Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
In Utero Exposure to Bisphenol A Shifts the Window of Susceptibility for Mammary Carcinogenesis in the Rat

Background Bisphenol A (BPA) is a ubiquitous environmental chemical with reported endocrine-disrupting properties. Objective Our goal in this study was to determine whether prenatal exposure to BPA predisposes the adult rat mammary gland to carcinogenesis. Methods Pregnant rats were treated orally with 0, 25, or 250 μg BPA/kg body weight (BW) from gestation day (GD) 10 to GD21. For tumorigenesis experiments, prenatally exposed female offspring received a single gavage of 7,12-dimethylbenz(a)anthracene (DMBA; 30 mg/kg BW) on postnatal day (PND) 50, or PND100. Results Prenatal exposure of the dam to 250 μg BPA/kg BW combined with a single exposure of female offspring to DMBA on PND100, but not on PND50, significantly increased tumor incidence while decreasing tumor latency compared with the control group. Prenatal exposure of the dam to 250 μg BPA/kg BW, in the absence of DMBA to the female offspring, increased cell proliferation and elicited differential effects at the protein level at PND100 compared with PND50. Differentially regulated proteins in the mammary gland included estrogen receptor-α, progesterone receptor-A, Bcl-2, steroid receptor coactivators, epidermal growth factor receptor, phospho-insulin-like growth factor 1 receptor, and phospho-Raf. Conclusions Our study demonstrates that oral prenatal exposure to BPA increases mammary cancer susceptibility in offspring and shifts the window of susceptibility for DMBA-induced tumorigenesis in the rat mammary gland from PND50 to PND100. These changes are accompanied by differential effects of prenatal BPA exposure on the expression of key proteins involved in cell proliferation.
Review: acute versus chronic response to burn injury.

The acute response to burn injury is referred to as the ebb, or shock, phase. It is characterized as a hypodynamic state, with both cardiac output and metabolic rate being depressed. Hyperglycemia is evident, owing both to an increased rate of production of glucose and a peripheral "insulin resistance. " Lactate production is markedly elevated, whereas the FFA response is variable. Clinically, the predominant concern is repletion of the plasma volume that was lost as a consequence of increased capillary permeability. If adequate fluid resuscitation is administered, recovery from burn shock can usually be accomplished. The chronic response to burn injury, or flow phase, may last for many weeks. It is a hyperdynamic state, with both cardiac output and metabolic rate being elevated. Without appropriate nutritional therapy, severe protein wasting can occur as a consequence of an accelerated rate of protein catabolism. The increase in protein catabolism is associated with an increase in the rate of glucose production. There appear to be changes in fat metabolism as well, but more quantitative studies are needed in this area. In general, improved emergency room treatment has greatly improved survival from burn shock, and the focus of much of the study of the response to burn injury has consequently shifted to the flow phase. In that regard, many important questions still remain unanswered. The most pressing problem to those interested in metabolism and nutrition is probably the identification of the signal for the metabolic response evident in the flow phase.
Intra prediction architecture for H.264/AVC QFHD encoder

This paper proposes a high-performance intra prediction architecture that can support H.264/AVC high profile. The proposed MB/block co-reordering can avoid data dependency and improve pipeline utilization. Therefore, the timing constraint of real-time 4k×2k encoding can be achieved with negligible quality loss. 16×16 prediction engine and 8×8 prediction engine work parallel for prediction and coefficients generating. A reordering interlaced reconstruction is also designed for fully pipelined architecture. It takes only 160 cycles to process one macroblock (MB). Hardware utilization of prediction and reconstruction modules is almost 100%. Furthermore, PE-reusable 8×8 intra predictor and hybrid SAD & SATD mode decision are proposed to save hardware cost. The design is implemented by 90nm CMOS technology with 113.2k gates and can encode 4k×2k video sequences at 60 fps with operation frequency of 310MHz.
Ovarian function in domestic ruminants: Mechanistic and translational aspects

The purpose of this review is to illustrate the critical value of integration of both in vitro and whole animal approaches in order to make real progress in terms of understanding the underlying mechanisms controlling ovarian follicle development and also in utilising domestic ruminants as models for the human in the translational development of interventions to address infertility. In terms of mechanistic aspects, this review concentrates on interactions between members of the TGFβ super family derived from both somatic cells (AMH) and the oocyte (BMP6, BMP15, GDF9) and illustrates how integration of in vitro and in vivo approaches has allowed us to propose a functional relationship between these factors in regulating the progression of follicles through the gonadotrophin-responsive to dependent phases of follicle development. In this section, a new in situ direct ovarian perfusion system is introduced. In terms of translational aspects, this review details the integration of in vitro and in vivo approaches in order to develop methods in sheep that allow high rates of restoration of ovarian function and fertility following whole ovarian cryopreservation and autotransplantation in adult animals. This methodology should be of value to women at risk of premature ovarian failure. It is concluded that, given the vastly increased cost of ruminant research in developed countries, that meetings such as the RRS can play a critical role in encouraging international collaboration in order to ensure the continued exploitation of monovulatory ruminants as valuable experimental models.
Discrimination on the grassmann manifold: Fundamental limits of subspace classifiers

Repurposing tools and intuitions from Shannon theory, we derive fundamental limits on the reliable classification of high-dimensional signals from low-dimensional features. We focus on the classification of linear and affine subspaces and suppose the features to be noisy linear projections. Leveraging a syntactic equivalence of discrimination between subspaces and communications over vector wireless channels, we derive asymptotic bounds on classifier performance. First, we define the classification capacity, which characterizes necessary and sufficient relationships between the signal dimension, the number of features, and the number of classes to be discriminated, as all three quantities approach infinity. Second, we define the diversitydiscrimination tradeoff, which characterizes relationships between the number of classes and the misclassification probability as the signal-to-noise ratio approaches infinity. We derive inner and outer bounds on these measures, revealing precise relationships between signal dimension and classifier performance.
SortNet: Learning to Rank by a Neural Preference Function

Relevance ranking consists in sorting a set of objects with respect to a given criterion. However, in personalized retrieval systems, the relevance criteria may usually vary among different users and may not be predefined. In this case, ranking algorithms that adapt their behavior from users' feedbacks must be devised. Two main approaches are proposed in the literature for learning to rank: the use of a scoring function, learned by examples, that evaluates a feature-based representation of each object yielding an absolute relevance score, a pairwise approach, where a preference function is learned to determine the object that has to be ranked first in a given pair. In this paper, we present a preference learning method for learning to rank. A neural network, the comparative neural network (CmpNN), is trained from examples to approximate the comparison function for a pair of objects. The CmpNN adopts a particular architecture designed to implement the symmetries naturally present in a preference function. The learned preference function can be embedded as the comparator into a classical sorting algorithm to provide a global ranking of a set of objects. To improve the ranking performances, an active-learning procedure is devised, that aims at selecting the most informative patterns in the training set. The proposed algorithm is evaluated on the LETOR dataset showing promising performances in comparison with other state-of-the-art algorithms.
Relationship between anxiety and standardized patient test performance in the medicine clerkship

PURPOSE: Anxiety is thought to affect test performance. Studies have shown that students with low levels of test anxiety achieve higher scores on multiple choice question (MCQ) examinations than those with high anxiety levels. Female students have been shown to have higher test anxiety levels than male students. Standardized patient (SP) examinations are being used in medical schools and for licensing purposes. As SP exams are relatively new, there are few studies measuring anxiety levels for the SP test. The purpose of this study was to measure and compare medicine clerkship student SP versus MCQ examination anxiety levels and to determine if level affected test performance.METHODS: The Spielberger test attitude inventory was used to measure anxiety in 150 students rotating through the clerkship. Students completed questionnaires after the MCQ and SP examinations. Mean examination scores and anxiety levels were compared. Based on questionnaire scores, students were divided into 3 groups: low, moderate, and high anxiety. The MCQ and SP examination scores were analyzed to determine if male/female anxiety-level affected test performance.RESULTS: There were no meaningful anxiety-level differences between the SP and MCQ examinations. An inverse relationship between anxiety level and test scores was not identified. Female students had higher anxiety levels but sex differences did not influence examination performance.DISCUSSION: Medicine clerkship student test performance is not affected by anxiety level. Implications of the findings for incorporating stress management training in medical school curricula and suggestions for future research are discussed.
Hospitalization and deaths for select enteric illnesses and associated sequelae in Canada, 2001–2004

SUMMARY This paper describes morbidity and mortality parameters for Campylobacter spp. , Salmonella spp. , enterohaemorrhagic Escherichia coli, Listeria spp. , norovirus infections and their primary associated sequelae [Guillain–Barré syndrome (GBS), haemolytic uraemic syndrome, reactive arthropathies and Reiter's syndrome]. Data from a period of 4 years were obtained from three national databases to estimate percentage of reported cases hospitalized, mean annual hospitalization incidence rate, frequency of hospitalization by age and sex, and number of deaths. The length of hospital stay, discharge disposition, hospitalization age, and number of diagnoses per case were also extracted and summarized. In addition, we estimated that each year in Canada, there are between 126 and 251 cases of Campylobacter-associated GBS. This study provides morbidity and mortality estimates for the top enteric pathogens in Canada, including their associated sequelae, which can contribute to the quantification of the burden of illness.
Serum Aspergillus galactomannan antigen values strongly correlate with outcome of invasive aspergillosis

Determining the outcome of patients with aspergillosis can be particularly difficult because patients with aspergillosis are at risk for other conditions that mimic this infection. Galactomannan is an Aspergillus‐specific antigen released during invasive aspergillosis and is detected by the quantitative serum galactomannan index (GMI) test.
Paleontology

THE author, in his preface, describes the scope and intention of this book, which is to lay emphasis on one hand on the evolutionary story that the study of palæntology tells us, and on the other to illustrate the adaptation of animals to their environment. The author further states that his purpose is “to interest rather than to repel the beginner—a pedagogical principle all too frequently ignored”. In these aims he appears largely to succeed, and the book compares well with others of its class. Naturally, in a book which deals with the whole of palæontology from Protozoa to man in 364 pages, there must be either compression or omission, and the second alternative has wisely been chosen, with the result that the reader, who is supposed to be a beginner, is at all events saved from mental indigestion.Paleontology. By Prof. Edward Wilber Berry. Pp. xii + 392. (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc.; London: McGraw - Hill Publishing Co., Ltd., 1929.) 17s. 6d. net.
Influence of clinical mastitis and its treatment outcome on reproductive performance in crossbred cows: A retrospective study

Aim: Evaluation of the effect of clinical mastitis (CM) and its treatment outcome on the reproductive performance in crossbred cows retrospectively. Materials and Methods: Datasets of 835 lactating cows affected with CM during a period of 12 years (2001-2012) were considered for this study. Mastitis treatment related data and reproductive parameters such as days to first detected heat (DTFDH), days to first insemination (DTFI), days open (DO), and number of services per conception (SC) were collected from mastitis treatment and artificial insemination registers, respectively. Data were analyzed by ANOVA using SPSS 20 software. The means were compared with the Duncan’s multiple comparison post-hoc test. Results: CM affected cows had significantly (p<0.05) higher DTFDH, DTFI, DO and SC compared to clinically healthy cows. Cows diagnosed with a single episode of CM had significantly (p<0.05) delayed DTFDH while, DO and SC were significantly higher (p<0.05) in cows diagnosed by multiple episodes of CM. SC was significantly (p<0.05) higher in cows diagnosed with both relapse and recurrence. Severe CM affected cows had significantly (p<0.05) altered reproductive parameters. The reproductive parameters were altered to high extent when CM occurred during the breeding period. Conclusion: CM-affected cows had higher DTFDH, DTFI, DO and SC compared to clinically healthy cows. The negative effects of CM on reproduction parameters were higher when CM occurred during the breeding period.
Thrombin Induces Proteinase-activated Receptor-1 Gene Expression in Endothelial Cells via Activation of Gi-linked Ras/Mitogen-activated Protein Kinase Pathway*

We addressed the mechanisms of restoration of cell surface proteinase-activated receptor-1 (PAR-1) by investigating thrombin-activated signaling pathways involved in PAR-1 re-expression in endothelial cells. Exposure of endothelial cells transfected with PAR-1 promoter-luciferase reporter construct to either thrombin or PAR-1 activating peptide increased the steady-state PAR-1 mRNA and reporter activity, respectively. Pretreatment of reporter-transfected endothelial cells with pertussis toxin or co-expression of a minigene encoding 11-amino acid sequence of COOH-terminal Gαi prevented the thrombin-induced increase in reporter activity. Pertussis toxin treatment also prevented thrombin-induced MAPK phosphorylation, indicating a role of Gαi in activating the downstream MAPK pathway. Expression of constitutively active Gαi2 mutant or Gβ1γ2 subunits increased reporter activity 3–4-fold in the absence of thrombin stimulation. Co-expression of dominant negative mutants of either Ras or MEK1 with the reporter construct inhibited the thrombin-induced PAR-1 expression, whereas constitutively active forms of either Ras or MEK1 activated PAR-1 expression in the absence of thrombin stimulation. Expression of dominant negative Src kinase or inhibitors of phosphoinositide 3-kinase also prevented the MAPK activation and PAR-1 expression. We conclude that thrombin-induced activation of PAR-1 mediates PAR-1 expression by signaling through Gi1/2 coupled to Src and phosphoinositide 3-kinase, and thereby activating the downstream Ras/MAPK cascade.
Morphological observations on three Baltic species of Corynosoma Lühe, 1905 (Acanthocephala, Polymorphidae)

Necropsies of Baltic grey (Halichoerus grypus) and ringed seals (Pusa hispida) presented a rare opportunity to study their acanthocephalan fauna. Both species hosted adults of three species of the genus Corynosoma Lühe, 1904, namely C. magdaleni Montreuil, 1958, C. semerme (Forsell, 1904) Lühe 1911 and C. strumosum (Rudolphi, 1802) Lühe 1904. A comparative morphological analysis of these three species of Corynosoma, combining both light and scanning electron microscopy, was performed for the first time. Sexual dimorphism in the size and shape of the trunk was observed in both C. magdaleni and C. semerme, but there was insufficient material to investigate this phenomenon in C. strumosum. Genital spines were not observed in any of the female acanthocephalans. Three possible explanations for the presence of genital spines in some females, but not others are (i) cryptic speciation, (ii) phenotypic variation and (iii) loss by extraction or shearing when the copulatory cap is released. Copulatory caps were observed on female C. semerme. The size and morphology showed considerable variability and all caps were strongly autofluoresecent.
INTERSNP: genome-wide interaction analysis guided by a priori information

SUMMARY Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have lead to the identification of hundreds of genomic regions associated with complex diseases. Nevertheless, a large fraction of their heritability remains unexplained. Interaction between genetic variants is one of several putative explanations for the 'case of missing heritability' and, therefore, a compelling next analysis step. However, genome-wide interaction analysis (GWIA) of all pairs of SNPs from a standard marker panel is computationally unfeasible without massive parallelization. Furthermore, GWIA of all SNP triples is utopian. In order to overcome these computational constraints, we present a GWIA approach that selects combinations of SNPs for interaction analysis based on a priori information. Sources of information are statistical evidence (single marker association at a moderate level), genetic relevance (genomic location) and biologic relevance (SNP function class and pathway information). We introduce the software package INTERSNP that implements a logistic regression framework as well as log-linear models for joint analysis of multiple SNPs. Automatic handling of SNP annotation and pathways from the KEGG database is provided. In addition, Monte Carlo simulations to judge genome-wide significance are implemented. We introduce various meaningful GWIA strategies that can be conducted using INTERSNP. Typical examples are, for instance, the analysis of all pairs of non-synonymous SNPs, or, the analysis of all combinations of three SNPs that lie in a common pathway and that are among the top 50,000 single-marker results. We demonstrate the feasibility of these and other GWIA strategies by application to a GWAS dataset and discuss promising results. AVAILABILITY The software is available at http://intersnp.meb. uni-bonn.de CONTACT herold@imbie.meb. uni-bonn.de; becker@imbie.meb. uni-bonn.de.
Xenografting of human fetal testis tissue: a new approach to study fetal testis development and germ cell differentiation

BACKGROUND Abnormal fetal testis development can result in disorders of sex development (DSDs) and predispose to later testicular dysgenesis syndrome (TDS) disorders such as testicular germ cell tumours. Studies of human fetal testis development are hampered by the lack of appropriate model, and intervention systems. We hypothesized that human fetal testis xenografts can recapitulate normal development. METHODS Human fetal testes (at 9 weeks, n = 4 and 14–18 weeks gestation, n = 6) were xenografted into male nude mice for 6 weeks, with or without hCG treatment of the host, and evaluated for normal cellular development and function using immunohistochemistry, triple immunofluorescence and testosterone assay. The differentiation and proliferation status of germ cells within xenografts was quantified and compared with age-matched controls. RESULTS Xenografts showed >75% survival with normal morphology. In the first-trimester xenografts seminiferous cord formation was initiated and in first- and second-trimester grafts normal functional development of Sertoli, Leydig and peritubular myoid cells was demonstrated using cell-specific protein markers. Grafts produced testosterone when hosts were treated with hCG (P = 0.004 versus control). Proliferation of germ cells and differentiation from gonocytes (OCT4+) into pre-spermatogonia (VASA+) occurred in grafts and quantification showed this progressed comparably with age-matched ungrafted controls. CONCLUSIONS Human fetal testis tissue xenografts demonstrate normal structure, function and development after xenografting, including normal germ cell differentiation. This provides an in vivo system to study normal human fetal testis development and its susceptibility to disruption by exogenous factors (e.g. environmental chemicals). This should provide mechanistic insight into the fetal origins of DSDs and TDS disorders.
CS224W Final Project: Super-PAC Donor Networks

In a landmark case decided in January of 2010, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the United States Supreme Court created a new class of nominally independent political action committees (P.A.C.s) with the ability to raise unlimited sums of money from individuals, corporations, and unions, sidestepping the previous $2,500 per-contribution limit. Proponents of this decision hailed it as a victory for free speech over government regulation, while critics claim that it has opened a floodgate of spending by wealthy donors and special interest groups that threatens the foundations of our democracy. Regardless, the Federal Election Commission (F.E.C.) requires that all contributions to these committees (which have come to be known as ”Super PACs”) be disclosed on a quarterly basis, and the disclosure data is made freely available on the FECs website. The volume and availability of the contribution data allows us to explore the donor networks underpinning this new phenomenon in the political landscape, in order to gain deeper insight into the nature and structure of the interrelated individuals and groups who are shaping the country’s political future. Given the innately partisan nature of the debate around the Citizens United decision, I believe that network analysis tools could help provide an objective and minimally biased framework from which to approach this phenomenon.
μ-Raman Validated Stress-Enhanced Mobility in XtreMOS Transistors

In this paper it is unambiguously shown that integrated power transistors benefit from mobility enhancement due to strained silicon, an effect that is usually only reported for deep submicron CMOS. Experimental validation is done by mu-Raman spectroscopy (muRS) measurements on transistor cross-sections. The silicon stress is measured to be in the order of several hundreds of MPa, yielding a reduction in drift resistance (Ron) that depends on the trench spacing, and is maximum 25%. The paper highlights experimental muRS results and defect decorated cross-sections, as well as a thorough theoretical analysis of mobility enhancement as a function of layout parameters