Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Quality of life assessment in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer receiving maintenance therapy after first-line induction treatment: a preplanned analysis of the phase III AIO KRK 0207 trial.

BACKGROUND First-line maintenance strategies are a current matter of debate in the management of mCRC. Their impact on patient's health-related quality of life (HRQOL) has not yet been evaluated. The objective of this study was to assess whether differences in HRQOL during any active maintenance treatment compared with no maintenance treatment exist. PATIENT AND METHODS Eight hundred and thirty-seven patients were enrolled in the AIO KRK 0207 trial. Four hundred and seventy-two underwent randomization (after 24 weeks of induction treatment) into one of the maintenance arms: FP plus Bev (arm A), Bev alone (arm B), or no active treatment (arm C). HRQOL were assessed every 6 weeks during induction and maintenance treatment independent from treatment stop, delay, or modification, and also continued after progression, using the EORTC QLQ-C30, QLQ-CR29. The mean value of the global quality of life dimension (GHS/QoL) of the EORTC QLQ-C30, calculated as the average of all available time points after randomization was considered as pre-specified main endpoint. Additionally, EORTC QLQ-C30 response scores were analyzed. RESULTS For HRQOL analysis, 413 patients were eligible (arm A: 136; arm B: 142, arm C: 135). Compliance rate with the HRQOL questionnaires was 95% at time of randomization and remained high during maintenance (98%, 99%, 97% and 97% at week 6, 12, 18 and 24). No significant differences between treatment arms in the mean GHS/QoL scores were observed at any time point. Also, rates of GHS/QoL score deterioration were similar (20.5%; 17.2% and 20.7% of patients), whereas a score improvement occurred in 36.1%; 43.8% and 42.1% (arms A, B and C). CONCLUSION Continuation of an active maintenance treatment with FP/Bev after induction treatment was neither associated with a detrimental effect on GHS/QoL scores when compared with both, less active treatment with Bev alone or no active treatment. CLINICAL TRIALS NUMBER NCT00973609 (ClinicalTrials.gov).
Differential imaging of ocular dominance and orientation selectivity in monkey striate cortex

Differential images of ocular dominance, acquired by comparing responses to the two eyes, reveal dark and light bands where cortical cells are dominated by the right and left eyes. These include most (but not all) histochemically stained cytochrome oxidase blobs in their centers. Differential images of orientation, acquired by comparing responses to orthogonal orientations, reveal dark and light bands that are reminiscent of the “orientation columns” reported earlier, on the basis of 2-deoxyglucose (2DG) autoradiograms (Hubel et al., 1978). However, they are shorter and more fragmented because they do not include regions lacking selectivity for orientation. Even though these “bands” derive from orientation-selective areas, comparisons with differential images of other orientations reveal that regions along their centers prefer different orientations. Hence, the orientation preferences inferred from “bands” in single differential images, or single 2DG autoradiograms, are not necessarily incorrect. Interactions between ocular dominance and orientation were investigated by comparing differential images of orientation obtained with binocular and monocular stimulation, as well as by comparing differential images of ocular dominance obtained with different orientations. In both cases, the elicited interactions were minimal, indicating a remarkable and unexpected independence that subsequent experiments revealed arises, at least in part, from a lateral segregation of regions most selective for one eye and regions most selective for one orientation, in the centers and edges of ocular dominance columns. Since this can also be viewed as a lateral correlation between binocularity and orientation selectivity, it fits with the simultaneous emergence of these properties in layers receiving input from layer 4c, and suggests that each of these properties requires the other.
Survey of the occurrence of aflatoxin M1 in dairy products marketed in Italy: second year of observation

During 1996, 161 samples of milk, 92 samples of dry milk for infant formula and 120 samples of yoghurt, were randomly collected in supermarkets and drug stores in four big Italian cities, and checked for aflatoxin M1 (AFM1) by immunoaffinity column extraction and HPLC. AFM1 was detected in 125 (78%) of milk samples (ranging from < 1 ng/l to 23.5 ng/l; mean level: 6.28 ng/l), in 49 (53%) of dry milk samples (ranging from < 1 ng/l to 79.6 ng/kg; mean level: 32.2 ng/kg) and in 73 (61%) of yoghurt samples (ranging from < 1 ng/kg to 32.1 ng/kg; mean level: 9.06 ng/kg). Altogether, only four samples of dry milk were over the legal limits established by the EC in 1999. It is concluded that during 1996, despite the widespread occurrence of AFM1, mean contamination levels in dairy products sold in Italy were not a serious human health hazard.
The Results of Late Probing in Congenital Nasolacrimal Duct Obstruction

Purpose: To evaluate the results of lacrimal probing in children at or older than 1 year of age with congenital nasolacrimal duct obstruction. Materials and Methods: Fifty eyes of 38 children (24 males, 14 females) with congenital epiphora who underwent nasolacrimal duct probing were evaluated in a prospective study. The age of the patients was between 12 and 101 months (mean: 33 months). Success of probing was defined as complete resolution of preoperative symptoms and signs. The mean follow-up was 8 months (3–28 months). Results: The success rate of probing was 88% (44/50 eyes). Residual epiphora was observed in 6 eyes of 4 patients (12%). Age of the patient, gender, the frequency of epiphora before probing and the unilaterality or bilaterality of epiphora did not correlate with the success of probing (p > 0.05). Conclusion: Nasolacrimal duct probing is advocated as a primary treatment in children younger than 9 years of age before proceeding to more complex treatment options. Unsuccessful probing may result from the selection of nonmembranous obstructions rather than the increased age of the patients.
Improving Pronunciation Accuracy of Proper Names with Language Origin Classes

Pronunciation of proper names that have different and varied language sources is an extremely hard task, even for humans. This thesis presents an attempt to improve automatic pronunciation of proper names by modeling the way humans do it, and tries to eliminate synthesis errors that humans would never make. It does so by taking into account the different language and language family sources and by adding such information as features into the pronunciation models, either directly or indirectly. This approach does result in an improvement of pronunciation accuracy, however in order to assess the true goodness of this approach, we would need to develop a more accurate language identifier. Ultimately, the data we would like to have in order to train our models is a list of proper names tagged both with their phonetic transcription and with the language they come from. A new approach this thesis begins to investigate is the unsupervised clustering of proper names to derive language classes in a data-driven way. With this approach, no language classes (Catalan, English, French, German, etc.) need to be determined a priori, but rather they are inferred from the names and their pronunciation. The clustering method used takes into account letter trigrams as well as their aligned pronunciation at training time. Experiments using the classes derived from unsupervised clustering are still preliminary and have not yet yielded an improvement in pronunciation accuracy of proper names.
Pet Ownership in Relation to Depression, Anxiety, and Anger in Working Women

AbstractResearch has shown that certain populations such as nursing home patients and physically ill patients have benefited psychologically from pet ownership. Recent studies have indicated that the relationship between pet ownership and well-being may be complex. We examined the relationship between pet ownership and emotional distress among working women. We also studied the relationship between pet attachment and emotional distress. Participants were 42 cat and/or dog owners and 42 nonowners who were women employees of the American Medical Association. Each completed an inventory on depression, anxiety, and anger. Pet owners also completed a scale to assess degree of attachment to the pet. Results revealed that there were no significant differences between owners and nonowners on any of the measures and that pet attachment was not associated with any of the measures. When compared with national norms, results indicated that pet owners from the present study were significantly more attached to their pe.
An Organisational Learning Perspective on School Responses to Central Policy Initiatives

ABSTRACT Centralised educational restructuring initiatives result in a wide variation of responses in schools, some are quite productive, others are much less so. Interview data were collected from seventy‐two teachers and principals in six schools as a response to government restructuring policies in British Columbia, Canada, in order to better understand the reasons for such variation. An organisational‐learning perspective was used to guide the study. The results describe the processes used by teachers in pursuit of their own individual and collective learning. Also identified are school conditions which foster and inhibit these processes, conditions related to school vision, culture, structure, strategies and resources.
Acquiring Literacy in a Second Language: The Effect of Book‐Based Programs *

This article outlines a set of recent little-known empirical studies of the effects of “book floods” on students’ acquisition of a second language in elementary schools. In contrast to students learning by means of structured, audiolingual programs, those children who are exposed to an extensive range of high-interest illustrated story books, and encouraged to read and share them, are consistently found to learn the target language more quickly. When immersed in meaningful text, without tight controls over syntax and vocabulary, children appear to learn the language incidentally, and to develop positive attitudes toward books. In some cases, the benefits are found to spread to other subjects and languages. Implications are drawn for language policy in developing countries and some support is established for such concepts as “comprehensible input” and “whole language” approaches to language acquisition in schools.
A systematic review of longitudinal studies of nonfatal workplace violence

Risk factors and consequences of exposure to violence at work were examined through a systematic review of longitudinal studies of workplace violence. Literature in different databases was screened and the articles were selected on the basis of a set of inclusion criteria. Sixteen studies were included into the review and they were evaluated according to a number of criteria recommended for use in systematic reviews. Of the reviewed studies, 12 met more than half of the evaluation criteria. The studies identified individual, situational, and structural risk factors of workplace violence. Five studies demonstrated that being subjected to violence at work have both acute and long-term consequences for the exposed staff and the workplace. Two studies also found symptoms of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in victims. In view of the detrimental effects of violence, it is important that preventive measures are taken and evaluated in future longitudinal studies.
Relation between CT patterns, clinical findings and etiological factors in children born at term, affected by congenital hemiparesis.

In order to examine if specific findings from CT correlate with specific clinical or neurological findings, 30 children, 5 to 16 years old, born at term, affected by congenital hemiparesis without intellectual impairment, were submitted to neurofunctional and psychological assessment and examined by CT. 28 of the 30 children had pathological CT. Two morphological CT patterns were found: A) Cavity in the cortex and underlying subcortical white matter (11 cases); B) Unilateral ventricular enlargement and paraventricular lesions (17 cases). CT was normal in two cases. In our children, born at term, no statistical correlation between CT patterns and anamnestic data was found as described in other studies, although in the patients with cortical-subcortical lesions, there was a slight prevalence of a history of perinatal complications, and in the patients with paraventricular lesions there was an uneventful history or abnormal pregnancy history. The relation between specific CT patterns (type A and B) and specific clinical dysfunction is not statistically evident, (unless for astereognosis and type A CT pattern). However, the patients with cortical-subcortical lesions showed a slight prevalence of a lower function of the impaired hand, and a higher percentage of an I.Q. of less than 90, than the group with unilateral ventricular enlargement. No relation was found between CT lesional pattern and epilepsy. The absence of correlation between morphological aspects and clinical findings could be explained by the complexity of structural changes and remodelling properties of the central nervous system, following prenatal and perinatal brain damage.
Arrest of Nuclear Division in Plasmodium through Blockage of Erythrocyte Surface Exposed Ribosomal Protein P2

Malaria parasites reside inside erythrocytes and the disease manifestations are linked to the growth inside infected erythrocytes (IE). The growth of the parasite is mostly confined to the trophozoite stage during which nuclear division occurs followed by the formation of cell bodies (schizogony). The mechanism and regulation of schizogony are poorly understood. Here we show a novel role for a Plasmodium falciparum 60S stalk ribosomal acidic protein P2 (PfP2) (PFC0400w), which gets exported to the IE surface for 6–8 hrs during early schizogony, starting around 26–28 hrs post-merozoite invasion. The surface exposure is demonstrated using multiple PfP2-specific monoclonal antibodies, and is confirmed through transfection using PfP2-GFP. The IE surface-exposed PfP2-protein occurs mainly as SDS-resistant P2-homo-tetramers. Treatment with anti-PfP2 monoclonals causes arrest of IEs at the first nuclear division. Upon removal of the antibodies, about 80–85% of synchronized parasites can be released even after 24 hrs of antibody treatment. It has been reported that a tubovesicular network (TVN) is set up in early trophozoites which is used for nutrient import. Anti-P2 monoclonal antibodies cause a complete fragmentation of TVN by 36 hrs, and impairs lipid import in IEs. These may be downstream causes for the cell-cycle arrest. Upon antibody removal, the TVN is reconstituted, and the cell division progresses. Each of the above properties is observed in the rodent malaria parasite species P. yoelii and P. berghei. The translocation of the P2 protein to the IE surface is therefore likely to be of fundamental importance in Plasmodium cell division.
Characterization of partially purified milk‐clotting enzyme from sunflower (Helianthus annuus) seeds

Abstract This study was aimed to extract milk‐clotting enzyme from sunflower seeds and to determine its potentiality for manufacturing white soft cheese from cows and goats milk. The seeds were blended and extracted using two types of buffers and milk‐clotting and proteolytic activities were evaluated. The enzyme was partially purified using ammonium sulfate fractionation techniques. Results indicated that sunflower seeds extracted with 5% NaCl in 50 mmol/L acetate buffer, pH 5.0, had the highest milk‐clotting activity (MCA) and lowest coagulation time compared to that extracted with only acetate buffer (pH 5.0). Ammonium sulfate at 30–50% saturation purified the enzyme to 4.3 folds with MCA of 241.0 U/mL and final enzyme yield of 10.9%. The partially purified enzyme was characterized by SDS–PAGE that showed two bands with molecular weight of 120 and 62 kDa. When compared with other plant enzymes, the partially purified sunflower enzyme was found to have higher milk‐clotting activity and lower proteolytic activity. Also, both milk sources and enzyme types significantly affected the cheese yield and curd formation time. The cheese made from cow milk using sunflower enzyme had higher yield compared to that obtained using commercial rennet, whereas the opposite was observed when using goat milk.
Quantum-dot quantum well CdS/HgS/CdS: Theory and experiment.

An extended theoretical approach for calculating the 1s-1s electronic transition in spherically layered semiconductor quantum dots is presented. The extension over the common effective-mass approximation includes the implementation of the Coulomb interaction and finite potential wells at the particle boundaries. The calculations are carried out for the quantum-dot quantum well CdS/HgS/CdS and compared to recently available experimental results. The wave functions of electrons and holes spreading over the entire structure and the probabilities of presence in the different layers, as well as outside the structure in the surrounding dielectric water, are presented.
Predicting Freshman GPA of Law/Justice Students

This study was concerned with the validity of the Verbal (V) and Mathematics (M) scales of the College Board Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) as predictors of college freshman grade point average (GPA) at Glassboro State College. A double cross validation was performed on data from 204 first-year law/justice students. Results indicated that SAT-V and SAT-M together were somewhat more valid predictors of GPA than was either score separately. Multiple Rs were . 33 for the criterion group and . 37 for the cross-validation group. Both SAT and GPA distributions were found to be skewed, the former positively and the latter negatively. This circumstance was a possible factor influencing the size of the correlation coefficients.
JOB STRESS, TYPE‐A BEHAVIOR AND EMPLOYEES' WELL‐BEING AMONG MUSLIM IMMIGRANTS IN NORTH AMERICA: A STUDY IN WORKFORCE DIVERSITY

The present study examined the relationship of job stress and Type‐A behavior pattern with employees' job satisfaction, turnover intention, absence behavior, organizational commitment, psychosomatic health problems, and happiness in life. Data were collected by means of a structured questionnaire from full‐time employed Muslims (N = 325) living in Canada and United States of America. Pearson correlation and moderated multiple regression were the statistical techniques employed to analyze data. Results generally supported the prediction that job stress will be significantly related with the dependent variables. Type‐A behavior was found to be related with only a few dependent variables. In addition, Type‐A behavior was found to be an important moderator of job stress and outcome relationships. Implications of the findings for management and for future research are highlighted.
Serum and intestinal isotype antibody responses and correlates of protective immunity to human rotavirus in a gnotobiotic pig model of disease.

We examined the antibody responses and protection to a human rotavirus (HRV) in gnotobiotic (Gn) pigs. Pigs were perorally (p.o.) inoculated with attenuated (group 1), virulent (group 2), or inactivated (group 3) Wa (P1A[8]G1) HRV. A fourth group was inoculated intramuscularly (i.m.) with inactivated Wa HRV in adjuvant. After p.o. challenge with virulent Wa HRV at post-inoculation day 21, most group 1, 3 and 4 pigs shed virus and developed diarrhoea, whereas this occurred in only a few group 2 pigs. Antibodies to HRV (IgM, IgA or IgG) were detected in serum and intestinal contents of pigs of all groups after virus inoculation or challenge, and the antibody titres in intestinal contents, although lower, showed similar kinetics to the serum responses. There was no correlation between protection and neutralizing antibody titres of serum or intestinal contents, but a positive correlation existed between protection and serum IgA, intestinal IgA and intestinal IgG antibody titres. These findings suggest that serum IgA antibodies to HRV could act as an indicator of IgA antibodies in the intestine after rotavirus infection. The virulent HRV elicited protective immunity and higher levels of serum and intestinal IgA antibodies to HRV compared to attenuated and inactivated HRV. These findings suggest that more efficient mucosal delivery systems and/or adjuvants are needed to enhance the intestinal immune responses to attenuated or inactivated HRV if more successful vaccination is to be achieved in neonates.
Evolutionary Game Dynamics in Populations with Heterogenous Structures

Evolutionary graph theory is a well established framework for modelling the evolution of social behaviours in structured populations. An emerging consensus in this field is that graphs that exhibit heterogeneity in the number of connections between individuals are more conducive to the spread of cooperative behaviours. In this article we show that such a conclusion largely depends on the individual-level interactions that take place. In particular, averaging payoffs garnered through game interactions rather than accumulating the payoffs can altogether remove the cooperative advantage of heterogeneous graphs while such a difference does not affect the outcome on homogeneous structures. In addition, the rate at which game interactions occur can alter the evolutionary outcome. Less interactions allow heterogeneous graphs to support more cooperation than homogeneous graphs, while higher rates of interactions make homogeneous and heterogeneous graphs virtually indistinguishable in their ability to support cooperation. Most importantly, we show that common measures of evolutionary advantage used in homogeneous populations, such as a comparison of the fixation probability of a rare mutant to that of the resident type, are no longer valid in heterogeneous populations. Heterogeneity causes a bias in where mutations occur in the population which affects the mutant's fixation probability. We derive the appropriate measures for heterogeneous populations that account for this bias.
Levonorgestrel-impregnated intrauterine device as treatment for endometrial hyperplasia: a national multicentre randomised trial*

The purpose of this study was to investigate if the levonorgestrel‐impregnated intrauterine device (LNG‐IUS, Mirena®) is safe and effective as therapy for low‐risk and medium‐risk endometrial hyperplasia compared with oral medroxyprogesterone (MPA).
Category specific recognition impairments: a review of important case studies and influential theories

Patients with category specific recognition impairments for living and non living things have played a crucial role in developing current theories of semantic memory and object recognition. This paper reviews a number of the classic cases and discusses the theories that have been developed to account for these impairments. The first reports of patients with category specific recognition impairments for living and non living things were documented by Nielsen, who argued that they arose because living and non living things were stored in functionally and anatomically separate systems. Although this hypothesishas been reiterated in some recent papers, the most widespread view hasbeen that they emerge because living andnon living thingshave contrasting processing demands. The latter accounts include those which stress the relative importance of: the 'weighting of sensory and functional features associated with living and non living things; the role of structural similarity between objects; the role of direct .