Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Evaluation of Congenital Hypothyroidism in Fars Province, Iran

Objective In Iran thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) based neonatal screening program is included in health care services from 2005 for detection of patients with primary congenital hypothyroidism (CH). This study was performed for a critical evaluation of the screening program primary congenital hypothyroidism in Fars province, Iran. Methods From November 2006 to September 2007, TSH serum concentrations of 63031 newborns, 3 to 5 days old born in Fars province, were measured by heel prick. The newborns with TSH ≥5mIU/L were recalled for measurement of serumT4 and TSH in venous blood samples Findings Of 127 recalled subjects, 43 were confirmed to be hypothyroid, showing a prevalence of 1:1465 with F:M ratio of 1.05:1. The most common clinical and radiological findings were prolonged jaundice (73%), large anterior fontanel (56%), wide posterior fontanel (55%), absence of distal femoral epiphysis (20%), and umbilical hernia (11%). Scintigraphy of the thyroid with 99mTC revealed eutopia (67.4%), hypoplasia (23.3%), agenesis (4.7%) and ectopia (2.3%). Conclusion It is concluded that a cut off value of TSH≥5mIU/L overestimates recalling the number of patients with CH. The most common cause of congenital hypothyroidism is not dysgenesis of the gland and perhaps dyshormonogenesis in Iran is more common than what is reported in other countries.
Valuation and Evaluation: Measuring the Quality of Life and Evaluating Policy

This paper is about measuring social well-being and evaluating policy. Part I is concerned with the links between the two, while Parts II and III, respectively, are devoted to the development of appropriate methods of measuring and evaluating. In Part II (Sections 4-7) I identify a minimal set of indices for spanning a general conception of social well-being. The analysis is motivated by the frequent need to make welfare comparisons across time and communities. A distinction is drawn between current well-being and sustainable well-being. Measuring current well-being is the subject of discussion in Sections 5-6. It is argued that a set of five indices, consisting of private consumption per head, life expectancy at birth, literacy, and indices of civil and political liberties, taken together, are a reasonable approximation for the purpose in hand. Indices of the quality of life currently in use, such as UNDP's Human Development Index, are cardinal measures. Since indices of civil and political liberties are only ordinal, aggregate measures of social well-being should be required to be ordinal. In this connection, the Borda index suggests itself. In Section 6 the Borda index is put to work on data on what were 46 of the poorest countries in the early 1980s. Interestingly, of the component indices, the ranking of countries in the sample in terms of life expectancy at birth is found to be the most highly correlated with the countries' Borda ranking. Even more interestingly, the ranking of countries in terms of gross national product (GNP) per head is almost as highly correlated. There can be little doubt that this finding is an empirical happenstance. But it may not be an uncommon happenstance. If this were so, GNP per head could reasonably continue to be used as a summary measure of social well-being, even though it has no theoretical claims to be one. It is widely thought that net national product (NNP) per head measures the economic component of sustainable wel
Role of substorm-associated impulsive electric fields in the ring current development during storms

Abstract. Particles with different energies produce varying contributions to the total ring current energy density as the storm progresses. Ring current energy densities and total ring current energies were obtained using particle data from the Polar CAMMICE/MICS instrument during several storms observed during the years 1996-1998. Four different energy ranges for particles are considered: total (1-200keV), low (1-20keV), medium (20-80keV) and high (80-200keV). Evolution of contributions from particles with different energy ranges to the total energy density of the ring current during all storm phases is followed. To model this evolution we trace protons with arbitrary pitch angles numerically in the drift approximation. Tracing is performed in the large-scale and small-scale stationary and time-dependent magnetic and electric field models. Small-scale time-dependent electric field is given by a Gaussian electric field pulse with an azimuthal field component propagating inward with a velocity dependent on radial distance. We model particle inward motion and energization by a series of electric field pulses representing substorm activations during storm events. We demonstrate that such fluctuating fields in the form of localized electromagnetic pulses can effectively energize the plasma sheet particles to higher energies (>80keV) and transport them inward to closed drift shells. The contribution from these high energy particles dominates the total ring current energy during storm recovery phase. We analyse the model contributions from particles with different energy ranges to the total energy density of the ring current during all storm phases. By comparing these results with observations we show that the formation of the ring current is a combination of large-scale convection and pulsed inward shift and consequent energization of the ring current particles.
Mitochondrial encephalocardio-myopathy with early neonatal onset due to TMEM70 mutation

Objective Mitochondrial disturbances of energygenerating systems in childhood are a heterogeneous group of disorders. The aim of this multi-site survey was to characterise the natural course of a novel mitochondrial disease with ATP synthase deficiency and mutation in the TMEM70 gene. Methods Retrospective clinical data and metabolic profiles were collected and evaluated in 25 patients (14 boys, 11 girls) from seven European countries with a c.317-2A→G mutation in the TMEM70 gene. Results Severe muscular hypotonia (in 92% of newborns), apnoic spells (92%), hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCMP; 76%) and profound lactic acidosis (lactate 5–36 mmol/l; 92%) with hyperammonaemia (100–520 µmol/l; 86%) were present from birth. Ten patients died within the first 6 weeks of life. Most patients surviving the neonatal period had persisting muscular hypotonia and developed psychomotor delay. HCMP was non-progressive and even disappeared in some children. Hypospadia was present in 54% of the boys and cryptorchidism in 67%. Increased excretion of lactate and 3-methylglutaconic acid (3-MGC) was observed in all patients. In four surviving patients, life-threatening hyperammonaemia occurred during childhood, triggered by acute gastroenteritis and prolonged fasting. Conclusions ATP synthase deficiency with mutation in TMEM70 should be considered in the diagnosis and management of critically ill neonates with early neonatal onset of muscular hypotonia, HCMP and hypospadias in boys accompanied by lactic acidosis, hyperammonaemia and 3-MGC-uria. However, phenotype severity may vary significantly. The disease occurs frequently in the Roma population and molecular-genetic analysis of the TMEM70 gene is sufficient for diagnosis without need of muscle biopsy in affected children.
Ha-ras and v-raf oncogenes, but not int-2 and c-myc, interfere with the lactogenic hormone dependent activation of the mammary gland specific transcription factor.

beta-Casein milk protein expression is regulated synergistically by the lactogenic hormones dexamethasone, insulin, and prolactin. This regulation has been observed in vivo and in the mammary epithelial cell line HC11. An important mediator of hormone action on beta-casein gene transcription is the mammary gland specific transcription factor MGF. Epidermal growth factor is a potent growth promoter for HC11 cells and causes a state of predifferentiation in confluent HC11 cells. Epidermal growth factor receptor activation, however, antagonizes the effects of the lactogenic hormones on MGF activation and beta-casein gene transcription during the induction of predifferentiated cells. We examined the effects of two downstream components of the epidermal growth factor receptor mitogenic signaling pathway on MGF and beta-casein promoter activity. Constitutively activated Ha-ras or v-raf oncogenes were introduced into HC11 cells. HC11 cell lines transfected with Ha-ras or v-raf oncogenes assumed transformed properties and were blocked in the lactogenic induction of MGF and beta-casein gene transcription. This indicates that the same components instrumental in the mitogenic pathway are also involved in the block of differentiation specific gene expression in HC11 cells. This block is not due to the transformed state of the HC11 cells. Introduction and high expression of the int-2 gene, a member of the fibroblast growth factor gene family, does not interfere with MGF and beta-casein induction. Overexpression of the c-myc gene, causing mammary epithelial cell transformation, also does not suppress MGF activity. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Neutrophil extracellular traps

Cancers prime neutrophils to release extracellular DNA traps through the systemic release of granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF). We recently showed that these circulating neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) promote the establishment of a pro-thrombotic state. The role of NETs in cancer biology and tumor progression may prove much more than an unfortunate side effect of cancer.
Moving to Stack Overflow: Best-Answer Prediction in Legacy Developer Forums

Context: Recently, more and more developer communities are abandoning their legacy support forums, moving onto Stack Overflow. The motivations are diverse, yet they typically include achieving faster response time and larger visibility through the access to a modern and very successful infrastructure. One downside of migration, however, is that the history and the crowdsourced knowledge hosted at previous sites remain separated or even get lost if a community decides to abandon completely the legacy developer forum. Goal: Adding to the body of evidence of existing research on best-answer prediction, here we show that, from a technical perspective, the content from existing developer forums might be automatically migrated to the Stack Overflow, although most of forums do not allow to mark a question as resolved, a distinctive feature of modern Q&A sites. Method: We trained a binary classifier with data from Stack Overflow and then tested it with data scraped from Docusign, a developer forum that has recently completed the move. Results: Our findings show that best answers can be predicted with a good accuracy, only relying on shallow linguistic (text) features, such as answer length and the number of sentences, combined with other features like answer upvotes and age, which can be easily computed in near real-time. Conclusions: Results provide an initial yet positive evidence towards the automatic migration of crowdsourced knowledge from legacy forums to modern Q&A sites.
Lexical priming and semantic integration reflected in the event-related potential of 14-month-olds

This study investigates by means of the event-related brain potential whether mechanisms of lexical priming and semantic integration are already developed in 14-month-olds. While looking at coloured pictures of known objects children were presented with basic-level words that were either congruous or incongruous to the pictures. The event-related potential of 14-month-olds revealed an early negativity in the lateral frontal brain region for congruous words, and a later N400-like negativity for incongruous words. These results indicate that both lexical priming and semantic integration are already present as early as 14 months.
Identification of RecQL1 as a Holliday junction processing enzyme in human cell lines

Homologous recombination provides an effective way to repair DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs) and is required for genetic recombination. During the process of homologous recombination, a heteroduplex DNA structure, or a ‘Holliday junction’ (HJ), is formed. The movement, or branch migration, of this junction is necessary for recombination to proceed correctly. In prokaryotes, the RecQ protein or the RuvA/RuvB protein complex can promote ATP-dependent branch migration of Holliday junctions. Much less is known about the processing of Holliday junctions in eukaryotes. Here, we identify RecQL1 as a predominant ATP-dependent, HJ branch migrator present in human nuclear extracts. A reduction in the level of RecQL1 induced by RNA interference in HeLa cells leads to an increase in sister chromatid exchange. We propose that RecQL1 is involved in the processing of Holliday junctions in human cells.
THE IN VITRO INTERCONVERSION BY MERCAPTANS OF TYPE I GLUCOSE 6-PHOSPHATE DEHYDROGENASE ISOZYMES OF RAT

The rat glucose 6-phosphate dehydrogenase isozymes of cell sap origin designated D, F1, F2 and F3 were found to be interconvertible with each other in the presence or absence of mercaptans. The D and F3 enzymes were the oxidized, the F1 was the reduced and the F2 was the intermediate form. Molecular weight estimation by the polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and Sephadex G-200 methods demonstrated that the D enzyme had twice the molecular weight of the F enzymes. The mitochondrial enzyme which moved as fast as the F3 enzyme of cell sap origin was not modified with mercaptans. Together with previous data, the present results caution in the interpretation of zymograms.
Modeling receptive-field structure of koniocellular, magnocellular, and parvocellular LGN cells in the owl monkey (Aotus trivigatus)

Most cells in the retina and lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) of primates have a concentric center/surround receptive-field organization. Details of the relationship between center and surround often can be used to predict how cells respond to visual stimuli. Models of the receptive-field organization and center/surround relationships also are useful when comparing cell classes. In the present study, we used the difference-of-Gaussians (DOG) model to quantitatively examine and compare the receptive-field center/surround organization of koniocellular (K), magnocellular (M), and parvocellular (P) LGN cells of owl monkeys. We obtained estimates of receptive-field center size (rc) and center sensitivity (Kc), and surround size (rs), and surround sensitivity (Ks) from 62 K, M, and P LGN cells by fitting their spatial-frequency responses with a DOG function (Rodieck, 1965; Croner & Kaplan, 1995). The DOG function not only accounted for the responses of P and M cells, but also provided a good description of K-cell responses. We found that at matched eccentricities of less than 15 deg, K cells had the largest rc and rs among the three cell classes. K cells also had the lowest Kc and Ks.
The elastic and viscous properties of emulsions and suspensions

A calculation is made of the elastic properties of a dilute emulsion of one incompressible viscous liquid in another, arising from the interfacial tension between the two phases. A linear relation between the stress tensor, the rate-of-strain tensor and their first time derivatives defines the behaviour at small rates of strain; the three constants involved are expressed as functions of the viscosities of the two components, the drop size (assumed small and uniform), the interfacial tension and the concentration. The relaxation time and retardation time for the system vary directly as the drop diameter and inversely as the interfacial tension. The effect of slip at the interfaces, which might be associated with the presence of a film of a third component introduced as a stabilizer, is also calculated. The values of the rheological constants are appreciably altered if the frictional coefficient specifying the degree of slipping is sufficiently small, but the type of elastic behaviour is unchanged. In the case of a suspension of elastic solid particles in a viscous liquid, slip at the solid-liquid interfaces can cause a change in the type of elastic behaviour.
A Time-Driven Scheduling Model for Real-Time Operating Systems

Process scheduling in real-time systems has almost invariably used one or more of three algorithms: fixed priority, FIFO, or round robin. The reasons for these choices are simplicity and speed in the operating system, but the cost to the system in terms of reliability and maintainability have not generally been assessed. This paper originates from the notion that the primary distinguishing characteristic of a real-time system is the concept that completion of a process or a set of processes has a value to the system which can be expressed as a function of time. This notion is described in terms of a time-driven scheduling model for real-time operating systems and provides a tool for measuring the effectiveness of most of the currently used process schedulers in real-time systems. Applying this model, we have constructed a multiprocessor real-time system simulator with which we measure a number of well-known scheduling algorithms such as Shortest Process Time (SPT), Deadline, Shortest Slack Time, FIFO, and a fixed priority scheduler, with respect to the resulting total system values. This approach to measuring the process scheduling effectiveness is a first step in our longer term effort to produce a scheduler which will explicitly schedule real-time processes in such a way that their execution times maximize their collective value to the system, either in a shared memory multiprocessing environment or in multiple nodes of a distributed processing environment.
Avian retrovirus infection causes naturally occurring glioma: Isolation and transmission of a virus from so-called fowl glioma

So-called fowl glioma is characterized by multiple nodular gliomatous growths associated with disseminated non-suppurative encephalitis. To investigate the possibility of the induction of the gliomatous lesions, chicks of Japanese bantams ( Gallus gallus domesticus ) and specific pathogen free chickens (C/O strain White Leghorn) were intracerebrally inoculated with a brain homogenate or culture supernatant from a bantam affected with fowl glioma. All bantams and 16 chickens (89%) in the inoculated groups showed non-suppurative encephalitis, and the 18 bantams (82%) and five chickens (28%) developed multiple nodules consisting of aggregations of astrocytes in the cerebrum. These astrocytes had avian leukosis virus (ALV) antigen. By Southern blot analysis, the ALV sequence was detected both in DNA prepared from the brains of the inoculated birds and in DNA from the inoculum. Ultrastructurally, tadpole-shaped particles, approximately 100 nm in diameter, were detected in the concentrated supernatant of the chicken embryo fibroblasts, and budding of the particles was noted. These results substantiated that fowl glioma of the bantams could be transmitted by intracerebral inoculation of the affected tissue and that the causal agent was an unidentified strain of ALV.
Supporting MOOC Instruction with Social Network Analysis

With an expansive and ubiquitously available gold mine of educational data, Massive Open Online courses (MOOCs) have become the an important foci of learning analytics research. In this paper, we investigate potential reasons as to why are these digitalized learning repositories being plagued with huge attrition rates. We analyze an ongoing online course offered in Coursera using a social network perspective, with an objective to identify students who are actively participating in course discussions and those who are potentially at a risk of dropping off. We additionally perform extensive forum analysis to visualize student's posting patterns longitudinally. Our results provide insights that can assist educational designers in establishing a pedagogical basis for decision-making while designing MOOCs. We infer prominent characteristics about the participation patterns of distinct groups of students in the networked learning community, and effectively discover important discussion threads. These methods can, despite the otherwise prohibitive number of students involved, allow an instructor to leverage forum behavior to identify opportunities for support.
Evolution of Cytokine Receptor Signaling

Cytokines represent essential mediators of cell–cell communication with particularly important roles within the immune system. These secreted factors are produced in response to developmental and/or environmental cues and act via cognate cytokine receptors on target cells, stimulating specific intracellular signaling pathways to facilitate appropriate cellular responses. This review describes the evolution of cytokine receptor signaling, focusing on the class I and class II receptor families and the downstream JAK–STAT pathway along with its key negative regulators. Individual components generated over a long evolutionary time frame coalesced to form an archetypal signaling pathway in bilateria that was expanded extensively during early vertebrate evolution to establish a substantial “core” signaling network, which has subsequently undergone limited diversification within discrete lineages. The evolution of cytokine receptor signaling parallels that of the immune system, particularly the emergence of adaptive immunity, which has likely been a major evolutionary driver.
Haplotype Diversity in 11 Candidate Genes Across Four Populations

Analysis of haplotypes based on multiple single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) is becoming common for both candidate gene and fine-mapping studies. Before embarking on studies of haplotypes from genetically distinct populations, however, it is important to consider variation both in linkage disequilibrium (LD) and in haplotype frequencies within and across populations, as both vary. Such diversity will influence the choice of “tagging” SNPs for candidate gene or whole-genome association studies because some markers will not be polymorphic in all samples and some haplotypes will be poorly represented or completely absent. Here we analyze 11 genes, originally chosen as candidate genes for oral clefts, where multiple markers were genotyped on individuals from four populations. Estimated haplotype frequencies, measures of pairwise LD, and genetic diversity were computed for 135 European-Americans, 57 Chinese-Singaporeans, 45 Malay-Singaporeans, and 46 Indian-Singaporeans. Patterns of pairwise LD were compared across these four populations and haplotype frequencies were used to assess genetic variation. Although these populations are fairly similar in allele frequencies and overall patterns of LD, both haplotype frequencies and genetic diversity varied significantly across populations. Such haplotype diversity has implications for designing studies of association involving samples from genetically distinct populations.
Neural evidence for “intuitive prosecution”: The use of mental state information for negative moral verdicts

Moral judgment depends critically on theory of mind (ToM), reasoning about mental states such as beliefs and intentions. People assign blame for failed attempts to harm and offer forgiveness in the case of accidents. Here we use fMRI to investigate the role of ToM in moral judgment of harmful vs. helpful actions. Is ToM deployed differently for judgments of blame vs. praise? Participants evaluated agents who produced a harmful, helpful, or neutral outcome, based on a harmful, helpful, or neutral intention; participants made blame and praise judgments. In the right temporo-parietal junction (right TPJ), and, to a lesser extent, the left TPJ and medial prefrontal cortex, the neural response reflected an interaction between belief and outcome factors, for both blame and praise judgments: The response in these regions was highest when participants delivered a negative moral judgment, i.e., assigned blame or withheld praise, based solely on the agent's intent (attempted harm, accidental help). These results show enhanced attention to mental states for negative moral verdicts based exclusively on mental state information.