Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An Immune Evasion Mechanism for Spirochetal Persistence in Lyme Borreliosis

Borrelia burgdorferi, the Lyme disease spirochete, persistently infects mammalian hosts despite the development of strong humoral responses directed against the pathogen. Here we describe a novel mechanism of immune evasion by B. burgdorferi. In immunocompetent mice, spirochetes that did not express ospC (the outer-surface protein C gene) were selected within 17 d after inoculation, concomitantly with the emergence of anti-OspC antibody. Spirochetes with no detectable OspC transcript that were isolated from immunocompetent mice reexpressed ospC after they were either cultured in vitro or transplanted to naive immunocompetent mice, but not in OspC-immunized mice. B. burgdorferi persistently expressed ospC in severe combined immune-deficient (SCID) mice. Passive immunization of B. burgdorferi–infected SCID mice with an anti-OspC monoclonal antibody selectively eliminated ospC-expressing spirochetes but did not clear the infection. OspC-expressing spirochetes reappeared in SCID mice after the anti-OspC antibody was eliminated. We submit that selection of surface-antigen nonexpressers is an immune evasion mechanism that contributes to spirochetal persistence.
Device Instability Under High Gate and Drain Biases in InGaZnO Thin Film Transistors

An experimental investigation of channel-hot-carrier-induced device degradation in indium-gallium-zinc oxide (IGZO) thin-film transistors was undertaken for different stress biases and channel widths. Although there is no shift of the transfer curve after only a positive gate stress, a negative shift of the transfer curve is observed after both positive gate and drain stresses. The decrease in threshold voltage and the increase in the inverse subthreshold slope are observed. The negative shift of the transfer curve may be attributed to the doubly charged oxygen vacancies generated by the injection of the channel hot electrons into the gate dielectric layer. From the measurements with different drain stresses at a constant gate stress, it was found that the device degradation occurred when the lateral electric field reaches a critical value. From device simulations and measurements, it was found that the interface trap charges are located near the source side at high gate stress voltages. On the other hand, they are located near the drain side at lower gate stress voltages. The device degradation was the most significant at the stress condition of V GS = VDS, when the stress VDS is constant. Device degradation increases with channel widths.
Effect of macrophages on breast cancer cell proliferation, and on expression of hormone receptors, uPAR and HER-2

Malignant tumors, including breast cancers, are frequently infiltrated with innate immune cells and tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) represent the major inflammatory component in stroma of many tumors. In this study, we examined the immunoreactivity of the macrophage markers CD68 and CD163 as well as the hormone receptors estrogen receptor α (ERα), progesterone receptor (PR), estrogen receptor β1 (ERβ1), human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER-2), matrix metalloproteinase 9 (MMP-9), urokinase-type plasminogen activator receptor (uPAR) and the proliferations marker Ki67 in 17 breast cancer biopsies. The quantitative score for CD68+ and CD163+ strongly indicate M2 phenotype dominance in the currently investigated biopsies. We found that an increasing level of macrophages was negatively associated with ERα or PR, whereas a positive association was observed for Ki-67 or uPAR. No significant association could be seen between the level of macrophage and HER-2, ERβ1 or MMP-9 expression. Effect of conditioned media (CM) generated from cultured human M1 and M2 macrophage phenotypes were investigated on the proliferation and expression of selected markers in the T47D breast cancer cell line. We found that in contrast to the in vivo situation, in particularly the CM from M1 macrophages decreased the growth and Ki67 expression in T47D, and significantly increased ERβ1 mRNA levels. Moreover, in accordance to the in vivo situation the CM from the macrophages decreased the expression of ERα protein as well as ERα or PR mRNA. In conclusion our results show that macrophages alone have the capability to decrease the tumor cell expression of ERα and PR in vitro. In the tumor environment in vivo macrophages also contribute to an increase in tumor cell expression of uPAR and Ki67, suggesting that macrophages are involved in impairing the prognosis for breast cancer patients.
The Stat3/5 Signaling Biosignature in Hematopoietic Stem/Progenitor Cells Predicts Response and Outcome in Myelodysplastic Syndrome Patients Treated with Azacitidine

Purpose: Azacitidine is the mainstay of high-risk myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) therapy, but molecular predictors of response and the mechanisms of resistance to azacitidine remain largely unidentified. Deregulation of signaling via Stat3 and Stat5 in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is associated with aggressive disease. Numerous genes involved in cell signaling are aberrantly methylated in MDS, yet the alterations and the effect of azacitidine treatment on Stat3/5 signaling in high-risk MDS have not been explored. Experimental Design: We assessed longitudinally constitutive and ligand-induced phospho-Stat3/5 signaling responses by multiparametric flow cytometry in 74 patients with MDS and low blast count AML undergoing azacitidine therapy. Pretreatment Stat3/5 signaling profiles in CD34+ cells were grouped by unsupervised clustering. The differentiation stage and the molecular properties of the CD34+ G-CSF–inducible Stat3/5 double-positive subpopulation were performed by flow cytometry and quantitative real-time PCR in isolated MDS progenitors. Results: The pretreatment Stat3/5 signaling profiles in CD34+ cells correlated strongly with response and cytogenetics and independently predicted event-free survival. We further identified a CD34+ G-CSF–inducible Stat3/5 double-positive subpopulation (DP subset) whose pretreatment levels were inversely associated with treatment response and cytogenetics. The kinetics of the DP subset followed the response to azacitidine and the disease course, whereas its molecular characteristics and cellular hierarchy were consistent with a leukemia propagating cell phenotype. Conclusions: Our findings provide a novel link among Stat3/5 signaling and MDS pathobiology and suggest that the Stat3/5 signaling biosignature may serve as both a response biomarker and treatment target. Clin Cancer Res; 22(8); 1958–68. ©2015 AACR.
Dimensions, antecedents, and consequences of workaholism: a conceptual integration and extension

While the concept of workaholism has received a good deal of attention in the popular press, theoretical and empirical research have lagged behind. In part, the lack of a formal, agreed upon definition of the construct and its dimensions has hampered research on this topic. The purpose of this review is to offer a cohesive definition of workaholism, discuss its underlying dimensions, and identify its key antecedents and consequences. Measurement issues, directions for future research, and implications for management practice are discussed as well. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Standards of adequacy in Functional Grammar

Functional Grammar (henceforth FG) was first described in detail in Dik (1978). The theory of Functional Grammar, Part i (hereafter referred to as TFGi) presents the theory as seen by Dik in I989, building in insights from the large number of FG publications which have appeared since 1978, and also from discussions at conferences, seminars and research group meetings. In a review such as this, it is impossible to do full justice to the wealth of theoretical and descriptive detail contained in the book. I shall therefore first give an outline of the overall content and organization of the volume,' and then concentrate on the extent to which the theory of FG, as expounded in the book, achieves the standards of adequacy it sets for itself. Finally, I shall discuss a further specific issue relating to the theory, that of 'layering'.
Prognostic Significance of Metastatic Site at Diagnosis in Wilms' Tumor: Results From a Single Center

The purpose of this study was to identify the prognostic significance of pulmonary and liver involvements present at diagnosis in children with Wilms' tumor. From 1971 to 2002, 57 patients with stage IV Wilms' tumor were diagnosed, treated, and followed in the authors' institution. Metastases were detected by chest radiography, abdominal ultrasonography, and/or thoracoabdominal computed tomography. Nephrectomy with tumor resection was performed and appropriate chemotherapy was given to all the patients. The Kaplan-Meier survival method was used to calculate survival. The log-rank test was used to compare the groups with respect to survival. The age range was 1.25 to 15 years (median 4 years). Thirty-seven patients had only lung metastases, 12 had only liver metastases, 6 had both lung and liver metastases, 1 had adrenal gland metastases, and 1 had other site metastases. The overall survival rate in the whole group was 37.1%. The overall survival rates for lung and liver metastases were 50.2% and 16.6%, respectively. The overall survival rates were significantly different between the two groups (P = 0.005). Only one patient survived in the group with liver involvement. Liver involvement at diagnosis indicates a worse prognosis than lung involvement. Wilms' tumor patients with liver metastases should be treated with more intensive regimens than those with lung metastases.
Subjective Reports and Postural Performance Among Older Adult Passengers on a Sea Voyage

We sought to evaluate changes in subjective experience and postural performance among older adult passengers during the first 2 days of a sea voyage. On a vacation cruise, volunteer passengers gave verbal ratings of subjective bodily stability and awareness of ship motion followed by performance on the tandem Romberg test while facing fore-aft and athwartship. Data were collected when the ship was at the dock and on each of the first 2 full days at sea. Ship motion reduced subjective bodily stability and performance on the Romberg test and increased awareness of ship motion. On the first day at sea, Romberg performance was more strongly impacted by motion of the ship in roll (i.e., when facing fore-aft) than in pitch (i.e., when facing athwartship). Also on the first day at sea, subjective bodily stability was correlated with Romberg performance when facing fore-aft but not when facing athwart. In summary, at the beginning of the voyage older adult passengers on a sea voyage exhibited consistent changes in subjective awareness and postural performance. Subjective reports were correlated with postural performance in ways that appeared to be functional. We suggest that this finding may help to illuminate the role of conscious awareness within ecological analyses of perception and action.
The Effects of Feedback on Students' Composition Revisions

In teaching writing to second language learners, the use of peer evaluations as stimuli for revision, instead of the more traditional normative teacher evaluation, constitutes an attempt to provide the learner with feedback at his/her stage of development. Whether or not one of these evaluation methods is superior in promoting revi sion has not been determined objectively. This study compares differences in English as a second language learners' improvement in revision of their compositions depending on the method of evaluation, whether teacher comments, or peer evaluations. The measure of improvement used is the ESL Composi tion Profile (Jacobs, et al. 1981). Several factors are considered, including the level of learner (intermediate or advanced) and the degree of interest expressed by the learners in receiving evaluation of one type or the other. The method of providing peer reformulation is also compared briefly with teacher and peer evaluation. It was found that neither teacher nor peer feedback was superior in promoting improve ment on revision, although the results are limited because they are based on a small group of students. 1
The Occupational Assimilation of Hispanic Immigrants in the U.S.: Evidence from Panel Data 1

This study focuses on the occupational component of the labor market adjustment of Hispanic immigrants. The author asks whether Hispanic immigrants assimilate with natives and what factors influence occupational attainment. The findings suggest that years since migration narrow the socioeconomic gap between Hispanic immigrants, their U.S.-born Hispanic counterparts, and non-Hispanic whites. The level of human capital affects the rate of occupational mobility and determines whether convergence occurs in the groups' socioeconomic occupational status. The occupational status of Hispanic immigrants with low human capital remains fairly stable and does not converge with that of non-Hispanic whites. However, those with high human capital experience upward occupational mobility. In part, their occupational assimilation is driven by the acquisition of human capital among younger Hispanic immigrants.
Australian Women and Careers: Psychological and Contextual Influences over the Life Course

1. Changing perspectives on work and careers 2. Towards a theory of careers for men and women 3. The career development project: careers in a transitional context 4. Precursors to career orientation and success 5. Career plans, motivations and achievement 6. Attaining professional careers 7. Women and success: subjective and objective perceptions 8. Orientations in women's lives: ambivalence and conflict 9. Determining career orientations in women 10. Career dilemmas: conflict in the home-work nexus 11. Lifestyle satisfaction 12. Contextualist frameworks of careers, the career development project and changing scenarios.
[F‐18]‐fluorodeoxy‐D‐glucose–positron emission tomography response is associated with outcome for extremity osteosarcoma in children and young adults

Response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy is 1 of the most powerful prognostic factors for extremity osteosarcoma. [F‐18]‐fluorodeoxy‐D‐glucose–positron emission tomography (FDG‐PET) is a noninvasive imaging modality that is used to predict histopathologic response. To determine the prognostic value of FDG‐PET response for progression‐free survival (PFS) in osteosarcoma, the authors of this report reviewed the University of Washington Medical Center experience.
Diversity of Children's Immediate Coping Responses to Witnessing Domestic Violence

SUMMARY This study explored the immediate coping strategies children employ (e.g., getting help) in response to witnessing physical and emotional violence against their mothers. Using a clustering technique, children's patterns of coping strategies were examined. While most children shared similar emotional reactions to the abuse against their mothers, their behavioral reactions varied substantially. Four distinct clusters were differentiated by whether or not children (1) became aggressive against the assailant and sought help, (2) became overprotective of their mothers, (3) avoided or ignored the abuse, or (4) had little response at all. An examination of cluster definers suggests that children's responses depend on situational factors rather than child characteristics (e.g., gender). Specifically, children who had little response at all to the abuse had witnessed less physical and emotional abuse than the other children. Children who became aggressive against the assailants were more likely to be living with them than children in other clusters. Virtually no differences were found across groups with regard to the relationship between coping strategy and child well being.
BREAKING THE RESOLUTION BARRIER IN OPTICAL MICROSCOPY: A NEW RESOLUTION MEASURE WITH APPLICATIONS TO SINGLE MOLECULE IMAGING

Rayleigh's resolution criterion, although extensively used in optical microscopy, is well known to be based on heuristic notions. In fact, recent single molecule experiments have shown that this criterion can be surpassed in a regular optical microscope. The inadequacy of Rayleigh's criterion has necessitated a reassessment of the resolution limits of optical microscopes. Recently, we proposed a new resolution measure that overcomes the limitations of Rayleigh's criterion. Known as the fundamental resolution measure FREM, our new result predicts that distances well below Rayleigh's limit can be resolved in an optical microscope. The effect of deteriorating experimental factors on the new resolution measure is also investigated. Further, it is experimentally verified that distances well below Rayleigh's limit can be measured from images of closely spaced single molecules with an accuracy as predicted by the new resolution measure. We have also addressed an important problem in single molecule microscopy that concerns the accuracy with which the location of a single molecule can be determined. In particular, we have derived analytical expressions for the limit to the 2D/3D localization accuracy of a single molecule.
Improving processor performance by dynamically pre-processing the instruction stream

The exponentially increasing gap between processors and off-chip memory, as measured in processor cycles, is rapidly turning memory latency into a major processor performance bottleneck. Traditional solutions, such as employing multiple levels of caches, are expensive and do not work well with some applications. We evaluate a technique, called runahead pre-processing, that can significantly improve processor performance. The basic idea behind runahead is to use the processor pipeline to pre-process instructions during cache miss cycles, instead of stalling. The pre-processed instructions are used to generate highly accurate instruction and data stream prefetches, while all of the pre-processed instruction results are discarded after the cache miss has been serviced: this allows us to achieve a form of very aggressive speculation with a simple in-order pipeline. The principal hardware cost is a means of checkpointing the sequential state of the register file and memory hierarchy while instructions are pre-processed. As we discard all pre-processed instruction results, the checkpointing can be accomplished with a modest amount of hardware. The instruction and data stream prefetches generated during runahead episodes led to a significant performance improvement for all of the benchmarks we examined. We found that runahead typically led to about a 30% reduction in CPI for the four Spec95 integer benchmarks that we simulated, while runahead was able to reduce CPI by 77% for the STREAM benchmark. This is for a five stage pipeline with two levels of split instruction and data caches: 8KB each of L1, and 1MB each of L2. A significant result is that when the latency to off-chip memory increases, or if the caching performance for a particular bench-mark is poor, runahead is especially effective as the processor has more opportunities in which to pre-process instructions. Finally, runahead appears particularly well suited for use with high clock-rate in-order processors that employ relatively inexpensive memory hierarchies.
Valerie Clark Offender Recidivism Blessed Be the Social Tie That Binds : The Effects of Prison Visitation on

Following recent studies in Florida and Canada, we examine the effects of prison visitation on recidivism among 16,420 offenders released from Minnesota prisons between 2003 and 2007. Using multiple measures of visitation (any visit, total number of visits, visits per month, timing of visits, and number of individual visitors) and recidivism (new offense conviction and technical violation revocation), we found that visitation significantly decreased the risk of recidivism, a result that was robust across all of the Cox regression models that were estimated. The results also showed that visits from siblings, in-laws, fathers, and clergy were the most beneficial in reducing the risk of recidivism, whereas visits from ex-spouses significantly increased the risk. The findings suggest that revising prison visitation policies to make them more “visitor friendly” could yield public safety benefits by helping offenders establish a continuum of social support from prison to the community. We anticipate, however, that revising existing policies would not likely increase visitation to a significant extent among unvisited inmates, who comprised 39% of our sample. Accordingly, we suggest that correctional systems consider allocating greater resources to increase visitation among inmates with little or no social support.
Appearance of the hymen in newborns.

This study was undertaken to evaluate the genital anatomy of female newborns. Hymenal configuration and the number and location of clefts, bumps, tags, and ridges were observed in 468 neonates; photographs for confirmation were obtained for 449 neonates (96%). Hymenal configurations observed included an annular hymen with a central or ventrally displaced orifice in 80% (372/468) of neonates, a fimbriated hymen in 19% (90/468), and a septated or cribriform hymen in 1% (6/468). Configurations significantly differed by race (P less than .001) but no difference was noted by gestational age or weight. Clefts, which occurred only on the ventral 180 degrees of the rim, were observed in 34% of neonates with an annular hymen. Fifty-six percent of neonates had a longitudinal intravaginal ridge, 87% had an external hymenal ridge, and 13% had a tag extending from the rim or a ridge. Periurethral ligaments were frequently observed. It is concluded that lateral and ventral clefts, intravaginal and external ridges, and periurethral bands are normal anatomical findings in the newborn.
Neural Evidence That Human Emotions Share Core Affective Properties

Research on the “emotional brain” remains centered around the idea that emotions like fear, happiness, and sadness result from specialized and distinct neural circuitry. Accumulating behavioral and physiological evidence suggests, instead, that emotions are grounded in core affect—a person’s fluctuating level of pleasant or unpleasant arousal. A neuroimaging study revealed that participants’ subjective ratings of valence (i.e., pleasure/displeasure) and of arousal evoked by various fear, happiness, and sadness experiences correlated with neural activity in specific brain regions (orbitofrontal cortex and amygdala, respectively). We observed these correlations across diverse instances within each emotion category, as well as across instances from all three categories. Consistent with a psychological construction approach to emotion, the results suggest that neural circuitry realizes more basic processes across discrete emotions. The implicated brain regions regulate the body to deal with the world, producing the affective changes at the core of emotions and many other psychological phenomena.
Hydrocephalus Indian scenario – A review

Hydrocephalus is a common clinical problem seen in pediatric neurosurgical practice. Hydrocephalus involves dilatation of the cerebral ventricular system with corresponding, compressive effects on the parenchyma. It can be communicative or obstructive types. Congenital, acquired, infective, and secondary hydrocephalus have different clinical features with different modality of treatments. Ventriculoperitoneal shunt is the gold standard of treatment. Endoscopic 3rd ventriculostomy is rapidly gaining prominence as an alternative. Various kinds of hydrocephalus, their pathophysiology, treatment and complications are reviewed.