Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Molecular characterization of circulating tumor cells in breast cancer by a liquid bead array hybridization assay.

BACKGROUND Molecular characterization of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) is crucial to identify novel diagnostic and therapeutic targets for individualized therapies. We developed a multiplexed PCR-coupled liquid bead array to detect the expression of multiple genes in CTCs. METHODS mRNA isolated from immunomagnetically enriched CTCs was subjected to multiplex PCR for KRT19 (keratin 19; also known as CK19), ERBB2 [v-erb-b2 erythroblastic leukemia viral oncogene homolog 2, neuro/glioblastoma derived oncogene homolog (avian); also known as HER2], SCGB2A2 (secretoglobin, family 2A, member 2; also known as MGB1, mammaglobin A), MAGEA3 (melanoma antigen family A, 3), TWIST-1 [twist homolog 1 (Drosophila)], and HMBS (hydroxymethylbilane synthase; also known as PBGD). Biotinylated amplicons were hybridized against fluorescent microspheres carrying gene-specific capture probes and incubated with streptavidin-phycoerythrin. We quantified the captured labeled amplicons and decoded the beads by Luminex flow cytometry. The assay was validated for limit of detection, specificity, and comparison with reverse-transcription quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR), and its clinical performance was evaluated in 64 patients with operable breast cancer, 20 patients with metastasis, and 17 healthy individuals. RESULTS The assay was specific for each gene in complex multiplexed formats and could detect the expression of each gene at the level of a single SK-BR-3 cell. The assay produced results comparable to those for RT-qPCR for each gene. None of the genes tested was detected in the CTC fraction of healthy donors. We detected KRT19, ERBB2, MAGEA3, SCGB2A2, and TWIST1 in 26.6%, 12.5%, 18.7%, 10.9%, and 31.2% of operable breast cancer patients, respectively, and detected the corresponding genes in 65%, 20%, 30%, 20%, and 20% of patients with verified metastasis, respectively. CONCLUSIONS The expression of 6 genes in CTCs can be measured simultaneously and reliably, thereby saving precious sample and reducing the costs and time of analysis.
Compute-and-Forward: Multiple bi-directional sessions on the line network

Signal superposition and broadcast are important features of the wireless medium. Compute-and-Forward, also known as Physical Layer Network Coding, is a technique exploiting these features in order to improve performance of wireless networks. In this paper, the possible benefits for the line network with multiple bi-directional sessions and local interference are investigated. Four different modes, indicating whether or not broadcast and/or superposition are exploited, are considered. In particular, expressions for the maximum achievable common rate are derived for each of the four different modes. Scheduling and coding schemes achieving these rates are presented. From the results it follows that, in most cases, the common rate is improved by a factor close to two by using Compute-and-Forward. However, it is also found that the benefit may be smaller for particular session configurations.
Middle School Classroom Teacher Perceptions of the Impact of Formative Assessments on the Needs of At-Risk Students: A Phenomenological Study

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the perceptions of middle school classroom teachers regarding the impact of formative assessments on the needs of at-risk students. A phenomenological approach was used to gain understanding of how the teacher works with at-risk students and how the steps of formative assessments meets the needs of at-risk students. The theory framing this study was Albert Bandura’s (1977) social cognitive theory and the self-efficacy belief system. Data collection took place with 12 middle school teachers and included a questionnaire, individual interviews, and a focus group. The study was guided by three research questions. First, how do middle school teachers perceive the steps of formative assessment? Second, what are the middle school teacher’s perceptions of the formative assessment theory and its practices? Third, how do middle school teachers perceive the impact of formative assessment on the needs of the at-risk student? Data analysis methods followed Moustakas’ (1994) model of transcendental phenomenology. Trustworthiness was verified through triangulation of data, member checking, and peer checking. Each participant’s identity was kept confidential using pseudonyms and by keeping the location of the study confidential to protect their privacy.
Hydroxychloroquine treatment for primary Sjögren’s syndrome: its effect on salivary and serum inflammatory markers

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the effect of hydroxychloroquine treatment on interleukin 6 (IL6), hyaluronic acid (HA), and soluble interleukin 2 receptor (sIL2R) concentrations in the saliva and serum of patients with primary Sjögren’s syndrome (SS). METHODS Fourteen SS patients treated with hydroxychloroquine 200 mg/day for 12 months were investigated in an open prospective study. Clinical parameters of efficacy and routine biochemical and haematological data to assess drug safety and tolerability were determined every three months. Salivary and serum IL6, sIL2R, and HA values were determined at study entry, 6 and 12 months, using ELISA and radiometric assays. RESULTS After hydroxychloroquine treatment, salivary IL6 concentrations decreased from 13.2 (1.2) to 7.3 (1.1) pg/ml (mean (SEM)) (p < 0.0001). Similarly, salivary HA concentrations were also reduced from 577.8 (120) to 200 (34) ng/ml (mean (SEM) (p < 0.003). Serum IL6 concentrations decreased from 5.4 (0.6) to 2.9 (0.2) pg/ml (mean (SEM) (p < 0.001), while serum HA concentrations remained unchanged. No change has been detected in salivary or serum sIL2R concentrations after 12 months of treatment with hydroxychloroquine. Treatment also resulted in significant reduction in erythrocyte sedimentation rate, serum γ globulin, and C reactive protein values while only partial clinical improvement was noted in some patients. A more pronounced decrease of salivary IL6 and HA levels was found in the two patients in whom a reduction in the swelling of the parotid gland was noted. CONCLUSION In this open label study of hydroxychloroquine treatment for SS a significant reduction of some salivary inflammatory markers was seen at the end of 12 months. Although during the treatment period only a partial clinical effect could be noted, the findings suggest that a double blind controlled study of hydroxychloroquine in SS is indicated.
Intravenous conivaptan for the treatment of hyponatraemia caused by the syndrome of inappropriate secretion of antidiuretic hormone in hospitalized patients: a single-centre experience.

BACKGROUND Intravenous conivaptan is a novel therapeutic agent indicated for the treatment of euvolaemic and hypervolaemic hyponatraemia. However, there is paucity of reported clinical experience using conivaptan for the treatment of the syndrome of inappropriate secretion of antidiuretic hormone (SIADH). Moreover, while there is reasonable concern for overcorrection, no pre-treatment variables are known to be helpful to identify patients at risk for rapid correction. METHODS We searched our records for hospitalized patients treated with intravenous conivaptan for moderate to severe hyponatraemia due to SIADH, with a starting serum sodium <130 mmol/L, between 2006 and 2009 (n = 18), to examine its efficacy as aquaretic, and to search for pre-treatment variables that could predict degree of response. RESULTS Twenty-four hours after initiation of therapy, all patients had at least a 3-mmol/L increase in serum sodium, with 66.7% (12/18) of the patients having an absolute increase >or=4 mmol/L, and a median increase in serum sodium of 7 mmol/L (range: 3-16 mmol/L). Concomitantly, urine osmolality decreased in all patients with a mean reduction of 45.9 +/- 28.8% from baseline. Lower serum sodium, lower blood urea nitrogen and higher estimated glomerular filtration rate at baseline had a significant correlation with the magnitude of the absolute increase in serum sodium 24 hours after initiation of therapy. CONCLUSIONS We conclude that intravenous conivaptan is an effective aquaretic to treat hyponatraemia caused by SIADH, as evidenced by a simultaneous increase in serum sodium and decrease in urine osmolality. Baseline values of serum sodium, blood urea nitrogen and estimated glomerular filtration rate may help predicting the magnitude of response to therapy.
Functional Analysis of the Putative Fusion Domain of the Baculovirus Envelope Fusion Protein F

ABSTRACT Group II nucleopolyhedroviruses (NPVs), e.g., Spodoptera exigua MNPV, lack a GP64-like protein that is present in group I NPVs but have an unrelated envelope fusion protein named F. In contrast to GP64, the F protein has to be activated by a posttranslational cleavage mechanism to become fusogenic. In several vertebrate viral fusion proteins, the cleavage activation generates a new N terminus which forms the so-called fusion peptide. This fusion peptide inserts in the cellular membrane, thereby facilitating apposition of the viral and cellular membrane upon sequential conformational changes of the fusion protein. A similar peptide has been identified in NPV F proteins at the N terminus of the large membrane-anchored subunit F1. The role of individual amino acids in this putative fusion peptide on viral infectivity and propagation was studied by mutagenesis. Mutant F proteins with single amino acid changes as well as an F protein with a deleted putative fusion peptide were introduced in gp64-null Autographa californica MNPV budded viruses (BVs). None of the mutations analyzed had an major effect on the processing and incorporation of F proteins in the envelope of BVs. Only two mutants, one with a substitution for a hydrophobic residue (F152R) and one with a deleted putative fusion peptide, were completely unable to rescue the gp64-null mutant. Several nonconservative substitutions for other hydrophobic residues and the conserved lysine residue had only an effect on viral infectivity. In contrast to what was expected from vertebrate virus fusion peptides, alanine substitutions for glycines did not show any effect.
Fast-Growing Businesses

Abstract: This article investigates the employment effects and the growth potential of newly established businesses. It is argued that the main mechanism of job generation by newcomer firms rests on a small number of fastgrowing businesses. Therefore, the crucial question is whether there are any characteristics of a new firm predisposing it to become a fast growing business. Our empirical work is based on a retrospective study of a cohort of 1,849 newcomer firms in Upper Bavaria (Germany). Wefind that only 4 percent of all newly founded firms show rapid growth, but over one-third of all jobs created by this cohort are located in these rapidly growing firms after four years.
Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews Review from the Ventral to the Dorsal Striatum: Devolving Views of Their Roles in Drug Addiction

We revisit our hypothesis that drug addiction can be viewed as the endpoint of a series of transitions from initial voluntarily drug use to habitual, and ultimately compulsive drug use. We especially focus on the transitions in striatal control over drug seeking behaviour that underlie these transitions since functional heterogeneity of the striatum was a key area of Ann Kelley's research interests and one in which she made enormous contributions. We also discuss the hypothesis in light of recent data that the emergence of a compulsive drug seeking habit both reflects a shift to dorsal striatal control over behaviour and impaired prefontal cortical inhibitory control mechanisms. We further discuss aspects of the vulnerability to compulsive drug use and in particular the impact of impulsivity. In writing this review we acknowledge the untimely death of an outstanding scientist and a dear personal friend.
When Does Policy Reform Work?: The Case of Central Bank Independence

Questions of the effectiveness of economic policy reform are inseparable from the political economy factors responsible for distortionary policies in the first place. Distortionary policies are more likely to be adopted where politicians face fewer constraints. Hence reform should have modest effects in societies where the political system already imposes strong constraints, and in societies with weak constraints, because it does not alter the underlying political economy. Reform should be most effective in societies with intermediate constraints. Furthermore, effective reform in one dimension may lead to deterioration in others, as politicians address the underlying demands through other means—a phenomenon we call the seesaw effect. We report evidence that central bank reforms reduced inflation in countries with intermediate constraints but had no or little effect where constraints were strong or weak. We also present evidence consistent with the seesaw effect: in countries where central bank reform reduces inflation, government expenditure tends to increase.
NOKIA Research Center NRC-TR-2008-005 On Personal Content Management Techniques for Audio

State . of . -art automati . c analysis tools for personal audio content management are discussed in this paper. Bayesian networks based audio classification algorithm provides classification into four main audio classes . and serves as a first step for other subsequent analysis tools. For speech analysis we propose an improved . BIC based speaker segmentation and clustering algorithm and a combined gender and emotion detection . algorithm utilizing prosodic features. For the other main classes it is often hard to device any general and . well . functional pre . categorization that would fit the unforeseeable types of user recorded data. For . compensating the absence of analysis tools for these classes we propose the use of efficient audio similarity . measure and query . by . example algorithm with datab . ase clustering capabilities. Based on the experiments . the audio similarity framework is also capable of producing relationship metadata for example relating the . labeled speaker segments of one sample across the whole user’s personal database. By following . some simple combined implementation principles the framework can be supported also in . personal mobile devices. The experimental results show that the combined use of the algorithms is feasible . in practice.
Outcomes and Risk Factors Associated with Clostridium difficile Diarrhea in Hospitalized Adult Patients

Background. The epidemiology of Clostridium difficile infection has changed over time. Therefore, it is essential to monitor the characteristics of patients at risk of infection and factors associated with poor prognosis. Objective. To evaluate factors associated with C. difficile infection and with poor prognosis in those with documented C. difficile colitis. Methods. A retrospective case-control study of 75 patients with documented C. difficile colitis and 75 controls with hospital-acquired diarrhea of other causes. Stepwise multiple logistic regression was used to identify factors associated with C. difficile infection among patients with hospital-acquired diarrhea. Results. Previous antibiotic treatment (odds ratio (OR), 13.3; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.40–126.90), abdominal distension (OR, 3.85; 95% CI, 1.35–10.98), and fecal leukocytes (OR, 8.79; 95% CI, 1.41–54.61) are considered as predictors of C. difficile colitis; anorexia was negatively associated with C. difficile infection (OR, 0.15; 95% CI, 0.03–0.66). Enteral tube feeding was independently associated with a composite outcome that included in-hospital mortality, intensive care unit admission, and treatment failure (OR, 3.75; 95%CI, 1.24–11.29). Conclusions. Previous antibiotic use and presence of fecal leukocytes in patients with hospital-acquired diarrhea are associated with C. difficile colitis and enteral tube support with complications associated with C. difficile colitis.
Disposition and Metabolism of Darapladib, a Lipoprotein-Associated Phospholipase A2 Inhibitor, in Humans

The absorption, metabolism, and excretion of darapladib, a novel inhibitor of lipoprotein-associated phospholipase A2, was investigated in healthy male subjects using [14C]-radiolabeled material in a bespoke study design. Disposition of darapladib was compared following single i.v. and both single and repeated oral administrations. The anticipated presence of low circulating concentrations of drug-related material required the use of accelerator mass spectrometry as a sensitive radiodetector. Blood, urine, and feces were collected up to 21 days post radioactive dose, and analyzed for drug-related material. The principal circulating drug-related component was unchanged darapladib. No notable metabolites were observed in plasma post-i.v. dosing; however, metabolites resulting from hydroxylation (M3) and N-deethylation (M4) were observed (at 4%–6% of plasma radioactivity) following oral dosing, indicative of some first-pass metabolism. In addition, an acid-catalyzed degradant (M10) resulting from presystemic hydrolysis was also detected in plasma at similar levels of ∼5% of radioactivity post oral dosing. Systemic exposure to radioactive material was reduced within the repeat dose regimen, consistent with the notion of time-dependent pharmacokinetics resulting from enhanced clearance or reduced absorption. Elimination of drug-related material occurred predominantly via the feces, with unchanged darapladib representing 43%–53% of the radioactive dose, and metabolites M3 and M4 also notably accounting for ∼9% and 19% of the dose, respectively. The enhanced study design has provided an increased understanding of the absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion (ADME) properties of darapladib in humans, and substantially influenced future work on the compound.
Saliency Transfer: An Example-Based Method for Salient Object Detection

Over the past decades, numerous theories and studies have demonstrated that salient objects in different scenes often share some properties in common that make them visually stand out from their surroundings, and thus can be processed in finer details. In this paper, we propose a novel method for salient object detection that involves the transfer of the annotations from an existing example onto an input image. Our method, which is based on the low-level saliency features of each pixel, estimates dense pixel-wise correspondences between the input image and an example image, and then integrates high-level concepts to produce an initial saliency map. Finally, a coarse-to-fine optimization framework is proposed to generate uniformly highlighted salient objects. Qualitatively and quantitatively experiments on six popular benchmark datasets validate that our approach greatly outperforms the state-of-the-art algorithms and recently published works.
Electoral E ¤ ects of Fiscal Transfers : Quasi-Experimental Evidence from Local Executive Elections in Brazil , 1982-1988

Do resource transfers from the central government to sub-national governments a¤ect local electoral contests? Because politics usually matters for the allocation of public resources, empirical studies of this topic face a problem of simultaneous causality bias. This paper provides the rst quasi-experimental evidence on electoral e¤ects of resource transfers for local incumbent governments. Using regression-discontinuity analysis of a population-based revenue-sharing mechanism in Brazil, we estimate the transferse¤ect on re-election probabilities in the 1988 mayoral elections. Our results suggest that increasing resource transfers by 30% increased the re-election probability of local non-aligned incumbent parties by about 35 percentage points. The same resource di¤erential had no statistically signi cant e¤ect on the re-election probability of the PDS, the party of the authoritarian regime. Evaluating hypotheses for these heterogeneous responses, we conclude that the PDSprofound unpopularity during the transition period made the transferselectoral bene t unobservable.
An Adaptive and Stable Method for Fitting Implicit Polynomial Curves and Surfaces

Representing 2D and 3D data sets with implicit polynomials (IPs) has been attractive because of its applicability to various computer vision issues. Therefore, many IP fitting methods have already been proposed. However, the existing fitting methods can be and need to be improved with respect to computational cost for deciding on the appropriate degree of the IP representation and to fitting accuracy, while still maintaining the stability of the fit. We propose a stable method for accurate fitting that automatically determines the moderate degree required. Our method increases the degree of IP until a satisfactory fitting result is obtained. The incrementability of QR decomposition with Gram-Schmidt orthogonalization gives our method computational efficiency. Furthermore, since the decomposition detects the instability element precisely, our method can selectively apply ridge regression-based constraints to that element only. As a result, our method achieves computational stability while maintaining fitting accuracy. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our method compared with prior methods.
Wearable and Flexible Textile Electrodes for Biopotential Signal Monitoring: A review

Wearable electronics is a rapidly growing field that recently started to introduce successful commercial products into the consumer electronics market. Employment of biopotential signals in wearable systems as either biofeedbacks or control commands are expected to revolutionize many technologies including point of care health monitoring systems, rehabilitation devices, human–computer/machine interfaces (HCI/HMIs), and brain–computer interfaces (BCIs). Since electrodes are regarded as a decisive part of such products, they have been studied for almost a decade now, resulting in the emergence of textile electrodes. This study presents a systematic review of wearable textile electrodes in physiological signal monitoring, with discussions on the manufacturing of conductive textiles, metrics to assess their performance as electrodes, and an investigation of their application in the acquisition of critical biopotential signals for routine monitoring, assessment, and exploitation of cardiac (electrocardiography, ECG), neural (electroencephalography, EEG), muscular (electromyography, EMG), and ocular (electrooculography, EOG) functions.