Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
[Male breast cancer].

There are about 350 men diagnosed each year in the UK, compared with around 50,000 cases of breast cancer in women. [2] 1 in 8 women and 1 in 870 men will be diagnosed with breast cancer during their lifetime. Male breast cancer is diagnosed in 1% of cases of male breast enlargement. The incidence of male breast cancer has increased over a period of 25 years. The peak age for presentation of male breast cancer is >60 years.
Toric Intraocular lenses in cataract surgery

In modern cataract surgery, spectacle freedom is becoming more and more important. Emmetropia can be achieved for patients with myopic or hyperopic refractive errors by selecting the appropriate spherical lens power. However, approximately 20% of patients who undergo cataract surgery have 1.25 diopters (D) of corneal astigmatism or more. (FerrerBlasco, Montes-Mico et al. 2009; Hoffmann and Hutz 2010) Not correcting the astigmatism component at the time of cataract surgery will fail to achieve spectacle independence. In patients with substantial amounts of corneal astigmatism several options exist to correct astigmatism during or after cataract surgery. Limbal relaxing incisions or opposite clear corneal incisions may be performed to reduce astigmatism during cataract surgery. After cataract surgery, laser refractive surgery may be used to correct residual refractive errors, including cylinder errors. However, corneal incision procedures are relatively unpredictable and laser refractive surgery may be associated with complications such as dry eyes, wound healing problems and infections. (Bayramlar, Daglioglu et al. 2003; de Oliveira, Solari et al. 2006; Kato, Toda et al. 2008; Thomas, Brunstetter et al. 2008) Toric IOLs now provide the opportunity to correct corneal astigmatism, offering patients with pre-existing astigmatism optimal distance vision without the use of spectacles or contact lenses with a cylindrical correction. Furthermore, the recent introduction of multifocal toric IOLs offers patient with pre-existent corneal astigmatism the opportunity not only to achieve spectacle independence for distance vision, but also for near and intermediate visual acuities.
Regulating Insulin-Receptor-Gene Expression by Differentiation and Hormones

Insulin regulates cell function by first binding to the insulin receptor (IR) localized on the cell surface. With the cloning of IR cDNA and the IR-gene promoter, the regulation of the IR gene during differentiation and by various hormones can be studied. Muscle is a major target tissue for insulin action. BC3H1 cells, a mouse muscle cell line in culture, are a model cell type for studying insulin action. Differentiation in these cells results in a 5- to 10-fold increase in IR binding and a 5- to 10-fold increase in IR content. Studies of IR mRNA by Northern and slot-blot analyses reveal a 10-fold increase in IR mRNA after differentiation. These studies indicate that there is a selective increase in IR-gene expression during muscle differentiation. A similar increase in IRgene expression is observed for the IR during pancreatic acinar cell differentiation. Glucocorticoids increase IR content in several target tissues. Studies in cultured IM-9 lymphocytes indicate that glucocorticoids induce a 5-fold increase in IR mRNA levels. Studies of IR mRNA half-life indicate that glucocorticoids do not alter IR mRNA stability. When the transcription of the IR is measured by elongation assays, glucocorticoids directly stimulate IR transcription 5- to 10-fold. The effect is detectable within 30 min of glucocorticoid treatment and is maximal within 2 h. Therefore, these studies demonstrate that the IR gene is under the direct regulation of glucocorticoids. Insulin downregulates the IR in various target tissues. Prior studies indicate that this downregulation was partly because of accelerated IR degradation. Studying AR42J pancreatic acinar cells, we also found that insulin accelerates IR degradation. Moreover, in these cells, insulin decreases IR biosynthesis by ∼50%. Studies of IR mRNA indicate there is a concomitant decrease in IR mRNA levels after insulin treatment. Thus, insulin decreases IR-gene expression. The genomic structure of the IR promoter has been elucidated. Primer extension and nuclease S, analysis indicate that IR mRNA has multiple start sites. The promoter fragment was ligated to a promoterless “reporter” plasmid containing the bacterial gene chloramphenicol acetyltransferase (CAT). When this plasmid is transfected into cultured cells, CAT activity is detected, indicating promoter activity. Various portions of a genomic fragment were ligated to a promoter to study glucocorticoid regulation of the IR promoter. These studies indicate that IR-gene expression is regulated by differentiation and hormonal agents. Differentiation in muscle and acinar pancreas is associated with an increase in IRmRNA. When differentiated cells are studied, glucocorticoids upregulate IR-gene expression, whereas insulin downregulates this function.
The success of stainless steel crowns placed with the Hall technique: a retrospective study.

BACKGROUND In this retrospective study, the authors evaluated the clinical and radiographic success of stainless steel crowns (SSCs) used to restore primary molars with caries lesions, placed by means of both the traditional technique (involving complete caries removal and tooth reduction before placement of the SSC) and the Hall technique (involving no caries removal, no crown preparation and no use of local anesthetic before placement of the SSC). METHODS The authors conducted a retrospective chart review by using the patient records at a private pediatric dental practice at which the Hall technique had been introduced in June 2010 as an alternative treatment to traditional SSC placement. The inclusion criteria were caries lesions on a primary molar with no clinical or radiographic evidence of pulpitis, necrosis or abscess, as well as follow-up of at least six months or until failure, whichever came first. They graded restoration success by using a four-point scale based on presence or loss of the SSC, and whether or not the patient needed further treatment associated with pulpal pathology or secondary caries. They collected and summarized patient demographic information. They used a Kaplan-Meier survival curve along with 95 percent confidence intervals to evaluate clinical success. RESULTS The authors found that 65 (97 percent) of 67 SSCs placed with the Hall technique (mean observation time, 15 months; range, four-37 months) and 110 (94 percent) of 117 SSCs placed with the traditional technique (mean observation time, 53 months; range, four-119 months) were successful. CONCLUSION Findings of this study show a similar success rate for SSCs placed with the traditional technique or the Hall technique.
Partitioning-Based Workflow Scheduling in Clouds

Many applications in science and engineering become increasingly complex and large scale. These applications often consist of a large number of precedence-constrained tasks forming workflows represented by directed acyclic graph (DAG). In recent years, cloud computing has greatly leveraged the elastic and cost-efficient deployment of these applications. However, their effective deployment is largely dependent on the scheduling algorithm adopted. Most existing workflow scheduling algorithms are designed to optimize deadline or budget/cost, i.e., one being the objective and the other being constraint. In this paper, we present the Partitioning-Based Workflow Scheduling (PBWS) algorithm, which liberates the user from explicitly setting the upper bound of deadline and cost. Instead, PBWS adopts a slack parameter that controls the tradeoff point between deadline and cost. In particular, PBWS partitions a workflow into a number of small task graphs (or simply partitions) for which the granularity of such partitions is determined by the slack parameter. Each of these partitions is then matched with the best performing cloud resource in terms of both the overall execution time (makespan) and cost. The size of partitions may change by rearranging tasks between different partitions for the optimization of resource assignment. Our experimental results show that our PBWSalgorithm outperforms two existing algorithms in terms of cost by a large margin with little overhead on makespan.
Adaptive Beamforming With a Minimum Mutual Information Criterion

In this paper, we consider an acoustic beamforming application where two speakers are simultaneously active. We construct one subband-domain beamformer in generalized sidelobe canceller (GSC) configuration for each source. In contrast to normal practice, we then jointly optimize the active weight vectors of both GSCs to obtain two output signals with minimum mutual information (MMI). Assuming that the subband snapshots are Gaussian-distributed, this MMI criterion reduces to the requirement that the cross-correlation coefficient of the subband outputs of the two GSCs vanishes. We also compare separation performance under the Gaussian assumption with that obtained from several super-Gaussian probability density functions (pdfs), namely, the Laplace and pdfs. Our proposed technique provides effective nulling of the undesired source, but without the signal cancellation problems seen in conventional beamforming. Moreover, our technique does not suffer from the source permutation and scaling ambiguities encountered in conventional blind source separation algorithms. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed technique through a series of far-field automatic speech recognition experiments on data from the PASCAL Speech Separation Challenge (SSC). On the SSC development data, the simple delay-and-sum beamformer achieves a word error rate (WER) of 70.4%. The MMI beamformer under a Gaussian assumption achieves a 55.2% WER, which is further reduced to 52.0% with a pdf, whereas the WER for data recorded with a close-talking microphone is 21.6%.
The Effect of Low Survey Response Rates on Estimates of Alcohol Consumption in a General Population Survey

Background Response rates for surveys of alcohol use are declining for all modes of administration (postal, telephone, face-to-face). Low response rates may result in estimates that are biased by selective non-response. We examined non-response bias in the NZ GENACIS survey, a postal survey of a random electoral roll sample, with a response rate of 49.5% (n = 1924). Our aim was to estimate the magnitude of non-response bias in estimating the prevalence of current drinking and heavy episodic (binge) drinking. Methods We used the “continuum of resistance” model to guide the investigation. In this model the likelihood of response by sample members is related to the amount of effort required from the researchers to elicit a response. First, the demographic characteristics of respondents and non-respondents were compared. Second, respondents who returned their questionnaire before the first reminder (early), before the second reminder (intermediate) or after the second reminder (late) were compared by demographic characteristics, 12-month prevalence of drinking and prevalence of binge drinking. Results Demographic characteristics and prevalence of binge drinking were significantly different between late respondents and early/intermediate respondents, with the demographics of early and intermediate respondents being similar to people who refused to participate while late respondents were similar to all other non-respondents. Assuming non-respondents who did not actively refuse to participate had the same drinking patterns as late respondents, the prevalence of binge drinking amongst current drinkers was underestimated. Adjusting the prevalence of binge drinkers amongst current drinkers using population weights showed that this method of adjustment still resulted in an underestimate of the prevalence. Conclusions The findings suggest non-respondents who did not actively refuse to participate are likely to have similar or more extreme drinking behaviours than late respondents, and that surveys of health compromising behaviours such as alcohol use are likely to underestimate the prevalence of these behaviours.
Genome mining and metabolic profiling of the rhizosphere bacterium Pseudomonas sp. SH-C52 for antimicrobial compounds

The plant microbiome represents an enormous untapped resource for discovering novel genes and bioactive compounds. Previously, we isolated Pseudomonas sp. SH-C52 from the rhizosphere of sugar beet plants grown in a soil suppressive to the fungal pathogen Rhizoctonia solani and showed that its antifungal activity is, in part, attributed to the production of the chlorinated 9-amino-acid lipopeptide thanamycin (Mendes et al., 2011). To get more insight into its biosynthetic repertoire, the genome of Pseudomonas sp. SH-C52 was sequenced and subjected to in silico, mutational and functional analyses. The sequencing revealed a genome size of 6.3 Mb and 5579 predicted ORFs. Phylogenetic analysis placed strain SH-C52 within the Pseudomonas corrugata clade. In silico analysis for secondary metabolites revealed a total of six non-ribosomal peptide synthetase (NRPS) gene clusters, including the two previously described NRPS clusters for thanamycin and the 2-amino acid antibacterial lipopeptide brabantamide. Here we show that thanamycin also has activity against an array of other fungi and that brabantamide A exhibits anti-oomycete activity and affects phospholipases of the late blight pathogen Phytophthora infestans. Most notably, mass spectrometry led to the discovery of a third lipopeptide, designated thanapeptin, with a 22-amino-acid peptide moiety. Seven structural variants of thanapeptin were found with varying degrees of activity against P. infestans. Of the remaining four NRPS clusters, one was predicted to encode for yet another and unknown lipopeptide with a predicted peptide moiety of 8-amino acids. Collectively, these results show an enormous metabolic potential for Pseudomonas sp. SH-C52, with at least three structurally diverse lipopeptides, each with a different antimicrobial activity spectrum.
IcmF and DotU Are Required for Optimal Effector Translocation and Trafficking of the Legionella pneumophila Vacuole

ABSTRACT The gram-negative bacterium Legionella pneumophila causes a severe form of pneumonia called Legionnaires' disease, characterized by bacterial replication within alveolar macrophages. Prior to intracellular replication, the vacuole harboring the bacterium must first escape trafficking to the host lysosome, a process that is dependent on the Dot/Icm type IV secretion system. To identify genes required for intracellular growth, bacterial mutants were isolated that were delayed in escape from the macrophage but which retain a minimally functional Dot/Icm machinery. The mutations were found in eight distinct genes, including three genes known to be required for optimal intracellular growth. Two of these genes, icmF and dotU, are located at one end of a cluster of genes that encode the type IV secretion system, yet both icmF and dotU lack orthologs in other type IV translocons. DotU protein is degraded in the early postexponential phase in wild-type L. pneumophila and at all growth phases in an icmF mutant. IcmF contains an extracytoplasmic domain(s) based on accessibility to a membrane-impermeant amine-reactive reagent. In the absence of either gene, L. pneumophila targets inappropriately to LAMP-1-positive compartments during macrophage infection, is defective in the formation of replicative vacuoles, and is impaired in the translocation of the effector protein SidC. Therefore, although IcmF and DotU do not appear to be part of the core type IV secretion system, these proteins are necessary for an efficiently functioning secretion apparatus.
Simulation of nitrogen transport and desorption in laser welds of 21Cr–6Ni–9Mn stainless steel

Loss of nitrogen is a concern when welding nitrogen strengthened stainless steel alloys. Building on the current understanding of the underlying mechanisms, a three-dimensional simulation of conduction mode laser weld pool development using the volume of fluid technique was developed. Weld pools formed by a moving Gaussian heat input for two different laser power densities were simulated and the transport and surface desorption of nitrogen was tracked using nitrogen macroparticles. The penetration depth and width of the weld pool predicted by the simulation was comparable to the data derived from macrographs of welds made on nitronic 40 alloy. Additionally, the 25–32% predicted decrease in nitrogen composition of the weld fusion zone by the new rate law is comparable to the literature.
Carbon monoxide differentially inhibits TLR signaling pathways by regulating ROS-induced trafficking of TLRs to lipid rafts

Carbon monoxide (CO), a byproduct of heme catabolism by heme oxygenase (HO), confers potent antiinflammatory effects. Here we demonstrate that CO derived from HO-1 inhibited Toll-like receptor (TLR) 2, 4, 5, and 9 signaling, but not TLR3-dependent signaling, in macrophages. Ligand-mediated receptor trafficking to lipid rafts represents an early event in signal initiation of immune cells. Trafficking of TLR4 to lipid rafts in response to LPS was reactive oxygen species (ROS) dependent because it was inhibited by diphenylene iodonium, an inhibitor of NADPH oxidase, and in gp91phox-deficient macrophages. CO selectively inhibited ligand-induced recruitment of TLR4 to lipid rafts, which was also associated with the inhibition of ligand-induced ROS production in macrophages. TLR3 did not translocate to lipid rafts by polyinosine-polycytidylic acid (poly(I:C)). CO had no effect on poly(I:C)-induced ROS production and TLR3 signaling. The inhibitory effect of CO on TLR-induced cytokine production was abolished in gp91phox-deficient macrophages, also indicating a role for NADPH oxidase. CO attenuated LPS-induced NADPH oxidase activity in vitro, potentially by binding to gp91phox. Thus, CO negatively controlled TLR signaling pathways by inhibiting translocation of TLR to lipid rafts through suppression of NADPH oxidase–dependent ROS generation.
The Inflammatory Response of Primary Bovine Mammary Epithelial Cells to Staphylococcus aureus Strains Is Linked to the Bacterial Phenotype

Staphylococcus aureus is a major mastitis-causing pathogen in dairy cows. The latex agglutination-based Staphaurex test allows bovine S. aureus strains to be grouped into Staphaurex latex agglutination test (SLAT)-negative [SLAT(−)] and SLAT-positive [SLAT(+)] isolates. Virulence and resistance gene profiles within SLAT(−) isolates are highly similar, but differ largely from those of SLAT(+) isolates. Notably, specific genetic changes in important virulence factors were detected in SLAT(−) isolates. Based on the molecular data, it is assumed that SLAT(+) strains are more virulent than SLAT(−) strains. The objective of this study was to investigate if SLAT(−) and SLAT(+) strains can differentially induce an immune response with regard to their adhesive capacity to epithelial cells in the mammary gland and in turn, could play a role in the course of mastitis. Primary bovine mammary epithelial cells (bMEC) were challenged with suspensions of heat inactivated SLAT(+) (n = 3) and SLAT(−) (n = 3) strains isolated from clinical bovine mastitis cases. After 1, 6, and 24 h, cells were harvested and mRNA expression of inflammatory mediators (TNF-α, IL-1β, IL-8, RANTES, SAA, lactoferrin, GM-CSF, COX-2, and TLR-2) was evaluated by reverse transcription and quantitative PCR. Transcription (ΔΔCT) of most measured factors was induced in challenged bMEC for 6 and 24 h. Interestingly, relative mRNA levels were higher (P<0.05) in response to SLAT(+) compared to SLAT(−) strains. In addition, adhesion assays on bMEC also showed significant differences between SLAT(+) and SLAT(−) strains. The present study clearly shows that these two S. aureus strain types cause a differential immune response of bMEC and exhibit differences in their adhesion capacity in vitro. This could reflect differences in the severity of mastitis that the different strain types may induce.
Increased sCD200 Levels in Vitreous of Patients With Proliferative Diabetic Retinopathy and Its Correlation With VEGF and Proinflammatory Cytokines.

PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to determine the levels of sCD200 expression in the vitreous of proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR) patients and to clarify its correlation with different vitreoretinal conditions, VEGF and its receptors, and proinflammatory cytokines. METHODS The expression of sCD200, VEGF and its receptors, and other proinflammatory cytokines were examined by using ELISA. Clinical stratification was performed on patients with different vitreoretinal conditions for correlation analysis. RESULTS The vitreous levels of sCD200 were significantly higher in the PDR group (182.2 ± 17.63 pg/mL) compared with those in the control group (56.86 ± 6.573 pg/mL; P < 0.0001). The venous blood levels of sCD200 were 26.71 ± 4.32 pg/mL in the PDR group and 19.94 ± 3.87 pg/mL in the control group (P = 0.2614). The vitreous levels of sCD200 were significantly elevated in PDR patients with diabetic macular edema (DME; 266.9 ± 28.82 pg/mL) or traction retinal detachment (TRD; 256.9 ± 34.50 pg/mL) compared with the PDR group without DME (136.9 ± 15.13 pg/mL; P < 0.0001) or TRD (146.9 ± 15.97 pg/mL; P = 0.0024). The vitreous levels of CCL2, CXCL4, CXCL9, CXCL10, VEGF, sVEGFR-1, sVEGFR-2, IL-6, IL-8, IL-10, and IL-18 were also elevated significantly in the PDR group. Statistical association was found between sCD200 levels and VEGF (r = 0.6566, P < 0.0001), sVEGFR-1 (r = 0.5574, P = 0.006), sVEGFR-2 (r = 0.3605, P = 0.0362), CCL-2 (r = 0.6001, P = 0.0002), IL-6 (r = 0.5704, P = 0.0004), IL-8 (r = 0.3712, P = 0.0307), and IL-10 (r = 0.3618, P = 0.0355). CONCLUSIONS Expression of sCD200 may contribute to retinal angiogenesis by interacting with VEGF-mediated inflammatory response and represents a potential therapeutic target for the patients with PDR.
The relationship between the MMP system, adrenoceptors and phosphoprotein phosphatases

The MMPs and their inhibitors [tissue inhibitor of MMPs (TIMPs) ] form the mainstay of extracellular matrix homeostasis. They are expressed in response to numerous stimuli including cytokines and GPCR activation. This review highlights the importance of adrenoceptors and phosphoprotein phosphatases (PPP) in regulating MMPs in the cardiovascular system, which may help explain some of the beneficial effects of targeting the adrenoceptor system in tissue remodelling and will establish emerging crosstalk between these three systems. Although α‐ and β‐adrenoceptor activation increases MMP but decreases TIMP expression, MMPs are implicated in the growth stimulatory effects of adrenoceptor activation through transactivation of epidermal growth factor receptor. Furthermore, they have recently been found to catalyse the proteolysis of β‐adrenoceptors and modulate vascular tone. While the mechanisms underpinning these effects are not well defined, reversible protein phosphorylation by kinases and phosphatases may be key. In particular, PPP (Ser/Thr phosphatases) are not only critical in resensitization and internalization of adrenoceptors but also modulate MMP expression. The interrelationship is complex as isoprenaline (ISO) inhibits okadaic acid [phosphoprotein phosphatase type 1/phosphoprotein phosphatase type 2A (PP2A) inhibitor]‐mediated MMP expression. While this may be simply due to its ability to transiently increase PP2A activity, there is evidence for MMP‐9 that ISO prevents okadaic acid‐mediated expression of MMP‐9 through a β‐arrestin, NF‐κB‐dependent pathway, which is abolished by knock‐down of PP2A. It is essential that crosstalk between MMPs, adrenoceptors and PPP are investigated further as it will provide important insight into how adrenoceptors modulate cardiovascular remodelling, and may identify new targets for pharmacological manipulation of the MMP system.