Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Evidence for association of endothelial nitric oxide synthase gene in subjects with glaucoma and a history of migraine.

PURPOSE There is evidence to suggest that vasospasm and vascular dysregulation play a role in the etiology of glaucoma. This effect may be particularly relevant in patients with glaucoma who have a history of migraine or vasospastic tendencies. This study was conducted to investigate the role of genes with products that regulate blood flow to ocular tissues. The candidate genes were the two isoforms of nitric oxide synthase (NOS), NOS3 and -2A, and endothelin (ET)-l. The frequency of the T786C mutation in NOS3 was also examined. METHODS DNA was obtained from 58 patients with primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG), 76 with normal tension glaucoma (NTG), and 38 control subjects. Polymerase chain reactions (PCR) were used to compare the frequency of the alleles between the subjects with glaucoma and the control subjects and the subjects with glaucoma with vasospasm or migraine. The PCR product was sequenced to identify the frequency of the T786C mutation. RESULTS The distribution of the NOS3 repeat alleles in subjects with glaucoma and control subjects just failed to reach statistical significance (P = 0.06). The distribution in subjects with NTG or POAG did not differ significantly. A significant difference was found (P < 0.001) in the distribution of allele frequencies of the NOS3 marker in subjects who had glaucoma with migraine versus control subjects. There were no differences in the distribution of the NOS2A or ET-1 markers between the subjects with glaucoma and the control subjects. CONCLUSIONS This study provides evidence of an association between the NOS3 gene and subjects with glaucoma who have a history of migraine. Unlike in other studies, no evidence was found of an association between ET-1 and glaucoma.
Paclitaxel is safe and effective in the treatment of advanced AIDS-related Kaposi's sarcoma.

PURPOSE Liposomal anthracyclines are the present standard treatment for advanced AIDS-related Kaposi's sarcoma (KS). No effective therapies have been defined for use after treatment failure of these agents. A phase II trial was thus conducted with paclitaxel in patients with advanced KS to assess safety and antitumor activity. MATERIALS AND METHODS A regimen of paclitaxel at a dose of 100 mg/m(2) was given every 2 weeks to patients with advanced AIDS-related KS. Patients were treated until complete remission, disease progression, or unacceptable toxicity occurred. RESULTS Fifty-six patients with advanced AIDS-related KS were accrued. Tumor-associated edema was present in 70% of patients and visceral involvement in 45%. Forty patients (71%) had received prior systemic therapy; 31 of these were resistant to an anthracycline. The median entry CD4(+) lymphocyte count was 20 cells/mm(3) (range, 0 to 358). A median of 10 cycles (range, 1 to 54+) of paclitaxel was administered. Fifty-nine percent of patients showed complete (n = 1) or partial response (n = 32) to paclitaxel. The median duration of response was 10.4 months (range, 2.8 to 26.7+ months) and the median survival was 15.4 months. The main side effects of therapy were grade 3 or 4 neutropenia in 61% of patients and mild-to-moderate alopecia in 87%. CONCLUSION Paclitaxel at 100 mg/m(2) given every 2 weeks is active and well tolerated in the treatment of advanced and previously treated AIDS-related KS. The median duration of response is among the longest observed for any regimen or single agent reported for AIDS-related KS. Paclitaxel at this dosage and schedule is a treatment option for patients with advanced AIDS-related KS, including those who have experienced treatment failure of prior systemic therapy.
Modeling the development of elastic anisotropy as a result of plastic flow for glassy polycarbonate

The development of anisotropy as a result of plastic deformation below the glass-transition temperature is investigated and modeled for amorphous polycarbonate. Initially, isotropic polycarbonate was subjected to different extents of plastic flow in compression, and the development of its anisotropic wave speed moduli were studied using ultrasonic wave speed measurements. Longitudinal and shear wave speed measurements were performed both in the axial and transverse directions, with respect to the axis of compression. The moduli clearly indicated the development of a transversely elastic response as a result of the uniaxial compression. The measured moduli were used to model the elastic response of polycarbonate using a model for stress that depends both on the elastic and plastic parts of the deformation. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 2009. © 2009 Society of Plastics Engineers
Inconsistent Paternal Behavior Predicts Turkish Immigrant and GermanChildren s and Adolescents Mental Health

Objective: Data about Turkish immigrant fathers in Germany is scarce and it is not known how their parenting behavior may affect their children’s outcomes. The aim of this longitudinal study was to test whether Turkish immigrant and German fathers’ inconsistent discipline predicted their children’s mental health. Methods: Turkish immigrant (n=115) and German fathers (n=76) were administered the Inconsistent Discipline Scale items of the Alabama Parenting Questionnaire (APQ). One year later, fathers rated their children’s (N=191; age range 6-16 years; n=97 (50.8%) male) mental health with the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). Results: Self-reported levels of inconsistent discipline were the same among Turkish immigrant and German fathers. Turkish immigrant children had higher peer relationship problem scores compared with German children but there were no ethnic differences in total difficulties, emotional symptoms, conduct problems, hyperactivityinattention, and prosocial behavior. Multivariate regression analyses showed that both Turkish immigrant and German fathers’ inconsistent discipline predicted higher total difficulties (s=0.24; p=0.001), hyperactivity-inattention (s=0.20; p=0.007), peer problems (s=0.21; p=0.005), and lower prosocial behavior (s=-0.21; p=0.004) after statistically controlling for child gender and age, as well as paternal education. There were no effects of inconsistent behavior on emotional symptoms and hyperactivity-inattention. Conclusion: The negative effects of fathers’ inconsistent discipline on children’s and adolescents’ mental health are similar in the Turkish immigrant and German native population. Fathers’ use of consistent parenting behavior may be a potential target for parenting interventions aimed at improving youth mental health.
A comparison of sequential Delaunay triangulation algorithms

This paper presents an experimental comparison of a number of different algorithms for computing the Deluanay triangulation. The algorithms examined are: Dwyer’s divide and conquer algorithm, Fortune’s sweepline algorithm, several versions of the incremental algorithm (including one by Ohya, Iri, and Murota, a new bucketing-based algorithm described in this paper, and Devillers’s version of a Delaunay-tree based algorithm that appears in LEDA), an algorithm that incrementally adds a correct Delaunay triangle adjacent to a current triangle in a manner similar to gift wrapping algorithms for convex hulls, and Barber’s convex hull based algorithm. Most of the algorithms examined are designed for good performance on uniformly distributed sites. However, we also test implementations of these algorithms on a number of non-uniform distibutions. The experiments go beyond measuring total running time, which tends to be machine-dependent. We also analyze the major high-level primitives that algorithms use and do an experimental analysis of how often implementations of these algorithms perform each operation.
A Novel, “Double-Clamp” Binding Mode for Human Heme Oxygenase-1 Inhibition

The development of heme oxygenase (HO) inhibitors is critical in dissecting and understanding the HO system and for potential therapeutic applications. We have established a program to design and optimize HO inhibitors using structure-activity relationships in conjunction with X-ray crystallographic analyses. One of our previous complex crystal structures revealed a putative secondary hydrophobic binding pocket which could be exploited for a new design strategy by introducing a functional group that would fit into this potential site. To test this hypothesis and gain further insights into the structural basis of inhibitor binding, we have synthesized and characterized 1-(1H-imidazol-1-yl)-4,4-diphenyl-2-butanone (QC-308). Using a carbon monoxide (CO) formation assay on rat spleen microsomes, the compound was found to be ∼15 times more potent (IC50 = 0.27±0.07 µM) than its monophenyl analogue, which is already a potent compound in its own right (QC-65; IC50 = 4.0±1.8 µM). The crystal structure of hHO-1 with QC-308 revealed that the second phenyl group in the western region of the compound is indeed accommodated by a definitive secondary proximal hydrophobic pocket. Thus, the two phenyl moieties are each stabilized by distinct hydrophobic pockets. This “double-clamp” binding offers additional inhibitor stabilization and provides a new route for improvement of human heme oxygenase inhibitors.
On the Effects of Low Video Quality in Human Action Recognition

Human activity recognition is one of the most intensively studied areas of computer vision and pattern recognition in recent years. A wide variety of approaches have shown to work well against challenging image variations such as appearance, pose and illumination. However, the problem of low video quality remains an unexplored and challenging issue in real-world applications. In this paper, we investigate the effects of low video quality in human action recognition from two perspectives: videos that are poorly sampled spatially (low resolution) and temporally (low frame rate), and compressed videos affected by motion blurring and artifacts. In order to increase the robustness of feature representation under these conditions, we propose the usage of textural features to complement the popular shape and motion features. Extensive experiments were carried out on two well-known benchmark datasets of contrasting nature: the classic KTH dataset and the large-scale HMDB51 dataset. Results obtained with two popular representation schemes (Bag-of-Words, Fisher Vectors) further validate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.
Comparative Signature-Tagged Mutagenesis Identifies Pseudomonas Factors Conferring Resistance to the Pulmonary Collectin SP-A

The pulmonary collectin, surfactant protein A (SP-A), is a broad spectrum opsonin with microbicidal membrane permeabilization properties that plays a role in the innate immune response of the lung. However, the factors that govern SP-A's microbial specificity and the mechanisms by which it mediates membrane permeabilization and opsonization are not fully understood. In an effort to identify bacterial factors that confer susceptibility or resistance to SP-A, we used comparative signature-tagged mutagenesis to screen a library of 1,680 Pseudomonas aeruginosa mutants for evidence of differential pulmonary clearance in SP-A-sufficient (SP-A) and SP-A-deficient (SP-A) mice. Two SP-A-sensitive P. aeruginosa mutants harboring transposon insertions in genes required for salicylate biosynthesis (pch) and phosphoenolpyruvate-protein-phosphotransferase (ptsP) were recovered. The mutants were indistinguishable from the parental wild-type PA01 with regard to opsonization by SP-A, but they exhibited increased susceptibility to SP-A-mediated membrane permeabilization. These results suggest that bacterial gene functions that are required to maintain membrane integrity play crucial roles in resistance of P. aeruginosa to the permeabilizing effects of SP-A.
Establishment of Patient-Derived Tumor Xenograft Models of Epithelial Ovarian Cancer for Preclinical Evaluation of Novel Therapeutics

Purpose: Ovarian cancer is the leading cause of death from gynecologic malignancy in the United States, with high rates of recurrence and eventual resistance to cytotoxic chemotherapy. Model systems that allow for accurate and reproducible target discovery and validation are needed to support further drug development in this disease. Experimental Design: Clinically annotated patient-derived xenograft (PDX) models were generated from tumor cells isolated from the ascites or pleural fluid of patients undergoing clinical procedures. Models were characterized by IHC and by molecular analyses. Each PDX was luciferized to allow for reproducible in vivo assessment of intraperitoneal tumor burden by bioluminescence imaging (BLI). Plasma assays for CA125 and human LINE-1 were developed as secondary tests of in vivo disease burden. Results: Fourteen clinically annotated and molecularly characterized luciferized ovarian PDX models were generated. Luciferized PDX models retain fidelity to both the nonluciferized PDX and the original patient tumor, as demonstrated by IHC, array CGH, and targeted and whole-exome sequencing analyses. Models demonstrated diversity in specific genetic alterations and activation of PI3K signaling pathway members. Response of luciferized PDX models to standard-of-care therapy could be reproducibly monitored by BLI or plasma markers. Conclusions: We describe the establishment of a collection of 14 clinically annotated and molecularly characterized luciferized ovarian PDX models in which orthotopic tumor burden in the intraperitoneal space can be followed by standard and reproducible methods. This collection is well suited as a platform for proof-of-concept efficacy and biomarker studies and for validation of novel therapeutic strategies in ovarian cancer. Clin Cancer Res; 23(5); 1263–73. ©2016 AACR.
Depression and parental bonding: Cause, consequence, or genetic covariance?

It is shown how information on the direction of causation between variables may be obtained from a cross‐sectional study of pairs of relatives. This method is applied to the study of the relationship between ratings of parents' rearing style and depression in their offspring. Adult female twins ascertained from a population‐based registry in Virginia completed the Center for Epidemiological Studies ‐ Depression Scale (CESD) and a 7‐item short form of the Parental Bonding Instrument (PBI) about each of their parents. Two dimensions of parental behavior, overprotectiveness and coldness, were analyzed jointly with depression data in both genetic factor and directional genetic models. Models that specify ratings of parents as a cause of depression in the offspring fit the data significantly better than models that specify depression as a cause of ratings of parents. A still better fit is obtained with models that specify common genetic variance to depression and ratings, though causal models with error variance perform almost as well. In general, ratings of fathers show more genetic and less shared environmental variance than ratings of mothers, which might arise from more consistent treatment of offspring by mothers than by fathers. No effect of children eliciting parental rearing style was detected with these data. The relative merits of instrumental variable, longitudinal, and family approaches to testing causal models are discussed. © 1994 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Growth of Chemical Solution Deposited  $^{\rm TFA}{\rm YBCO}/^{\rm MOD}({\rm Ce},{\rm Zr}){\rm O}_{2}/^{\rm ABAD}{\rm YSZ/SS}$ Coated Conductors

All chemical solution deposited coated conductors on <sup>ABAD</sup>YSZ/SS tapes with critical current densities at 77 K of J<sub>c</sub> = 1.8 MA / cm<sup>2</sup> have been obtained. Superconducting YBCO films were grown by the trifluoroacetates route on top of metal organic deposited (Ce, Zr) O<sub>2</sub> buffer layers. Planarity of the CZO layer is the key for the high quality growth of the <sup>TFA</sup>YBCO films reaching J<sub>c</sub> (77 K, sf) = 5.2 MA / cm<sup>2</sup>. Granularity effects dominate J<sub>c</sub> (H) at low fields while, at 77 K, for fields above 2 T, J<sub>c</sub> of the coated conductor exhibits the same value as those obtained on single crystals.
HiResolutionTM and Conventional Sound Processing in the HiResolutionTM Bionic Ear: Using Appropriate Outcome Measures to Assess Speech Recognition Ability

Objective: This study compared speech perception benefits in adults implanted with the HiResolutionTM (HiRes) Bionic Ear who used both conventional and HiRes sound processing. A battery of speech tests was used to determine which formats were most appropriate for documenting the wide range of benefit experienced by cochlear-implant users. Study Design: A repeated-measures design was used to assess postimplantation speech perception in adults who received the HiResolution Bionic Ear in a recent clinical trial. Patients were fit first with conventional strategies and assessed after 3 months of use. Patients were then switched to HiRes sound processing and assessed again after 3 months of use. To assess the immediate effect of HiRes sound processing on speech perception performance, consonant recognition testing was performed in a subset of patients after 3 days of HiRes use and compared with their 3-month performance with conventional processing. Setting: Subjects were implanted and evaluated at 19 cochlear implant programs in the USA and Canada affiliated primarily with tertiary medical centers. Patients: Patients were 51 postlinguistically deafened adults. Main Outcome Measures: Speech perception was assessed using CNC monosyllabic words, CID sentences and HINT sentences in quiet and noise. Consonant recognition testing was also administered to a subset of patients (n = 30) using the Iowa Consonant Test presented in quiet and noise. All patients completed a strategy preference questionnaire after 6 months of device use. Results: Consonant identification in quiet and noise improved significantly after only 3 days of HiRes use. The mean improvement from conventional to HiRes processing was significant on all speech perception tests. The largest differences occurred for the HINT sentences in noise. Ninety-six percent of the patients preferred HiRes to conventional sound processing. Ceiling effects occurred for both sentence tests in quiet. Conclusions: Although most patients improved after switching to HiRes sound processing, the greatest differences were seen in the ‘poor’ performers because ‘good’ performers often reached ceiling performance, especially on tests in quiet. Future evaluations of cochlear-implant benefit should make use of more difficult measures, especially for ‘good’ users. Nonetheless, a range of difficulty must remain in test materials to document benefit in the entire population of implant recipients.
Paired‐pulse depression of monosynaptic GABA‐mediated inhibitory postsynaptic responses in rat hippocampus.

1. Intracellular recording techniques were used to characterize monosynaptic inhibitory postsynaptic potentials (IPSPs) and currents (IPSCs) in rat hippocampal slices and to study the mechanism of paired‐pulse depression of these synaptic responses. This was achieved by stimulation in stratum radiatum close (less than 0.5 mm) to an intracellularly recorded CA1 neurone after pharmacological blockade of all excitatory synaptic transmission. 2. Under these conditions, low‐frequency stimulation (0.033 Hz) evoked a pure biphasic IPSP, which had a short and constant latency to onset. This IPSP was blocked by tetrodotoxin (1 microM) suggesting that it resulted from the electrical stimulation of the axons and/or cell bodies of a monosynaptic inhibitory pathway. 3. Picrotoxin (100 microM) abolished the early component of the biphasic IPSP/C. It left an intact, pure late IPSP/C (IPSP/CB) which had a latency to onset of 29 +/‐ 2 ms, latency to peak of 139 +/‐ 4 ms, a duration of 723 +/‐ 135 (range 390‐1730) ms and a reversal potential of ‐93 +/‐ 2 mV. The duration was highly dependent on the stimulus intensity whereas the latency to onset was largely independent of the stimulus intensity. The IPSP/CB was reduced or abolished by 1 mM‐phaclofen. 4. Phaclofen (1 mM) and 2‐hydroxy‐saclofen (0.1‐1.0 mM) reversibly depressed (60‐100%) the late component of the biphasic IPSP/C and, where maximally effective, left a pure, early IPSP/C (IPSP/CA). The IPSP/CA had a latency to onset of 3 ms or less, a latency to peak of 17 +/‐ 1 ms, a duration of 225 +/‐ 3 ms and a reversal potential of ‐75 +/‐ 2 mV. 5. Two shocks of identical strength were applied in close succession to characterize, and to study the mechanisms underlying, frequency‐dependent depression of inhibitory synaptic responses. Paired‐pulse depression was seen for both phases of the biphasic IPSP/C and of the pure IPSP/CB, recorded in the presence of picrotoxin. Paired‐pulse depression was not accompanied by changes in the reversal potential of either component, indicating that it was caused by a reduction in the two synaptic conductances. Paired‐pulse depression was greater when high stimulus intensities were employed. 6. Paired stimuli were applied at separation intervals of between 5 ms and 10 s to determine the temporal profile of frequency‐dependent depression. Paired‐pulse depression of both IPSCA and IPSCB was most pronounced at an interstimulus interval of 100‐125 ms and ceased to occur at intervals greater than 5 10s. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
Quasar: Datasets for Question Answering by Search and Reading

We present two new large-scale datasets aimed at evaluating systems designed to comprehend a natural language query and extract its answer from a large corpus of text. The Quasar-S dataset consists of 37000 cloze-style (fill-in-the-gap) queries constructed from definitions of software entity tags on the popular website Stack Overflow. The posts and comments on the website serve as the background corpus for answering the cloze questions. The Quasar-T dataset consists of 43000 open-domain trivia questions and their answers obtained from various internet sources. ClueWeb09 serves as the background corpus for extracting these answers. We pose these datasets as a challenge for two related subtasks of factoid Question Answering: (1) searching for relevant pieces of text that include the correct answer to a query, and (2) reading the retrieved text to answer the query. We also describe a retrieval system for extracting relevant sentences and documents from the corpus given a query, and include these in the release for researchers wishing to only focus on (2). We evaluate several baselines on both datasets, ranging from simple heuristics to powerful neural models, and show that these lag behind human performance by 16.4% and 32.1% for Quasar-S and -T respectively. The datasets are available at this https URL .
Water assisted exfoliation of PA6/clay nanocomposites using a twin screw extruder: Effect of water contact time

Polyamide 6/Na+ montmorillonite (Na+ MMT) nanocomposites (NCs) were produced in a corotating twin screw extruder. Water was injected into the extruder as an intercalating/exfoliating agent. The wide angle X-ray diffraction and linear dynamic measurements were used to investigate the structure of the prepared samples. The results showed that the contact time between water and melt PA6/Na+MMT in the extruder is an important factor to achieve a high level of exfoliation. The ratio of water-injection rate to clay feeding rate did not reveal a major effect on the exfoliation of pristine MMT. The results also demonstrated that the order of injection of water during the mixing process did not have a distinguishable effect on the level of exfoliation. This processing method was found to be controlled by a diffusion mechanism caused by the presence of water molecules during the process. Improvement of tensile properties is in a great agreement with the rheological and morphological findings. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2011