Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Inhibitory Effects of β-Carotene and Vitamin A During the Progression Phase of Hepatocarcinogenesis Involve Inhibition of Cell Proliferation but Not Alterations in DNA Methylation

The inhibitory effects of β-Carotene and vitamin A administered to rats in the progression phase of the resistant hepatocyte model of hepatocarcinogenesis were investigated. β-Carotene- and vitamin A-treated animals tended to present with a lower incidence of hepatic cancers than controls at sacrifice. Vitamin A, but not β-Carotene, administration also tended to reduce the total number of persistent hepatocyte nodules. Histological examination of sections stained with hematoxylin and eosin confirmed these results. This suggests that both compounds exhibit inhibitory effects during conversion of persistent nodules to cancers, whereas only the retinoid is also capable of inhibiting the evolution of persistent nodules or causing them to regress. Moreover, β-carotene- and vitamin A-treated animals showed lower hepatic bromodeoxyuridine labeling indexes in neoplastic lesions as well as in adjacent normal tissues than controls, suggesting an inhibitory action of these substances on cell proliferation. However, neither β-carotene nor vitamin A administration resulted in substantial alterations in the CCGG sequence methylation pattern of hydroxymethylglutaryl coenzyme A reductase, c-myc, and c-Ha-ras genes, the products of which are related to cell proliferation and carcinogenesis. Therefore, these inhibitory effects of β-carotene and vitamin A on progression of hepatocarcinogenesis do not seem to be related to DNA methylation.
Plasma Renin and Sodium Balance During Development of Moderate and Severe Renal Hypertension in Rats

The changes in systolic blood pressure, plasma renin activity (PRA), and sodium bal ance were studied during the first 3 weeks of the development of renal hypertension in rats with an undisturbed contralateral kidney. Moderate hypertension (160 to 180 mm Hg) was reached after application of a 0.25-mm solid clip; severe hypertension (200 to 230 mm Hg) developed after application of a 0.20-mm solid clip. Basal levels of PRA in peripheral blood increased only in rats with a 0.20-mm clip, when blood pressure had already risen to 160 to 180 mm Hg. Elevated peripheral PRA, however, may have contributed to the initial increase of blood pressure in both groups of hypertensive rats, as indicated by higher late-afternoon PRA values at the peak of the normal diurnal rhythm of PRA. PRA in renal venous blood from the clipped kidney increased during the development of both moderate and severe hypertension at a rate quantitatively related to the rise in blood pressure. During the first 8 to 10 days after application of both sizes of clips, sodium retention per gram gain in body weight was significantly higher than in the sham-operated controls. Subsequently, sodium balance and blood pressure stabilized in animals with a 0.25-mm clip. In the rats with a 0.20-mm clip, sodium balance returned to control levels and became even lower than in the sham-operated group. Despite this negative sodium balance, blood pressure showed a further rise. These results suggest that in rats with an undisturbed contralateral kidney, a positive sodium balance has a role in the early phase of the development of renal hypertension. The enhanced plasma renin activity also probably contributes to the early phase, but appears to make a major contribution to the further development of severe hypertension.
Intraoral Radiology in General Dental Practices – A Comparison of Digital and Film-Based X-Ray Systems with Regard to Radiation Protection and Dose Reduction

Abstract Purpose: The purpose of this study was to gain insight into the distribution and application of digital intraoral radiographic techniques within general dental practices and to compare these with film-based systems in terms of patient dose reduction. Materials and Methods: 1100 questionnaires were handed out to general dental practitioners. Data was analyzed with respect to the type of system by using descriptive statistics and nonparametric tests, i. e. Kruskal-Wallis, Mann-Whitney and chi-square test (SPSS 20). Results: 64 % of the questioned dentists still use film-based radiology, 23 % utilize storage phosphor plate (SPP) systems and 13 % use a charge-coupled device (CCD). A strong correlation between the number of dentists working in a practice and the use of digital dental imaging was observed. Almost 3/4 of the film users work with E- or F-speed film. 45 % of them refuse to change to a digital system. The use of lead aprons was popular, while only a minority preferred thyroid shields and rectangular collimators. A fourfold reduction of exposure time from D-speed film to CCD systems was observed. Due to detector size and positioning errors, users of CCD systems take significantly more single-tooth radiographs in total. Considering the number of radiographs per patient, there is only a slight tendency towards more X-rays with CCD systems. Up to image generation, digital systems seem to be as or even more difficult to handle than film-based systems, while their handling was favored after radiographic exposure. Conclusion: Despite a slight increase of radiographs taken with CCD systems, there is a significant dosage reduction. Corresponding to the decrease in exposure time, the patient dose for SPP systems is reduced to one half compared to film. The main issues in CCD technology are positioning errors and the size of the X-ray detectors which are difficult to eliminate. The usage of radiation protection measures still needs to be improved. Key Points: • Responsible use of digital intraoral radiology results in a significant dose reduction in everyday practice. • The ALARA principle is only achieved by strict implementation of dose-reducing methods. • The efforts to use dose-reducing devices must be increased. Citation Format: • Anissi HD, Geibel MA. Intraoral Radiology in General Dental Practices – A Comparison of Digital and Film-Based X-Ray Systems with Regard to Radiation Protection and Dose Reduction. Fortschr Röntgenstr 2014; 186: 762 – 767
Equilibrium-Inspired Multiple Group Search Optimization With Synergistic Learning for Multiobjective Electric Power Dispatch

This paper proposes a novel multiple group search optimizer (MGSO) to solve the highly constrained multiobjective power dispatch (MOPD) problem with conflicting and competing objectives. The algorithm employs a stochastic learning automata based synergistic learning to allow information interaction and credit assignment among multi-groups for cooperative search. An alternative constraint handling, which separates constraints and objectives with different searching strategies, has been adopted to produce a more uniformly-distributed Pareto-optimal front (PF). Moreover, two enhancements, namely space reduction and chaotic sequence dispersion, have also been incorporated to facilitate local exploitation and global exploration of Pareto-optimal solutions in the convergence process. Lastly, Nash equilibrium point is first introduced to identify the best compromise solution from the PF. The performance of MGSO has been fully evaluated and benchmarked on the IEEE 30-bus 6-generator system and 118-bus 54-generator system. Comparisons with previous Pareto heuristic techniques demonstrated the superiority of the proposed MGSO and confirm its capability to cope with practical multiobjective optimization problems with multiple high-dimensional objective functions.
Etiology and outcome of patients presenting for poisoning to the emergency department in Taiwan: a prospective study

Poisoning is one of the most common reasons for visiting the emergency department in many countries, and the pattern varies from countries to countries and time to time. To compare the etiology and outcome of poisoning patients in different gender and age groups, we conducted a prospective study at the emergency departments of two medical centers in southern Taiwan between January 2001 and December 2002. All cases of poisoning, excluding patients diagnosed as cases of alcohol or food poisoning, were included, and relevant information was collected. There were 1512 cases of poisoning observed with a male to female ratio of 1:1.2 (684/828). Overall, drugs (49.9%) were the main agents involved, and a suicidal attempt (66.1%) was the predominant etiology. A total of 63 fatalities (4.2%) were observed and pesticides, especially paraquat, resulted in most fatalities. Patients aged 19–30 years constituted the most cases, and significant differences in exposure agents, causes, and fatality rates were found among different age and gender groups. The results are compatible with the trend reported by other Asian countries. This study also shows important differences existing in poisoning patients of different age and gender groups. Therefore, different poisoning-prevention strategies should be applied to different groups.
Materials for high-average power solid-state lasers

High-average power solid-state lasers use Nd or Yb lasants doped into a variety of host materials. Desirable properties for such materials include favorable spectroscopy, thermomechanical and thermo-optical parameters, and availability of the host material in large size and good quality. A laser designer often faces difficult choices because no combination of dopant and host materials incorporates all of the most desirable properties. This work presents a comparative study of gain media for diode-pumped, high-average power solid-state disk lasers. Relative performance of Nd and Yb doped into several host media is evaluated under several pump conditions.
Potentially functional polymorphisms in the LIN28B gene contribute to neuroblastoma susceptibility in Chinese children

Neuroblastoma is the most commonly diagnosed solid tumour outside the central nervous system in children. However, genetic factors underlying neuroblastoma remain largely unclear. Previous genome‐wide association study indicated that lin‐28 homolog B (LIN28B) might play an important role in the development of neuroblastoma and also contributed to its poor overall survival. With the purpose to evaluate the association between LIN28B gene polymorphisms and neuroblastoma susceptibility in Southern Chinese population, we conducted this study with 256 neuroblastoma cases and 531 cancer‐free controls. Four potentially functional polymorphisms (rs221634 A>T, rs221635 T>C, rs314276 C>A and rs9404590 T>G) were genotyped using Taqman method. Odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated to assess the associations between the selected single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and neuroblastoma susceptibility. We also performed genotype‐phenotype association analysis to explore the effects of the selected SNPs on LIN28B gene transcripts. Our results indicated that the rs221634 TT genotype was associated with an increased neuroblastoma risk (TT versus AA/AT: adjusted OR = 1.50, 95% CI = 1.04–2.17). The association was more pronounced in males, patients with tumour of mediastinum origin, as well as patients in early clinical stages. Moreover, overall analysis and stratified analysis also showed an increased risk of neuroblastoma for carrier of the 2–4 risk genotypes. In summary, these results indicated that the LIN28B rs221634 A>T polymorphism was associated with an increased neuroblastoma risk in Southern Chinese children. These findings need further validation in large studies with different ethnicities involved.
Molecular crosstalk between tumour and brain parenchyma instructs histopathological features in glioblastoma

The histopathological and molecular heterogeneity of glioblastomas represents a major obstacle for effective therapies. Glioblastomas do not develop autonomously, but evolve in a unique environment that adapts to the growing tumour mass and contributes to the malignancy of these neoplasms. Here, we show that patient-derived glioblastoma xenografts generated in the mouse brain from organotypic spheroids reproducibly give rise to three different histological phenotypes: (i) a highly invasive phenotype with an apparent normal brain vasculature, (ii) a highly angiogenic phenotype displaying microvascular proliferation and necrosis and (iii) an intermediate phenotype combining features of invasion and vessel abnormalities. These phenotypic differences were visible during early phases of tumour development suggesting an early instructive role of tumour cells on the brain parenchyma. Conversely, we found that tumour-instructed stromal cells differentially influenced tumour cell proliferation and migration in vitro, indicating a reciprocal crosstalk between neoplastic and non-neoplastic cells. We did not detect any transdifferentiation of tumour cells into endothelial cells. Cell type-specific transcriptomic analysis of tumour and endothelial cells revealed a strong phenotype-specific molecular conversion between the two cell types, suggesting co-evolution of tumour and endothelial cells. Integrative bioinformatic analysis confirmed the reciprocal crosstalk between tumour and microenvironment and suggested a key role for TGFβ1 and extracellular matrix proteins as major interaction modules that shape glioblastoma progression. These data provide novel insight into tumour-host interactions and identify novel stroma-specific targets that may play a role in combinatorial treatment strategies against glioblastoma.
Sustained Attentional States Require Distinct Temporal Involvement of the Dorsal and Ventral Medial Prefrontal Cortex

Attending the sensory environment for cue detection is a cognitive operation that occurs on a time scale of seconds. The dorsal and ventral medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) contribute to separate aspects of attentional processing. Pyramidal neurons in different parts of the mPFC are active during cognitive behavior, yet whether this activity is causally underlying attentional processing is not known. We aimed to determine the precise temporal requirements for activation of the mPFC subregions during the seconds prior to cue detection. To test this, we used optogenetic silencing of dorsal or ventral mPFC pyramidal neurons at defined time windows during a sustained attentional state. We find that the requirement of ventral mPFC pyramidal neuron activity is strictly time-locked to stimulus detection. Inhibiting the ventral mPFC 2 s before or during cue presentation reduces response accuracy and hampers behavioral inhibition. The requirement for dorsal mPFC activity on the other hand is temporally more loosely related to a preparatory attentional state, and short lapses in pyramidal neuron activity in dorsal mPFC do not affect performance. This only occurs when the dorsal mPFC is inhibited during the entire preparatory period. Together, our results reveal that a dissociable temporal recruitment of ventral and dorsal mPFC is required during attentional processing.
In Economics and Social Sciences Working Papers Series a Quantitative Theory of the Gender Gap in Wages a Quantitative Theory of the Gender Gap in Wages * Andrés Erosa Imdea

This paper measures how much of the gender wage gap over the life cycle is due to the fact that working hours are lower for women than for men. We build a quantitative theory of fertility, labor supply, and human capital accumulation decisions to measure gender differences in human capital investments over the life cycle. We assume that there are no gender differences in the human capital technology and calibrate this technology using wage-age profiles of men. The calibration of females assumes that children involve a forced reduction in hours of work that falls on females rather than on males and that there is an exogenous gender gap in hours of work. We find that our theory accounts for all of the increase in the gender wage gap over the life cycle in the NLSY79 data. The impact of children on the labor supply of females accounts for 56% and 45% of the increase in the gender wage gap over the life cycle among non-college and college individuals, while the rest is due to exogenous gender differences in hours of work. We also find that children play an important role in understanding the variation of the gender wage gap across recent cohorts of women and the slower wage growth faced by black women relative to non-black women in the U.S. economy.
Behavioural responses of killer whales (Orcinus orca) to whale‐watching boats: opportunistic observations and experimental approaches

Johnstone Strait provides important summer habitat for the northern resident killer whales Orcinus orca of British Columbia. The site is also an active whale-watching area. A voluntary code of conduct requests that boats do not approach whales closer than 100 m to address perceived, rather than demonstrated, effects of boat traffic on killer whales. The purpose of the study was to test the relevance of this distance guideline. Relationships between boat traffic and whale behaviour were studied in 1995 and 1996 by shore-based theodolite tracking of 25 identifiable focal animals from the population of 209 whales. Individual killer whales were repeatedly tracked in the absence of boats and during approaches by a 5.2 m motorboat that paralleled each whale at 100 m. In addition, whales were tracked opportunistically, when no effort was made to manipulate boat traffic. Dive times, swim speeds, and surface-active behaviours such as breaching and spy-hopping were recorded. On average, male killer whales swam significantly faster than females. Whales responded to experimental approaches by adopting a less predictable path than observed during the preceding, no-boat period, although males and females used subtly different avoidance tactics. Females responded by swimming faster and increasing the angle between successive dives, whereas males maintained their speed and chose a smooth, but less direct, path. Canonical correlations between whale behaviour and vessel proximity are consistent with these conclusions, which suggest that weakening whale-watching guidelines, or not enforcing them, would result in higher levels of disturbance. High variability in whale behaviour underscores the importance of large sample size and extensive experimentation when assessing the impacts of human activity on killer whales.
The Arabidopsis repressor of light signaling SPA1 acts in the phloem to regulate seedling de-etiolation, leaf expansion and flowering time

Plants adjust their growth and development in response to the ambient light environment. These light responses involve systemic signals that coordinate differentiation of different tissues and organs. Here, we have investigated the function of the key repressor of photomorphogenesis SPA1 in different tissues of the plant by expressing GUS-SPA1 under the control of tissue-specific promoters in a spa mutant background. We show that SPA1 expression in the phloem vasculature is sufficient to rescue the spa1 mutant phenotype in dark-grown spa mutant seedlings. Expression of SPA1 in mesophyll, epidermis or root tissues of the seedling, by contrast, has no or only slight effects. In the leaf, SPA1 expression in both the phloem and the mesophyll is required for full complementation of the defect in leaf expansion. SPA1 in phloem and mesophyll tissues affected division and expansion of cells in the epidermal layer, indicating that SPA1 induces non-cell-autonomous responses also in the leaf. Photoperiodic flowering is exclusively controlled by SPA1 expression in the phloem, which is consistent with previous results showing that the direct substrate of the COP1/SPA complex, CONSTANS, also acts in the phloem. Taken together, our results highlight the importance of phloem vascular tissue in coordinating growth and development. Because the SPA1 protein itself is incapable of moving from cell to cell, we suggest that SPA1 regulates the activity of downstream component(s) of light signaling that subsequently act in a non-cell-autonomous manner. SPA1 action in the phloem may also result in mechanical stimuli that affect cell elongation and cell division in other tissues.
Automatic retinal image registration scheme using global optimization techniques

Retinal image registration is commonly required in order to combine the complementary information in different retinal modalities. In this paper, a new automatic scheme to register retinal images is presented and is currently tested in a clinical environment. The scheme considers the suitability and efficiency of different image transformation models and function optimization techniques, following an initial preprocessing stage. Three different transformation models-affine, bilinear and projective-as well as three optimization techniques-downhill simplex method, simulated annealing and genetic algorithms-are investigated and compared in terms of accuracy and efficiency. The registration of 26 pairs of fluoroscein angiography and indocyanine green chorioangiography images with the corresponding red-free retinal images, showed the superiority of combining genetic algorithms with the affine and bilinear transformation models. A comparative study of the proposed automatic registration scheme against the manual method, commonly used in clinical practice, is finally presented showing the advantage of the proposed automatic scheme in terms of accuracy and consistency.
Profile of tivantinib and its potential in the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma: the evidence to date

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the fastest rising cause of cancer-related death in the United States and carries a very poor prognosis, with a median survival time of <50% at 1 year for advanced disease. To date, sorafenib is the only therapy approved by the Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of advanced HCC. Tivantinib (ARQ-197), a non-ATP competitive inhibitor of cellular mesenchymal–epithelial transcription factor (c-MET), has shown a survival benefit in patients with advanced HCC who have failed or are intolerant to sorafenib in Phase I and II trials. Those patients who have tumors with high concentrations of MET (MET-high) appear to derive the greatest benefit from tivantinib therapy. Currently, two large randomized double-blind placebo-controlled Phase III trials (METIV-HCC [NCT01755767] and JET-HCC [NCT02029157]) are evaluating tivantinib in patients with MET-high advanced HCC, with the primary end points of overall survival and progression-free survival, respectively. This study reviews the evidence for the use of tivantinib in advanced HCC. Specific topics addressed include the pharmacology, dosing, toxicity, and biomarkers associated with tivantinib use.
Sexually transmitted infections in HIV-infected people in Switzerland: cross-sectional study

Sexually transmitted infections (STI) in HIV-infected people are of increasing concern. We estimated STI prevalence and sexual healthcare seeking behaviour in 224 sexually active HIV-infected people, including men who have sex with men (MSM, n = 112), heterosexual men (n = 65) and women (n = 47). Laboratory-diagnosed bacterial STI were more common in MSM (Chlamydia trachomatis 10.7%; 95% CI 6.2, 18.0%, lymphogranuloma venereum 0.9%; 95% CI 0.1, 6.2%, Neisseria gonorrhoeae 2.7%; 95% CI 0.9, 8.0%, syphilis seroconversion 5.4%; 95% CI 2.0, 11.3%) than heterosexual men (gonorrhoea 1.5%; 95% CI 0.2, 10.3%) or women (no acute infections). Combined rates of laboratory-diagnosed and self-reported bacterial STI in the year before the study were: MSM (27.7%; 95% CI 21.1, 36.7%); heterosexual men (1.5%; 95% CI 0.2, 10.3%); and women (6.4%; 95% CI 2.1, 21.0%). Antibodies to hepatitis C virus were least common in MSM. Antibodies to herpes simplex type 2 virus were least common in heterosexual men. Most MSM, but not heterosexual men or women, agreed that STI testing should be offered every year. In this study, combined rates of bacterial STI in MSM were high; a regular assessment of sexual health would allow those at risk of STI to be offered testing, treatment and partner management.