Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
In vivo enhancement of antitumor immunity by interleukin 2-rich lymphokines.

The ability of interleukin 2 (IL-2) to enhance in vivo antitumor immunity has been evaluated in the line 1 alveolar cell carcinoma (L1) model of BALB/c mice. A crude supernatant from phorbol myristate acetate exposed EL-4 cells rich in IL-2 plus other lymphokines (EL-4 IL-2), a concanavalin A-induced supernatant from murine splenocytes (Con A IL-2), and recombinant IL-2 (rIL-2) provided by Biogen were tested. Mice were immunized with a cloned population of L1 cells (10(6) irradiated L1 cells given s.c. in the left inguinal region) followed by s.c. injections of EL-4 IL-2, Con A IL-2, or rIL-2 given to the same site. Two immunizations of L1 cells each followed by IL-2 administration were given prior to challenge with live L1 cells s.c. on the right chest wall. Mice receiving EL-4 IL-2 survived significantly longer than those receiving L1 cells only. Daily administration of EL-4 IL-2 for 7 days after the last L1 immunization was significantly better than 3 days (P less than 0.01) which in turn was significantly better than 1 day (P less than 0.05). Among the doses tested (normalized in vitro to the Biologic Response Modifiers Program IL-2 standard) 404 units of IL-2/injection was optimal. The EL-4 IL-2 had to be injected adjacent to the site of L1 cells; s.c. injection at a distant site or i.p. was not effective. When rIL-2 or Con A IL-2 was substituted for EL-4 IL-2, survival was not prolonged; however, if Con A IL-2 (low IL-2 levels) was supplemented with rIL-2 to 404 units of IL-2, it augmented immunity as well as 404 units of EL-4 IL-2. The data suggest that IL-2 is not the only lymphokine active in augmenting antitumor immunity induced by L1 cells. Some preliminary experiments indicate that a multilymphokine approach may have potential clinical relevance.
Test-takers' reactions to a placement test

Reactions to tests can have effects on test scores, motivation and relationships, and these reactions can conceivably be affected by various aspects of tests and the testing situation. In the present study, questionnaires were used to elicit reactions on various dimensions from Italian and Spanish teenagers to test items used as part of placement procedures. The data indicated that a C-test was the most negatively rated on most dimensions by all groups, and that this reaction seemed to relate most strongly to the perceived difficulty of the test. Reactions of lower-scoring students were more negative than those of higher- scoring, although the differences were not so great on the more evaluative dimensions. No gender differences were identified, and there were few differ ences between reactions of Italian and Spanish students, or the most and least nervous groups. Data on the effects of a longer time limit and first language instructions was inconclusive.
Calibration and Testing of a Water Model for Simulation of the Molecular Dynamics of Proteins and Nucleic Acids in Solution

The objective of this work is to obtain a water model for simulations of biological macromolecules in solution. A pragmatic approach is taken in which we use the same type of force field for the water as used for the solute and derive the water potential as an integral part of the ENCAD macromolecular potential.1,2 Here we describe a flexible three-centered water model (F3C), which has already been used for many large-scale biological simulations, and compare it with other water models. The model is further tested by comparing calculated energetic, structural, and dynamic properties of liquid water, at several temperatures and pressures, with experiment. The F3C model is extremely simple and fits experimental data well for different temperatures, pressures, system sizes, and integration time steps. Because the F3C model works well with short-range truncation, it is well-suited to high-speed computation of long molecular dynamics trajectories of macromolecules in solution.
Results of resection for cancer of the exocrine pancreas: A study from the French Association of Surgery

A multicentre retrospective study was carried out to analyse short‐ and long‐term results of 787 pancreatic resections performed for cancer between 1982 and 1988. The postoperative mortality rate was 10 per cent and the morbidity rate 35 per cent. Age above 70 years and systemic organ failure independently influenced operative mortality. In patients surviving more than 30 days the median survival was 12·3 months and the actuarial survival rate at 5 years 12 per cent. The 5‐year survival rate was lower for patients with lymph node involvement than for those without (4 versus 20 per cent, P = 0·001). The operative mortality rate was higher after total pancreatectomy than pancreato‐duodenectomy (17 versus 8 per cent, P = 0·015). The median survival time and 5‐year survival rate after total pancreatectomy and pancreatoduodenectomy were 11 versus 14 months and 3 versus 15 per cent respectively. Of the clinical and pathological factors studied, location of the tumour in the left pancreas was most strongly related to survival, with no survivors at 4 years. These results suggest that resection should be avoided in patients over 70 years old with systemic organ failure. Pancreatoduodenectomy remains the best procedure for resection, total pancreatectomy being performed only in patients with multifocal carcinoma or those in whom a safe pancreatic anastomosis cannot be constructed.
Effects of an endurance and resistance exercise program on persistent cancer-related fatigue after treatment.

BACKGROUND Fatigue is a relevant problem of cancer patients during and after treatment. Several studies have shown that exercise can improve quality of life and functional status of cancer patients undergoing chemo- or radiotherapy. However, there is a lack of information about the effects of this intervention on persistent cancer-related fatigue. Therefore, we assessed the effects of an exercise program on cancer-related fatigue after treatment. PATIENTS AND METHODS A consecutive series of 32 cancer patients with mild to severe persistent fatigue [scores on the Brief Fatigue Inventory (BFI) > 25] participated in a 3-week exercise program consisting of endurance (30 min walking on a treadmill) and resistance/coordination exercises for the major muscle groups. Fatigue, mood, and anxiety were assessed with questionnaires and physical performance with a stress test before and after the program. RESULTS At the end of the program, we observed a significant increase of physical performance (workload at the anaerobic threshold pre 61 +/- 26 W, post 78 +/- 31 W, P < 0.0001) and reduction of global fatigue (Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy: pre 45.7 +/- 13.4, post 52.6 +/- 12.4, P < 0.0001; BFI: pre 37.9 +/- 18.3, post 31.2 +/-17.1, P < 0.001). However, no significant improvement of cognitive fatigue or reduction of anxiety was observed. CONCLUSIONS A 3-week exercise program leads to a substantial improvement of physical performance and reduction of mental and physical fatigue in cancer patients after treatment. However, this intervention does not affect depression, anxiety, or cognitive fatigue.
Age-related brain atrophy: a study with computed tomography.

Brain atrophy in 176 men and 205 women without neurologic disturbances was studied using x-ray computed tomography. The ages ranged from 21 to 79 years. We measured cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) space volume above the level of the tentorium cerebelli and calculated brain atrophy index (BAI): BAI (%) = (CSF space volume/cranial cavity volume). Both the CSF space volume and BAI decreased from the 20s to the 30s only in men (p less than .001), and both were minimal in the 30s in men and in the 20s in women. Although both the CSF space volume and BAI started to increase in the 40s in both sexes (p less than .001, .002), considerable atrophy of the brain started to occur in the 40s in men and in the 50s in women. Both the CSF space volume and BAI increased exponentially with age after the 30s in both sexes (p less than .001).
Prevalence and Characteristic of Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome in Subjects with High Blood Pressure: A Pilot Study in Vietnam

HBP), increasing the risk of mortality and morbidity due to cardiovascular events. Therefore, early diagnosis of OSA, especially severe OSA, in patients with HBP is optimal. Objectives: This study was planned to evaluate the prevalence of OSA in Vietmanese subjects with newly diagnosed HBP, and to describe its clinical, biological, and polysomnography (PSG) characteristics. Method: This was a cross-sectional study including subjects with newly diagnosed HPB without other associated severe diseases. PSG with Alice PDx device had been performed for each study subject. All anthropological, clinical, biochemical characteristics and apnea-hypopnea index (AHI) had been recorded for analyzing. Results: 186 subjects with HBP had been enrolled and studied with PSG. The results were 34 subjects were without OSA (18%; 56 ± 7 years), 28 had mild OSA (15%; 58 ± 12 years), 79 had moderate OSA (43%; 59 ± 14), and 45 had severe OSA (24%; 61 ± 13 years). Suggested findings of OSA patients were snoring at night, hypertriglyceridemia, and large abdominal perimeter. There were significant correlations between these findings and AHI in OSA patients (p<0.05, p<0.01, p<0.001). Conclusion: The prevalence of OSA in subjects with systemic HBP is high. The findings of snoring at night, large abdominal girth and hypertriglyceridemia suggest that PSG is warranted. Early diagnosis of OSA in patients with HBP may decrease morbidity and mortality.
A Cross-National Test of the Uncertainty Hypothesis of Religious Belief

According to the uncertainty hypothesis, religion helps people cope psychologically with dangerous or unpredictable situations. Conversely, with greater control over the external environment due to economic development and technological advances, religious belief is predicted to decline (the existential security hypothesis). The author predicts that religious belief would decline in economically developed countries where there is greater existential security, including income security (income equality and redistribution via welfare states) and improved health. These predictions are tested in regression analyses of 137 countries that partialed out the effects of Communism and Islamic religion both of which affect the incidence of reported nonbelief. Findings show that disbelief in God increased with economic development (measured by lower agricultural employment and third-level enrollment). Findings further show that disbelief also increased with income security (low Gini coefficient, high personal taxation tapping the welfare state) and with health security (low pathogen prevalence). Results show that religious belief declines as existential security increases, consistent with the uncertainty hypothesis.
The genetics of political participation, civic duty, and political efficacy across cultures: Denmark and the United States

Recent studies have shown that variation in political attitudes and participation can be attributed to both genes and the environment. This finding raises the question of why genes matter to participation, and by which pathways. Two hypotheses suggest that feelings of civic duty and sense of political efficacy intermediate the relationship between genes and political participation and, thus, that these traits have a common heritable component. If so, how robust are the relationships across cultural contexts? Utilizing two new twin studies on political traits, one in Denmark and one in the United States, we show that the heritability of political participation and political efficacy is remarkably similar across cultures. Moreover, most of the covariation between efficacy and political participation is accounted for by a common underlying genetic component.
Modified speech element of Fast ForWord-Language not shown to be value-added for improving phonemic awareness or reading skills in primary-grade students with language impairments and concurrent reading difficulties

Abstracted from: Loeb, D. F. , Gillam, R. B. , Hoffman, L. , Brandel, J., & Marquis, J. (2009). The effects of Fast ForWord Language on the phonemic awareness and reading skills of school-age children with language impairments and poor reading skills. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 18, 376–387. Source of funding and disclosure of interest: This study was supported by National Institutes of Health Grants U01 DC04560 and P30 HD02528 as well as the Kansas Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities Research Center, BNCD, P30 DC005803; the original authors of this research report no conflicts of interest.
Relation Between Trauma and Psychopathology: Mediating Roles of Dissociation and Fears About Death and Control

ABSTRACT We investigated mediational relations among trauma, dissociation, psychopathology (e.g., PTSD, borderline personality disorder, bulimic behaviors), and fears about death and lacking control in a sample of 325 non-treatment-seeking women. With the use of structural equation modeling, findings indicated that: (1) dissociation accounted for 27% of variance in the trauma-psychopathology relation (significant partial mediation), and (2) general ongoing fears about death and control accounted for an additional 20% of variance in the trauma-psychopathology relation beyond what was already accounted for by dissociation (total of 47% of variance explained in the trauma-psychopathology relation; significant partial mediation). Findings are discussed, and postulations about relations are proposed.
A virtual graphics card for teaching device driver design

Open source Linux has become increasingly popular as a vehicle for incorporating hands-on experience with a real system into both undergraduate and graduate operating systems courses. System virtualization tools, such as VMWare, Xen, VirtualBox, and KVM, allow students to freely experiment with kernel modifications without requiring dedicated hardware and without generating significant concern for the ill-effects of system crashes. Nevertheless, certain kernel projects that are highly desirable from an educational standpoint remain unavailable under standard approaches to virtualization. One such project that is known to carry substantial instructional value is the design and implementation of an SMP-safe driver for a high-performance graphics card. Standard virtualization tools export only a minimally-capable, SVGA graphics adapter, which is an inadequate architecture for such a project. This paper describes an extremely simple, kernel-independent, software tool for use by instructors of operating systems courses. The tool provides a virtual, high-performance graphics card that is suitable for Linux device driver design and implementation. The code for the virtual card, which is relatively short, is easily modified by instructors to present different interfaces each semester. The code for both the virtual card and a sample Linux 3.2. 36 driver for it may be freely downloaded from http://people.cs. clemson.edu/~ccorsi/kyouko/.
What are the Characteristics of an Effective Sales Manager? an Exploratory Study Comparing Salesperson and Sales Manager Perspectives

This study builds on previous research concerning sales manager selection by examining the characteristics of effective sales managers from two perspectives—that of sales managers and sales representatives. Results of this exploratory study indicate that sales representatives assess the effectiveness of sales managers through the manager’s broad knowledge base along with communication, listening, and human relations skills to develop a role as “supporter” of the sales force. Sales managers, on the other hand, believe that their knowledge base along with effective utilization of communication, listening, human relations, and organization skills allow them to be more of a “participant” in the sales process, thus strengthening their position as an effective sales manager. The implications of this and other findings are discussed in the manuscript.
Eliciting Preferences for Alternative Cancer Drug Treatments

In oncology there is increasing interest in the development of techniques to help patients choose between alternative therapies in ways that are consistent with their preferences. The purpose of this study was to examine some methodological problems associated with the elicitation of preferences. Preferences for alternative drug therapies were sought from 208 visitors to an open house at the Ontario Cancer Institute and from 216 university nursing students. Preferences were not significantly dependent on the sex, age or professional status of the respondents, nor on the medium used for elicitation of preferences (computer terminal versus pencil-and-paper questionnaire). In contrast, the importance of the way decision problems are framed was confirmed. Comparison of a positive frame (outcomes expressed as the probability of surviving) with a negative frame (outcomes expressed as the probability of dying) and a mixed frame (probabilities of surviving and dying were both given) pointed to the presence or absence of the word "survive" in the outcome description as the main source of framing bias. The framing effect was in the opposite direction to that hypothesized. (Med Decis Making 5 :453-463, 1985)
The zero-frequency problem: Estimating the probabilities of novel events in adaptive text compression

Approaches to the zero-frequency problem in adaptive text compression are discussed. This problem relates to the estimation of the likelihood of a novel event occurring. Although several methods have been used, their suitability has been on empirical evaluation rather than a well-founded model. The authors propose the application of a Poisson process model of novelty. Its ability to predict novel tokens is evaluated, and it consistently outperforms existing methods. It is applied to a practical statistical coding scheme, where a slight modification is required to avoid divergence. The result is a well-founded zero-frequency model that explains observed differences in the performance of existing methods, and offers a small improvement in the coding efficiency of text compression over the best method previously known. >
REASONING WITH BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE–A THREE‐LEVEL THEORY

We address the problem of reasoning in cases when knowledge bases containing background knowledge are understood not as sets of formulas (rules and facts) but as collections of partially ordered theories. In our system, the usual, two‐part logical structures, consisting of a metalevel and an object level, are augmented by a third level–a referential level. The referential level is a partially ordered collection of theories; it encodes background knowledge. As usual, current situations are described on the object level, and the metalevel is a place for rules that can eliminate some of the models permitted by the object level and the referential level. As a logic of reasoning the system generalizes the standard model of a rational agent: deducing actions and deriving new information about the world from a logical theory–its knowledge base. It is a natural logical system in which priorities on the possible readings of predicates, not special rules of inference, are the main source of nonmonotonicity. We introduce a theory forming operator PT(x) to exploit the priorities, and we investigate its basic logical properties. Then we show how such a system can be augmented by metarules. Although this paper concentrates on basic logical properties of the new theory, this formalism has already been applied to model a number of natural language phenomena such as the notion of text coherence, Gricean maxims, vagueness, and a few others. The paper also briefly compares it with the model of background knowledge of CYC, as proposed by Lenat and Guha.
Effects of epistemological beliefs and topic-specific beliefs on undergraduates' cognitive and strategic processing of dual-positional text.

The effects of epistemological beliefs and topic-specific beliefs on undergraduates' cognitive and strategic processing of a dual-positional text were investigated. Forty undergraduates thought aloud while reading a text that presented information both consistent and inconsistent with their prior beliefs about the HIV-AIDS relationship. Epistemological beliefs about the speed of learning affected the overall number of cognitive processes exhibited, whereas topic-specific beliefs interacted with the nature of the information read to influence the specific type of cognitive processing used. Strategies for accepting or resolving apparent ambiguities in text were related positively to delayed recall; cognitive processes for developing awareness were related negatively to the number of distortions produced.
Coming of age in rural Ireland at the turn of the twentieth century

This paper documents the process of coming of age in rural Ireland at the turn of the twentieth century.Emigration took large fractions often majorities of each birth-cohort in the period between the Great Famine and the First World War. Many young people leaving home left Ireland as well. Young people who remained in Ireland confronted its exceptional marriage and household-formation patterns: permanent celibacy in Ireland reached extreme levels at the end of the nineteenth century.The continuity of lineages on holdings and the presence of unmarried siblings in rural households implies that many young people quite literally never left home. These patterns are documented using a sample of rural households drawn from the Irish manuscript censuses of 1901 and 1911. (SUMMARY IN FRE AND GER) (EXCERPT)
Exenatide BID Observational Study (ExOS): results for primary and secondary endpoints of a prospective research study to evaluate the clinical effectiveness of exenatide BID use in patients with type 2 diabetes in a real-world setting

Abstract Objective: The Exenatide BID Observational Study (ExOS) was designed to evaluate the clinical effectiveness of exenatide BID use in patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D) in a real-world clinical practice setting in the United States. Methods: Patients were enrolled from 74 practice sites from 9/2007 through 1/2009 and followed for 12 months. The primary effectiveness endpoint was achieving or maintaining hemoglobin A1C of ≤7.0%, or an absolute drop of 0.5% from baseline. Secondary measures included absolute and percentage change from baseline for a variety of clinical measures (lipid markers, weight, BMI, etc.), and quality of life (QOL) was assessed using the Impact of Weight on Quality of Life (IWQOL)-Lite. Results: A total of 452 patients were included in the primary study population. At baseline, patients (60% female) had mean (SD) age of 55 (11), T2D duration of 9 (8) years, HbA1c of 8.0 (1.7) %, and body mass index (BMI) of 38.2 (7.4) kg/m2. Family history of T2D was reported in 73.9% of patients. Hypertension was reported in 61.5% of patients, and 47.1% had hyperlipidemia. The HbA1c goal was achieved in 76.3% of the 118 patients with A1C measurements available at 12 months (P < 0.0001). Patients with available clinical measurements achieved significant improvements in HbA1c, weight, BMI, and QOL measurements at 12 months. A mean improvement of 4.56 was seen in the total IWQOL-Lite score at 12 months (P = 0.001). The single-arm design of this study is a limitation; however, the overall objective of the study was to observe patients on exenatide BID therapy over time, comparing their status at endpoint to baseline, rather than to make comparisons among different drug therapies. Conclusions: The Exenatide BID Observational Study supports the clinical effectiveness of exenatide BID observed in previous clinical trials and retrospective database studies.