Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cervical esophageal cancer: a gap in cancer knowledge.

BACKGROUND The aim of this systematic review is to provide an overview of the diagnosis, treatment options and treatment-related complications of cervical esophageal carcinoma (CEC) and to subsequently provide recommendations to improve quality of care. DESIGN Studies were identified in PubMed, EMBASE and Web of Science. A total of 107 publications fulfilled the inclusion criteria and were included. RESULTS CEC is uncommon, accounting for 2%-10% of all esophageal carcinomas. These tumors are often locally advanced at presentation and have a poor prognosis, with a 5-year overall survival of 30%. Tobacco and alcohol consumption seem to be the major risk factors for developing CEC. Surgery is usually not possible due to the very close relationship to other organs such as the larynx, trachea and thyroid gland. Therefore, the current standard of care is definitive chemoradiation (dCRT) with curative intent. Treatment regimens used to treat CEC are adapted by established regimens in lower esophageal squamous cell carcinoma and head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. However, dCRT may be accompanied by severe side-effects and complications. Several diagnostic and predictive markers have been studied, but currently, there is no other biomarker than clinical stage to determine patient management. Suggestions to improve patient outcomes are to determine the exact radiation dose needed for adequate locoregional control and to combine radiotherapy with optimal systemic therapy backbone. CONCLUSION CEC remains unchartered territory for many practising physicians and patients with CEC have a poor prognosis. To improve the outcome for CEC patients, future studies should focus on the identification of new diagnostic biomarkers or targets for radiosensitizers, amelioration of radiation schedules, optimal combination of chemotherapeutic agents and/or new therapeutic targets.
Anti-Normativism Evaluated

Abstract I argue that recent attempts to show that meaning and content are not normative fail. The two most important arguments anti-normativists have presented are what I call the ‘argument from constitution’ and the ‘argument from guidance’. Both of these arguments suffer from the same basic problem: they overlook the possibility of focusing on assessability by norms, rather than compliance with norms or guidance by norms. Moreover, I argue that the anti-normativists arguments fail even if we ignore this basic problem. Thus, we have not been given good reasons to think that normativism is false.
Ammonium uptake by coral reefs: Effects of water velocity and surface roughness on mass transfer

To test the hypothesis that ammonium uptake by coral reefs is mass‐transfer limited and to determine the relative effects of water velocity and community roughness on uptake, we measured the rates of ammonium uptake by reefs at velocities ranging from 3.3 to 37.5 cm s‒1. Two assemblages of coral rubble (relatively rough and relatively smooth) and two assemblages of live coral (Porites compressa and Pocillopora damicornis) were used. Rate constants for uptake ranged from 16 to 144 × 10‒6 m ‒1, and were positively correlated to water velocity. We estimated roughness of each assemblage as mean height, relief, and by measuring the friction coefficient of each assemblage at water velocities ranging from 3.3 to 58.0 cm s‒1. Friction coefficients ranged from 0.033 to 0.264. Stanton numbers (a dimensionless ratio of uptake rate to advection past the uptake surface) calculated from experimental data were within 80% of those calculated from empirically derived engineering equations describing heat transfer to rough surfaces. Results support the hypothesis that ammonium uptake is mass‐transfer limited and are consistent with mass transfer relationships for nonbiotic surfaces.
Quantitative and Qualitative Views of EFL Learners' Strategies: A Focus on Communication Strategies

The purpose of this study was to investigate how Thai undergraduate students used their communication strategies while they were communicating in English. Factors considered were (1) the types of communication strategies (CSs) commonly used by the students, (2) the use of strategies by high and lower achievement groups, and (3) factors related to their strategy use. The participants were 200 second-year students taking a listening & speaking English course at Thammasat University in the first semester of the academic year 2003. Data was collected via (1) questionnaiares, (2) vido tapes of three different tasks in which the students were required to communicate with their partners, (3) observations and (4) retrospective interviews. Questionnaitres were used to obtain information about the types of communication strategies commonly used by the students and the use of strategies by higher and lower achievement groups whereas the tasks and retrospective interviews were designed to elicit information on factors related to their strategy use. The findings of the study reveal that while communicating in English, the participants often used the folloing strategis (in order of frequency): (1) appeal for help, (2) approximation< (3) avoidance< (4) nonlinguistic signals, (5) circumlocution, and(6) code-switching. The lower achievement group of students was likely to use strategies that were less dependent on the knowledge English (i.e., appeal for help, avoidance and code-switching) significantly more often than their counterparts with levels at the.05, . 05,and . 01 respectively. Moreover, the high achievers were found to resort to cricumlocution (i.e., describing aspects of unknown words) significantly more frequently than the lower achievement group at the . 05 level Finally, factors found to be closely related to the use of CSs are: (1) : levels of achievement in the lestening-speaking course (2) : participants'perceptions about proficiency in English of the interlocutors (3) : types of tasks they were engaging in (4) : types of vocabulary that the participants had problems with (5) : what the participants gained through the strategies (6) : time and affort that the strategies required (7) : satisfaction fro being able to communicate precisely as well as concisely.
Intraosseous transcutaneous amputation prosthesis (ITAP) for limb salvage in 4 dogs.

OBJECTIVE To report clinical application of intraosseous transcutaneous amputation prosthesis (ITAP) for limb salvage. STUDY DESIGN Retrospective case series. SAMPLE POPULATION Client owned dogs with malignant neoplasia of the distal aspect of the limb. METHOD Distal limb amputation allowed press-fit insertion of the ITAP into the radius (n = 3) or tibia (1). Remaining soft tissues including skin were attached directly to the ITAP. Limb stump and ITAP were protected by bandaging (1) or external skeletal fixation (3) for 5-6 weeks before exoprosthesis attachment. Measures of outcome included subjective assessments of limb function by owners and veterinarians, radiographic (4) and histologic (1) examination. RESULTS Dermal integration with the ITAP was achieved by 3 weeks and dogs were walking in a pain-free manner by 8 weeks. One dog was administered adjunctive carboplatin chemotherapy. No evidence of local tumor recurrence occurred. In 1 dog, ITAP fracture occurred at 10 weeks and was successfully managed by ITAP replacement. Three dogs were euthanatized because of confirmed or assumed metastatic disease at 8, 12, and 17 months. Histologic examination of the ITAP-limb interface at 1 year documented osseous and dermal integration. CONCLUSION Implantation of ITAP to the distal limb of dogs is feasible and can result in favorable functional outcomes. Biological integration of osseous and dermal tissues with ITAP is reliable and robust.
Nuclear Calcium in Cardiac Myocytes

Abstract: Calcium (Ca2+) is a universal second messenger involved in the regulation of various cellular processes, including electrical signaling, contraction, secretion, memory, gene transcription, and cell death. In heart, Ca2+ governs cardiomyocyte contraction, is central in electrophysiological properties, and controls major signaling pathway implicated in gene transcription. How cardiomyocytes decode Ca2+ signal to regulate gene expression without interfering with, or being controlled by, “contractile” Ca2+ that floods the entire cytosol during each heartbeat is still elusive. In this review, we summarize recent findings on nuclear Ca2+ regulation and its downstream signaling in cardiomyocytes. We will address difficulties in reliable quantification of nuclear Ca2+ fluxes and discuss its role in the development and progression of cardiac hypertrophy and heart failure. We also point out key open questions to stimulate future work.
Intervention strategies to enhance well-being in later life: the status and prospect of guided change.

The idea of progress is deeply imbedded in the American experience and consciousness. Optimism about the future and about our capacity to construct the future in desired ways is rooted in the experience of becoming modern. Modernity is characterized by education and by the development of rationality, which progressively encourages and arms individuals to consider alternative solutions to perceived problems. Modernity is also characterized by technological development, which encourages consideration of well-being rather than just survival. Modern individuals and the leaders of modern societies typically tolerate and even generate large numbers of agents with the full-time occupation of monitoring change and of planning and implementing various kinds of social engineering projects, ostensibly to improve individual and social well-being. In the United States, for example, particularly in recent decades, governmental programs designed to effect both individual and social change have been encouraged or tolerated: the New Deal, the Great Society, the New Welfare, the War on Poverty. Government has created a wide variety of programs designed to experiment with personal and social change, and has trained and financed a wide variety of change agents. The outcome is an experimenting society, in which many people (certainly the professional change agents, who have been trained and financed typically at public expense) are comfortable with the idea of interventions. But there are abundant indications of ambivalence
Inter-parental conflict and children's externalising problems during the transition from primary to secondary school

Background: The prevalence rates of aggressive and antisocial behaviour among children and adolescents are a cause for concern among parents, teachers and policy makers. The aetiology of these dimensions of child psychopathology remains high on the research agenda. Attention has been directed at specific family relations, including inter-parental and parent-child relationships, and school-based factors, such as student-teacher relationships and school transitions, as aspects of children's social environment that may contribute to externalising problems. This thesis explores the role of home-school interplay by examining the pathways through which pre- and post-transition inter-parental conflict is associated with children and adolescents' externalising problems in secondary school. Method The thesis employs a mixed methods design. Multivariate analysis using both cross-sectional and prospective, longitudinal research designs are used to assess relationships between inter-parental conflict and children's externalising problems during the transition from primary to secondary school. This is supplemented by a thematic analysis of qualitative responses identifying the school-based factors that children, their parents and teachers have identified as helpful and unhelpful to foster adaptation to school transition. Results Findings emphasise the importance of family relations for children's school- based adjustment. Inter-parental conflict preceding and co-occurring with the school transition consistently predicted externalising problems in secondary school via children's responsibility attributions for the conflict. The results also underscore the value of considering the interface between home and school for understanding variation in children's psychological adjustment by showing that inter-parental conflict increases children's transition-related anxiety, which predicts poor adjustment to secondary school. Supportive teacher behaviour appears to be a significant factor that helps children prepare for the transition. It appears to be particularly important for children experiencing heightened levels of discord and hostility within the home, who may be among those at greater risk of manifesting externalising problems. Conclusions It is important to consider aspects of the home and school environment to understand variation in children's externalising problems in school during periods of transition. Results are discussed and recommendations made for policy and practice aimed at reducing aggression and antisocial behaviour during this critical period of normative life stress.
Localized electron transfer rates and microelectrode-based enrichment of microbial communities within a phototrophic microbial mat

Phototrophic microbial mats frequently exhibit sharp, light-dependent redox gradients that regulate microbial respiration on specific electron acceptors as a function of depth. In this work, a benthic phototrophic microbial mat from Hot Lake, a hypersaline, epsomitic lake located near Oroville in north-central Washington, was used to develop a microscale electrochemical method to study local electron transfer processes within the mat. To characterize the physicochemical variables influencing electron transfer, we initially quantified redox potential, pH, and dissolved oxygen gradients by depth in the mat under photic and aphotic conditions. We further demonstrated that power output of a mat fuel cell was light-dependent. To study local electron transfer processes, we deployed a microscale electrode (microelectrode) with tip size ~20 μm. To enrich a subset of microorganisms capable of interacting with the microelectrode, we anodically polarized the microelectrode at depth in the mat. Subsequently, to characterize the microelectrode-associated community and compare it to the neighboring mat community, we performed amplicon sequencing of the V1–V3 region of the 16S gene. Differences in Bray-Curtis beta diversity, illustrated by large changes in relative abundance at the phylum level, suggested successful enrichment of specific mat community members on the microelectrode surface. The microelectrode-associated community exhibited substantially reduced alpha diversity and elevated relative abundances of Prosthecochloris, Loktanella, Catellibacterium, other unclassified members of Rhodobacteraceae, Thiomicrospira, and Limnobacter, compared with the community at an equivalent depth in the mat. Our results suggest that local electron transfer to an anodically polarized microelectrode selected for a specific microbial population, with substantially more abundance and diversity of sulfur-oxidizing phylotypes compared with the neighboring mat community.
Decreased IFN- gamma and increased IL-4 production by human CD8(+) T cells in response to Mycobacterium tuberculosis in tuberculosis patients.

To investigate the role of MHC class I restricted CD8(+) T cells in host defense to M. tuberculosis, peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) from healthy BCG-vaccinated donors and untreated pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) patients in The Gambia were stimulated for 6 days with M. bovis BCG or M. tuberculosis and the CD8(+) T cell response analyzed. Intracellular FACS analysis of cytokine production by CD8(+) T cells showed that IFN- gamma and TNF- alpha production were greatly reduced in TB patients compared to healthy controls. IL-4-producing CD8(+) T cells were detected in TB patients, a phenotype absent in controls. Collectively, these data suggest that an alteration in the type 1/type 2 cytokine balance occurs in CD8(+) T cells during clinical tuberculosis, and that this may provide a surrogate marker for disease.
Prevalence of antiretroviral drug resistance in the HIV-1-infected urban indigent population in San Francisco: a representative study

We determined the prevalence of antiretroviral (ARV) resistance in HIV-1 infected indigent persons in San Francisco, California. Three hundred and twenty-seven subjects (159 (49%) ARV naïve, and 168 (51%) ARV-experienced), were recruited during 1996–97 and 1999–2000. Plasma HIV-1 viral load quantification and genotypic resistance testing were performed. Twice as many subjects received nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTIs) as non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTIs) or protease inhibitors (PIs); resistance mutation prevalences were 30%, 14% and 16% respectively. Risk of any resistance mutations was strongly and independently associated with prior ARV exposure (OR = 1.3 per year of exposure, P < 0.0001) and with ARV exposure prior to HAART (OR = 2.5, P = 0.015). Prevalences of primary ARV resistance mutations among both treatment-naive and treatment-experienced subjects in this indigent urban population are low compared to other observational cohorts, are directly related to length and type of prior ARV exposure, and did not increase significantly between recruitment periods.
Patterns of local discourse coherence as a feature for authorship attribution

We define a model of discourse coherence based on Barzilay and Lapata’s entity grids as a stylometric feature for authorship attribution. Unlike standard lexical and character-level features, it operates at a discourse (cross-sentence) level. We test it against and in combination with standard features on nineteen booklength texts by nine nineteenth-century authors. We find that coherence alone performs often as well as and sometimes better than standard features, though a combination of the two has the highest performance overall. We observe that despite the difference in levels, there is a correlation in performance of the two kinds of features.
Progression of puberty after initiation of androgen therapy in patients with idiopathic hypogonadotropic hypogonadism

Background: Onset of puberty in boys usually occurs by 14 years of age. Some boys may exhibit delayed sexual maturation till about 17-18 years of age. However, pubertal onset beyond 18 years of age is exceedingly rare. Materials and Methods: Patients diagnosed as idiopathic hypogonadotropic hypogonadism (IHH) who had onset of puberty (increase in testicular volume >10 ml) while on androgen therapy were studied. These patients were evaluated prospectively. Results: There were nine subjects that were included in the study. The pre-therapy testicular volumes ranged from 3 to 6 ml. Luteinizing hormone (LH) levels increased from 1.2 ± 0.96 to 2.8 ± 1.0 IU/L, follicular stimulating hormone (FSH) levels increased from 1.5 ± 0.79 to 3.5 ± 1.9 IU/L, and testosterone increased from 0.36 ± 0.16 to 3.4 ± 2.1 ng/ml. Three out of nine patients had testosterone levels below 3 ng/ml. Conclusion: Our present study indicates that pubertal development can occur in patients presenting with hypogonadotropic hypogonadism after 18 years of age. However, acquired pubertal status may be subnormal
Living With Diversity: Everyday Encounter and the Politics of Tolerance

ABSTRACT: This study is concerned with the uptake of tolerance as a response to the contemporary problems of managing diversity and developing cohesion in western societies. Drawing upon recent work that has attempted to critically theorise its contemporary uses and reveal its paradoxical operations, political agendas and civilising tendencies, this study moves to question how tolerance takes place on the ground. More specifically, it examines the relationship between tolerance and everyday encounter to consider how it is embodied, produced, and sometimes compromised by the intimacies of everyday practice. Whilst state mobilisations and discourses of tolerance clearly inflect its practice, the study argues that current debates offer only a partial account of the politics of tolerance and its affectual geographies, which are shaped by additional constituents of agency. As a way into its everyday politics, the study focuses on three in particular – geographies of place, ways of thinking (including habit, memory and familiarity) and materialities – across three different spaces of encounter in Birmingham, UK. The first site focuses upon a public bus service, which presents a challenging arena for throwntogetherness and a space of intense materiality and unusual intimacy, where movement is constrained and differences are negotiated on the smallest of scales. The second focuses upon a multicultural primary school, which is positioned as a key site for the pedagogical promotion of tolerance, to question how parents negotiate difference and their parental responsibilities through an account of habit and familiarity. The final chapter turns to a conflict management workshop, where encounters with difference are carefully engineered in an attempt to develop more tolerant individuals through a series of exercises designed to cultivate techniques of thought. Taken together, these three sites develop an account of tolerance that is more plural, unpredictable and in many cases more optimistic than prevalent debates would suggest and demonstrate how, as a response to difference, tolerance might work as part of a wider telos of social change and ethical praxis.
Chronic lymphocytic leukemia nurse-like cells express hepatocyte growth factor receptor (c-MET) and indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase and display features of immunosuppressive type 2 skewed macrophages

Hepatocyte growth factor, produced by stromal and follicular dendritic cells, and present at high concentrations in the sera of patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia, prolongs the survival of leukemic B cells by interacting with their receptor, c-MET. It is, however, unknown whether hepatocyte growth factor influences microenvironmental cells, such as nurse-like cells, which deliver survival signals to the leukemic clone. We evaluated the expression of c-MET on nurse-like cells and monocytes from patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia and searched for phenotypic/functional features supposed to be influenced by the hepatocyte growth factor/c-MET interaction. c-MET is expressed at high levels on nurse-like cells and at significantly higher levels than normal on monocytes from patients. Moreover, the hepatocyte growth factor/c-MET interaction activates STAT3TYR705 phosphorylation in nurse-like cells. Indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase, an enzyme modulating T-cell proliferation and induced on normal monocytes after hepatocyte growth factor treatment, was detected together with interleukin-10 on nurse-like cells, and on freshly-prepared patients’ monocytes. Immunohistochemical/immunostaining analyses demonstrated the presence of c-MET+ and indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase+ cells in lymph node biopsies, co-expressed with CD68 and vimentin. Furthermore nurse-like cells and chronic lymphocytic monocytes significantly inhibited T-cell proliferation, prevented by anti-transforming growth factor beta and interleukin-10 antibodies and indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase inhibitors, and supported CD4+CD25high+/FOXP3+ T regulatory cell expansion. We suggest that nurse-like cells display features of immunosuppressive type 2 macrophages: higher hepatocyte growth factor levels, produced by leukemic or other microenvironmental surrounding cells, may cooperate to induce M2 polarization. Hepatocyte growth factor may thus have a dual pathophysiological role: directly through enhancement of survival of the leukemic clone and indirectly by favoring T-cell immunosuppression.