Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Pregnancies, breast-feeding, and breast cancer risk in the International BRCA1/2 Carrier Cohort Study (IBCCS).

BACKGROUND Multiparity, young age at first childbirth, and breast-feeding are associated with a reduced risk of breast cancer in the general population. The breast cancer predisposition gene, BRCA1, regulates normal cell differentiation. Because mammary gland cells divide and differentiate during pregnancy, reproductive factors may influence breast cancer risk in BRCA1/2 mutation carriers differently than they do in noncarriers. METHODS We performed a retrospective cohort study of 1601 women in the International BRCA1/2 Carrier Cohort Study cohort, all of whom carried a mutation in BRCA1 or BRCA2. Information on reproductive factors was obtained from a questionnaire. At the time of interview 853 subjects were classified with breast cancer. Data were analyzed by using a weighted cohort approach. All statistical tests were two-sided. RESULTS There was no statistically significant difference in the risk of breast cancer between parous and nulliparous women. Among parous women, an increasing number of full-term pregnancies was associated with a statistically significant decrease in the risk of breast cancer (Ptrend = .008); risk was reduced by 14% (95% confidence interval [CI] = 6% to 22%) for each additional birth. This association was the same for carriers of mutations in either BRCA1 or BRCA2 and was restricted to women older than 40 years. In BRCA2 mutation carriers, first childbirth at later ages was associated with an increased risk of breast cancer compared with first childbirth before age 20 years (20-24 years, hazard ratio [HR] = 2.33 [95% CI = 0.93 to 5.83]; 25-29 years, HR = 2.68 [95% CI = 1.02 to 7.07]; > or = 30 years, HR = 1.97 [95% CI = 0.67 to 5.81]), whereas in BRCA1 mutation carriers, first childbirth at age 30 years or later was associated with a reduced risk of breast cancer compared with first childbirth before age 20 years (HR = 0.58 [95% CI = 0.36 to 0.94]). Neither history of interrupted pregnancies (induced abortions or miscarriage) nor history of breast-feeding was statistically significantly associated with the risk of breast cancer. CONCLUSIONS BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers older than 40 years show a similar reduction in breast cancer risk with increasing parity as non-carriers.
A COMPARISON OF THE GIRLFRIENDS PROJECT TO THE SOCIAL COGNITIVE THEORY AND THE THEORY OF GENDER AND POWER

This paper is an examination of the potentially efficacy of a group based intervention called the Girlfriends Project, which specifically targeted African American women for HIV and STI education in the home. The premise of the project was that by having HIV discussions in an environment where women did not feel judged or intimidated, and where they were surrounded by "girlfriends," that the stigma attached to sex and HIV would be diminished. Because African American women suffered disproportionality for HIV and STIs, interventions that could effectively reduce the rate of infection among that population were greatly needed. Therefore, the public health significance of this essay was to evaluate whether the Girlfriends Project was an intervention that could fill that need. The hypothesis of this paper was that because the Girlfriends Project addressed a majority of the elements designated as necessary for behavioral change by the Social Cognitive Theory and the Theory of Gender and Power, the Girlfriends Project would be effective in reducing the incidence of HIV and STI among African American women by increasing the use of risk-reduction behaviors.In this paper the components of the Girlfriends Project were compared to each of the individual elements of the Social Cognitive Theory and the Theory of Gender and Power. From this comparison it was found that the components of the Girlfriends Project were in fact congruent with the elements of the both theories. From the apparent congruency, it was concluded that there appeared to be evidence that if widely disseminated the Girlfriends Project had the potential to be effective in changing the attitudes and social norms of African American women, which in turn would lead to behavior change that would reduce the incidence of HIV and STI among African American women. While the evidence supported the hypothesis of the efficacy of the Girlfriends Project there were several gaps in the Girlfriends Project where it could have more fully addressed the elements of the SCT and the TGP. Recommendations were provided which would allow the Girlfriends project to fill those gaps and more effectively achieve their goal.
Movement Control and Maturation in Elementary-Grade Children

Serial tapping by 5-, 7- and 9-yr. -old boys and girls, as measured by Fitts' Law, was recorded. 60 Ss performed a reciprocal tapping task and were assessed developmentally via hand-wrist X-rays. No significant relationship was found between the fine motor task and skeletal age. The results of the motor task suggest an improvement in movement time, with age, due to an ability to plan subsequent movements rather than simply an increase in speed of arm movement.
Expliquer la performance internationale des firmes : âge, vitesse et rythme d'internationalisation, diversité culturelle et ambidextrie dans la grande distribution alimentaire mondiale (1998-2004)

L'objectif de cette these est d'apporter de nouveaux elements theoriques et empiriques sur la relation entre l'internationalisation et la performance. Nous revisitons cette relation a la lumiere de deux courants theoriques – la theorie des couts de transaction et la theorie d'internalisation d'une part, la theorie de l'apprentissage organisationnel d'autre part. Plus particulierement, nous traitons les problematiques de recherches suivantes : 1. - Etudier comment les variables temporelles du processus comme l'age, la vitesse, et le rythme d'internationalisation influencent la performance. 2. - Examiner les effets de la diversite culturelle du portefeuille de pays. 3. Reconsiderer les apports des theories les mieux etablies du processus d'internationalisation : Uppsala et New Ventures. 4. - Inscrire le concept d'ambidextrie internationale. Notre these integre les attributs temporels et culturels de l'internationalisation dans un meme modele et examine l'internationalisation des firmes sous un angle dynamique. La reussite du processus d'internationalisation des firmes est fondee sur une vitesse d'internationalisation moderee, un rythme regulier d'expansion et une homogeneite culturelle entre les pays du portefeuille de la firme. Notre recherche souligne egalement l'existence de processus d'internationalisation differents et souvent plus performants que ceux decrits par les theories bien etablies dans la litterature internationale. Ce constat nous invite a recadrer les objectifs de recherches sur la comprehension de ces processus. Notamment, de nouveaux developpements theoriques suggerent de repenser le processus d'internationalisation comme la combinaison d'activites d'exploitation et d'exploration appelant une reformulation du concept d'ambidextrie dans un contexte international. Cette nouvelle orientation presage des perspectives de recherches sur la notion d'ambidextrie internationale comme source ultime d'avantage concurrentiel international. La grande distribution alimentaire mondiale de 1998 a 2004 sert de contexte empirique a cette etude. Notre base de donnees inclue 386 distributeurs dans le monde et 87 distributeurs internationalises, avec plus de 420 entites etrangeres dans 128 pays.
Central Asia's Hidden Burden of Neglected Tropical Diseases

The neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) are the most common infections of the world's poorest people living in developing countries [1]–[7]. They are mostly comprised of chronic parasitic and related infections, with the most common NTDs represented by the soil-transmitted helminthiases, schistosomiasis, lymphatic filariasis, onchocerciasis, and trachoma [1]. Among their common features, the NTDs result in prolonged periods of disability and actually help to promote poverty through their long-standing effects on child development and worker productivity [2]. It is not commonly appreciated that the NTDs are widespread throughout Central Asia where they are also a major determinant of poverty [8]. The five mostly landlocked Central Asian countries—Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan (Figure 1)—were established upon the breakup of the former Soviet Union in 1991. They are also linked in history as a vital crossroads (“the Silk Road”) between Asia and Europe and by a common geography comprised of a desert and piedmont region [9]. The five nations have a combined population of 60 million people, with three of them—Kyrgyzstan, Tajikstan, and Uzbekistan—exhibiting a Human Development Index (HDI) that is ranked below 100, whichis more or less equivalent to nations such as Guatemala, India, Indonesia, and South Africa [10]. Figure 1 Commonwealth of Independent States - Central Asian States. During the Soviet era in the 20th century, some gains were made in parasite and NTD control. For instance, in Uzbekistan a number of NTDs were either eradicated or eliminated as a public health problem, including dracunculiasis in 1931, urban cutaneous leishmaniasis in 1950, malaria in 1960, visceral leishmaniasis in 1968, and hookworm infection in 1974 [11]. However, following the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union, public infrastructures and services deteriorated in many areas of Central Asia, and breakdowns in health care and preventive services ensued [12]. Of particular relevance to zoonotic NTDs and according to Torgerson et al., the Soviet breakup also meant that large mechanized slaughterhouses were closed, leaving livestock production in the hands of small farms and unsupervised homes, and largely without veterinary inspection [13], [14]. Together with increases in pet and security dogs, veterinary public health was compromised, with a resultant re-emergence of several important NTDs, including echinococcosis and possibly toxocariasis [13]–. As a result, today several NTDs either remain widespread in Central Asia or may have even increased in prevalence over the last two decades. They include the soil-transmitted helminth infections, food-borne and zoonotic parasitic infections, and vector-borne protozoan infections (Table 1). Table 1 Selected Neglected Tropical Diseases in Central Asia.
Care of the Adult Patient with Down Syndrome

Abstract Individuals with Down syndrome have an increased risk for many conditions, including cardiovascular disease, cancer, infections, and osteoporosis, and endocrine, neurological, orthopedic, auditory, and ophthalmic disorders. They also are at increased risk for abuse and human rights violations and receive fewer screenings and interventions than the population without Down syndrome. In this literature review, the most common health conditions associated with Down syndrome are examined, along with the topics of sexual abuse, menstrual hygiene, contraception, and human rights. Clinical guidelines for this population are summarized in an effort to assist practicing physicians in improving their provision of health care to the adult patient with Down syndrome.
Association between Air Pollution and the Development of Rheumatic Disease: A Systematic Review

Objective. Environmental risk factors, such as air pollution, have been studied in relation to the risk of development of rheumatic diseases. We performed a systematic literature review to summarize the existing knowledge. Methods. MEDLINE (1946 to September 2016) and EMBASE (1980 to 2016, week 37) databases were searched using MeSH terms and keywords to identify cohort, case-control, and case cross-over studies reporting risk estimates for the development of select rheumatic diseases in relation to exposure of measured air pollutants (n = 8). We extracted information on the population sample and study period, method of case and exposure determination, and the estimate of association. Results. There was no consistent evidence of an increased risk for the development of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) with exposure to NO2, SO2, PM2.5, or PM10. Case-control studies in systemic autoimmune rheumatic diseases (SARDs) indicated higher odds of diagnosis with increasing PM2.5 exposure, as well as an increased relative risk for juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) in American children <5.5 years of age. There was no association with SARDs and NO2 exposure. Conclusion. There is evidence for a possible association between air pollutant exposures and the development of SARDs and JIA, but relationships with other rheumatic diseases are less clear.
Kinetics of cisplatin binding to cellular DNA and modulations by thiol-blocking agents and thiol drugs.

DNA platination by cisplatin (CDDP) was investigated in peripheral blood mononuclear cells and ovarian cancer cells using atomic absorption spectroscopy. Plots showing the amount of platinum (Pt) bound to DNA versus the molar concentration of cisplatin in the incubation medium ([CDDP]) were nonlinear. For [CDDP] < about 5 microM, the amount of Pt bound to DNA increased slowly with added drug. However, for larger [CDDP], the slope of the plot increased significantly. To study the role of thiols in affecting cisplatin binding to DNA, cells were treated with N-ethylmaleimide, which modifies thiol groups, rendering them incapable of binding cisplatin. Analysis using high-pressure liquid chromatography showed that approximately 99% of cellular glutathione was modified by N-ethylmaleimide. A plot of the amount of Pt bound to DNA versus [CDDP] for thiol-blocked cells is linear, with a slope similar to that of unblocked cells at high [CDDP]. Neither S-2-(3 aminopropylamino)ethanethiol (WR-1065) nor mesna, when added at clinically achievable concentrations (i.e., < approximately 300 microM), affected DNA platination. However, DNA platination was totally abolished by millimolar concentrations of the drug thiols (approximately 1.25 mM WR-1065 or approximately 5 mM mesna). Thus, the data show that endogenous thiols intercept cellular cisplatin, but this mechanism is less important at high [CDDP]. Moreover, therapeutic concentrations of drug thiols do not significantly affect DNA platination. A simple model that reproduces the experimental results of the amount of cisplatin binding to DNA as a function of [CDDP], time, and thiol content is proposed. The model takes into account passage of cisplatin and thiols through the cell membrane, binding of cisplatin to cellular thiols, and platination of DNA.
Identifying Recent HIV Infections: From Serological Assays to Genomics

In this paper, we review serological and molecular based methods to identify HIV infection recency. The accurate identification of recent HIV infection continues to be an important research area and has implications for HIV prevention and treatment interventions. Longitudinal cohorts that follow HIV negative individuals over time are the current gold standard approach, but they are logistically challenging, time consuming and an expensive enterprise. Methods that utilize cross-sectional testing and biomarker information have become an affordable alternative to the longitudinal approach. These methods use well-characterized biological makers to differentiate between recent and established HIV infections. However, recent results have identified a number of limitations in serological based assays that are sensitive to the variability in immune responses modulated by HIV subtypes, viral load and antiretroviral therapy. Molecular methods that explore the dynamics between the timing of infection and viral evolution are now emerging as a promising approach. The combination of serological and molecular methods may provide a good solution to identify recent HIV infection in cross-sectional data. As part of this review, we present the advantages and limitations of serological and molecular based methods and their potential complementary role for the identification of HIV infection recency.
Foreign language reading anxiety: Investigating English -speaking university students learning Chinese as a foreign language in the United States

The aim of this study was to explore the foreign language reading anxiety among learners of Chinese in colleges in the United States. Early studies on foreign language anxiety had an obvious focus on the language skill of speaking (e.g., Aida, 1994; Horwitz, Horwitz & Cope, 1986; Phillips, 1992; Young, 1986) and the foreign language anxiety study related to other language skills such as reading, listening and writing have not drawn researchers’ attention until very recently (Cheng, Horwitz & Schallert, 1999; Saito et al., 1999; Vogely, 1998). Foreign language reading anxiety is a construct that is related to but distinct from general foreign language anxiety (Saito, Horwitz, & Garza, 1999; Sellers, 2000; Shi & Liu, 2006). Alphabetic and syllabic target languages such as English, Spanish, and Japanese have been studied in the foreign language reading anxiety research but logographic language has rarely been included. By including Chinese, a logographic language, as a target language in research on the foreign language reading anxiety, this study intended to expand the understanding of the nature of foreign language reading anxiety and also the reading process of Chinese as a foreign language. According to the sociocognitive perspective of reading (Bernhardt, 1991), reading is a meaning-reconstruction process where readers interact with not only the text-based components but also the extra-text components of a reading passage. Text-based components are such as word recognition, phonemic/graphemic decoding, and syntactic features. In reading a Chinese passage, learners of Chinese usually spend excessive time on word recognition due to the non direct relation between the form and the pronunciation of a Chinese character. Humans are limited in cognitive capacity (Eysenck, 1992). Therefore, after most of the cognitive capacity is used in dealing with word recognition, very little cognitive capacity is available for the activation of discourse knowledge, prior knowledge, and metacognition that deal with the extra-text components. The inefficient reading process might lead to reading anxiety among readers. Bernhardt (2005) pointed out that the role of affect such as anxiety had been neglected from the previous reading models, which might explain
Performance of Two Bioelectrical Impedance Analyses in the Diagnosis of Overweight and Obesity in Children and Adolescents: The FUPRECOL Study

This study aimed to determine thresholds for percentage of body fat (BF%) corresponding to the cut-off values for overweight/obesity as recommended by the International Obesity Task Force (IOTF), using two bioelectrical impedance analyzers (BIA), and described the likelihood of increased cardiometabolic risk in our cohort defined by the IOTF and BF% status. Participants included 1165 children and adolescents (54.9% girls) from Bogotá (Colombia). Body mass index (BMI) was calculated from height and weight. BF% of each youth was assessed first using the Tanita BC-418® followed by a Tanita BF-689®. The sensitivity and specificity of both devices and their ability to correctly classify children as overweight/obesity (≥2 standard deviation), as defined by IOTF, was investigated using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) by sex and age groups (9–11, 12–14, and 13–17 years old); Area under curve (AUC) values were also reported. For girls, the optimal BF% threshold for classifying into overweight/obesity was found to be between 25.2 and 28.5 (AUC = 0.91–0.97) and 23.9 to 26.6 (AUC = 0.90–0.99) for Tanita BC-418® and Tanita BF-689®, respectively. For boys, the optimal threshold was between 16.5 and 21.1 (AUC = 0.93–0.96) and 15.8 to 20.6 (AUC = 0.92–0.94) by Tanita BC-418® and Tanita BF-689®, respectively. All AUC values for ROC curves were statistically significant and there were no differences between AUC values measured by both BIA devices. The BF% values associated with the IOTF-recommended BMI cut-off for overweight/obesity may require age- and sex-specific threshold values in Colombian children and adolescents aged 9–17 years and could be used as a surrogate method to identify individuals at risk of excess adiposity.
Heating cooling flows with jets

Active galactic nuclei are clearly heating gas in ‘cooling flows’. The effectiveness and spatial distribution of the heating are controversial. We use three-dimensional simulations on adaptive grids to study the impact on a cooling flow of weak, subrelativistic jets. The simulations show cavities and vortex rings as in the observations. The cavities are fast-expanding dynamical objects rather than buoyant bubbles as previously modelled, but shocks still remain extremely hard to detect with X-rays. At late times the cavities turn into overdensities that strongly excite the g modes of a cluster. These modes damp on a long time-scale. Radial mixing is shown to be an important phenomenon, but the jets weaken the metallicity gradient only very near the centre. The central entropy density is modestly increased by the jets. We use a novel algorithm to impose the jets on the simulations.
An approach for enhancing fixed alternate routing in dynamic wavelength-routed WDM networks

A novel planning algorithm, namely capacity-balanced alternate routing (C-BAR), is proposed for enhancing fixed alternate routing in dynamic wavelength-routed WDM networks. With C-BAR, alternate paths between each source-destination (S-D) pair are defined at the network planning stage according to the load distribution and the location of each S-D pair, so that the routing of lightpaths can take the most advantages of the load-balancing characteristic of the alternate paths. A methodology for designing the number of alternate paths between an S-D pair for achieving a specific performance requirement is demonstrated. Simulation is conducted to examine the proposed approaches, and show that the C-BAR algorithm can significantly improve the performance in blocking probability compared with the other reported RWA schemes.
Implicit attitudes toward smoking: How the smell of cigarettes influences responses of college-age smokers and nonsmokers

The habit of smoking may have automatic behavioral components guided by implicit attitudes. Smokers’ attitudes toward smoking should thus be less negative than nonsmokers’, so that a salient smoking cue (smell) is able to activate positive aspects of these attitudes. An affective priming task was used to explore this hypothesis. Unexpectedly, smokers and nonsmokers showed equally negative implicit attitudes, irrespective of smell. Smokers exposed to the cigarette smell did, however, display generally slower responses than nonsmokers, suggesting attentional bias. This could have implications for smoking policies in contexts where attentional factors affect performance.