Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Rotational Stability of a Diamagnetic Rod

When Faraday identified/named diamagnetism (relative permeability μ < 1) in 1845, he reported in Arts. 2253-2260 of [1] that a glass rod would align itself at right angles to the lines of magnetic field of his laboratory electromagnet. He also noted in Art. 2269 that such object moved “into the positions of weakest magnetic action”. Faraday’s test objects were suspended from a string, but W. Thomson [5, 6] (at age 23) soon noted that it should be possible to levitate diamagnetic objects, although he speculated that the magnetic force would be too weak for such levitation to be observed in practice. Diamagnetic levitation was first observed in 1939 [7]. See also [8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13]. A superconductor can be regarded as an extreme form of diamagnetism, with relative permeability μ = 0; levitation of a superconductor was first observed in 1945 [14, 15]. A recent example of diamagnetic levitation of a graphite rod has been given in [16, 17], in which the magnetic field was provided by a pair of cylindrical magnets, each with horizontal (diametric) magnetization, perpendicular to the axes of the cylinders, as illustrated below (PDL = parallel dipole line).
A Transgenic Marker for Mouse B Lymphoid Precursors

Three lines of transgenic mice have been generated which express human CD25 under the control of the 722-base pair region located immediately 5′ of the precursor (pre)–B cell–specific λ5 gene. All three strains express human CD25 in parallel to endogenous λ5 on pre–B cells, but not on mature B lymphocytes or other blood cell lineages. High expression of human CD25 on B lineage cells of transgenic mice has allowed the identification of a new B220+CD19−λ5+ precursor of the B220+CD19+λ5+ c-kit+ pre-BI cells. Both types of precursors are clonable on stromal cells in the presence of interleukin-7. The CD19− precursors have a sizeable part of their immunoglobulin heavy chain gene loci in germline configuration, while the CD19+ pre–BI cells are predominantly DJH rearranged. The results indicate that random integration of the 722-bp 5′ region of the λ5 gene into the mouse genome confers tissue and differentiation stage–specific expression of a transgene.
Self-healing during electrical treeing: A feature of the two-phase liquid-solid nature of silicone gels

We report the results of electrical treeing tests carried out on a range of silicone dielectric gel samples made by varying the ratio of the same two components used for cross-linking a commercial silicone gel. These samples range from liquids to elastomers via two-phase gels. The extent of the curing is followed by means of FTIR spectroscopy and the samples are characterized through their dynamical mechanical properties. It is shown that the gel samples exhibit treeing behavior that includes features typical of both liquids and solids. A filamentary structure is produced that has permanence together with attached bubbles that self-heal locally during treeing, although differences in detail were found depending on the degree of curing. Removal of the treeing voltage allows a more substantial self-healing to occur. This behavior is discussed in terms of the two-phase liquid-solid nature of the silicone gels.
Pesticide Use and Myocardial Infarction Incidence Among Farm Women in the Agricultural Health Study

Objective: To evaluate the relationship between pesticide use and myocardial infarction (MI) among farm women. Background: Little is known about the potential association between pesticide use and cardiovascular outcomes. Methods: We used logistic regression to evaluate pesticide use and self-reported incident nonfatal MI among women in the Agricultural Health Study. Results: Of those MI-free at enrollment (n = 22,425), 168 reported an MI after enrollment. We saw no association with pesticide use overall. Six of 27 individual pesticides evaluated were significantly associated with nonfatal MI, including chlorpyrifos, coumaphos, carbofuran, metalaxyl, pendimethalin, and trifluralin, which all had odds ratios >1.7. These chemicals were used by <10% of the cases, and their use was correlated, making it difficult to attribute the risk elevation to a specific pesticide. Conclusion: Pesticides may contribute to MI risk among farm women.
The Araucaria Project: VLT Spectra of Blue Supergiants in WLM— Classification and First Abundances

As part of the Araucaria Project, we present the first spectral catalog of supergiant stars in the Local Group dwarf irregular galaxy WLM. In assigning a spectral classification to these stars we accounted for the low metal content of WLM relative to the galactic standards used in the MK process, by using classification criteria developed for B and A supergiants contained in the Small Magellanic Cloud. Our spectral catalog shows that our higher signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) spectroscopic sample of 19 objects contains at least six early B (B0-B5) supergiants and six late B and early A (B8-A2) stars of luminosity class between Ia and II, as well as an O7 V star and an O9.7 Ia star. The spectra of several of these stars are of sufficiently high quality for a determination of the stellar parameters and abundances. We have also acquired a second set of lower S/N spectra for mostly BA stars; however, their quality does not allow a further analysis. We have carried out a quantitative analysis for three early B supergiants. The mean oxygen abundance we derive is 12 + log(O/H) = 7.83 ± 0.12. This value agrees very well with the measurement that is obtained from H II regions. We therefore find no additional evidence for the discrepancy between stellar and nebular oxygen abundances measured for a single A-type supergiant by Venn et al. The analysis of B- and A-type supergiants yields compatible results for nitrogen, silicon, and magnesium. We show that the photometric variability of the blue supergiants included in our spectroscopic sample is negligible for the use of these stars as distance indicators.
Trends in infectious disease mortality in the United States during the 20th century.

CONTEXT Recent increases in infectious disease mortality and concern about emerging infections warrant an examination of longer-term trends. OBJECTIVE To describe trends in infectious disease mortality in the United States during the 20th century. DESIGN AND SETTING Descriptive study of infectious disease mortality in the United States. Deaths due to infectious diseases from 1900 to 1996 were tallied by using mortality tables. Trends in age-specific infectious disease mortality were examined by using age-specific death rates for 9 common infectious causes of death. SUBJECTS Persons who died in the United States between 1900 and 1996. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Crude and age-adjusted mortality rates. RESULTS Infectious disease mortality declined during the first 8 decades of the 20th century from 797 deaths per 100000 in 1900 to 36 deaths per 100000 in 1980. From 1981 to 1995, the mortality rate increased to a peak of 63 deaths per 100000 in 1995 and declined to 59 deaths per 100000 in 1996. The decline was interrupted by a sharp spike in mortality caused by the 1918 influenza epidemic. From 1938 to 1952, the decline was particularly rapid, with mortality decreasing 8.2% per year. Pneumonia and influenza were responsible for the largest number of infectious disease deaths throughout the century. Tuberculosis caused almost as many deaths as pneumonia and influenza early in the century, but tuberculosis mortality dropped off sharply after 1945. Infectious disease mortality increased in the 1980s and early 1990s in persons aged 25 years and older and was mainly due to the emergence of the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) in 25- to 64-year-olds and, to a lesser degree, to increases in pneumonia and influenza deaths among persons aged 65 years and older. There was considerable year-to-year variability in infectious disease mortality, especially for the youngest and oldest age groups. CONCLUSIONS Although most of the 20th century has been marked by declining infectious disease mortality, substantial year-to-year variation as well as recent increases emphasize the dynamic nature of infectious diseases and the need for preparedness to address them.
Oncolytic virotherapy for human malignant mesothelioma: recent advances

Cancer virotherapy is an attractive alternative to conventional treatments because it offers a wide range of antitumor effects due to 1) the diversity of the oncolytic viruses that are now available and 2) their multifaceted activities against both tumor cells and tumor vessels, in addition to their ability to induce antitumor immune responses. In this review, we summarize preclinical and clinical data regarding the targeting of malignant mesothelioma (MM) by oncolytic viruses. We also discuss the potential of other oncolytic viruses that have already shown antitumor effects against several malignancies in advanced clinical trials but are yet to be tested against MM cells. Finally, we review how the activation of the immune system and combinations with other types of anticancer treatments could support the development of oncolytic virotherapy for the treatment of MM.
Purification and characterization of acidolysin, an acidic metalloprotease produced by Clostridium acetobutylicum ATCC 824

Acidolysin an extracellular protease produced by Clostridium acetobutylicum ATCC 824 was purified to homogeneity by anion-exchange chromatography with a recovery of 91%. The enzyme was a monomeric protein with a molecular weight of 44,000 as estimated by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and an acidic isoelectric point of 3.3. Acidolysin was very sensitive to metal-chelating agents and phosphoramidon and was unaffected by sulfhydryl reagents. It was shown to be a calcium- and zinc-containing protease. It exhibited optimal activity against Azocoll at pH 5 and 45 degrees C. It was stable at low pH and heat labile above 50 degrees C. It exhibited specificity toward peptide bonds formed by the amino group of hydrophobic amino acids (isoleucine, leucine, and phenylalanine) and its NH2-terminal amino acid sequence showed a high degree of similarity with that of Bacillus subtilis neutral metalloprotease A. Acidolysin is the first phosphoramidon-sensitive, acidic zinc metalloprotease reported.
Comparative Assessment of Transient Exposure of Paclitaxel or Zotarolimus on In Vitro Vascular Cell Death, Proliferation, Migration, and Proinflammatory Biomarker Expression

Abstract: Both paclitaxel and zotarolimus are currently employed in vascular interventional therapies, such as drug-eluting stents, and are under investigation for use in other novel drug–device combination products. Paclitaxel is a microtubule-stabilizing compound with potent antiproliferative properties and antimigration effects, whereas zotarolimus is a potent mammalian target of rapamycin inhibitor with antiproliferative and antiinflammatory properties. This study was intended to compare paclitaxel and zotarolimus for intravascular applications in which drug exposure time may be reduced, such as in drug-coated balloons. These applications are generally aimed at reducing neointimal hyperplasia by limiting smooth muscle cell (SMC) proliferation and inflammatory cell recruitment, while minimally interfering with vessel reendothelialization after balloon denudation. In the cellular models described in this study, transient exposure of zotarolimus resulted in the sustained inhibition of SMC proliferation and reduced endothelial cell (EC) proinflammatory cytokine expression, while not affecting EC migration and viability. Transient exposure of paclitaxel inhibited SMC proliferation, EC migration, and overall cell viability, with no effect on expression of the proinflammatory biomarkers studied.
Robust midsagittal plane extraction from normal and pathological 3-D neuroradiology images

This paper focuses on extracting the ideal midsagittal plane (iMSP) from three-dimensional (3-D) normal and pathological neuroimages. The main challenges in this work are the structural asymmetry that may exist in pathological brains, and the anisotropic, unevenly sampled image data that is common in clinical practice. We present an edge-based, cross-correlation approach that decomposes the plane fitting problem into discovery of two-dimensional symmetry axes on each slice, followed by a robust estimation of plane parameters. The algorithm's tolerance to brain asymmetries, input image offsets and image noise is quantitatively evaluated. We find that the algorithm can extract the iMSP from input 3-D images with 1) large asymmetrical lesions; 2) arbitrary initial rotation offsets; 3) low signal-to-noise ratio or high bias field. The iMSP algorithm is compared with an approach based on maximization of mutual information registration, and is found to exhibit superior performance under adverse conditions. Finally, no statistically significant difference is found between the midsagittal plane computed by the iMSP algorithm and that estimated by two trained neuroradiologists.
Proteomics Analysis of Cellular Response to Oxidative Stress

The proteomics analysis reported here shows that a major cellular response to oxidative stress is the modification of several peroxiredoxins. An acidic form of the peroxiredoxins appeared to be systematically increased under oxidative stress conditions. Peroxiredoxins are enzymes catalyzing the destruction of peroxides. In doing so, a reactive cysteine in the peroxiredoxin active site is weakly oxidized (disulfide or sulfenic acid) by the destroyed peroxides. Cellular thiols (e.g. thioredoxin) are used to regenerate the peroxiredoxins to their active state. Tandem mass spectrometry was carried out to characterize the modified form of the protein produced in vivo by oxidative stress. The cysteine present in the active site was shown to be oxidized into cysteic acid, leading to an inactivated form of peroxiredoxin. This strongly suggested that peroxiredoxins behave as a dam upon oxidative stress, being both important peroxide-destroying enzymes and peroxide targets. Results obtained in a primary culture of Leydig cells challenged with tumor necrosis factor α suggested that this oxidized/native balance of peroxiredoxin 2 may play an active role in resistance or susceptibility to tumor necrosis factor α-induced apoptosis.
A neuro-fuzzy system modeling with self-constructing rule generationand hybrid SVD-based learning

We propose an approach for neuro-fuzzy system modeling. A neuro-fuzzy system for a given set of input-output data is obtained in two steps. First, the data set is partitioned automatically into a set of clusters based on input-similarity and output-similarity tests. Membership functions associated with each cluster are defined according to statistical means and variances of the data points included in the cluster. Then, a fuzzy IF-THEN rule is extracted from each cluster to form a fuzzy rule-base. Second, a fuzzy neural network is constructed accordingly and parameters are refined to increase the precision of the fuzzy rule-base. To decrease the size of the search space and to speed up the convergence, we develop a hybrid learning algorithm which combines a recursive singular value decomposition-based least squares estimator and the gradient descent method. The proposed approach has advantages of determining the number of rules automatically and matching membership functions closely with the real distribution of the training data points. Besides, it learns faster, consumes less memory, and produces lower approximation errors than other methods.
Clinical correlates of global functioning in obese treatment seeking persons with binge eating disorder.

BACKGROUND In recent years, research has called for an increased emphasis on clinical outcomes that are meaningful to patients with binge eating disorder (BED). This cross-sectional study examined the Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF) and its relation to clinical and demographic factors in BED patients. SUBJECTS AND METHODS Thirty-two patients (28 women and 4 men) with BED (age = 41.1 ± 10.7; body mass index = 38.9 ± 5.8) seeking treatment to a weekly multidisciplinary programme at the UPC KU Leuven, Campus Kortenberg in Belgium, were asked to participate at intake. All participants were assessed with the GAF scale, completed the Eating Disorder Inventory (EDI), the Body Attitude Test (BAT), the Symptoms Checklist-90, the Baecke Physical Activity Questionnaire (BPAQ), and performed a 6 minute walk test. RESULTS The GAF-score (55.9 ± 13.9) was only significantly associated with the BPAQ score (7.0 ± 1.4) (r = 0.383, p = 0.03) and the BAT score (63.9 ± 16.1) (r=-0.443, p = 0.011). The regression model including both of these variables explained 25.3% of the variability in the GAF-score. CONCLUSIONS This study highlights the value of clinicians assessing physical activity and body image in patients with BED. Research is needed to elucidate whether incorporating body image treatments and physical activity in the care of patients with BED can promote global functioning.
Wip 1 phosphatase positively modulates dendritic spine morphology and memory processes through the p 38 MAPK signaling pathway

Dendritic spine morphology is modulated by protein kinase p38, a mitogen-activated protein (MAPK), in the hippocampus. Protein p38MAPK is a substrate of wip1, a protein phosphatase. The role of wip1 in the central nervous system (CNS) has never been explored. Here, we report a novel function of wip1 in dendritic spine morphology and memory processes. Wip1 deficiency decreases dendritic spine size and density in pyramidal neurons of the hippocampal CA1 region. Simultaneously, impairments in object recognition tasks and contextual memory occur in wip1 deficient mice, but are reversed in wip1/p38 double mutant mice. Thus, our findings demonstrate that wip1 modulates dendritic morphology and memory processes through the p38MAPK signaling pathway. In addition to the well-characterized role of the wip1/p38MAPK in cell death and differentiation, we revealed the novel contribution of wip1 to cognition and dendritic spine morphology, which may suggest new approaches to treating neurodegenerative disorders.
Correction: A Candidate Gene Approach Identifies the TRAF1/C5 Region as a Risk Factor for Rheumatoid Arthritis

Correction for: Kurreeman FAS, Padyukov L, Marques RB, Schrodi SJ, Seddighzadeh M, et al. (2007) A Candidate Gene Approach Identifies the TRAF1/C5 Region as a Risk Factor for Rheumatoid Arthritis. PLoS Med 4(9): e278. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed. 0040278 In Table 1, the allele ratio in column eight (Allele Ratiosb: Cases, Controls) refers to allele A: allele B and not allele1:allele2 as described in footnote b, with Allele A being the Susceptibility Allele as denoted in column seven. The footnote should read: bNumber of alleles were compared in cases versus controls: allele A: allele B cases, allele A: allele B controls. Allele A refers to the susceptibility alleles as given in column seven.
A Rough Set Approach to Agent Trust Management

Trust management in Multi Agent Systems plays a key role in today’s growing need for such systems. Methods of trust management try to approximate a set of best agents, in terms of some pre-defined measures. The theory of Rough Sets deals with the approximation of classifying objects in an environment for which we do not have a certain definition. In this research, we propose a new trust management approach based on the concepts of the theory of rough sets. We apply this approach on an Information Retrieval (IR) MAS. This application includes defining the attribute and their domain of values, discretizing the attribute values, collecting these values, and employing a rough set tool for analyzing them. The results of this application are presented. Agent Trust Management, Information Retrieval, Multi Agent System, Rough Sets, Trust Evidence, Trust Rules
Social consequences of psychiatric disorders, II: Teenage parenthood.

OBJECTIVE The subject of this study was the relation between retrospectively reported early-onset psychiatric disorders and subsequent teenage parenthood in the general population. METHOD The data were from 5,877 respondents aged 15-54 years in the National Comorbidity Survey, a nationally representative household survey. Information on respondents' DSM-III-R anxiety disorders, mood disorders, substance abuse disorders, and conduct disorder, age at the birth of the first child, and teenage sexual activity was collected in face-to-face interviews. RESULTS Early-onset psychiatric disorders were associated with subsequent teenage parenthood among both females and males, with significant odds ratios of 2.0-12.0 and population attributable risk proportions of 6.2%-33.7%. Disaggregation analyses showed that disorders were associated with increased probability of sexual activity but not with decreased probability of using contraception. CONCLUSIONS These results add to a growing body of evidence that psychiatric disorders are associated with a variety of adverse life consequences. The current policy debate concerning universal insurance coverage needs to take this into consideration. Planners of interventions aimed at preventing teenage pregnancy should consider including a mental health treatment component in their intervention packages. Mental health professionals treating adolescents need to be sensitized to their higher risk of pregnancy, while family doctors and specialists treating teenage mothers or their children need to be sensitized to the mothers' higher risk of psychiatric disorder.
Perturbation selection and influence measures in local influence analysis

Cook's [J. Roy. Statist. Soc. Ser. B 48 (1986) 133-169] local influence approach based on normal curvature is an important diagnostic tool for assessing local influence of minor perturbations to a statistical model. However, no rigorous approach has been developed to address two fundamental issues: the selection of an appropriate perturbation and the development of influence measures for objective functions at a point with a nonzero first derivative. The aim of this paper is to develop a differential-geometrical framework of a perturbation model (called the perturbation manifold) and utilize associated metric tensor and affine curvatures to resolve these issues. We will show that the metric tensor of the perturbation manifold provides important information about selecting an appropriate perturbation of a model. Moreover, we will introduce new influence measures that are applicable to objective functions at any point. Examples including linear regression models and linear mixed models are examined to demonstrate the effectiveness of using new influence measures for the identification of influential observations.