Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Predictive Value of BRCA1, ERCC1, ATP7B, PKM2, TOPOI, TOPΟ-IIA, TOPOIIB and C-MYC Genes in Patients with Small Cell Lung Cancer (SCLC) Who Received First Line Therapy with Cisplatin and Etoposide

Background The aim of the study was to evaluate the predictive value of genes involved in the action of cisplatin-etoposide in Small Cell Lung Cancer (SCLC). Methods 184 SCLC patients’ primary tumour samples were analyzed for ERCCI, BRCA1, ATP7B, PKM2 TOPOI, TOPOIIA, TOPOIIB and C-MYC mRNA expression. All patients were treated with cisplatin-etoposide. Results The patients’ median age was 63 years and 120 (65%) had extended stage, 75 (41%) had increased LDH serum levels and 131 (71%) an ECOG performance status was 0-1. Patients with limited stage, whose tumours expressed high ERCC1 (p=0.028), PKM2 (p=0.046), TOPOI (p=0.008), TOPOIIA (p=0.002) and TOPOIIB (p<0.001) mRNA had a shorter Progression Free Survival (PFS). In limited stage patients, high expression of ERCC1 (p=0.014), PKM2 (p=0.026), TOPOIIA (p=0.021) and TOPOIIB (p=0.019) was correlated with decreased median overall survival (mOS) while in patients with extended stage, only high TOPOIIB expression had a negative impact on Os (p=0.035). The favorable expression signature expression signature (low expression of ERCC1, PKM2, TOPOIIA and TOPOIIB) was correlated with significantly better PFS and Os in both LS-SCLC (p<0.001 and p=0.007, respectively) and ES-SCLC (p=0.007 and (p=0.011, respectively) group. The unfavorable expression signature was an independent predictor for poor PFS (HR: 3.18; p=0.002 and HR: 3.14; p=0.021) and Os (HR: 4.35; p=0.001and HR: 3.32; p=0.019) in both limited and extended stage, respectively. Conclusions Single gene’s expression analysis as well as the integrated analysis of ERCC1, PKM2, TOPOIIA and TOPOIIB may predict treatment outcome in patients with SCLC. These findings should be further validated in a prospective study.
Usual ductal hyperplasia of the breast is a committed stem (progenitor) cell lesion distinct from atypical ductal hyperplasia and ductal carcinoma in situ

Current classification systems in proliferative mammary gland pathology are based on a two‐cell system, recognizing only glandular and myoepithelial lines of differentiation. A third cell type has recently been characterized in normal breast tissue by double‐immunofluorescence analysis to express cytokeratin 5 (Ck5) only. These cells were shown to represent progenitor or adult stem cells that give rise to the glandular and myoepithelial cell lineage. The double‐labelling technique has been applied to characterize a spectrum of intraductal epithelial proliferations, namely benign usual ductal hyperplasia, atypical ductal hyperplasia, and ductal carcinoma in situ, all of which are thought to represent the gradual steps of a sequence in the development of breast cancer. Immunofluorescence studies with specific antibodies against Ck5, Ck8/18/19, and smooth muscle actin were complemented by western blotting analysis of Ck5 and Ck8/18/19 expression in normal breast tissue and in proliferative lesions. Usual ductal hyperplasia appears to be a Ck5‐positive committed stem (progenitor) cell lesion with the same differentiation potential as seen in the normal breast. This is in sharp contrast to atypical ductal hyperplasia/ductal carcinoma in situ, which display the differentiated glandular immunophenotype (Ck8/18/19‐positive, but Ck5‐negative). These data require the abandonment of the idea of an obligate biological continuum of intraductal proliferations from benign to malignant. This study provides evidence that cells undergoing malignant transformation tend to be fairly advanced in the glandular lineage of differentiation. The committed stem (progenitor) cell model may contribute to a better understanding of both benign proliferative breast disease and breast cancer development. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Integrity of spinal autonomic pathways in sub-acute and chronic spinal cord injuries

The outcome of spinal cord injury (SCI) is still commonly described in terms of motor and sensory function, despite increasing awareness that there is also damage to the autonomic nervous system (ANS). The purpose of this thesis was to examine the integrity of spinal autonomic pathways among individuals with sub-acute and chronic SCI. The selection of appropriate tests to assess autonomic function is challenging since the ANS is complex. Examining reliability and comparability among measures provides a comprehensive understanding of the validity of specific tools. This doctoral thesis is comprised of three separate investigations that focus on determining the integrity of spinal autonomic pathways following SCI. In the first study (Chapter 2), the focus was on the reliability of heart rate variability (HRV), sympathetic skin responses (SSRs) and an orthostatic challenge (sit-up test). Measures of HRV, SSRs and blood pressure changes during the sit-up test were found to be reliable. Additionally, the sit-up test was compared with the gold standard orthostatic challenge (tilt-table test), which revealed that the sit-up test provokes an orthostatic response comparable to the tilt-table test. In the last two studies (Chapters 3 and 4) HRV and changes in blood pressure (BP) during an orthostatic challenge, SSRs and the Valsalva manoeuvre (VM) were used to examine spinal autonomic integrity. The novel focus on integrity of spinal autonomic pathways revealed that it is affected by lesion level, neurologic severity of injury, and time post-injury. As expected based on extensive existing research on cardiovascular autonomic function following SCI, higher lesion levels produced greater cardiovascular impairments. That is, there is greater compromise to spinal autonomic integrity in high-level compared to low-level SCI. However, the association between neurologic and autonomic “completeness” of injury is unclear. Our findings suggest that time post-injury may affect the latter. During the sub-acute stage, autonomic tests revealed cardiovascular changes in patients in a one-month follow-up after admission to a rehabilitation hospital. The exact time course of alterations to integrity is unknown. Not acknowledging change to spinal autonomic integrity is inherently problematic since it is unclear what neurologic severity of injury infers about autonomic dysfunction.
Disambiguating Cue Phrases in Text and Speech

Cue phrases are linguistic expressions such as 'now' and 'well' that may explicitly mark the structure of a discourse. For example, while the cue phrase 'incidentally' may be used SENTENTIALLY as an adverbial, the DISCOURSE use initiates a digression. In [8], we noted the ambiguity of cue phrases with respect to discourse and sentential usage and proposed an intonational model for their disambiguation. In this paper, we extend our previous characterization of cue phrases and generalize its domain of coverage, based on a larger and more comprehensive empirical study: an examination of all cue phrases produced by a single speaker in recorded natural speech. We also associate this prosodic model with orthographic and part-of-speech analyses of cue phrases in text. Such a dual model provides both theoretical justification for current computational models of discourse and practical application to the generation of synthetic speech.
Knowledge of the Law in Texas: Socioeconomic and Ethnic Differences

AUTHORS' NOTE: The early stages of this research project were partially sponsored by a training grant from the Office of Juvenile Delinquency and Youth Development, Welfare Administration, U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare in cooperation with the President's Committee on Juvenile Delinquency and Youth Crime. In addition, we would like to thank the following people: Ira Iscoe, Professor; Jack Otis, Dean; Fred Cohen, Associate Professor; Allen Smith, Associate Professor; Morris Kagan, Assistant Professor; Mrs. Marian Boner, Law Librarian; and Tim Banner and Bob Brichetto, Research Assistants-all of the University of Texas at Austin.
The Use of Numeral Classifiers in Thai

1. The numeral classifiers2 of Thai constitute an important syntactic wordclass of the language and are employed with all nouns denoting objects which may be counted (e.g. 'man', 'house', 'word'). In most cases it is impossible to devise rules which will serve as an infallible guide in choosing the proper classifier to be employed with any given noun. For this reason it is desirable to memorize the classifier to be used with a noun at the same time that one learns the noun, just as in French or German one must memorize the gender of each
The Clinical Significance of Malunion of Fractures of the Neck and Shaft of the Little Finger Metacarpal

The outcomes of 218 little finger metacarpal shaft and neck fractures that had been treated non-operatively, with no attempt at fracture reduction, were compared with those of 44 that had been treated operatively with fracture reduction and fixation (plates or K-wires). Outcome measures included the grip strength of the little finger and the DASH score. Fracture malunion was assessed by clinical measurement of little finger ray shortening and measurement of palmar angulation on the initial radiographs. The severity of palmar angular deformity did not affect the outcome of the 105 metacarpal neck or 113 metacarpal shaft fractures that had been treated non-operatively. There were no differences between the outcomes of the 18 metacarpal neck fractures treated operatively and the 105 treated non-operatively. The DASH score (P = 0.001) and aesthetic outcome (P = 0.013) were significantly better for the 113 metacarpal shaft fractures treated non-operatively than for the 26 treated operatively.
Multiple ergodic averages for three polynomials and applications

We find the smallest characteristic factor and a limit formula for the multi- ple ergodic averages associated to any family of three polynomials and polynomial fam- ilies of the form {l1p,l2p,. ,lkp}. We then derive several multiple recurrence results and combinatorial implications, including an answer to a question of Brown, Graham, and Landman, and a generalization of the Polynomial Szemeredi Theorem of Bergelson and Leibman for families of three polynomials with not necessarily zero constant term. We also simplify and generalize a recent result of Bergelson, Host, and Kra, showing that for all " > 0 and every subset of the integersthe set
Active Galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III: from quasars to radio galaxies?

In this third of a series of papers concerning active galaxies in the FIRST and Sloan Digital Sky Surveys, we analyze the spectroscopic and radio properties of a sample of narrow-line Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN), broad-line Seyfert I galaxies, and Quasars in the local universe in order to investigate the dependence of their activity on the mass, spin and accretion rates of the supermassive black holes (SMBH) residing at the centers of their host galaxies. We show that galaxies hosting more massive SMBH are more likely to power stronger and larger radio jets, and we show a strong anti-correlation between the strength of the lines of radio emitting galaxies and their radio power. Furthermore we show that the compactness of a jet is correlated with the epoch of the last episode of star-formation, suggesting a link between the presence of cold gas in a galaxy, the size of its SMBH and the radio and spectroscopic features of its AGN. We use our large statistical sample to test the expectations of unified models of AGN based on orientation. While confirming that Seyfert II galaxies and radio galaxies are significantly more extincted then Seyfert Is and nearby Quasars, we find several major inconsistencies with such a paradigm. In particular we show a strong difference in the [OIII],[OII] and [NII] luminosities for different spectroscopic classes, a result which argues in favor of an evolution of the broad and narrow line regions of active nuclei over time. We suggests that evolution, rather than orientation, may be the key element in shaping the properties of active nuclei, as also suggested by the results of high-redshift X-ray and radio surveys and we speculate on a model that may predict this kind of evolution.
Self rated health and mortality: a long term prospective study in eastern Finland

STUDY OBJECTIVE To assess the relation between self rated health and mortality over a period of 23 years, taking into account medical history, cardiovascular risk factors, and education at the beginning of the follow up. DESIGN A cohort of random population samples. The baseline studies included a self administered questionnaire and a health examination. Mortality data were collected from the national mortality register using personal identification numbers. SETTING The provinces of North Karelia and Kuopio in eastern Finland. PARTICIPANTS Random samples of working age people (n=21 302) from the population register. MAIN RESULTS For self rated health, the age adjusted poor to good relative risk for all cause mortality was 2.36 (95% confidence intervals 2.10, 2.64) for men and 1.90 (1.63, 2.22) for women, and for cardiovascular mortality 2.29 (1.96, 2.68) for men and 2.34 (1.84, 2.96) for women. Adjusted for selected potentially fatal diseases from the subjects' medical histories, cardiovascular disease risk factors, and education, the corresponding relative risks for all cause mortality were 1.66 (1.47, 1.88) for men and 1.50 (1.26, 1.78) for women, and for cardiovascular mortality 1.54 (1.29, 1.82) for men and 1.63 (1.26, 2.10) for women. The association between self rated health and mortality attributable to external causes was fairly strong. CONCLUSIONS Poor self rated health is a strong predictor of mortality, and the association is only partly explained by medical history, cardiovascular disease risk factors, and education.
Role of natural language understanding in voice local search

Speak4it is a voice-enabled local search system currently available for iPhone devices. The natural language understanding (NLU) component is one of the key technology modules in this system. The role of NLU in voice-enabled local search is two-fold: (a) parse the automatic speech recognition (ASR) output (1-best and word lattices) into meaningful segments that contribute to high-precision local search, and (b) understand user’s intent. This paper is concerned with the ﬁrst task of NLU. In previous work, we had presented a scalable approach to parsing, which is built upon text indexing and search framework, and can also parse ASR lattices. In this paper, we propose an algorithm to improve the baseline by extracting the “subjects” of the query. Experimental results indicate that lattice-based query parsing outperforms ASR 1-best based parsing by 2.1% absolute and extracting subjects in the query improves the robustness of search.
Functional Interplay between Intrinsic B and T Cell Defects Leads to Amplification of Autoimmune Disease in New Zealand Black Chromosome 1 Congenic Mice1

Genetic loci on New Zealand Black (NZB) chromosome 1 play an important role in the development of lupus-like autoimmune disease. We have shown previously that C57BL/6 mice with an introgressed NZB chromosome 1 interval extending from ∼35 to 106 cM have significantly more severe autoimmunity than mice with a shorter interval extending from ∼82 to 106 cM. Comparison of the cellular phenotype in these mice revealed that both mouse strains had evidence of increased T cell activation; however, activation was more pronounced in mice with the longer interval. Mice with the longer interval also had increased B cell activation, leading us to hypothesize that there were at least two independent lupus susceptibility loci on chromosome 1. In this study, we have used mixed hemopoietic radiation chimeras to demonstrate that autoimmunity in these mice arises from intrinsic B and T cell functional defects. We further show that a T cell defect, localized to the shorter interval, leads to spontaneous activation of T cells specific for nucleosome histone components. Despite activation of self-reactive T cells in mixed chimeric mice, only chromosome 1 congenic B cells produce anti-nuclear Abs and undergo class switching, indicating impaired B cell tolerance mechanisms. In mice with the longer chromosome 1 interval, an additional susceptibility locus exacerbates autoimmune disease by producing a positive feedback loop between T and B cell activation. Thus, T and B cell defects act in concert to produce and amplify the autoimmune phenotype.
Models of collective cell behaviour with crowding effects: comparing lattice-based and lattice-free approaches

Individual-based models describing the migration and proliferation of a population of cells frequently restrict the cells to a predefined lattice. An implicit assumption of this type of lattice-based model is that a proliferative population will always eventually fill the lattice. Here, we develop a new lattice-free individual-based model that incorporates cell-to-cell crowding effects. We also derive approximate mean-field descriptions for the lattice-free model in two special cases motivated by commonly used experimental set-ups. Lattice-free simulation results are compared with these mean-field descriptions and with a corresponding lattice-based model. Data from a proliferation experiment are used to estimate the parameters for the new model, including the cell proliferation rate, showing that the model fits the data well. An important aspect of the lattice-free model is that the confluent cell density is not predefined, as with lattice-based models, but an emergent model property. As a consequence of the more realistic, irregular configuration of cells in the lattice-free model, the population growth rate is much slower at high cell densities and the population cannot reach the same confluent density as an equivalent lattice-based model.
The effect of material interfaces on electrical tree growth and breakdown time of epoxy resin

This study investigates the effect of barriers and interfaces on the lifetime of epoxy resin samples, as well as the growth characteristics of electrical trees. Four sample types are presented; all having been prepared in the point-plane configuration using a hypodermic needle as the HV electrode. Tests were carried out at 13 kV rms and sample images were taken at fixed one minute intervals during the test period. Results show that the incorporation of a barrier improves the time to breakdown of the epoxy resin tested. The inclusion of a major void defect did not accelerate failure of a sample which included an effective barrier.
Dendritic Cells Pulsed with Fungal RNA Induce Protective Immunity to Candida albicans in Hematopoietic Transplantation1

Immature myeloid dendritic cells (DC) phagocytose yeasts and hyphae of the fungus Candida albicans and induce different Th cell responses to the fungus. Ingestion of yeasts activates DC for production of IL-12 and Th1 priming, while ingestion of hyphae induces IL-4 production and Th2 priming. In vivo, generation of antifungal protective immunity is induced upon injection of DC ex vivo pulsed with Candida yeasts but not hyphae. In the present study we sought to determine the functional activity of DC transfected with yeast or hyphal RNA. It was found that DC, from either spleens or bone marrow, transfected with yeast, but not hyphal, RNA 1) express fungal mannoproteins on their surface; 2) undergo functional maturation, as revealed by the up-regulated expression of MHC class II Ags and costimulatory molecules; 3) produce IL-12 but no IL-4; 4) are capable of inducing Th1-dependent antifungal resistance when delivered s.c. in vivo in nontransplanted mice; and 5) provide protection against the fungus in allogeneic bone marrow-transplanted mice, by accelerating the functional recovery of Candida-specific IFN-γ-producing CD4+ donor lymphocytes. These results indicate the efficacy of DC pulsed with Candida yeasts or yeast RNA as fungal vaccines and point to the potential use of RNA-transfected DC as anti-infective vaccines in conditions that negate the use of attenuated microorganisms or in the case of poor availability of protective Ags.
Negatively-Marked MCQ Assessments That Reward Partial Knowledge Do Not Introduce Gender Bias Yet Increase Student Performance and Satisfaction and Reduce Anxiety

Multiple-choice question (MCQ) examinations are increasingly used as the assessment method of theoretical knowledge in large class-size modules in many life science degrees. MCQ-tests can be used to objectively measure factual knowledge, ability and high-level learning outcomes, but may also introduce gender bias in performance dependent on topic, instruction, scoring and difficulty. The ‘Single Answer’ (SA) test is often used in which students choose one correct answer, in which they are unable to demonstrate partial knowledge. Negatively marking eliminates the chance element of guessing but may be considered unfair. Elimination testing (ET) is an alternative form of MCQ, which discriminates between all levels of knowledge, while rewarding demonstration of partial knowledge. Comparisons of performance and gender bias in negatively marked SA and ET tests have not yet been performed in the life sciences. Our results show that life science students were significantly advantaged by answering the MCQ test in elimination format compared to single answer format under negative marking conditions by rewarding partial knowledge of topics. Importantly, we found no significant difference in performance between genders in either cohort for either MCQ test under negative marking conditions. Surveys showed that students generally preferred ET-style MCQ testing over SA-style testing. Students reported feeling more relaxed taking ET MCQ and more stressed when sitting SA tests, while disagreeing with being distracted by thinking about best tactics for scoring high. Students agreed ET testing improved their critical thinking skills. We conclude that appropriately-designed MCQ tests do not systematically discriminate between genders. We recommend careful consideration in choosing the type of MCQ test, and propose to apply negative scoring conditions to each test type to avoid the introduction of gender bias. The student experience could be improved through the incorporation of the elimination answering methods in MCQ tests via rewarding partial and full knowledge.
RATIONAL, REPETITIVE CHOICE - THE DISCRIMINATION MODEL VERSUS THE CAMILLERI-BERGER MODEL

The best-known model of r ational, repetitive choice in sociology is the Camilleri-Berger Model. The Discrimination Model is a recent competitor to the Camilleri-Berger Model and a thorough comparison is called for. In this paper, the two models are presented and compared in some detail with regard to the way they handle utility and marginal utility; the way they explain (or fail to explain) matching; their cognitive assumptions; their heuristic capabilities for application to social situations; and their predictive accuracy. The Discrimination Model comes out favorably on all counts. In addition, it is a "deepet" theory because it can specify the conditions under which the Camilleri-Berger Model will furnish accurate predictions.