Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Perineal powder use and risk of ovarian cancer.

BACKGROUND Case-control studies have reported an increased risk of ovarian cancer among talc users; however, the only cohort study to date found no association except for an increase in serous invasive ovarian cancers. The purpose of this analysis was to assess perineal powder use and risk of ovarian cancer prospectively in the Women's Health Initiative Observational Study cohort. METHODS Perineal powder use was assessed at baseline by self-report regarding application to genitals, sanitary napkins, or diaphragms and duration of use. The primary outcome was self-reported ovarian cancer centrally adjudicated by physicians. Cox proportional hazard regression was used to estimate risk, adjusting for covariates, including person-time until diagnosis of ovarian cancer (n = 429), death, loss to follow-up, or September 17, 2012. All statistical tests were two-sided. RESULTS Among 61576 postmenopausal women, followed for a mean of 12.4 years without a history of cancer or bilateral oophorectomy, 52.6% reported ever using perineal powder. Ever use of perineal powder (hazard ratio [HR]adj = 1.06, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.87 to 1.28) was not associated with risk of ovarian cancer compared with never use. Individually, ever use of powder on the genitals (HRadj = 1.12, 95% CI = 0.92 to 1.36), sanitary napkins (HRadj = 0.95, 95% CI = 0.76 to 1.20), or diaphragms (HRadj = 0.92, 95% CI = 0.68 to 1.23) was not associated with risk of ovarian cancer compared with never use, nor were there associations with increasing durations of use. Estimates did not differ when stratified by age or tubal ligation status. CONCLUSION Based on our results, perineal powder use does not appear to influence ovarian cancer risk.
Feed Deprivation Affects Crop Environment and Modulates Salmonella enteritidis Colonization and Invasion of Leghorn Hens

ABSTRACT Leghorn hens over 50 weeks of age were assigned to two treatment groups designated as either unmolted controls or molted. A forced molt was induced by a 9-day feed withdrawal, and each hen was challenged orally with 105Salmonella enteritidisorganisms on day 4 of feed withdrawal. On days 4 and 9 of molt, the numbers of lactobacilli and the concentrations of lactate, acetate, propionate, and butyrate, and total volatile fatty acids in the crops decreased while crop pH increased significantly (P < 0.05) in the molted hens compared to the controls. S. enteritidis crop and cecal colonization, in addition to spleen and liver invasion, increased significantly (P < 0.05) in the molted hens compared to the controls. The invasive phenotype of Salmonella spp. is complex and requires several virulence genes which are regulated by the transcriptional activator HilA. Samples of the crop contents from the molted and unmolted birds were pooled separately, centrifuged, and filter sterilized. The sterile crop contents were then used to measure the expression of hilA. By using a lacZYtranscriptional fusion to the hilA gene in S. enteritidis, we found that hilA expression was 1.6- to 2.1-fold higher in the crop contents from molted birds than in those from control birds in vitro. The results of the study suggest that the changes in the microenvironment of the crop caused by feed deprivation are important regulators of S. enteritidis survival and influence the susceptibility of molted hens to S. enteritidis infections. Furthermore, our in vitro results on the expression of hilA suggest that the change in crop environment during feed withdrawal has the potential to significantly affect virulence by increasing the expression of genes necessary for intestinal invasion.
STUDENTS’ ERRORS AND THE LEARNING OF FRENCH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE. A PILOT STUDY

Une amelioration de TenseigAement d'une lang u e etrangfere suppose une connaissance des difficultes qu'auront les 61eves apprenant un deuxieme Systeme linguistique. Dans ce contexte, on a attache beaucoup d'importance aux analyses contrastives visant ä une comparaison systematique entre la langue maternelle et la langue cible. De telles analyses permettent de prevoir les fautes dues a une interference et d'arranger la progression de fa£on a eviter, dfes le debut, les fautes de ce genre. L'article d crit une analyse qualitative et quantitative d'erreurs commises par 124 anglophones, a un niveau d'apprentissage moyen, dans un test de grammaire francaise. II s'est av6re que de nombreuses erreurs ne s'expliquent pas par Interference de la langue maternelle, et ne se laissent par consequent pas prevoir a partir d'une analyse contrastive. On peut en tirer la conclusion que, dans 1'organisation d'un programme d'enseignement de langues, ainsi que dans le choix des elements, il faut tenir compte non seulement des donnoes de l'analyse contrastive mais aussi d'autres facteurs psychologiques susceptible^ d'influencer le choix de 1'flfcve.
The Effect of Parental Divorce on Discomfort and Cardiac Activity in Response to Public Displays of Affection in College Females

Two studies examined the effect of parental divorce on feelings of discomfort and cardiac activity in response to public displays of affection (PDAs). In the first study, females from divorced homes reported marginally significant higher discomfort in response to PDAs than females from intact homes. In the second study, 32 female participants (16 from divorced homes and 16 from intact homes) viewed a PDA video and a control video and subsequently were asked to complete the same measure of discomfort as in Study 1. Interbeat intervals (IBIs) were recorded, and mean IBI and respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) were derived. IBI and RSA increased in both groups in response to the videos over baseline. No differences were found between the divorce and intact groups for responses to the PDA video. However, the divorce group had higher heart rates and lower RSA overall, which suggests a potential mechanism for the association between divorce and negative physical health outcomes in women. Future studies should examine mediators of the relationship between divorce and reactions to PDA, such as marital conflict and parenting quality.
Effects of anxiety on handgun shooting behavior of police officers: a pilot study

Abstract The current pilot study aimed at providing an initial assessment of how anxiety influences police officers’ shooting behavior. Seven police officers participated and completed an identical shooting exercise under two experimental conditions: low anxiety, against a non-threatening opponent, and high anxiety (HA), against a threatening opponent who occasionally shot back using colored soap cartridges. Measurements included shooting accuracy, movement times, head/body orientation, and blink behavior. Results showed that under HA, shooting accuracy decreased. Underlying this degradation of performance, participants acted faster and made themselves smaller to reduce the chance of being hit. Furthermore, they blinked more often, leading to increases in the amount of time participants had their eyes closed. Findings provide support for attentional control theory, hereby also pointing to possible interventions to improve police officers’ shooting performance under pressure.
Forecasting the declining rate of chronic hepatitis-B carrier status at a Taiwanese university: twenty years after implementation of an universal HBV vaccination program in Taiwan.

BACKGROUND Prior to the introduction of universal hepatitis B virus (HBV) vaccination in Taiwan in 1984, 15-20% of the general population were chronic HBV carriers. METHODS We forecasted and quantified the declining HBV carrier rate 20 years subsequent to the implementation of universal HBV vaccination in Taiwan. At a Taiwanese university, 28,763 freshmen tested for serum HBsAg level were divided into ten age cohorts by date of birth, from July 1976 to June 1986 inclusive. Comparisons of HBsAg carrier rates according to gender were examined with the Z test. Regression methods and a time series model were applied to our sample to forecast trends in changes to the HBsAg carrier rate for the next five years. RESULTS Regression analysis demonstrated a trend toward declining HBsAg-positive carrier rates. The HBsAg carrier rate for male students decreased from 16.8% (for those born between July 1976 and June 1977) to 2.2% (for those born between July 1985 and June 1986). The carrier rate for their female counterparts over the same period declined from 12.2% to 2.4%. The HBsAg carrier rate for male participants was significantly greater than that of their female counterparts for certain years during the test period. The results of time series analysis suggests the HBsAg carrier status rate will approach zero for students born after July 1987 (expected to enrol in the university in 2006). CONCLUSIONS Our data demonstrate that in order for the HBV carrier rate to approximate zero, universal vaccination programs need to continue for at least 21 years.
Measuring the improving quality of outpatient care in medical oncology practices in the United States.

66 Background: The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Quality Oncology Practice Initiative (QOPI) has provided a method for measurement of process based practice quality since 2006. We sought to determine whether QOPI participants show improvement in measured quality over time, and if change is demonstrated, those factors in either the measures or participants which are associated with change. METHODS 156 participant medical practice groups, which did not submit trainee data, participated in at least two collection rounds from 2006 through 2010, and reported on ≥30 patients per round from were included in analysis from a larger group of 306 participants from this time period. A database of these reports was used to evaluate trends in scoring among participants. A linear regression model, which controlled for varied initial performance, was used to estimate the effect of participation over time and evaluate participant and measure characteristics. Measures were aggregated into categories to evaluate which factors correlated with change. RESULTS Participants completed a mean of 5.71 (S.D. 1.84) rounds of data collection. Adjusted mean quality scores improved from 0.71 (95% C.I. 0.42 - 0.91) to 0.85 (95% C.I. 0.60 - 0.95). Overall odds ratio of improvement over time was 1.09 (p < 0.0001). The greatest improvement was seen in measures assessing newly introduced clinical information, where the mean scores improved from 0.05 (95% C.I. 0.01 - 0.17) to 0.69 (95% C.I. 0.33 - 0.91), (p ≤ 0.0001). Many measures showed no change over time. CONCLUSIONS QOPI has gained widespread adoption and approximately 15% of U.S. medical oncologists participate. Participation over time is highly correlated with improvement in measured performance. Much of this improvement is the result of the adoption of newly introduced clinical information. Some measures show no change despite significant opportunity for improvement.
The Role of Coat Color and Ear Shape on the Perception of Personality in Dogs

ABSTRACT This study investigated a question related to people's perceptions of dog personality. We examined whether people attribute personality characteristics to dogs based on physical features of the dog, specifically, coat color and ear shape. In order to address this question, we presented participants with photographs of dogs in which a single physical characteristic of the dog, either coat color (black vs. yellow) or ear shape (pointy ears vs. floppy ears) had been manipulated. Participants (n = 124) completed an online survey in which they rated the personality of the dogs (one black, one yellow, one with pointy ears, and one with floppy ears) while viewing these photographs. Participants rated dog personality using a brief inventory of the Big Five personality dimensions (the Ten-Item Personality Inventory). Participants rated the yellow dog significantly higher than the black dog on the personality dimensions of Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Emotional Stability. The floppy-eared dog was rated significantly higher than the pointyeared dog on Agreeableness and Emotional Stability and significantly lower on Extraversion. These results indicate that people attribute different personality characteristics to dogs based solely on physical characteristics of the dog. These results have implications for how people judge personality variables in dogs, particularly during brief encounters where physical attributes of the animal are likely to be highly salient.
The Legionella longbeachae Icm/Dot Substrate SidC Selectively Binds Phosphatidylinositol 4-Phosphate with Nanomolar Affinity and Promotes Pathogen Vacuole-Endoplasmic Reticulum Interactions

ABSTRACT Legionella spp. cause the severe pneumonia Legionnaires' disease. The environmental bacteria replicate intracellularly in free-living amoebae and human alveolar macrophages within a distinct, endoplasmic reticulum (ER)-derived compartment termed the Legionella-containing vacuole (LCV). LCV formation requires the bacterial Icm/Dot type IV secretion system (T4SS) that translocates into host cells a plethora of different “effector” proteins, some of which anchor to the pathogen vacuole by binding to phosphoinositide (PI) lipids. Here, we identified by unbiased pulldown assays in Legionella longbeachae lysates a 111-kDa SidC homologue as the major phosphatidylinositol 4-phosphate [PtdIns(4)P]-binding protein. The PI-binding domain was mapped to a 20-kDa P4C [PtdIns(4)P binding of SidC] fragment. Isothermal titration calorimetry revealed that SidC of L. longbeachae (SidCLlo) binds PtdIns(4)P with a Kd (dissociation constant) of 71 nM, which is 3 to 4 times lower than that of the SidC orthologue of Legionella pneumophila (SidCLpn). Upon infection of RAW 264.7 macrophages with L. longbeachae, endogenous SidCLlo or ectopically produced SidCLpn localized in an Icm/Dot-dependent manner to the PtdIns(4)P-positive LCVs. An L. longbeachae ΔsidC deletion mutant was impaired for calnexin recruitment to LCVs in Dictyostelium discoideum amoebae and outcompeted by wild-type bacteria in Acanthamoeba castellanii. Calnexin recruitment was restored by SidCLlo or its orthologues SidCLpn and SdcALpn. Conversely, calnexin recruitment was restored by SidCLlo in L. pneumophila lacking sidC and sdcA. Together, biochemical, genetic, and cell biological data indicate that SidCLlo is an L. longbeachae effector that binds through a P4C domain with high affinity to PtdIns(4)P on LCVs, promotes ER recruitment to the LCV, and thus plays a role in pathogen-host interactions.
Scalable mechanism design for the procurement of services with uncertain durations

In this paper, we study a service procurement problem with uncertainty as to whether service providers are capable of completing a given task within a specifie deadline. This type of setting is often encountered in large and dynamic multi-agent systems, such as computational Grids or clouds. To effectively deal with this uncertainty, the consumer may dynamically and redundantly procure multiple services over time, in order to increase the probability of success, while at the same time balancing this with the additional procurement costs. However, in order to do this optimally, the consumer requires information about the providers' costs and their success probabilities over time. This information is typically held privately by the providers and they may have incentives to misreport this, so as to increase their own profits To address this problem, we introduce a novel mechanism that incentivises self-interested providers to reveal their true costs and capabilities, and we show that this mechanism is ex-post incentive compatible, efficien and individually rational. However, for these properties to hold, it generally needs to compute the optimal solution, which can be intractable in large settings. Therefore, we show how we can generate approximate solutions while maintaining the economic properties of the mechanism. This approximation admits a polynomial-time solution that can be computed in seconds even for hundreds of providers, and we demonstrate empirically that it performs as well as the optimal in typical scenarios. In particularly challenging settings, we show that it still achieves 97% or more of the optimal.
Evaluating the Effectiveness of the Four-Step Assessment Model in Structural Family Therapy

The study examined the effectiveness of the four step model of structural family therapy developed by Minuchin, Nichols, and Lee (2007). It also examined the role of empathy in the therapy process, as well as sex differences. Seven therapy recordings were used, which were obtained from the archives of the Minuchin Center for the Family. Three undergraduate raters rated how the adult clients responded in regards to each of the four steps. Two undergraduate raters and an expert structural family therapist rated the therapists on their implementation of the four step model, and their empathy towards each adult client. Results showed that the therapist’s adherence to the four step model was positively correlated with positive client responses indicating in-session change, but contingent on empathy expressed towards that client. Empathy was shown to be a moderator in the relationship between therapists’ adherence to the four step model and client response. The therapy process is also talked about in depth.
Male microchimerism in women with systemic sclerosis and healthy women who have never given birth to a son

Background: Male DNA or cells are often used to measure microchimerism in a woman. In studies of autoimmune diseases male microchimerism is most often attributed to the previous birth of a son. Objective: To determine the frequency of male microchimerism in healthy women or women with systemic sclerosis who had never given birth to a son. Methods: Real time quantitative polymerase chain reaction targeting the Y chromosome specific sequence DYS14 was employed to test DNA extracted from peripheral blood mononuclear cells of 26 women with systemic sclerosis and 23 healthy women who had never given birth to a son. Results are expressed as the genome equivalent number of male cells per million host cells (gEq/mil). Results: Male DNA was found in 15% of women with systemic sclerosis (range 0 to 23.7 gEq/mil) and in 13% of healthy women (range 0 to 5.1 gEq/mil). Although two women with male DNA had an induced abortion, most had no history of spontaneous or induced abortion (either systemic sclerosis or healthy). Conclusions: Microchimerism with male DNA can be found in the circulation of women who have never given birth to a son. Thus sources other than a male birth must be considered when male DNA is used to measure microchimerism. Although other studies are needed, there was no apparent difference in women with systemic sclerosis and healthy women. Possible sources of male DNA include unrecognised male pregnancy or unrecognised male twin, an older male sibling with transfer through the maternal circulation, or sexual intercourse alone.
Infant Orthopedics and Facial Growth in Complete Unilateral Cleft Lip and Palate until Six Years of Age (Dutchcleft)

Objective: To evaluate longitudinally the effect of infant orthopedics (IO) on dentofacial cephalometric variables in unilateral cleft lip and palate (UCLP) patients from 4 to 6 years of age. Design: Prospective two-arm randomized controlled clinical trial in three cleft palate centers in The Netherlands (Dutchcleft trial). Patients: Fifty-four children with complete UCLP. Interventions: Patients were divided randomly into two groups. Half of the patients (IO+) had IO until surgical closure of the soft palate at the age of ±52 weeks; the other half (IO−) received no intervention. Mean Outcome Measures: Cephalometric values representing soft tissue, hard tissue, and dental structures, measured on lateral headfilms made at 4 and 6 years of age. Results: In the IO+ group, 21 patients were analyzed; in the IO− group, 20 patients were analyzed at age 4 and 22 at age 6. No differences were found between IO+ and IO−, except for two measurements: The interincisal angle was larger and the mentolabial angle was smaller in the IO+ group. Conclusions: For infants with UCLP whose surgical management included soft palate repair at 12 months and delayed hard palate closure, cephalometric outcomes at ages 4 and 6 provide no indication for the type of IO used in this study.
Reducing transience during animation: a cognitive load perspective

Animation has an inherent advantage over static graphics when presenting dynamic content because it provides a more accurate and realistic depiction. Simultaneously, animation has an inherent disadvantage because most animated information is perceptually transient. In this quasi-experimental study, cognitive load theory was used to investigate the extent to which animation’s transience could be ameliorated with the incorporation of a pause/play feature or a tracing feature that lets previous information remain visually available on screen instead of disappearing after a brief display. Continuous animation, animation with pause/play and their equivalent static graphics, each designed with either a trace or no trace, were used to instruct 228 post-secondary technical education students on how an electrical circuit works. All formats were accompanied with the same on-screen text. The pattern of results, especially the interactions, indicated that animation with a pause/play format obtained the highest efficiency in the no tracing condition, while the continuous animation format obtained the highest efficiency in the tracing condition. These results suggest that by restructuring the dynamic information, the negative instructional consequences of the transient nature of animation can be counteracted to make it more efficient for learning than static graphics.
Antitumor and Cytotoxic Effects of Phyllanthus polyphyllus on Ehrlich Ascites Carcinoma and Human Cancer Cell Lines

To evaluate the antitumor and cytotoxic activity of methanol extract of Phyllanthus polyphyllus (MPP) in mice and human cancer cell lines, the antitumor activity of MPP was evaluated against an Ehrlich ascites carcinoma (EAC) tumor model. The activity was assessed using survival time, hematological studies, lipid peroxidation (LPO), antioxidant enzymes such as superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase, glutathione peroxidase (GPx), glutathione S-transferase (GST), solid tumor mass, and short-term in vitro cytotoxicity. The cytotoxic activity of MPP was evaluated using human breast cancer (MCF7), colon cancer (HT29), and liver cancer (HepG2) cell lines Oral administration of MPP (200 and 300 mg/kg) increased the survival time and significantly reduced the solid tumor volume in a dose-dependent manner. Hematological parameters, protein, and packed cellular volume (PCV), which were altered by tumor inoculation, were restored. MPP significantly decreased the levels of LPO, GPx, GST, and significantly increased the levels of SOD and CAT. In a cytotoxicity study against human cancer cell lines, MPP was found to have IC50 values of 27, 42 and 38 μg/ml on MCF-7, HT-29, and HepG2 cells respectively. MPP possessed significant antitumor and cytotoxic activity on EAC and human cancer cell lines.
Parametric analysis of tubular linear machines

An electromagnetic linear motor with double-sided back irons is proposed in this paper. The magnetic field is formulated analytically based on magnetic vector potential and Laplace's equations. The simulation result is compared with numerical result from finite element calculation. It shows that the analytical model fits with numerical result closely. The magnetic field model is employed to analyze the effect of structure parameters on the magnetic field, which is very useful for design optimization of linear motors.