Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Hypocellular acute myeloid leukemia in adults: analysis of the clinical outcome of 123 patients

Background The hypocellular variant of acute myeloid leukemia accounts for less than 10% of all cases of adult acute myeloid leukemia. It is defined by having less than 20 percent of cellular bone marrow in a biopsy at presentation. It is unclear in the literature whether the outcome of hypocellular acute myeloid leukemia differs from that of non-hypocellular acute myeloid leukemia. Design and Methods We retrospectively analyzed all the cases reported to be hypocellular acute myeloid leukemia between 2000 and 2009. A second pathology review was conducted and the diagnosis was confirmed in all cases. Results One hundred twenty-three (9%) patients were identified: patients with hypocellular acute myeloid leukemia were older than those with non-hypocellular acute myeloid leukemia (P=0.009) and more frequently presented with cytopenias (P<0.001). Forty-one patients with hypocellular acute myeloid leukemia had an antecedent hematologic disorder and 11 patients had received prior chemo-radiotherapy for non-hematopoietic neoplasms. On multivariate analysis, overall survival, remission duration and event-free survival were comparable to those of other patients with acute myeloid leukemia. Conclusions The outcome of hypocellular acute myeloid leukemia does not differ from that of non-hypocellular acute myeloid leukemia.
Retinal Waves Trigger Spindle Bursts in the Neonatal Rat Visual Cortex

During visual system development, the light-insensitive retina spontaneously generates waves of activity, which are transmitted to the lateral geniculate nucleus. The crucial question is whether retinal waves are further transmitted to the cortex and influence the early cortical patterns of activity. Using simultaneous recordings from the rat retina and visual cortex during the first postnatal week in vivo, we found that spontaneous retinal bursts are correlated with spindle bursts (intermittent network bursts associated with spindle-shape field oscillations) in the contralateral visual cortex (V1). V1 spindle bursts could be evoked by electrical stimulation of the optic nerve. Intraocular injection of forskolin, which augments retinal waves, increased the occurrence of V1 spindle bursts. Blocking propagation of retinal activity, or removal of the retina reduced the frequency, but did not completely eliminate the cortical spindle bursts. These results indicate that spontaneous retinal waves are transmitted to the visual cortex and trigger endogenous spindle bursts. We propose that the interaction between retinal waves and spindle bursts contributes to the development of visual pathways to the cortex.
Counting the Losses: People Who Do Not Pursue Their Adoption Enquiry

It has been estimated that only one in ten people making an adoption enquiry go on to adopt. Lorraine Wallis undertook a study to explore these potential losses. She presents the results of a survey completed by 245 people who had made an enquiry with one of 17 adoption agencies in England. This random sample of enquirers was designed to explore the links between the characteristics of enquirers, their decision-making about adoption and their experience of making an enquiry. The findings indicate a less pessimistic view of the outcome of people's adoption enquiry, with 46 per cent beginning the adoption process. However, it indicates the difficulties enquirers have in asking questions and finding answers to concerns about their eligibility. It shows the links between enquirers' social and economic background and the decision-making process they undertake. The study highlights the vulnerability of some enquirers to poor agency responses and the impact that enquirers' support networks and knowledge of organisations has on the outcome of their enquiry. These are issues adoption agencies need to address if they are to maximise the potential of those coming forward to enquire about adoption.
Cell division gene ftsQ is required for efficient sporulation but not growth and viability in Streptomyces coelicolor A3(2)

We show that the cell division gene ftsQ of Streptomyces coelicolor A3(2) is dispensable for growth and viability but is needed during development for the efficient conversion of aerial filaments into spores. Combined with our previous demonstration that ftsZ of S. coelicolor is not needed for viability, these findings suggest that cell division has been largely co-opted for development in this filamentous bacterium. This makes S. coelicolor an advantageous system for the study of cell division genes.
A 12 Gb/s standard cell based ECL 4:1 serializer with asynchronous parallel interface

This paper presents an implementation of an high speed, double data rate, fully differential ECL (Emitter Coupled Logic) serializer. For this purpose, a novel robust ECL standard cell library was developed. The design is composed using a digital design flow, described in Hardware Description Language (HDL), and transfered manually in the analog design environment. The serializer has a parallel 4-bit FIFO interface, and can either communicate synchronously or asynchronously using the 2-phase bundled-data protocol. The FIFO consists of 4 stages and is realized as a micropipeline with a Muller pipeline as backbone. The entire circuit is developed in a 0.25 μm SiGe BiCMOS process and operates nominally at 3.3V. Simulation results show a maximal data rate of 12 Gb/s while drawing a current of 96.64mA only. Finally, the design and its components are compared to other SiGe-based published implementations.
Olfaction-Enhanced Multimedia

Recently, the concept of olfaction-enhanced multimedia applications has gained traction as a step toward further enhancing user quality of experience. The next generation of rich media services will be immersive and multisensory, with olfaction playing a key role. This survey reviews current olfactory-related research from a number of perspectives. It introduces and explains relevant olfactory psychophysical terminology, knowledge of which is necessary for working with olfaction as a media component. In addition, it reviews and highlights the use of, and potential for, olfaction across a number of application domains, namely health, tourism, education, and training. A taxonomy of research and development of olfactory displays is provided in terms of display type, scent generation mechanism, application area, and strengths/weaknesses. State of the art research works involving olfaction are discussed and associated research challenges are proposed.
Health Maintenance Organizations: Dimensions of Performance

This book is a must for physicians and other persons who have special interests in health maintenance organizations (HMOs) as practitioners, administrators, regulators, or researchers. It is a comprehensive review of what is known and what is not known about HMOs and their performance. Crammed into the 468 pages are references to more than 900 published works and numerous charts and tables. (There are no lists of charts and tables, which would have been useful additions.) The mass of details, data, and careful references allows the reader to pursue specialized studies and to reach independent conclusions. In addition, summaries are provided at the end of each substantive chapter and in the concluding chapter that provide the author's view of what the data mean, how certain he is of the conclusions he reaches, and what additional information needs to be collected and research undertaken to understand better the nature of HMOs and their performance. The book begins with discussions of the definition of HMOs, the dimen¬ sions of performance that should be used to judge them, and the impor¬ tance of self-selection in judging HMOs. What follows is a series of chapters dealing with HMO perform¬
MAXIMUM LIKELIHOOD ESTIMATES FOR THE HYPERGEOMETRIC SOFTWARE RELIABILITY MODEL

We present a fast and exact novel algorithm to compute maximum likelihood estimates for the number of defects initially contained in a software, using the hypergeometric software reliability model. The algorithm is based on a rigorous and comprehensive mathematical analysis of the growth behavior of the likelihood function for the hypergeometric model. We also study a numerical example taken from the literature and compare the estimate obtained in the hypergeometric model with the estimates obtained in other reliability models. The hypergeometric estimate is highly accurate.
Fine-Grained Categorization by Alignments

The aim of this paper is fine-grained categorization without human interaction. Different from prior work, which relies on detectors for specific object parts, we propose to localize distinctive details by roughly aligning the objects using just the overall shape, since implicit to fine-grained categorization is the existence of a super-class shape shared among all classes. The alignments are then used to transfer part annotations from training images to test images (supervised alignment), or to blindly yet consistently segment the object in a number of regions (unsupervised alignment). We furthermore argue that in the distinction of fine grained sub-categories, classification-oriented encodings like Fisher vectors are better suited for describing localized information than popular matching oriented features like HOG. We evaluate the method on the CU-2011 Birds and Stanford Dogs fine-grained datasets, outperforming the state-of-the-art.
Can a permanent damaged brain be repairable in the phase of chronic stroke

S and traumatic brain injury (TBI) are leading cause of human death and disability across the globe. Unfortunately, there are very few effective therapies for stroke and TBI patients. Most previous and current experimental treatments have focused on affecting one signaling pathway, regulating an individual membrane protein/channel/receptor (e.g. NMDA receptor) or targeting one type of cell death mechanism (e.g. apoptosis). The failure of many clinical trials that have used these approaches in recent years has generated the consensus that for a therapy to be effective against complicated CNS disorders such as cerebral ischemia and TBI, it requires overwhelming protective effects on multiple pathways and multiple cell types. So far, there has been no therapy that is truly multifaceted and clinically feasible for acute stroke/TBI patients. One potential therapy, however, stands out for its versatile protective effects on the brain, heart and other organs: Hypothermia therapy. Mild-to-moderate hypothermia has shown remarkable neuroprotective effects (up to 90% infarct reduction) against brain ischemia in animal and human studies. Some of the drawbacks to available cooling techniques of physical means are that they are slow (3 hrs) and not practical, which have hampered clinical applications of hypothermia therapy. Thus, chemical compounds that can be utilized for hypothermia therapy have long been sought after for clinical treatments. Using drug-induced hypothermia, it is expected that even a small drop in body temperature (1-2°C) is beneficial for preventing the detrimental post-injury hyperthermia, delay the evolution of the secondary injury, and thereafter extend the therapeutic window for other interventions. We have developed novel neurotensin derivatives such as ABS201, ABS601, and ABS363 that can pass through the blood-brain barrier to induce “regulated hypothermia”, reducing body and brain temperature by 3-5°C in around 30 min without causing shivering. Systemic studies, blood tests, and autopsy examinations showed no toxic or adverse effects of these compounds. Post-ischemic administration of these compounds markedly attenuates ischemiainduced neuronal cell death, blood-brain barrier damage and improved functional recovery. In a hemorrhagic stroke model of the mouse, ABS201 administration 24 hrs after the onset of stroke still showed significant neuroprotection and functional benefits. Our recent investigation also showed protective effects of drug-induced hypothermia against TBI. These compounds thus provide a novel therapy that takes full advantage of therapeutic hypothermia but with no obvious side effects. It is expected that drug-induced hypothermia can be developed as a new category of global brain protection drugs and help to translate the chemical/pharmacological hypothermic therapy into clinical applications.
Word Recognition and Spelling Processes in Specific Reading Disabled and Garden‐variety Poor Readers

This study presents evidence relevant to the distinction between specific reading disability and non-specific or garden-variety reading difficulties. Within the context of a large scale longitudinal study of reading acquisition, regression techniques were used to define psychometrically extreme groups of specific and non-specific poor readers. Poor readers with IQs in the average to above average range and low IQ poor readers matched on age, sex and word recognition were administered a variety of word recognition and spelling measures. No significant differences were found on 25 out of 26 measures. The only statistically reliable difference emerged on the proportion of reading errors in which a real word was substituted for a regular high frequency word (MUST—‘most’). Overall, these data, together with the existing evidence, support the null hypothesis of no qualitative differences between specific and garden-variety poor readers.
The Other Type of Performance Information: Nonroutine Feedback, Its Relevance and Use

The literature on performance information use explains how public managers deal with mainly quantitative data that are systematically collected and formally reported. This article argues that such a narrow understanding is incomplete, as it excludes all kinds of nonroutine performance information, including verbal, ad hoc, and qualitative feedback. To understand how responsive public managers are to performance feedback, alternative sources of performance information need to be taken into account. A literature review suggests considering two important sources of nonroutine feedback: organizational insiders and relevant external stakeholders. Using survey data from German local government, this article shows that public managers prefer to use nonroutine feedback over routine data from performance reports. Furthermore, a regression analysis indicates that different sources of performance information require different determinants to trigger their use. This finding is essential because it suggests that explanations of performance information use can covary with the information source studied.
Emotional intelligence and negative feelings: a gender specific moderated mediation model

This study aims to clarify the effect of emotional intelligence (EI) on negative feelings (stress, anxiety, burnout and depression) in a gender specific model. Four hundred and twenty-five primary school teachers (326 males, 99 females) completed the measures of EI, stress, anxiety, burnout and depression. The multi-group analysis was performed using a structural equation approach. The moderated mediation results show that there are gender related differences in the relationships of age, emotional intelligence, stress, anxiety, burnout and depression. The results imply that school managers should take into consideration the teachers’ personal variables such as gender and age in order to assess the use of emotional intelligence in coping with negative feelings at the place of work effectively.
Female vulnerability to the development of depression-like behavior in a rat model of intimate partner violence is related to anxious temperament, coping responses, and amygdala vasopressin receptor 1a expression

Exposure to violence is traumatic and an important source of mental health disturbance, yet the factors associated with victimization remain incompletely understood. The aim of the present study was to investigate factors related to vulnerability to depression-like behaviors in females. An animal model of intimate partner violence, which was previously shown to produce long-lasting behavioral effects in females as a result of male partner aggression, was used. The associations among the degree of partner aggression, the long-term consequences on depressive-like behavior, and the impact of the anxious temperament of the female were examined. In a separate group, pre-selected neural markers were evaluated in the amygdala and the lateral septum of females. Expression was examined by analyses of targeted candidate genes, serotonin transporter (slc6a4), vasopressin receptor 1a, (avpr1a), and oxytocin receptor (oxtr). Structural equation modeling revealed that the female's temperament moderated depressive-like behavior that was induced by cohabitation aggression from the male partner. More specifically, increased floating in the forced swim test following male aggression was most apparent in females exhibiting more anxiety-like behavior (i.e., less open arm exploration in an elevated plus-maze) prior to the cohabitation. Aggression reduced slc6a4 levels in the lateral septum. However, the interaction between partner aggression and the anxious temperament of the female affected the expression of avpr1a in the amygdala. Although, aggression reduced levels of this marker in females with high anxiety, no such pattern was observed in females with low anxiety. These results identify important characteristics in females that moderate the impact of male aggression. Furthermore, these results provide potential therapeutic targets of interest in the amygdala and the lateral septum to help improve post-stress behavioral pathology and increase resilience to social adversity.
Human ESC Self-renewal Promoting microRNAs Induce Epithelial–Mesenchymal Transition in Hepatocytes by Controlling the PTEN and TGFβ Tumor Suppressor Signaling Pathways

The self-renewal capacity ascribed to embryonic stem cells (ESC) is reminiscent of cancer cell proliferation, raising speculation that a common network of genes may regulate these traits. A search for general regulators of these traits yielded a set of microRNAs for which expression is highly enriched in human ESCs and liver cancer cells (HCC) but attenuated in differentiated quiescent hepatocytes. Here, we show that these microRNAs promote hESC self-renewal, as well as HCC proliferation, and when overexpressed in normally quiescent hepatocytes, induce proliferation and activate cancer signaling pathways. Proliferation in hepatocytes is mediated through translational repression of Pten, Tgfbr2, Klf11, and Cdkn1a, which collectively dysregulates the PI3K/AKT/mTOR and TGFβ tumor suppressor signaling pathways. Furthermore, aberrant expression of these miRNAs is observed in human liver tumor tissues and induces epithelial–mesenchymal transition in hepatocytes. These findings suggest that microRNAs that are essential in normal development as promoters of ESC self-renewal are frequently upregulated in human liver tumors and harbor neoplastic transformation potential when they escape silencing in quiescent human hepatocytes. Mol Cancer Res; 10(7); 979–91. ©2012 AACR.
Performance of Prediction Models for BRCA Mutation Carriage in Three Racial/Ethnic Groups: Findings from the Northern California Breast Cancer Family Registry

Purpose: Patients with early-onset breast and/or ovarian cancer frequently wish to know if they inherited a mutation in one of the cancer susceptibility genes, BRCA1 or BRCA2. Accurate carrier prediction models are needed to target costly testing. Two widely used models, BRCAPRO and BOADICEA, were developed using data from non-Hispanic Whites (NHW), but their accuracies have not been evaluated in other racial/ethnic populations. Methods: We evaluated the BRCAPRO and BOADICEA models in a population-based series of African American, Hispanic, and NHW breast cancer patients tested for BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations. We assessed model calibration by evaluating observed versus predicted mutations and attribute diagrams, and model discrimination using areas under the receiver operating characteristic curves. Results: Both models were well-calibrated within each racial/ethnic group, with some exceptions. BOADICEA overpredicted mutations in African Americans and older NHWs, and BRCAPRO underpredicted in Hispanics. In all racial/ethnic groups, the models overpredicted in cases whose personal and family histories indicated >80% probability of carriage. The two models showed similar discrimination in each racial/ethnic group, discriminating least well in Hispanics. For example, BRCAPRO's areas under the receiver operating characteristic curves were 83% (95% confidence interval, 63-93%) for NHWs, compared with 74% (59-85%) for African Americans and 58% (45-70%) for Hispanics. Conclusions: The poor performance of the model for Hispanics may be due to model misspecification in this racial/ethnic group. However, it may also reflect racial/ethnic differences in the distributions of personal and family histories among breast cancer cases in the Northern California population. (Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2009;18(4):1084–91)
The Moderating Effect of Chronological Age on the Relation Between Neuroticism and Physical Functioning: Cross-Sectional Evidence From Two French Samples.

OBJECTIVES Prior studies of age-restricted samples have demonstrated that, in older adulthood, neuroticism is negatively associated with difficulties performing specific daily activities. No studies of neuroticism and physical functioning have been conducted on life-span samples. This study tested the hypothesis that the relationship between neuroticism and physical functioning is stronger in older people compared with younger and middle-aged adults. METHOD Data were obtained from 2 independent French samples (n = 1,132 and 1,661 for Samples 1 and 2, respectively) ranging in age from 18 to 97. In addition to reporting sociodemographics, participants completed the Big Five Inventory, the physical functioning scale of the 36-Item Short Form Health Survey, and measures of disease burden. RESULTS In both samples, regression analysis indicated that neuroticism is more negatively associated with physical functioning with advancing age, controlling for gender, marital status, disease burden, and educational attainment. DISCUSSION In life-span samples of more than 2,700 adults, neuroticism was more strongly associated with worse physical functioning among older people compared with younger and middle-aged adults. Longitudinal research is needed to confirm this finding and to identify potential mediators.
Students ’ preferences and beliefs regarding visual displays as a component of graphicacy

The literature on how students process graphics in domains in which they are not knowledgeable suggests that they possess some general knowledge and skills on how to interpret, generate and evaluate graphics over a large variety of types and domains, what we call here graphicacy. Few studies investigated the subjective component of graphicacy, in the sense of preference and perception of self-efficacy with different types of graphics. An experimental study was conducted to investigate whether subjective evaluation of preference and effectiveness of enhanced graphics was related to performance in tasks involving the mental rotation of a 3D object. Participants studied an animated or a static version of a 3D realistic visualization displaying an anatomical structure in different orientations. The results showed that students preferred animated and realistic displays. They also reported being more effective with them. There were positive correlations between the rating of animated displays and performance to one task involving mental rotation, but no effect of conditions was found on subjective rating. These findings suggest that students’ preference and beliefs of effectiveness are somehow related to performance, but more research is needed to understand this link.