. Central to these computational systems is the notion of autonomy. This article surveys research work done along this direction and presents autonomy-oriented computing (AOC) as a paradigm to describe systems for solving hard computational problems and for characterizing the behaviors of a complex system. AOC differs from major complex-system-related studies such as artificial life, simulated evolution, and multiagent systems in that AOC is not just intended to replicate complex behavior, emulate evolution, or coordinate the functioning of many interacting agents. AOC emphasizes the modeling of autonomy in the entities of a complex system and the self-organization of them in achieving a specific goal. Through implemented applications, we describe three main approaches to AOC, as well as an AOC framework with formal definitions of essential constructs and their interrelationships, including the notions of emergent autonomy, self-organization, and the interactions among entities and environment.
HIV risk and communication between regular partners in a cohort of HIV-negative gay men

Abstract This paper reports on the breaking of agreements between regular partners among HIV-negative gay men in Sydney. Data were from the 1333 men completing face-to-face interviews through December 2003 for the Health in Men (HIM) open cohort of HIV-negative gay men in Sydney. 822 men had a primary regular partner during the six month period before their 2003 interview. Most of these men had entered into agreements with their partners about sex either with each other or with other partners (87.2%). They most commonly agreed not to use condoms with each other (50.6%). Regarding casual sex, they most commonly agreed to always use condoms (34.2%) or to have no sex with men outside their relationships (28.6%). 48.8% reported some discomfort discussing with their partner their sex outside the relationship. Among those with agreements with their partners, 27.7% reported ever breaking those agreements. Those who found it more difficult to discuss issues of HIV serostatus and sexuality were more likely to report having broken their agreements (p<.001; p=.021 at one-year follow-up) and were more likely to have engaged in unprotected anal intercourse with casual partners (p<.001). A third of those men who broke their agreements did not inform their partner. A substantial proportion of gay men with agreements with their regular partners report some discomfort discussing sexuality and HIV serostatus with their partners. Difficulty discussing these issues may place these men at increased risk of breaking their agreements and may place both themselves and their partners at increased risk of infection.
Maximizing resilience through diverse levels of inquiry: Prevailing paradigms, possibilities, and priorities for the future

The study of resilience has two core characteristics: it is fundamentally applied in nature, seeking to use scientific knowledge to maximize well-being among those at risk, and it draws on expertise from diverse scientific disciplines. Recent advances in biological processes have confirmed the profound deleterious effects of harsh caregiving environments, thereby underscoring the importance of early interventions. What remains to be established at this time is the degree to which insights on particular biological processes (e.g., involving specific brain regions, genes, or hormones) will be applied in the near future to achieve substantial reductions in mental health disparities. Aside from biology, resilience developmental researchers would do well to draw upon relevant evidence from other behavioral sciences as well, notably anthropology as well as family, counseling, and social psychology. Scientists working with adults and with children must remain vigilant to the advances and missteps in each others' work, always ensuring caution in conveying messages about the “innateness” of resilience or its prevalence across different subgroups. Our future research agenda must prioritize reducing abuse and neglect in close relationships; deriving the “critical ingredients” in effective interventions and going to scale with these; working collaboratively to refine theory on the construct; and responsibly, proactively disseminating what we have learned about the nature, limits, and antecedents of resilient adaptation across diverse at-risk groups.
Visual Aesthetic Sensitivity and Intelligence

Previous work on the Visual Aesthetic Sensitivity Test (VAST) has concerned the construction and psychometric properties of the test ( 4 ) , cross-cultural comparisons between England and Japan ( 5 ) , and cross-cultural comparison between Hong Kong children and adults, and English and Japanese samples ( I ) , and a Chinese sample from Singapore with an English sample ( 2 ) . In a recent study ( 2 ) we had worked with the third version of the VAST. Eysenck suggested this particular version was too difficult, and that perhaps a longer version, containing an additional number of easy items, might give higher reliability than the test as presently constituted. Therefore I painted three warm-up items and eight additional easy items ( 3 ) . Since ure speculate about a possible relationship between visual aesthetic sensitivity and intelligence in our forthcoming cross-cultural studies with this new version of the VAST, we included Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices ( 6 ) so subjects who were given the VAST also took Raven's Matrices. First, 102 pupils of a private Gymnasium (44 males and 58 females aged 16 to 21 yr., mean age 18 yr.) completed both tests. Means and SDs on the VAST for males and females, respectively, were 6.84 & 4.93 and 7.60 f 4.42; on Raven's Matrices values were 7.34 & 3.18 and 7.58 & 3.83. The product-moment correlation between scores was . 37 ( t = 3.97, p < .001). Next, 73 students of a Commercial College (31 males and 42 females aged 16 to 23 yr., mean age 17 yr.) completed both tests. Means and SDs on the VAST for males and females respectively were 7.83 & 5.44 and 7.30 & 4.72; on Raven's Matrices values were 6.67 2 5.43 and 6.45 f 5.26. The correlation berween these scores was . 62, a figure which is somewhat higher than expected. The relatively low correlation of the Gymnasium pupils may perhaps reflect the fact that about 50% of them are emigrC pupils from eastern European countries.
Development of a ‘universal’ rubric for assessing undergraduates' scientific reasoning skills using scientific writing

We developed a rubric for measuring students' ability to reason and write scientifically. The Rubric for Science Writing (Rubric) was tested in a variety of undergraduate biology laboratory courses (total n = 142 laboratory reports) using science graduate students (teaching assistants) as raters. Generalisability analysis indicates that the Rubric provides a reliable measure of students' abilities (g = 0.85) in these conditions. Comparison of student performance in various biology classes indicated that some scientific skills are more challenging for students to develop than others and identified a number of previously unappreciated gaps in the curriculum. Our findings suggest that use of the Rubric provides three major benefits in higher education: (1) to increase substance and consistency of grading within a course, particularly those staffed by multiple instructors or graduate teaching assistants; (2) to assess student achievement of scientific reasoning and writing skills; and (3) when used in multiple courses, to highlight gaps in alignment among course assignments and provide a common metric for assessing to what extent the curriculum is achieving programmatic goals. Lastly, biology graduate students reported that use of the Rubric facilitated their teaching and recommended that training on the Rubric be provided to all teaching assistants.
Confrontation of PDP models and dual-route models through the analysis of a case of deep dysphasia

Abstract A case study is presented of a patient, EA, who demonstrated all the defining features of deep dysphasia. His repetition disorder was associated with surface dyslexia and deep dysgraphia. EA also showed a severely restricted phonological STM. His performance in both picture confrontation naming and writing-to-dictation paralleled his performance in repetition, whereas reading aloud and oral lexical decision were not influenced by the imageability of the word input. Further testing indicated that EA did not have difficulty in either perceiving or semantically processing spoken words. An exhaustive investigation of EA's cognitive functioning was first conducted by reference to Patterson and Shewell's model (1987). Such a triple-route model can account for EA's overall performance by postulating multiple functional lesions. We alternatively show that EA's language profile could be accounted for within a highly interactive model of language processing incorporating most basic principles of connection.
Resonating with default nonsalient interpretations: A corpus-based study of negative sarcasm

Based on natural language use, we examine the contextual environment of some negative constructions (e.g., Punctuality is not her forte/best attribute). Previous findings show that, as predicted by the view of default nonliteral interpretations, such negative constructions are interpreted nonliterally by default: (a) when presented in isolation, they are interpreted sarcastically and rated as sarcastic compared to affirmative counterparts; (b) when embedded in equally strongly biasing contexts, they are processed faster in sarcastically than in literally biasing contexts (Giora et al., 2013; Giora, Drucker et al., 2014). Here we test a third prediction that, unlike affirmative sarcasm, (c) such negative utterances will convey a sarcastic interpretation and their natural environment will echo their nonsalient (sarcastic) interpretation rather than their salience-based (literal) interpretation (Giora et al., 2010, 2013). Findings from 2 corpus-based studies of (Hebrew and English) negative constructions lend usage-based support to the view of default nonliteral interpretations (Giora et al., 2010, 2013; Giora, Drucker et al., 2014). They show that when occurring in natural discourses, such utterances communicate sarcasm significantly more often than their alternative affirmatives. Their neighboring utterances further reflect their nonsalient sarcastic interpretation rather than their salience-based nonsarcastic interpretation.
On auditing auditory information: the influence of mood on memory for music

Previous research suggests that memory for music possesses a number of similarities to the more frequently studied modalities of verbal and visual memory. The present study addresses a yet uninvestigated factor involved in the memory for music: mood. Specifically, the study explored whether a mood-congruency effect is attained using major and minor keys as memory stimuli. Sixty undergraduate students were placed in a positive, negative, or neutral (i.e. baseline) mood. They were then presented with four major and four minor melodies, and, following a short delay, underwent a recognition task for the melodies. The results showed the presence of a highly significant mood-congruency effect. In a positive mood, melodies in major keys were better recognized than melodies in minor keys, whereas the reverse effect was seen for negative moods. Results are discussed in terms of how these findings relate to previous work on memory for music and linguistics.
Prognostic significance of Nm23/NDPK expression in breast carcinoma, assessed on 10‐year follow‐up by automated and quantitative immunocytochemical assays

The Nm23 gene has been described as an antimetastatic gene; in some studies, disease progression in patients with solid tumours is related to Nm23 protein expression, which can be detected by immunohistochemical procedures. Detection of Nm23‐H1 protein in breast cancer may be relevant for the monitoring of patient therapy, provided that the technical procedures are reliable and cost‐effective. The aim of the present study was to determine the prognostic significance of Nm23, assessed by quantitative immunocytochemical assays (Nm23 ICAs), under optimal technical conditions. Nm23‐H1 ICAs were performed on frozen sections, using an automated immunoperoxidase technique (Ventana) and computer‐assisted analysis of digitized colour microscopic images (SAMBA), in a series of 168 breast carcinomas. The results of automated quantitative ICAs were correlated with patients' follow‐up (129 months). Nm23‐H1 immunocytochemical expression in histological sections of tumours in which more than 3 per cent of the surface area was positively stained was significantly (0·012) correlated with longer metastasis‐free survival in both node‐positive and node‐negative groups of patients (P=0·032 and P=0·036, respectively) (Kaplan–Meier log‐rank test, NCSS 6.0.1 software). Nm23 expression (cut‐point 3 per cent) did not, however, correlate with overall survival, or with the recurrence‐free survival. In multivariate analysis (proportional hazards regression, Cox model), the prognostic significance of Nm23 in terms of metastasis‐free survival was independent of tumour size and grade, and of histological grade, in the entire cohort of patients. It is concluded that Nm23 immunodetection is only of limited practical clinical relevance in breast carcinoma, even when assessed under optimal technical conditions. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Credit Default Swap Calibration and Counterparty Risk Valuation with a Scenario based First Passage Model

In this work we develop a tractable structural model with analytical default probabilities depending on a random default barrier and possibly random volatility ideally associated with a scenario based underlying firm debt. We show how to calibrate this model using a chosen number of reference Credit Default Swap (CDS) market quotes. In general this model can be seen as a possible extension of the time-varying AT1P model in Brigo and Tarenghi (2004). The calibration capability of the Scenario Volatility/Barrier model (SVBAT1P), when keeping time-constant volatility, appears inferior to the one of AT1P with time-varying deterministic volatility. The SVBAT1P model, however, maintains the benefits of time-homogeneity and can lead to satisfactory calibration results, as we show in a case study where we compare different choices on scenarios and parameters. Similarly to AT1P, SVBAT1P is suited to pricing hybrid equity/credit derivatives and to evaluate counterparty risk in equity payoffs, and more generally to evaluate hybrid credit/equity payoffs. We consider the equity return swap in Brigo and Tarenghi (2004) and show its valuation under SVBAT1P with the same CDS and equity calibration input used earlier for AT1P.
Mendeley readership altmetrics for medical articles: An analysis of 45 fields

Medical research is highly funded and often expensive and so is particularly important to evaluate effectively. Nevertheless, citation counts may accrue too slowly for use in some formal and informal evaluations. It is therefore important to investigate whether alternative metrics could be used as substitutes. This article assesses whether one such altmetric, Mendeley readership counts, correlates strongly with citation counts across all medical fields, whether the relationship is stronger if student readers are excluded, and whether they are distributed similarly to citation counts. Based on a sample of 332,975 articles from 2009 in 45 medical fields in Scopus, citation counts correlated strongly (about 0.7; 78% of articles had at least one reader) with Mendeley readership counts (from the new version 1 applications programming interface [API]) in almost all fields, with one minor exception, and the correlations tended to decrease slightly when student readers were excluded. Readership followed either a lognormal or a hooked power law distribution, whereas citations always followed a hooked power law, showing that the two may have underlying differences.
Does Gender Have a Role in ICT Among Finnish Teachers and Students?

The digital divide between genders and generations in school, i.e., between teachers and secondary school students in Finland, was investigated comparing statistical data in 1999–2000 and in 2002–2004. ICT skills were intertwined with both generation and gender. Teachers were familiar with some traditional applications, students with new applications. Male teachers and students estimated their skills on a higher level than females, but in the second phase, female students' use and competence were close to male teachers'. There was a distinction between low use at school and high use during leisure time. In future, social use of ICT will reduce the differences between users, although the gaps between genders and generations in technical competence will probably remain.
Role of Natural Killer Cells in HIV-Associated Malignancies

Now in its fourth decade, the burden of HIV disease still persists, despite significant milestone achievements in HIV prevention, diagnosis, treatment, care, and support. Even with long-term use of currently available antiretroviral therapies (ARTs), eradication of HIV remains elusive and now poses a unique set of challenges for the HIV-infected individual. The occurrence of HIV-associated non-AIDS-related comorbidities outside the scope of AIDS-defining illnesses, in particular non-AIDS-defining cancers, is much greater than the age-matched uninfected population. The underlying mechanism is now recognized in part to be related to the immune dysregulated and inflammatory status characteristic of HIV infection that persists despite ART. Natural killer (NK) cells are multifunctional effector immune cells that play a critical role in shaping the innate immune responses to viral infections and cancer. NK cells can modulate the adaptive immune response via their role in dendritic cell (DC) maturation, removal of immature tolerogenic DCs, and their ability to produce immunoregulatory cytokines. NK cells are therefore poised as attractive therapeutic targets that can be harnessed to control or clear both HIV and HIV-associated malignancies. To date, features of the tumor microenvironment and the evolution of NK-cell function among individuals with HIV-related malignancies remain unclear and may be distinct from malignancies observed in uninfected persons. This review intends to uncouple anti-HIV and antitumor NK-cell features that can be manipulated to halt the evolution of HIV disease and HIV-associated malignancies and serve as potential preventative and curative immunotherapeutic options.