Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Sub-Emetic Toxicity of Bacillus cereus Toxin Cereulide on Cultured Human Enterocyte-Like Caco-2 Cells

Cereulide (CER) intoxication occurs at relatively high doses of 8 µg/kg body weight. Recent research demonstrated a wide prevalence of low concentrations of CER in rice and pasta dishes. However, the impact of exposure to low doses of CER has not been studied before. In this research, we investigated the effect of low concentrations of CER on the behavior of intestinal cells using the Caco-2 cell line. The MTT (mitochondrial 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide) and the SRB (sulforhodamine B) reactions were used to measure the mitochondrial activity and cellular protein content, respectively. Both assays showed that differentiated Caco-2 cells were sensitive to low concentrations of CER (in a MTT reaction of 1 ng/mL after three days of treatment; in an SRB reaction of 0.125 ng/mL after three days of treatment). Cell counts revealed that cells were released from the differentiated monolayer at 0.5 ng/mL of CER. Additionally, 0.5 and 2 ng/mL of CER increased the lactate presence in the cell culture medium. Proteomic data showed that CER at a concentration of 1 ng/mL led to a significant decrease in energy managing and H2O2 detoxification proteins and to an increase in cell death markers. This is amongst the first reports to describe the influence of sub-emetic concentrations of CER on a differentiated intestinal monolayer model showing that low doses may induce an altered enterocyte metabolism and membrane integrity.
Parents' Religiosity, Family Socialization and the Mental Health of Children in Hong Kong: Do Raters Make a Difference?

Family socialization is important for the development and well-being of children. However, few studies have investigated how parents' religiosity influences childrens mental health through parental psychological health and family socialization. Whats more important, prior family studies generally drew their conclusions by heavily relying on the perspective of either the parents or the offspring and considering family socialization as tantamount to parenting. The current study uses multi-informant perspectives of the parents or the children or average of the both to investigate the above mentioned relationships, and treats family socialization as a multi-faceted concept. The findings generally support the beneficial effects of parents religiosity on their psychological health and family socialization, which in turn contribute to the mental health in children. To support its validity, the structural model is tested by different raters, which subsequently enhances personal receptivity theory. Contributions of the study and future research directions are also discussed.
Feeling Good In Spite of Failure: Understanding Race-Based Differences in Academic Achievement and Self-Esteem

Studies indicate that global self-esteem, an individual's overall sense of self-worth, and academic self-esteem, self-worth related to academics, are positively related to academic achievement. This relationship holds for white adolescents. However, while still positive, this relationship is weaker for African Americans, who have high global and academic self-esteem, but very low academic achievement. Patterns for Mexican Americans are less clear, but their global and academic self-esteem appear to fall between the range for white and African American adolescents, while their academic achievement is similar to that of African Americans. To address this, I construct Combinatoric Identity Theory (CIT), a symbolic interactionist theory that incorporates the importance of racial/ethnic and student identities into our current understandings of self-esteem and achievement. I then apply CIT to data collected on Mexican American and white tenth-graders.After a discussion of the relevant literature on education, self-esteem, and identity, I discuss my data collection strategy and techniques. This is followed by empirical analysis. Results indicate that identity processes do affect self-esteem, and that they operate in similar ways for Mexican American and white adolescents. Implications of these results and directions for future research are then presented.
The Metamorphoses of Corporatism: From Classical to Lean Patterns

Given notable fluctuations in the relevance of corporatist practices over time, did profound transformations in the profile of corporatism accompany these fluctuations? Based on data from twenty OECD countries, this article examines whether and how corporatist wage regulation changed its profile in structures, policies and performance from 1970 to 1996. The empirical evidence obtained from this analysis runs counter to the orthodox view of superior persistence and performance of classical (i.e., encompassing and centralized) structures of corporatism. Non-classical (‘lean’) structures have gained in importance and performed no worse than their classical counterparts. The article concludes by discussing the implications of the findings for corporatist theory.
Seroprevalence Following the Second Wave of Pandemic 2009 H1N1 Influenza

BACKGROUND: In April 2009, a new pandemic strain of influenza infected thousands of persons in Mexico and the United States and spread rapidly worldwide. During the ensuing summer months, cases ebbed in the Northern Hemisphere while the Southern Hemisphere experienced a typical influenza season dominated by the novel strain. In the fall, a second wave of pandemic H1N1 swept through the United States, peaking in most parts of the country by mid October and returning to baseline levels by early December. The objective was to determine the seroprevalence of antibodies against the pandemic 2009 H1N1 influenza strain by decade of birth among Pittsburgh-area residents. METHODS AND FINDINGS: Anonymous blood samples were obtained from clinical laboratories and categorized by decade of birth from 1920-2009. Using hemagglutination-inhibition assays, approximately 100 samples per decade (n= 846) were tested from blood samples drawn on hospital and clinic patients in mid-November and early December 2009. Age specific seroprevalences against pandemic H1N1 (A/California/7/2009) were measured and compared to seroprevalences against H1N1 strains that had previously circulated in the population in 2007, 1957, and 1918. (A/Brisbane/59/2007, A/Denver/1/1957, and A/South Carolina/1/1918). Stored serum samples from healthy, young adults from 2008 were used as a control group (n=100). Seroprevalences against pandemic 2009 H1N1 influenza varied by age group, with children age 10-19 years having the highest seroprevalence (45%), and persons age 70-79 years having the lowest (5%). The baseline seroprevalence among control samples from 18-24 year-olds was 6%. Overall seroprevalence against pandemic H1N1 across all age groups was approximately 21%. CONCLUSIONS: After the peak of the second wave of 2009 H1N1, HAI seroprevalence results suggest that 21% of persons in the Pittsburgh area had become infected and developed immunity. Extrapolating to the entire US population, we estimate that at least 63 million persons became infected in 2009. As was observed among clinical cases, this sero-epidemiological study revealed highest infection rates among school-age children.
A Probabilistic Approach for Detection and Analysis of Cognitive Flow

A performer may undergo a task with varying difficulty level. It is important to know the mental state in order to maintain the optimum level of performance. The mental state of an individual varies according to their IQ levels, task difficulties or other psychological or environmental reasons. We have tried to measure the cognitive state of individuals, while they are performing tasks of various complexity levels, using physiological responses like brain activation, heart rate variability and galvanic skin response. In this paper we have proposed a Bayesian network based model to probabilistically evaluate the cognitive state of an individual from the difficulty levels of the tasks, IQ level of the individual and observations made using the physiological sensing. Twenty subjects with various IQ levels are asked to play a modified Tower of London (TOL) game having three complexity levels: low, medium and high. The sensor data collected have been used to train the Bayesian model for generating the conditional probability distribution for the desired cognitive state. Results show that it can be used as a tool to determine the current cognitive state of any individual, provided we know their IQ score. In case of any contradiction between the desired cognitive state (obtained from prior knowledge) and the observed cognitive state (obtained during testing), the personal insights of a performer is analyzed.
Increase in pore area, and not pore density, is the main determinant in the development of porosity in human cortical bone

This study investigated the relative contributions of pore size and pore density (number of pores per mm2) to porosity in the midshaft of the human femur. Cross‐sections were obtained from 168 individuals from a modern Australian population (mostly Anglo‐Celtic). The study group comprised 73 females and 95 males, aged from 20 to 97 years. Microradiographs were made of 100‐µm sections and porosity, pore areas and pore densities determined using image processing software. The cortex was divided into three rings radially and into octants circumferentially, and the porosity, pore area and pore density of each segment were calculated. Results show that 81% of the variance in porosity can be explained by changes in mean pore area with only a further 12–16% explained by changes in pore density. These effects were found to be constant across all areas of the cortex and in both sexes. These results are significant in their consistency and ordered gradation and indicate a well‐regulated and systematic process of bone removal with ageing. The results show a regular progression from less porous to more porous bone; this is a uniform process that occurs in all individuals, and factors such as sex and rate of ageing determine where on this continuum any individual is at a particular time.
The Logic of XACML - Extended

We study the international standard XACML 3.0 for describing security access control policy in a compositional way. Our main contribution is to derive a logic that precisely captures the idea behind the standard and to formally define the semantics of the policy combining algorithms of XACML. To guard against modelling artefacts we provide an alternative way of characterizing the policy combining algorithms and we formally prove the equivalence of these approaches. This allows us to pinpoint the shortcoming of previous approaches to formalization based either on Belnap logic or on D-algebra.
Angiographic and clinical outcome after crush of everolimus‐eluting stent for distal unprotected left main disease

Obiectives: Angiographic and clinical outcomes after crushing of everolimus‐eluting stent (EES) for distal unprotected left main disease (ULMD). Background: Few data exist about crushing of EES for distal ULMD. Methods: From the Florence ULMD Percutaneous Coronary Interevention Registry consecutive patients with distal ULMD treated with EES were included in the analysis. Patients treated with provisional stenting were compared with patients treated with crush stenting. Endpoints: angiographic in‐segment restenosis rate, and 1‐year clinical outcome. Results: From 2008 to 2015, 405 patients with distal ULMD were treated with EES: 278 (69%) were treated with provisional stenting while 127 (31%) with crush stenting. Provisional stenting group compared to crush stenting group had higher incidence of acute coronary syndrome on admission (63% vs. 52%; P = 0.033) and of left ventricular ejection fraction ≤ 40% (36% vs. 23%; p= 0.008), while patients treated with crush stenting had more frequently diabetes mellitus (35% vs. 21%; P = 0.003) and 3‐vessel coronary artery disease (46% vs. 29%; P < 0.001). Angiographic follow rate was 95%. Restenosis rates were similar: 7.1% in the crush stenting group and 5.8% in the provisional stenting group. There were no differences in 1‐year clinical outcome between crush stenting group and provisional stenting group: major adverse cardiac events 11.1% and 11.2%, stent thrombosis 0.8% and 1.4%, respectively. Conclusion: Crush stenting using EES in patients with complex distal ULMD is associated with low rates of restenosis and adverse clinical events and could be considered as a valid double stenting technique in all patients with complex ULMD bifurcation lesions. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Coaching, Counseling, and Mentoring: How to Choose and Use the Right Technique to Boost Employee Performance

Coaching, Counseling, and Mentoring: How to Choose and Use the Right Technique to Boost Employee Performance by Florence M. Stone 2007. New York, NY: AMACOM 221 pages, $24.95, Hardback Intended Audience(s): F, G, I, J Major Headings from the Table of Contents: Coaching: Three Ways to Develop Your Role as a Coach; Coaching as an Ongoing Responsibility; Let's Talk: Should I Say That? Coaching Traps and Problems; Counseling: Why Counsel Troublesome People? How to Turn Around Problem Employees and Employees with Problems; Let's Talk: Specific Counseling Sessions; Counseling Dilemmas: Traps and Pitfalls to Avoid; Mentoring: What Mentoring Can Do to Help High Achievers, and You; Mentor as a Role Model, Broker, Advocate, and Career Counselor; Let's Talk: Face-to-Face and e-Conversations; Mentoring Traps to Avoid; Epilogue: Your Role as a Leader How Is the Book Most Useful for Its Intended Audience? Provides a step-by-step guideline for overcoming obstacles in addressing employee performance issues, with proven examples that outline the most effective ways to manage these discussions. The Top Five Things You Learned from Reading this Book Utilizing an upfront approach to performance issues is the best method to head off potential problems. An honest and open communication style can provide education and motivation to both the employee and manager. Employee engagement can help to determine alternatives, to a problem, that can lead to creative and productive solutions. How a successful mentoring relationship can be established. The benefits and pitfalls of mentoring. How do managers gain an edge and drive performance of their teams without increasing salaries? How can they motivate their employees? What is a key motivator of employees today? These answers are found in Florence Stone's book, Coaching, Counseling & Mentoring: How to Choose and Use the Right Technique to Boost Employee Performance. Organizations today are focused more on the bottom line than ever before. Additionally, there is a great deal of pressure to consistently achieve at peak levels of performance. How can this level of expectation be sustained? The key to success is the frontline manager. Organizations whose frontline managers possess the skill set necessary to conduct positive coaching and counseling sessions will have an edge on their competition. A great tool for front line managers to use in order to get them to this next level of leadership is Coaching, Counseling, Mentoring. …
The Therapeutic Potential of Pomegranate and Its Products for Prevention of Cancer

Pomegranate (Punica granatum L.) is considered one of the oldest known edible fruits and is the symbolic of abundance and prosperity. For thousand of years, many cultures have believed that pomegranate have beneficiary effects on health, fertility, longevity and rebirth. The recent interest for this fruit is not only because of the pleasant taste, but also due to the scientific evidences that suggest therapeutic activity such as anti-atherogenic, antiparasitic, antimicrobial, antioxidant, anticarcinogenic and antiinflammatory effects. These beneficial effects were attributed to the antioxidative properties of pomegranate phenolic compounds, tannins and anthocyanins as well as other phytochemicals. The constituents of pomegranate have been thoroughly investigated, however, clinical trials are in progress to explore the therapeutic potential of pomegranate products, particularly determining preventive efficacy of pomegranate extracts in cancer, cardiovascular diseases, inflammation, diabetes and ultraviolet radiation-induced skin damage. In order to facilitate the further investigations the information contained in this work is based upon the immense work on impact of administration of pomegranate extracts, particularly in cancer prevention such as skin, prostate, breast, and colon.
Coded Strobing Photography: Compressive Sensing of High Speed Periodic Videos

We show that, via temporal modulation, one can observe and capture a high-speed periodic video well beyond the abilities of a low-frame-rate camera. By strobing the exposure with unique sequences within the integration time of each frame, we take coded projections of dynamic events. From a sequence of such frames, we reconstruct a high-speed video of the high-frequency periodic process. Strobing is used in entertainment, medical imaging, and industrial inspection to generate lower beat frequencies. But this is limited to scenes with a detectable single dominant frequency and requires high-intensity lighting. In this paper, we address the problem of sub-Nyquist sampling of periodic signals and show designs to capture and reconstruct such signals. The key result is that for such signals, the Nyquist rate constraint can be imposed on the strobe rate rather than the sensor rate. The technique is based on intentional aliasing of the frequency components of the periodic signal while the reconstruction algorithm exploits recent advances in sparse representations and compressive sensing. We exploit the sparsity of periodic signals in the Fourier domain to develop reconstruction algorithms that are inspired by compressive sensing.
Simple enumerations of peripheral blood natural killer (CD56+ NK) cells, B cells and T cells have no predictive value in IVF treatment outcome.

BACKGROUND To evaluate the association between the absolute counts of the peripheral natural killer (NK) cells (including total CD56(+) NK cells, CD56(dim) NK cells and CD56(bright) NK cells), B cells and T cells on the implantation rate and miscarriage rate after IVF treatment. METHODS This was a prospective observation study. A total of 138 patients who underwent IVF treatment from December 2002 to July 2003 were recruited to the study. Blood samples were obtained on the day of vaginal oocyte retrieval prior to the procedure. The absolute counts of lymphocytes, NK cells, B cells and T cells were identified by flow cytometry. These absolute counts and their relationships to IVF treatment outcome and miscarriage rate were analysed. RESULTS There were no significant differences with regard the mean values of absolute lymphocyte count, T cell count, B cell count and NK cell count (including total CD56(+) NK, CD56(dim) NK and CD56(bright) NK cells) between the pregnant and non-pregnant groups and also between the ongoing pregnancy and miscarriage groups. The cause of infertility, duration of infertility, basal FSH levels, number of previous failed IVF treatments, number of previous miscarriages and stimulation characteristics were not significantly different between the pregnant and non-pregnant groups. Previous studies have suggested that women with a history of recurrent miscarriage and those with infertility accompanied by recurrent failed IVF treatments are associated with a peripheral blood NK cell percentage >12%, therefore further analysis of peripheral CD56(+) NK cell levels <12% (group A) and >12% (group B) was performed. There was no significant difference in implantation rate (group A: 17.0%; group B: 23.2%), pregnancy rate (group A: 36.6%; group B: 47.7%) or miscarriage rate (group A: 23.3%; group B: 28.6%). CONCLUSION There were no significant differences between simple enumerations of peripheral blood NK cells (including total CD56(+) NK, CD56(dim) NK and CD56(bright) NK cells), B cells and T cells with IVF treatment outcome and pregnancy outcome. Women who had a peripheral NK cell level >12% did not have higher number of previous pregnancy losses. Importantly their pregnancy rate was not reduced and their miscarriages were not increased compared to women who had a peripheral NK cells level <12%.
Intergenerational Communication Across the Life Span

Contents: Introduction. Part I: Social Psychological and Developmental Foundations. Theoretical Foundations for the Study of Intergenerational Communication. Intergenerational Contexts and Contact. Social Cognitive Contributions: Intergenerational Attitudes and Stereotypes. Language, Cognition, and Age. Intergenerational Language Strategies: Underaccommodation. Intergenerational Language Strategies: Overaccommodation. Generational Identity and Age Identity. Part II: Intergenerational Relationship Communication. Adult Child-Elderly Parent Relationship. The Grandparent-Grandchild Relationship. Sandwiched Communication. Intergenerational Relationships Beyond the Family. Part III: Macrosocietal Perspectives. Intergenerational Conflict. Societal, Political, Public Policy Issues, and Intergenerational Communication. Cultural Perspectives on Intergenerational Communication. Epilogue.
Heterogeneous expression of immunotherapy candidate proteins gp100, MART-1, and tyrosinase in human melanoma cell lines and in human melanocytic lesions.

In recent years, it has become evident that T cells can recognize peptides of melanocytic lineage antigens such as gp100, MART-1, and tyrosinase at the tumor cell surface and can subsequently destroy these cells. It is thus feasible to develop immunotherapeutic approaches based on the melanocytic marker profiles of melanoma cells. One of the predictors of the success rate of such a treatment is the extent of positive (target) tumor cells within the lesions of the patient. First, we investigated the presence of these three proteins in 18 human melanoma cell lines using RT-PCR and immunohistochemistry. In 11 cell lines, mRNA and protein of all three markers could be detected; in one cell line, only two markers were present, and six melanoma cell lines showed no evidence for these markers. Secondly, we stained frozen sections of 105 human melanocytic lesions, 13 common nevocellular nevi, 13 atypical nevi, 13 early primary melanomas (Breslow < 1.5 mm), 25 advanced primary melanomas (aPM; Breslow > or =1.5 mm), and 41 melanoma metastases (MM) with antibodies against glycoprotein 100, melanoma antigen recognized by T cells, and tyrosinase. In addition, we used the 3,4-dihydroxy-L-phenylalanine reaction to detect tyrosinase enzyme activity as a confirmation of the tyrosinase immunohistochemical results in a subset of the lesions. In the benign lesions, glycoprotein 100 was more prominently expressed in epidermal melanocytes, whereas melanoma antigen recognized by T cells was encountered in all or nearly all dermal melanocytes in all nevocellular nevi and atypical nevus lesions. Tyrosinase was found in a lower percentage of melanocytes, both in the epidermis and in the dermis within these lesions. With regard to heterogeneity of staining within the malignant lesions, we found that 54% (early primary melanomas), 48% (aPMs), and 56% (MM) of the lesions stained within the same staining category for all three proteins studied. Approximately 17% of the aPM and MM lesions did not show positive tumor cells for any of the three proteins. We conclude that a subgroup of patients with high expression should be selected for immunotherapeutic treatment approaches based on the presence of these proteins.
Re-operation for Recurrent Lymph Node Metastasis of Medullary Thyroid Cancer — is it Useful ?

Abstract Recurrent disease in medullary thyroid cancer (MTC) occurs frequently. Repeated measurements of calcitonin levels as well as imaging techniques may help detect such recurrence or metastatic disease. Re-operative tumour excision may be a good therapeutic option to treat patients with recurrence and is believed to substantially lengthen life expectancy. However, it only leads to cure in 50% of patients. Two repeatedly operated patients with recurrent MTC are presented and the literature is discussed.