Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Impact of Fish Oil on the Chemopreventive Efficacy of Tamoxifen against Development of N-Methyl-N-Nitrosourea–Induced Rat Mammary Carcinogenesis

The antiestrogen tamoxifen reduces breast cancer incidence in high-risk women but is unable to inhibit the development of hormone-independent tumors. Omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (n-3 PUFA), known ligands of the peroxisome proliferator activated receptor-γ (PPARγ), generally exert tumor-suppressive effects. Based on the known crosstalk between the estrogen and the PPARγ receptors, we tested the hypothesis that the combination of tamoxifen with n-3 PUFA results in a superior antitumor action over the individual interventions. In this study, we report for the first time that the combination of a fish oil diet rich in n-3 PUFA and tamoxifen seemed to inhibit N-methyl-N-nitrosourea–induced mammary carcinogenesis, tumor multiplicity, and volume to a greater extent than the individual interventions. The potential superiority of the combination was particularly evident at a suboptimal dose of tamoxifen, which, by itself, was unable to significantly decrease tumor development. Because activation of PPARγ is known to inhibit oxidative stress, we examined the effects of our interventions on circulating and tumor levels of glutathione, a major intracellular antioxidant. Our results indicate that reduction in the level of oxidative stress may be a potential mechanism by which the n-3 PUFA–rich diet potentiated the tumor-suppressive effect of tamoxifen. Our interventions were well tolerated without evidence of toxicity. Combined administration of tamoxifen and n-3 PUFA is a promising new approach to breast cancer prevention. Because of its safety, this combination can quickly be translated to the clinic if its superiority can be supported by future studies. Cancer Prev Res; 3(3); 322–30
The Neurobiology of Moral Behavior: Review and Neuropsychiatric Implications

ABSTRACT Morality may be innate to the human brain. This review examines the neurobiological evidence from research involving functional magnetic resonance imaging of normal subjects, developmental sociopathy, acquired sociopathy from brain lesions, and frontotemporal dementia. These studies indicate a “neuromoral” network for responding to moral dilemmas centered in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and its connections, particularly on the right. The neurobiological evidence indicates the existence of automatic “prosocial” mechanisms for identification with others that are part of the moral brain. Patients with disorders involving this moral network have attenuated emotional reactions to the possibility of harming others and may perform sociopathic acts. The existence of this neuromoral system has major clinical implications for the management of patients with dysmoral behavior from brain disorders and for forensic neuropsychiatry.
Cord blood banking: ‘providing cord blood banking for a nation’

Transplantation of cord blood (CB) is increasingly used as therapy for patients whose own marrow is affected by genetic mutations that prevent the development of normal cells of the blood or immune tissues, or for patients whose marrow has been destroyed in the course of treatment for leukaemia and other malignancies. CB is a rich source of haematopoietic stem cells, can be easily harvested and stored in frozen aliquots in a CB bank. The first public CB bank was established in 1993 allowing unrelated CB transplantation to become an option for patients lacking a suitable adult donor. Today, the results of CB transplantation are comparable to those of bone marrow transplants with several important advantages: the graft is available ‘off the shelf’, thereby reducing the waiting time, and the requirements of human lecucoyte antigen (HLA) matching are less restrictive than those of adult sources. The reduced requirement for HLA matching allows transplants between incompletely matched donors and recipients, thus reducing the size of the inventory required at the national level. This also mitigates the disadvantage encountered by persons of rare HLA genotypes or those who do not belong to populations of North Western European descent. Finally, national CB programmes can easily make available for research individual surplus units not meeting minimal criteria for clinical use.
The Radical Plasticity Thesis: How the Brain Learns to be Conscious

In this paper, I explore the idea that consciousness is something that the brain learns to do rather than an intrinsic property of certain neural states and not others. Starting from the idea that neural activity is inherently unconscious, the question thus becomes: How does the brain learn to be conscious? I suggest that consciousness arises as a result of the brain's continuous attempts at predicting not only the consequences of its actions on the world and on other agents, but also the consequences of activity in one cerebral region on activity in other regions. By this account, the brain continuously and unconsciously learns to redescribe its own activity to itself, so developing systems of meta-representations that characterize and qualify the target first-order representations. Such learned redescriptions, enriched by the emotional value associated with them, form the basis of conscious experience. Learning and plasticity are thus central to consciousness, to the extent that experiences only occur in experiencers that have learned to know they possess certain first-order states and that have learned to care more about certain states than about others. This is what I call the “Radical Plasticity Thesis. ” In a sense thus, this is the enactive perspective, but turned both inwards and (further) outwards. Consciousness involves “signal detection on the mind”; the conscious mind is the brain's (non-conceptual, implicit) theory about itself. I illustrate these ideas through neural network models that simulate the relationships between performance and awareness in different tasks.
The mounting rate of cesarean sections. Is it accompanied by a drop in instrumental births?

OBJECTIVE To determine whether the overall increase in rate of cesarean sections is accompanied by a parallel decrease in instrumental births. METHODS A retrospective study carried out at the Queen Alia Military Hospital, Amman, Jordan. The records of all deliveries from January 1992 to December 2006 were reviewed, and analyzed. Points considered were the mode of delivery, indication, and any complication that might have ensued. RESULTS During the 15-year period, there were 53194 deliveries. There were 5599 cesarean sections with an overall incidence of 10.5%, 1506 (2.8%) had a successful vacuum delivery, while only 370 (0.7%) had a forceps delivery. There was a statistically significant decrease in the use of both the vacuum extractor and the forceps after the new millennium, as compared to the last 7 years of the 20th century. CONCLUSION The rising rate of cesarean sections at our hospital was accompanied by a drop in the rate of both the forceps and the ventous extractor.
Residues of the UL25 Protein of Herpes Simplex Virus That Are Required for Its Stable Interaction with Capsids

ABSTRACT The herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV-1) UL25 gene product is a minor capsid component that is required for encapsidation, but not cleavage, of replicated viral DNA. UL25 is located on the capsid surface in a proposed heterodimer with UL17, where five copies of the heterodimer are found at each of the capsid vertices. Previously, we demonstrated that amino acids 1 to 50 of UL25 are essential for its stable interaction with capsids. To further define the UL25 capsid binding domain, we generated recombinant viruses with either small truncations or amino acid substitutions in the UL25 N terminus. Studies of these mutants demonstrated that there are two important regions within the capsid binding domain. The first 27 amino acids are essential for capsid binding of UL25, while residues 26 to 39, which are highly conserved in the UL25 homologues of other alphaherpesviruses, were found to be critical for stable capsid binding. Cryo-electron microscopy reconstructions of capsids containing either a small tag on the N terminus of UL25 or the green fluorescent protein (GFP) fused between amino acids 50 and 51 of UL25 demonstrate that residues 1 to 27 of UL25 contact the hexon adjacent to the penton. A second region, most likely centered on amino acids 26 to 39, contacts the triplex that is one removed from the penton. Importantly, both of these UL25 capsid binding regions are essential for the stable packaging of full-length viral genomes.
Real Algebraic Threefolds Ii. Minimal Model Program

In real algebraic geometry, one of the main directions of investigation is the topological study of the set of real solutions of algebraic equations. The first general result was proved in [Nash52], and later developed by many others (see [Akbulut-King92] for some recent directions). One of these theorems says that every compact differentiable manifold can be realized as the set of real points of an algebraic variety. [Nash52] posed the problem of obtaining similar results using a restricted class of varieties, for instance rational varieties. For real algebraic surfaces this question was settled in [Comessatti14]. 1 2 J ´ ANOS KOLL´AR The aim of this series of papers is to utilize the theory of minimal models to investigate this question for real algebraic threefolds. This approach is very similar in spirit to the one employed by [Comessatti14]. (See [Silhol89, Kollár97a] for introductions to real algebraic surfaces from the point of view of the minimal model program.) For algebraic threefolds over C, the minimal model program (MMP for short) provides a very powerful tool. The method of the program is the following. (See [Kollár87, CKM88] or [Kollár-Mori98] for introductions .) Starting with a smooth projective 3-fold X, we perform a series of " elementary " birational transformations until we reach a variety X * whose global structure is " simple ". (Neither the intermediate steps X i nor the final X * are uniquely determined by X.) In essence the minimal model program allows us to investigate many questions in two steps: first study the effect of the " elementary " transformations and then consider the " simple " global situation. In practice both of these steps are frequently rather difficult. For instance, we still do not have a complete list of all possible " elementary " steps, despite repeated attempts to obtain it. A somewhat unpleasant feature of the theory is that the varieties X i are not smooth, but have so called terminal singularities. This means that X i (R) is not necessarily a manifold. In developing the theory of minimal models for real algebraic threefolds, we again have to understand the occurring terminal singularities. This was done in the first paper of this series [Kollár97b]. If X is defined over a field K, then there is a variant of the MMP where the intermediate varieties X i are also defined over K. I refer to this as the …
Towards a theory of bisimulation for local names

A.M. Pitts and I.D. B. Stark (1998) have proposed the v-calculus as a language for investigating the interaction of unique name generation and higher-order functions. They developed a sound model based on logical relations, but left completeness as an open problem. In this paper, we develop a complete model based on bisimulation for a labelled transition system semantics. We show that bisimulation is complete, but not sound, for the v-calculus. We also show that by adding assignment to the v-calculus, bisimulation becomes sound and complete. The analysis used to obtain this result illuminates the difficulties involved in finding fully abstract models for v-calculus proper.
Up-Regulation of Annexin-A1 and Lipoxin A4 in Individuals with Ulcerative Colitis May Promote Mucosal Homeostasis

Background One of the characteristics of an active episode of ulcerative colitis (UC) is the intense mucosal infiltration of leukocytes. The pro-resolution mediators Annexin-A1 (AnxA1) and lipoxin A4 (LXA4) exert counter-regulatory effects on leukocyte recruitment, however to date, the dual/cumulative effects of these formyl peptide receptor-2 (FPR2/ALX) agonists in the context of human intestinal diseases are unclear. To define the contribution of these mediators, we measured their expression in biopsies from individuals with UC. Methods Colonic mucosal biopsies were collected from two broad patient groups: healthy volunteers without (‘Ctrl’ n = 20) or with a prior history of UC (‘hx of UC’ n = 5); individuals with UC experiencing active disease (‘active’ n = 8), or in medically-induced remission (‘remission’ n = 16). We assessed the mucosal expression of LXA4, AnxA1, and the FPR2/ALX receptor in each patient group using a combination of fluorescence microscopy, biochemical and molecular analyses. Results Mucosal expression of LXA4 was elevated exclusively in biopsies from individuals in remission (3-fold, P<0.05 vs. Ctrl). Moreover, in this same group we observed an upregulation of AnxA1 protein expression (2.5-fold increase vs. Ctrl, P<.01), concurrent with an increased level of macrophage infiltration, and an elevation in FPR2/ALX mRNA (7-fold increase vs. Ctrl, P<.05). Importantly, AnxA1 expression was not limited to cells infiltrating the lamina propria but was also detected in epithelial cells lining the intestinal crypts. Conclusions Our results demonstrate a specific up-regulation of this pro-resolution circuit in individuals in remission from UC, and suggest a significant role for LXA4 and AnxA1 in promoting mucosal homeostasis.
Biogeography-based informative gene selection and cancer classification using SVM and Random Forests

Microarray cancer gene expression data comprise of very high dimensions. Reducing the dimensions helps in improving the overall analysis and classification performance. We propose two hybrid techniques, Biogeography - based Optimization - Random Forests (BBO - RF) and BBO - SVM (Support Vector Machines) with gene ranking as a heuristic, for microarray gene expression analysis. This heuristic is obtained from information gain filter ranking procedure. The BBO algorithm generates a population of candidate subset of genes, as part of an ecosystem of habitats, and employs the migration and mutation processes across multiple generations of the population to improve the classification accuracy. The fitness of each gene subset is assessed by the classifiers - SVM and Random Forests. The performances of these hybrid techniques are evaluated on three cancer gene expression datasets retrieved from the Kent Ridge Biomedical datasets collection and the libSVM data repository. Our results demonstrate that genes selected by the proposed techniques yield classification accuracies comparable to previously reported algorithms.
Myopic Value of Information in Influence Diagrams

We present a method for calculation of myopic value of information in influence diagrams (Howard & Matheson, 1981) based on the strong junction tree framework (Jensen et al., 1994). An influence diagram specifies a certain order of observations and decisions through its structure. This order is reflected in the corresponding junction trees by the order in which the nodes are marginalized. This order of marginalization can be changed by table expansion and use of control structures, and this facilitates for calculating the expected value of information for different information scenarios within the same junction tree. In effect, a strong junction tree with expanded tables may be used for calculating the value of information between several scenarios with different observation-decision order. We compare our method to other methods for calculating the value of information in influence diagrams.
BeppoSAX View of Radio-loud Active Galactic Nuclei

A systematic analysis of a large sample of radio-loud active galactic nuclei (AGNs) available in the BeppoSAX public archive has been performed. The sample includes 3 narrow-line radio galaxies (NLRGs), 10 broad-line radio galaxies (BLRGs), 6 steep-spectrum radio quasars (SSRQs), and 16 flat-spectrum radio quasars (FSRQs). According to the unified models, these classes correspond to objects with increasing viewing angles. As expected, the presence of a nonthermal beamed component emerges clearly in FSRQs. This class shows in fact a featureless continuum (with the exception of 3C 273) and a significantly flatter average spectral slope. However, traces of a nonthermal Doppler-enhanced radiation are elusive in the other classes. We find that the iron line equivalent widths (EWs) are generally weaker in radio-loud AGNs than in Seyfert 1 galaxies, and we confirm the presence of an X-ray Baldwin effect; that is, a decrease of EW with the 2-10 keV luminosity from Seyfert galaxies to BLRGs and quasars. Since the EW-L2-10 keV anticorrelation is present also in radio-quiet AGNs alone, this effect cannot be ascribed entirely to a strongly beamed jet component. Possible alternative interpretations are explored.
Comparative Efficacies of Antibiotics in a Rat Model of Meningoencephalitis Due to Listeria monocytogenes

ABSTRACT The antibacterial activities of amoxicillin-gentamicin, trovafloxacin, trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole (TMP-SMX) and the combination of trovafloxacin with TMP-SMX were compared in a model of meningoencephalitis due to Listeria monocytogenes in infant rats. At 22 h after intracisternal infection, the cerebrospinal fluid was cultured to document meningitis, and the treatment was started. Treatment was instituted for 48 h, and efficacy was evaluated 24 h after administration of the last dose. All tested treatment regimens exhibited significant activities in brain, liver, and blood compared to infected rats receiving saline (P < 0.001). In the brain, amoxicillin plus gentamicin was more active than all of the other regimens, and trovafloxacin was more active than TMP-SMX (bacterial titers of 4.1 ± 0.5 log10 CFU/ml for amoxicillin-gentamicin, 5.0 ± 0.4 log10 CFU/ml for trovafloxacin, and 5.8 ± 0.5 log10 CFU/ml for TMP-SMX;P < 0.05). In liver, amoxicillin-gentamicin and trovafloxacin were similarly active (2.8 ± 0.8 and 2.7 ± 0.8 log10 CFU/ml, respectively) but more active than TMP-SMX (4.4 ± 0.6 log10 CFU/ml; P< 0.05). The combination of trovafloxacin with TMP-SMX did not alter the antibacterial effect in the brain, but it did reduce the effect of trovafloxacin in the liver. Amoxicillin-gentamicin was the most active therapy in this study, but the activity of trovafloxacin suggests that further studies with this drug for the treatment ofListeria infections may be warranted.
A Comparative Study of Overshot Flaking Between Clovis and Other Components From the Gault Site, Texas

ABSTRACT This study utilizes data from the Gault site (41BL323) to address intentionality in Clovis overshot flaking. Most research in recent decades considers overshot flakes a purposeful part of Clovis biface reduction. However, recent research by Eren et al. has questioned this interpretation, experimentally demonstrating that overshot flakes may represent failed attempts at removing large overface flakes. The present study compares overshot flake counts from Clovis and other components in Area 15, as well as comparing edge removal measurements from Clovis and non-Clovis overshots from Areas 8 and 15. Results indicate that overshots are proportionally more common in the Clovis component than in any other stratum, and Clovis overshot flakes consistently remove less mass from the opposite edge than those from other components. Therefore, it appears that overshots are removed more consistently and with more precision in Clovis than in any other component, making them more likely to be intentional.
Ecological risk assessment of some heavy metals in roadside soils at traffic circles in Gombe, northern Nigeria

The study evaluated the levels of some heavy metals in the roadside soils at different traffic circles using geo-accumulation index, ecological risk and Hakanson method to assess the overall ecological risk and identify ecological potential risk of heavy metals pollution. The top soil samples were collected at three different traffic circles from edge and at 50 m distance from the roadside, and analysed for heavy metal (Pb, Cd, Cu and Zn) using atomic absorption spectrophotometer. The mean concentrations of heavy metals (mg/kg) ranged from (15.0 - 45.07) Pb, (0.35 - 2.60) Cd, (19.05 - 38.0) Cu and (58.10 - 101.0) Zn. The abundance of metals was found in declining order: Zn > Pb > Cu > Cd. The metals concentrations were found to be higher in the soil samples from edge due to high traffic volume and human activities, and there was significantly decrease in concentration with increase in roadside distance. The Geoaccumulation index (I geo ) examined in this study revealed that soil samples from edge and 50 m distance from the roadside were polluted with cadmium. Ecological risk assessment carried out showed that the metals posed low ecological risk and cadmium contributed 66.63 - 94.21% of the total potentially ecological risk. Keywords: Assessment, Ecological risk, Heavy metals, Roadside soil
On incremental maintenance of 2-hop labeling of graphs

Recent interests on XML, Semantic Web, and Web ontology, among other topics, have sparked a renewed interest on graph-structured databases. A fundamental query on graphs is the reachability test of nodes. Recently, 2-hop labeling has been proposed to index large collections of XML and/or graphs for efficient reachability tests. However, there has been few work on updates of 2-hop labeling. This is compounded by the fact that Web data changes over time. In response to these, this paper studies the incremental maintenance of 2-hop labeling. We identify the main reason for the inefficiency of updates of existing 2-hop labels. We propose two updatable 2-hop labelings, hybrids of 2-hop labeling, and their incremental maintenance algorithms. The proposed 2-hop labeling is derived from graph connectivities, as opposed to set cover which is used by all previous work. Our experimental evaluation illustrates the space efficiency and update performance of various kinds of 2-hop labeling. The main conclusion is that there is a natural way to spare some index size for update performance in 2-hop labeling.