Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Maternal Serum Polychlorinated Biphenyl Concentrations across Critical Windows of Human Development

Background Few data are available on polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) concentrations over critical windows of human reproduction and development inclusive of the periconception window. Objectives Our goal was to measure changes in PCB concentrations from preconception to pregnancy, through pregnancy, or after a year without becoming pregnant. Methods Seventy-nine women planning pregnancies were prospectively enrolled and followed for up to 12 menstrual cycles of attempting pregnancy. Blood specimens were obtained from participating women preconceptionally (n = 79), after a positive pregnancy test leading to a live birth (n = 54) or pregnancy loss (n = 10), at approximately 6 weeks postpartum (n = 53), and after 12 unsuccessful cycles (n = 9) for toxicologic analysis of 76 PCB congeners. We estimated overall and daily rate of change in PCB concentration (nanograms per gram serum) adjusting for relevant covariates, serum lipids, and baseline PCB concentration. Results Significant (p < 0.0001) decreases in the mean overall and daily rate of change in PCB concentrations were observed between the preconception and first pregnancy samples for total (–1.012 and –0.034, respectively), estrogenic (–0.444 and –0.016, respectively), and antiestrogenic (–0.106 and –0.004, respectively) PCBs among women with live births. Similar significant decreases in total (–1.452 and –0.085), estrogenic (–0.647 and –0.040), and antiestrogenic (–0.093 and –0.004) PCB concentrations were seen for women with pregnancy losses. No significant changes were observed for PCB congener 153. Conclusions These data suggest that PCB concentrations may change during the periconception interval, questioning the stability of persistent compounds during this critical window.
18F-FDG PET/CT for the Assessment of Disease Extension and Activity in Patients With Sarcoidosis: Results of a Preliminary Prospective Study

Purpose This study aimed to prospectively investigate 18F-FDG PET/CT role for the assessment of sarcoidosis activity and extension in comparison with thoracic high-resolution CT (HRCT) and to evaluate the potential clinical impact of PET/CT findings. Secondary aim was to investigate the changes in cardiac FDG uptake related to the specific preparation before PET/CT. Methods We prospectively enrolled biopsy proven sarcoidosis patients consecutively referred for 18F-FDG PET/CT since January 2010. PET/CT was performed after a fat meal followed by 12-hour fasting and compared with thoracic HRCT results obtained in supine position and clinical follow-up. The impact on the clinical management was recorded. Patterns of cardiac FDG uptake of the study group were compared with a historical population in which PET/CT was performed following standard preparation. Results A total of 28 patients were enrolled, and 35 PET/CT scans were reviewed. On a scan basis, PET/CT was concordant with HRCT in 16 (45.7%), detecting active disease in 10/16 and no signs of activity in 4/16. PET/CT data had a direct impact on management in 4/16. In 19 (54.3%) discordant scans, PET/CT finding was positive in 14 and negative in 5. PET/CT findings influenced the clinical management in 18/19 cases. Considering all scans, PET/CT information influenced the clinical management of 22 (63%) of 35. Our data suggest that cardiac FDG uptake may vary regardless of the preparation before PET/CT. Conclusions 18F-FDG PET/CT was useful to assess sarcoidosis activity and extension and provided valuable information for the clinical management in a single-step examination. Additional data are needed to better ascertain the optimal patient preparation before image acquisition to improve sensitivity of heart lesions.
Prevalence and correlates of agoraphobia in older adults.

OBJECTIVE Agoraphobia has been previously found to be a relatively prevalent disorder in the older adult. However, little is known about the nature of this disorder in the elderly population. The purpose of this study was to identify risk factors, illness characteristics, and comorbidity of agoraphobia in the elderly. METHODS This was a national community mental health survey that included 12,792 individuals > or = 55 years. Agoraphobia was assessed using the World Mental Health Composite International Diagnostic Interview. Social, demographic, psychiatric, and physical variables previously found to be associated with agoraphobia in the adult population were measured. Bivariate and logistic regression analyses were used to examine these associations. RESULTS The prevalence of agoraphobia in adults over 55 was 0.61% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.40-0.82). In bivariate analysis, the condition was more common in the younger age groups, women, and those widowed or divorced. It was also more common in individuals with chronic health conditions and those with comorbid psychiatric disorders. However, in the multivariate model, chronic health conditions and panic disorder were no longer significant. Most cases of agoraphobia in the elderly were of early onset (age <55 years). The majority of patients with agoraphobia did not have concurrent panic disorder. CONCLUSION Lower prevalence rates of agoraphobia in the elderly were found compared with previous studies. The degree to which this is a measurement issue is discussed. The low correlation between agoraphobia and panic disorder raises further questions about the nature and etiology of agoraphobia in the elderly. Implications for future research and clinical practice are discussed.
Severe Preeclampsia is Associated with a Positive Family History of Hypertension and Hypercholesterolemia

Objective. To investigate an association between a family history of cardiovascular disease and severe preeclampsia and/or HELLP syndrome (Haemolysis, Elevated Liver enzymes, Low Platelets). Methods. One hundred twenty-eight women with a history of severe preeclampsia and/or HELLP syndrome and 123 women with previous uncomplicated pregnancies only were included in the study. All participants completed questionnaires about diagnoses of cardiovascular diseases, hypertension, and hypercholesterolemia among their first-degree relatives, which were subsequently confirmed by the relatives' general practitioners. The main outcome measures were the prevalence of cardiovascular diseases, hypertension, and hypercholesterolemia among first-degree relatives of both groups. Statistical analysis was done using χ2-analysis. Results. The prevalence of familial cardiovascular disease among women with a history of severe preeclampsia and/or HELLP syndrome (23%) compared to controls (19%) was not significantly different (OR 1.3, 95%CI 0.7–2.5). However, women with a history of severe preeclampsia and/or HELLP syndrome more often had one or more first-degree relatives with hypertension and/or hypercholesterolemia before the age of 60 years compared to controls (54% vs. 32%, respectively; OR 2.6, 95%CI 1.5–4.3). The prevalence of hypertension and hypercholesterolemia among first-degree relatives, irrespective of age, also was significantly higher among women with a history of severe preeclampsia and/or HELLP syndrome as compared to controls (60% vs. 42%, respectively; OR 2.0, 95%CI 1.2–3.4). Conclusion. Severe preeclampsia is associated with a positive family history of hypertension and/or hypercholesterolemia.
A Comparison of Data Dissemination Protocols for Wireless Sensor Networks

— Due to many constraints of nodes in wireless sensor networks, a variety of data dissemination protocols have been developed for data gathering in wireless sensor networks. Sensors extract useful information from environment; this information has to be routed through several intermediate nodes to reach the destination. Effective information dissemination is one of the most important tasks in sensor networks. Directed Diffusion is a communication paradigm for information dissemination in WSNs based on data centric routing. In this paper we simulate three protocols using ns-2
Polymorphisms of the Phosphodiesterase 4D, cAMP-Specific (PDE4D) Gene and Risk of Ischemic Stroke: A Prospective, Nested Case–Control Evaluation

Background and Purpose— In an Icelandic population, gene variants of the phosphodiesterase 4D, cAMP-specific (PDE4D) gene were reported to be risk predictors for ischemic stroke. Case–control studies in other populations have yielded mixed evidence for association. A recent analysis in a prospective, non-Icelandic study found an association with stroke after stratification by hypertension. Methods— We evaluated nine PDE4D single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) among 259 incident ischemic stroke cases and 259 controls were matched on age and smoking status and length of follow up since randomization, all drawn from initially healthy white males within the Physicians' Health Study cohort who were prospectively followed for first-ever stroke events. Results— Genotype and allele distributions were similar between cases and controls. Results from single-marker conditional logistic regression analysis adjusting for traditional stroke risk factors showed significant association of SNP56 with risk of ischemic stroke (recessive odds ratio [OR], 2.26; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.11 to 4.61; P=0.03). Among the participants without baseline hypertension, SNP42 (additive OR, 1.68; 95% CI, 0.99 to 2.86, P=0.06), SNP45 (dominant odds ratio, 2.24; 95% CI, 1.00 to 5.00, P=0.05), and SNP56 (additive odds ratio, 1.77; 95% CI, 1.02 to 3.10, P=0.04) showed modest association with increased risk of ischemic stroke. Conclusions— We found modest associations between several PDE4D gene polymorphisms and risk of incident ischemic stroke in men without baseline hypertension in this prospective, non-Icelandic study. Although of borderline statistical significance, the direction and magnitude of the effect for SNP42 parallels that observed in a recent study evaluating women from an independent, nested case–control study.
Psychosocial disability in the course of bipolar I and II disorders: a prospective, comparative, longitudinal study.

CONTEXT Evidence of psychosocial disability in bipolar disorder is based primarily on bipolar I disorder (BP-I) and does not relate disability to affective symptom severity and polarity or to bipolar II disorder (BP-II). OBJECTIVE To provide detailed data on psychosocial disability in relation to symptom status during the long-term course of BP-I and BP-II. DESIGN A naturalistic study with 20 years of prospective, systematic follow-up. SETTING Inpatient and outpatient treatment facilities at 5 US academic centers. Patients One hundred fifty-eight patients with BP-I and 133 patients with BP-II who were followed up for a mean (SD) of 15 (4.8) years in the National Institute of Mental Health Collaborative Depression Study. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES The relationship, by random regression, between Range of Impaired Functioning Tool psychosocial impairment scores and affective symptom status in 1-month periods during the long-term course of illness from 6-month and yearly Longitudinal Interval Follow-up Evaluation interviews. RESULTS Psychosocial impairment increases significantly with each increment in depressive symptom severity for BP-I and BP-II and with most increments in manic symptom severity for BP-I. Subsyndromal hypomanic symptoms are not disabling in BP-II, and they may even enhance functioning. Depressive symptoms are at least as disabling as manic or hypomanic symptoms at corresponding severity levels and, in some cases, significantly more so. At each level of depressive symptom severity, BP-I and BP-II are equally impairing. When asymptomatic, patients with bipolar disorder have good psychosocial functioning, although it is not as good as that of well controls. CONCLUSIONS Psychosocial disability fluctuates in parallel with changes in affective symptom severity in BP-I and BP-II. Important findings for clinical management are the following: (1) depressive episodes and symptoms, which dominate the course of BP-I and BP-II, are equal to or more disabling than corresponding levels of manic or hypomanic symptoms; (2) subsyndromal depressive symptoms, but not subsyndromal manic or hypomanic symptoms, are associated with significant impairment; and (3) subsyndromal hypomanic symptoms appear to enhance functioning in BP-II.
Influence of irofulven, a transcription-coupled repair-specific antitumor agent, on RNA polymerase activity, stability and dynamics in living mammalian cells

Transcription-coupled repair (TCR) plays a key role in the repair of DNA lesions induced by bulky adducts and is initiated when the elongating RNA polymerase II (Pol II) stalls at DNA lesions. This is accompanied by alterations in Pol II activity and stability. We have previously shown that the monofunctional adducts formed by irofulven (6-hydroxymethylacylfulvene) are exclusively recognized by TCR, without involvement of global genome repair (GGR), making irofulven a unique tool to characterize TCR-associated processes in vivo. Here, we characterize the influence of irofulven on Pol II activity, stability and mobility in living mammalian cells. Our results demonstrate that irofulven induces specific inhibition of nucleoplasmic RNA synthesis, an important decrease of Pol II mobility, coupled to the accumulation of initiating polymerase and a time-dependent loss of the engaged enzyme, associated with its polyubiquitylation. Both proteasome-mediated degradation of the stalled polymerase and new protein synthesis are necessary to allow Pol II recycling into preinitiating complexes. Together, our findings provide novel insights into the subsequent fate of the stalled RNA polymerase II and demonstrate the essential role of the recycling process for transcriptional reinitiation and viability of mammalian cells.
Lead, trace mineral intake, and behavior of children

Exposure to lead and nutritional inadequacy have been found to be related to learning and behavioral disorders in children. The bulk of the research on this relation is correlational, however, rendering the existence (and direction) of causality unknown. The treatment studies in this area generally have not included appropriate placebo controls or double-blind conditions. In addition, studies of lead exposure tend to exclude consideration of dietary factors in spite of the fact that competition between lead and trace minerals has been demonstrated. This article examines the cumulative effects of mineral insufficiency and exposure to lead.
Justification of war and terrorism: a comparative case study examining ethical positions based on prescriptive attribution theory

Abstract. In this study, examples of war and terrorism from both Western and Arab countries were examined with respect to the underlying ethical positions of justifications that have been publicized. In a rating process, we analyzed speeches and explanations of (1) the American government justifying the military strikes in Afghanistan (2001-) and the war in Iraq (2003-), (2) the Red Army Faction justifying terrorist attacks they perpetrated in Germany (1972-1984), (3) the former President of Iraq justifying the war against Iran (1980-1988), and (4) members of Al Qaeda justifying terrorist acts (2001-2004). The ethical justification patterns are presented, compared, and discussed with respect to the influences of culture and type of political violence. The results reveal significant differences between the kinds of aggression as well as between Western and Arab countries, with the cultural factor proving to be more essential.
Universal Detection and Identification of Avian Influenza Virus by Use of Resequencing Microarrays

ABSTRACT Zoonotic microbes have historically been, and continue to emerge as, threats to human health. The recent outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza virus in bird populations and the appearance of some human infections have increased the concern of a possible new influenza pandemic, which highlights the need for broad-spectrum detection methods for rapidly identifying the spread or outbreak of all variants of avian influenza virus. In this study, we demonstrate that high-density resequencing pathogen microarrays (RPM) can be such a tool. The results from 37 influenza virus isolates show that the RPM platform is an effective means for detecting and subtyping influenza virus, while simultaneously providing sequence information for strain resolution, pathogenicity, and drug resistance without additional analysis. This study establishes that the RPM platform is a broad-spectrum pathogen detection and surveillance tool for monitoring the circulation of prevalent influenza viruses in the poultry industry and in wild birds or incidental exposures and infections in humans.
Contextual effects on subjective social position: Evidence from European countries

This study investigated subjective social position in 21 European countries using data from the social inequality module of the International Social Survey Programme 2009. Subjective social position shows people’s self-location in a social hierarchy. Most studies on subjective social position have typically involved a few countries and neglected the role of national educational and occupational structures. We hypothesise that these characteristics, together with national-level economic factors, modify the effect of individual-level characteristics on subjective social location. Our expectations are based on extended reference group thesis, the big-fish-little-pond and stigmatisation arguments. The results of multi-level analysis indicated that the extent of educational and income inequalities in society as well as occupational structures influence the importance of individual incomes, education and occupations for estimating social position.
Phase separation in confined systems

We review the current state of knowledge of phase separation and phase equilibria in porous materials. Our emphasis is on fundamental studies of simple fluids (composed of small, neutral molecules) and well-characterized materials. While theoretical and molecular simulation studies are stressed, we also survey experimental investigations that are fundamental in nature. Following a brief survey of the most useful theoretical and simulation methods, we describe the nature of gas‐liquid (capillary condensation), layering, liquid‐liquid and freezing/melting transitions. In each case studies for simple pore geometries, and also more complex ones where available, are discussed. While a reasonably good understanding is available for phase equilibria of pure adsorbates in simple pore geometries, there is a need to extend the models to more complex pore geometries that include effects of chemical and geometrical heterogeneity and connectivity. In addition, with the exception of liquid‐liquid equilibria, little work has been done so far on phase separation for mixtures in porous media.
Xylophones in Thailand and Java: A Comparative Phenomenology of Musical Instruments

The heart of this essay is my experience of learning to play and appreciate the ranaat eek, the leading xylophone in classical Central Thai music, and more generally, learning to play music in Thailand and, much earlier, Central Java. I realized that the “standard” scholarly descriptions and classifications of musical instruments—which I learnt first as a teenager studying violin at the Prague Conservatory, and then again a number of times later—are not just unsatisfactory for my purposes, but are in direct conflict with my own experience of what are musical instruments: in separating the instruments from human experience, human bodies, feelings, imagination, worlds, and applying “universal” methods of “identifying” them, all that I feel is important is methodically ignored. Where are the joy and the pain of learning to play an instrument; the feel of the instrument in my hand, as it gives me a magical power to enter the realm of music and opens up for me a whole field of possibilities; the intimate, physical, life-long bond between the musician and his instrument; the respect and gratitude for my teacher for making me suffer through learning; the atmosphere, excitement, magic of being part of a performance? Each kind of instrument is different, not primarily because of what vibrates in or on the instrument (as the standard classification would lead us to believe), but because each grows from and into human lives and worlds differently. Where are these differences between instruments, the different experiences they make possible, the different ways in which they extend and empower human bodies, the different feelings they evoke, the different roles they play in people’s lives and in their world, the different associations they accumulate? The first and central part of this essay is a phenomenological description of ranaat eek (or simply ranaat). (Figure 1) Its ambition is to offer a few glimpses of the instrument in human experience. Then, I compare ranaat to the Javanese gambang, showing how an instrument that looks very similar if one attends only to its physical characteristics and the mechanics of sound, turns out to be a very different musical instrument if one considers how it is played and experienced by musicians, how it figures in ensemble music and people’s thinking, and what
Self-Confidence and Search

Standard search theory assumes that individuals know, with certainty, how they compare to competing searchers in terms of ability. In contrast, we hypothesize that searchers are uncertain about relative ability, with important implications for search behavior. We test our hypotheses in a laboratory experiment. The first main finding is that people are substantially uncertain about whether they are a type with a high or low probability of success, determined by being above or below the median in terms of ability. Self-confidence, defined as an individual’s self-assessed probability of being a high type, is too high (above zero) for many low types, and too low (below 1) for many high types. Second, people update beliefs based on search outcomes. Self-confidence increases or decreases in the right direction, but is less sensitive to new information than predicted by Bayes’ rule. Third, updating affects future search decisions: people are less likely to search as confidence about being a high type falls. Fourth, some search too little, and others search too much, due to wrong beliefs. Fifth, at the end of the experiment a substantial fraction turn down the chance to learn their exact rank. These are overwhelmingly those with low ability, suggesting an aversion to learning that one is one of the worst performers. Given that people are uncertain even in the simple setting of our experiment, our evidence strongly suggests that uncertainty about ability is relevant in more complex, real-world search settings, including search for a job or search for a mate. Focusing on the case of job search, we discuss how our findings can provide a new explanation for various important stylized facts from field evidence.
A bit-serial implementation of the international data encryption algorithm IDEA

A high-performance implementation of the International Data Encryption Algorithm (IDEA) is presented in this paper. Using a novel bit-serial architecture to perform multiplication modulo 2/sup 16/+1, the implementation occupies a minimal amount of hardware. The bit-serial architecture enabled the algorithm to be deeply pipelined to achieve a system clock rate of 125 MHz on a Xilinx Virtex XCV300-6, delivering a throughput of 500 Mb/sec. With a XCV1000-6 device, the estimated performance is 2 Gb/sec, three orders of magnitude faster than a software implementation on a 450 MHz Intel Pentium II. This design is suitable for applications in on-line encryption for high-speed networks.