Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Sexually Transmitted Infections and Prostate Cancer among Men in the U.S. Military

Studies of self-reported sexually transmitted infections (STI) suggesting an association with prostate cancer may reflect underreporting of such infections among nondiseased subjects. To reduce such bias, we studied archived sera in a cohort of U.S. military personnel known to have high rates of both STIs and prostate cancer. Using a nested case-control design, serum samples from 534 men who served on active duty between September 1, 1993 and September 1, 2003 were examined. Controls were individually matched to cases based on date of serum collection, date of birth, branch of service, military rank, marital status, and race. Each of the 267 case-control pairs had two serum samples: a recent serum sample, taken ∼1 year before the case's prostate cancer diagnosis, and an earlier serum sample, taken ∼8 years before diagnosis. Each serum specimen was studied for antibodies against human papillomavirus, herpes simplex virus-2 (HSV-2), and Chlamydia trachomatis. Logistic regression accounted for matching and potential confounding factors. Study data indicated no association between prostate cancer and serologic evidence of infections just before the reference date. However, a statistically significant association between prostate cancer and serologic evidence of HSV-2 infection was detected in the earlier sample (odds ratio, 1.60; 95% confidence interval, 1.05-2.44). The strength of this association increased when analyses were restricted to sera collected at least 60 months before diagnosis (odds ratio, 2.04; 95% confidence interval, 1.26-3.29; 204 pairs). If this association is causal, then our findings would suggest a long latency period for prostate cancer development after HSV-2 infection. (Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2009;18(10):2665–71)
Reflective and Impulsive Determinants of Social Behavior

This article describes a 2-systems model that explains social behavior as a joint function of reflective and impulsive processes. In particular, it is assumed that social behavior is controlled by 2 interacting systems that follow different operating principles. The reflective system generates behavioral decisions that are based on knowledge about facts and values, whereas the impulsive system elicits behavior through associative links and motivational orientations. The proposed model describes how the 2 systems interact at various stages of processing, and how their outputs may determine behavior in a synergistic or antagonistic fashion. It extends previous models by integrating motivational components that allow more precise predictions of behavior. The implications of this reflective-impulsive model are applied to various phenomena from social psychology and beyond. Extending previous dual-process accounts, this model is not limited to specific domains of mental functioning and attempts to integrate cognitive, motivational, and behavioral mechanisms.
Wolbachia Infections in Aedes aegypti Differ Markedly in Their Response to Cyclical Heat Stress

Aedes aegypti mosquitoes infected with Wolbachia bacteria are currently being released for arbovirus suppression around the world. Their potential to invade populations and persist will depend on interactions with environmental conditions, particularly as larvae are often exposed to fluctuating and extreme temperatures in the field. We reared Ae. aegypti larvae infected with different types of Wolbachia (wMel, wAlbB and wMelPop) under diurnal cyclical temperatures. Rearing wMel and wMelPop-infected larvae at 26-37°C reduced the expression of cytoplasmic incompatibility, a reproductive manipulation induced by Wolbachia. We also observed a sharp reduction in the density of Wolbachia in adults. Furthermore, exposure to 26-37°C over two generations eliminated both the wMel and wMelPop infections. In contrast, the wAlbB infection was maintained at a high density, exhibited complete cytoplasmic incompatibility, and was transmitted from mother to offspring with a high fidelity under this temperature cycle. These findings have implications for the success of Wolbachia interventions across different environments and highlight the importance of temperature control in rearing.
Residual stresses in cross-ply composite tubes

The residual thermal stresses in 4-layer cross-ply tubes are studied. The tubes considered has a small radius to wall-thickness ratios and so elasticity solutions were used. The residual thermal stress problem was considered to be axisymmetric and three elasticity solutions were derived and the results compared with the results using classical lamination theory. The comparison illustrates the limitations of classical lamination theory. The three elasticity solutions derived were: plane stress, plane strain, and generalized plane strain, the latter being the most realistic. Residual stresses in both the hoop and axial direction is significant. Stacking arrangement effects the residual stress to some extent, as do the material properties of the individual lamina. The benefits of hybrid construction are briefly discussed.
The Hydrophilic Translocator for Vibrio parahaemolyticus, T3SS2, Is Also Translocated

ABSTRACT The pathogenesis of the diarrheal disease caused by Vibrio parahaemolyticus, a leading cause of seafood-associated enteritis worldwide, is dependent upon a type III secretion system, T3SS2. This apparatus enables the pathogen to inject bacterial proteins (effectors) into the cytosol of host cells and thereby modulate host processes. T3SS effector proteins transit into the host cell via a membrane pore (translocon) typically formed by 3 bacterial proteins. We have identified the third translocon protein for T3SS2: VopW, which was previously classified as an effector protein for a homologous T3SS in V. cholerae. VopW is a hydrophilic translocon protein; like other such proteins, it is not inserted into the host cell membrane but is required for insertion of the two hydrophobic translocators, VopB2 and VopD2, that constitute the membrane channel. VopW is not required for secretion of T3SS2 effectors into the bacterial culture medium; however, it is essential for transfer of these proteins into the host cell cytoplasm. Consequently, deletion of vopW abrogates the virulence of V. parahaemolyticus in several animal models of diarrheal disease. Unlike previously described hydrophilic translocators, VopW is itself translocated into the host cell cytoplasm, raising the possibility that it functions as both a translocator and an effector.
Constituent Parsing with Incremental Sigmoid Belief Networks

We introduce a framework for syntactic parsing with latent variables based on a form of dynamic Sigmoid Belief Networks called Incremental Sigmoid Belief Networks. We demonstrate that a previous feed-forward neural network parsing model can be viewed as a coarse approximation to inference with this class of graphical model. By constructing a more accurate but still tractable approximation, we significantly improve parsing accuracy, suggesting that ISBNs provide a good idealization for parsing. This generative model of parsing achieves state-of-theart results on WSJ text and 8% error reduction over the baseline neural network parser.
Shear bond strength of veneering porcelain to zirconia and metal cores

STATEMENT OF PROBLEM Zirconia-based restorations have the common technical complication of delamination, or porcelain chipping, from the zirconia core. Thus the shear bond strength between the zirconia core and the veneering porcelain requires investigation in order to facilitate the material's clinical use. PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to evaluate the bonding strength of the porcelain veneer to the zirconia core and to other various metal alloys (high noble metal alloy and base metal alloy). MATERIAL AND METHODS 15 rectangular (4×4×9mm) specimens each of zirconia (Cercon), base metal alloy (Tillite), high noble metal alloy (Degudent H) were fabricated for the shear bond strength test. The veneering porcelain recommended by the manufacturer for each type of material was fired to the core in thickness of 3mm. After firing, the specimens were embedded in the PTFE mold, placed on a mounting jig, and subjected to shear force in a universal testing machine. Load was applied at a crosshead speed of 0.5mm/min until fracture. The average shear strength (MPa) was analyzed with the one-way ANOVA and the Tukey's test (α= .05). The fractured specimens were examined using SEM and EDX to determine the failure pattern. RESULTS The mean shear strength (± SD) in MPa was 25.43 (± 3.12) in the zirconia group, 35.87 (± 4.23) in the base metal group, 38.00 (± 5.23) in the high noble metal group. The ANOVA showed a significant difference among groups, and the Tukey's test presented a significant difference between the zirconia group and the metal group. Microscopic examination showed that the failure primarily occurred near the interface with the residual veneering porcelain remaining on the core. CONCLUSION There was a significant difference between the metal ceramic and zirconia ceramic group in shear bond strength. There was no significant difference between the base metal alloy and the high noble metal alloy.
Factors of Influence on the Performance of a Short-Latency Non-Invasive Brain Switch: Evidence in Healthy Individuals and Implication for Motor Function Rehabilitation

Brain-computer interfacing (BCI) has recently been applied as a rehabilitation approach for patients with motor disorders, such as stroke. In these closed-loop applications, a brain switch detects the motor intention from brain signals, e.g., scalp EEG, and triggers a neuroprosthetic device, either to deliver sensory feedback or to mimic real movements, thus re-establishing the compromised sensory-motor control loop and promoting neural plasticity. In this context, single trial detection of motor intention with short latency is a prerequisite. The performance of the event detection from EEG recordings is mainly determined by three factors: the type of motor imagery (e.g., repetitive, ballistic), the frequency band (or signal modality) used for discrimination (e.g., alpha, beta, gamma, and MRCP, i.e., movement-related cortical potential), and the processing technique (e.g., time-series analysis, sub-band power estimation). In this study, we investigated single trial EEG traces during movement imagination on healthy individuals, and provided a comprehensive analysis of the performance of a short-latency brain switch when varying these three factors. The morphological investigation showed a cross-subject consistency of a prolonged negative phase in MRCP, and a delayed beta rebound in sensory-motor rhythms during repetitive tasks. The detection performance had the greatest accuracy when using ballistic MRCP with time-series analysis. In this case, the true positive rate (TPR) was ~70% for a detection latency of ~200 ms. The results presented here are of practical relevance for designing BCI systems for motor function rehabilitation.
Effective real-time anycast flow connection algorithm and delay analysis

Define anycast services as a group of replicated servers that may provide similar or identical services. Using anycast services can significantly simplify some applications such as to seek appropriate servers to provide quality of service and to achieve the load balance and fault-tolerance for service availability. An anycast flow is a sequence of packet that can be established between a user and any server in an anycast (replicated) service group. We study a set of efficient distributed connection setup algorithms for real-time anycast flows. Given an anycast flow between a server j and a request node s with end-to-end deadline Ds,j and minimum bandwidth requirement B s,j, our algorithms can effectively seek multiple destination connections in parallel thus the best path which satisfies the requirements of the anycast flow is chosen. The deterministic approach for worst delay bound analysis is also given
REDUCED TRANSFUSION REQUIREMENTS BY RECOMBINANT FACTOR VIIa IN ORTHOTOPIC LIVER TRANSPLANTATION: A Pilot Study

Background. Large transfusion requirements, i.e., excessive blood loss, during orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT) are correlated with increased morbidity and mortality. Recombinant factor VIIa (rFVIIa) has been shown to improve hemostasis in a variety of conditions, but has never been studied in liver transplantation. Methods. We performed a single-center, open-label, pilot study in adult patients undergoing OLT for cirrhosis Child-Pugh B or C, to assess efficacy and safety of rFVIIa. rFVIIa (80 &mgr;g/kg) was administered at the start of the operation, to be repeated according to predefined criteria. Packed red blood cells (RBC), fresh-frozen plasma, and platelet concentrates were administered according to predefined criteria. Perioperative transfusion requirements in study patients were compared with matched controls. Results. Six patients were enrolled in the study. All received a single dose of rFVIIa. Transfusion requirements (given as median, with range in parentheses) were lower in the study group than in matched controls: 1.5 (0–5) vs. 7 (2–18) units of allogeneic RBC (P =0.006), 0 (0–2) vs. 3.5 (0–23) units of autologous RBC (P =0.043), total amount of RBC 3 (0–5) vs. 9 (4–40) units (P =0.002). Transfused fresh-frozen plasma was 1 (0–7) vs. 8 (2–35) units (P =0.011). Blood loss was 3.5 L (1.4–5.3) vs. 9.8 L (3.7–35.0) (P =0.004). One study patient developed a hepatic artery thrombosis at day 1 postoperatively. Conclusions. A single dose of 80 &mgr;g/kg rFVIIa significantly reduced transfusion requirements during OLT. Further study is needed to establish the optimally effective and safe dose of rFVIIa in orthotopic liver transplantation.
Consumption pattern of iodised salt in households and serum TSH levels among 5-9 year old children in the plantation sector of Sri Lanka.

INTRODUCTION Salt is the main source of iodine in areas with high rainfall and iodine deficiency is the main cause of preventable hypothyroidism. Iodisation of salt increases iodine intake, but will depend on how salt is handled. This study was carried out to assess the pattern of salt consumption in the estate population and to ascertain the relationship between household salt iodine concentration and TSH levels in children. METHODS A descriptive cross sectional study was carried out in 20 randomly selected estates in the Ratnapura district of Sri Lanka, from August to November 2009. 1683 households with at least one child between 5-9 years were surveyed to determine patterns of salt usage. A salt sample from each household was tested for adequacy of iodine (concentration ≥ 30 ppm). In phase two, 519 children were randomly selected from these households and serum TSH levels were assayed. RESULTS Salt powder (54.5%) was preferred to salt crystals. Salt crystals were washed before use in 20% households. Salt was kept away from the fire-place in 90.4% of households. Salt samples of 88.7% households had an adequate iodine concentration. Salt iodine concentration was significantly lower when salt was stored near a fire-place and washed before use (p<0.001). The median TSH level of children from households with adequate salt iodine concentrations was significantly lower than that of children from households with inadequate salt iodine concentration (p<0.001). CONCLUSIONS A significant number of households did not have adequate iodine in salt samples probably due to inappropriate handling and storage. Consumption of salt low in iodine is associated with high serum TSH levels.
Probability Weighted Ensemble Transfer Learning for Predicting Interactions between HIV-1 and Human Proteins

Reconstruction of host-pathogen protein interaction networks is of great significance to reveal the underlying microbic pathogenesis. However, the current experimentally-derived networks are generally small and should be augmented by computational methods for less-biased biological inference. From the point of view of computational modelling, data scarcity, data unavailability and negative data sampling are the three major problems for host-pathogen protein interaction networks reconstruction. In this work, we are motivated to address the three concerns and propose a probability weighted ensemble transfer learning model for HIV-human protein interaction prediction (PWEN-TLM), where support vector machine (SVM) is adopted as the individual classifier of the ensemble model. In the model, data scarcity and data unavailability are tackled by homolog knowledge transfer. The importance of homolog knowledge is measured by the ROC-AUC metric of the individual classifiers, whose outputs are probability weighted to yield the final decision. In addition, we further validate the assumption that only the homolog knowledge is sufficient to train a satisfactory model for host-pathogen protein interaction prediction. Thus the model is more robust against data unavailability with less demanding data constraint. As regards with negative data construction, experiments show that exclusiveness of subcellular co-localized proteins is unbiased and more reliable than random sampling. Last, we conduct analysis of overlapped predictions between our model and the existing models, and apply the model to novel host-pathogen PPIs recognition for further biological research.
The Effects and Influential Factors of Employee's Knowledge Integration Capability in the Convergence Environment

Knowledge integration is becoming a primary function of improving organizational capabilities and performance in today’s convergence environment in which the integration of individual knowledge is the source of organizational knowledge creation for new product and service development. This study investigates the influential factors of employee’s knowledge integration capability and its effects. A theoretical research model was developed based on knowledge creation, socio-technical, and information processing perspectives. In particular, the model proposes a positive relationship between the knowledge integration capability of employees and their knowledge creation output. The model also includes organic organizational structure, teamwork quality, expertise, IT support, and knowledge complexity as the influential factors of an employee’s knowledge integration capability. A large-scale survey was conducted for data gathering (a total of 316 samples from 141 organizations) to test the proposed model. The analysis results of the hypotheses test show that expertise and knowledge complexity are the significant influential factors of employee’s knowledge integration capability. In turn, this capability has a positive effect on the knowledge creation output of employees. The results of this study will contribute to the development of initiatives for promoting knowledge integration in the development processes of convergence products and services.
Modelling of turbulent transport phenomena and solidification in continuous casting systems

A numerical modelling study has been undertaken to analyze transport phenomena in various steel casters. During the course of this work, a general three-dimensional parabolic heat flow model was developed for casters of arbitrarily shaped mould using a body-fitted coordinate transformation technique. The heat flow model was specifically applied to a beam blank caster as well as to an industrial slab caster of regular rectangular cross section, so as to analyze solidification within casters.
Management of asymptomatic myeloma patients

Smoldering multiple myeloma is an asymptomatic disorder characterized by the presence of ≥30 g/l serum M-protein and/or ≥10% bone marrow plasma cell infiltration. The risk of progression to active multiple myeloma is not uniform, and several markers are useful for identifying patients at high risk of this. Although the current standard of care is not to treat, a randomized trial in high-risk smoldering multiple myeloma patients comparing those allocated to receive early treatment with lenalidomide plus dexamethasone with those under observation reported a significant benefit with respect to time to progression and overall survival. We conclude that efforts should be made to identify high-risk patients who are candidates for receiving early treatment before they develop myeloma-related symptomatology.
Transarterial Chemoembolization and (90)Y Radioembolization for Hepatocellular Carcinoma: Review of Current Applications Beyond Intermediate-Stage Disease.

OBJECTIVE The practice guideline of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases currently recommends transarterial chemoembolization (TACE) for the treatment of intermediate-stage hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). The use of transarterial radioembolization (TARE) using (90)Y microspheres is not formally recommended. This article discusses the current clinical applications of TACE and TARE and compares the clinical utility of these techniques for various subpopulations of patients with HCC. CONCLUSION For most clinical scenarios, the efficacy and safety of TACE and TARE are probably equivalent. However, TARE appears to have an advantage over TACE in the facilitation of surgical resection by resulting in compensatory hypertrophy of the future liver remnant and possibly in the treatment of patients with portal vein tumor thrombus. On the contrary, TACE is the transarterial treatment of choice for patients with marginal hepatic reserve (i.e., hyperbilirubinemia, ascites) who may be candidates for transplant.
Gene promoter methylation in colorectal cancer and healthy adjacent mucosa specimens

We evaluated the promoter methylation levels of the APC, MGMT, hMLH1, RASSF1A and CDKN2A genes in 107 colorectal cancer (CRC) samples and 80 healthy adjacent tissues. We searched for correlation with both physical and pathological features, polymorphisms of folate metabolism pathway genes (MTHFR, MTRR, MTR, RFC1, TYMS, and DNMT3B), and data on circulating folate, vitamin B12 and homocysteine, which were available in a subgroup of the CRC patients. An increased number of methylated samples were found in CRC respect to adjacent healthy tissues, with the exception of APC, which was also frequently methylated in healthy colonic mucosa. Statistically significant associations were found between RASSF1A promoter methylation and tumor stage, and between hMLH1 promoter methylation and tumor location. Increasing age positively correlated with both hMLH1 and MGMT methylation levels in CRC tissues, and with APC methylation levels in the adjacent healthy mucosa. Concerning gender, females showed higher hMLH1 promoter methylation levels with respect to males. In CRC samples, the MTR 2756AG genotype correlated with higher methylation levels of RASSF1A, and the TYMS 1494 6bp ins/del polymorphism correlated with the methylation levels of both APC and hMLH1. In adjacent healthy tissues, MTR 2756AG and TYMS 1494 6bp del/del genotypes correlated with APC and MGMT promoter methylation, respectively. Low folate levels were associated with hMLH1 hypermethylation. Present results support the hypothesis that DNA methylation in CRC depends from both physiological and environmental factors, with one-carbon metabolism largely involved in this process.
Inactivation and neutralization of parvovirus B19 Genotype 3

BACKGROUND: Parvovirus B19 (B19V) is a common contaminant of human plasma donations. Three B19V genotypes have been defined based on their DNA sequence. Reliable detection of Genotype 3 DNA has proved problematic because of unexpected sequence variability. B19V Genotype 3 is found primarily in West Africa, but was recently detected in plasma from a North American donor. The safety of plasma‐derived medicinal products, with respect to B19V, relies on exclusion of high‐titer donations, combined with virus clearance at specific manufacturing steps. Studies on inactivation of B19V are difficult to perform and inactivation of Genotype 3 has not yet been investigated.