Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of repeated jugular puncture on plasma cortisol concentrations in loose-housed dairy cows.

In three experiments, the effects of venipuncture on plasma cortisol concentrations were studied in loose-housed dairy cows. In Exp. 1, two blood samples were collected 18 min apart on three alternate days from 20 dairy cows for studying their adrenocortical response to a single venipuncture. To further evaluate the effect of cows anticipating venipuncture, in Exp. 2, 15 dairy cows were sequentially venipunctured once daily on 12 successive days in a randomized order in groups of five, starting 15 min apart. In Exp. 3, 10 primiparous cows were used on three alternate days to study habituation to serial sampling (i.e., collection of five blood samples by venipuncture, 15 min apart). In cows accustomed to handling, jugular puncture did not affect cortisol concentrations in plasma collected 18 min later. Average daily cortisol concentrations varied between 2.07 +/- . 38 and 3.81 +/- . 56 ng/mL in the first (t = 0) and between 1.43 +/- . 15 and 2.61 +/- . 72 ng/mL in the second (t = 18) blood samples. Likewise, when cows were sampled sequentially once a day, the order of sampling between and within groups did not influence (P > .05) plasma cortisol concentrations. In contrast, primiparous dairy cows that were less used to being handled showed an average increase in cortisol concentrations when five samples were collected by venipuncture 15 min apart. During successive sampling sessions, however, the cows did not decrease or increase plasma cortisol concentrations in response to repeated serial sampling at the group level (P > .05). Between individuals, the maximum effect of repeated venipuncture on cortisol concentrations (4.5 to 22.6 ng/mL), the time at which the effect reached its maximum (30 to 60 min), and the consistency of the response pattern over successive series varied largely. The results of this study show that in cows that were accustomed to handling and to being restrained, baseline cortisol concentrations can be measured in single blood samples that are collected by jugular puncture within 1 min after first approaching the cow. When successive blood samples need to be collected within 15 to 20 min, jugular puncture may induce an increase in cortisol concentration, which seems to depend on the handling experience of the animals and on individual differences.
Low-Dose Fractionated Radiation Potentiates the Effects of Cisplatin Independent of the Hyper-Radiation Sensitivity in Human Lung Cancer Cells

In this study, the role of hyper-radiation sensitivity (HRS) in potentiating the effects of cisplatin by low-dose fractionated radiation (LDFRT) was evaluated in four human non–small cell lung cancer cell lines. Presence of HRS and cisplatin enhancement ratio (CER) by LDFRT/2 Gy was assessed using colony-forming and apoptotic assays. Cell-cycle disturbances were studied by flow cytometry. Expression of genes involved in apoptosis was assessed using real-time reverse transcriptase PCR arrays. H-157 cells showed a distinct HRS region, followed by UKY-29 and A549 cells, whereas it was absent in H460 cells, which when lack HRS showed maximum CER with LDFRT (4 × 0.5 Gy) both by clonogenic inhibition and by apoptosis compared with single fraction of 2 Gy whereas the most radioresistant A549 cells had the least CER, with no significant differences between LDFRT or 2 Gy. Interestingly, in H-157 cells, a more pronounced CER was observed with LDFRT when assessed by apoptosis but clonogenic inhibition-CER was higher with 2 Gy than with LDFRT. Excluding H-157 cells, the CER by LDFRT was inversely proportional to radioresistance [(determined by D0, the dose to reduce survival by 67% from any point on the linear portion of the survival curve or surviving fraction (SF) at 2 Gy (SF2)] of the cells. LDFRT alone or in combination with cisplatin induced larger number of proapoptotic genes than 2 Gy or cisplatin + 2 Gy in cells showing HRS when compared to H460 cells that lack HRS. These findings indicate that chemopotentiation by LDFRT is correlated more with the intrinsic radiation sensitivity of the non–small lung cancer cells than the HRS phenomenon whereas the mode of cell killing is both through apoptosis and clonogenic inhibition. Mol Cancer Ther; 10(2); 292–302. ©2011 AACR.
Book Review: A Fair Hearing? Ethnic Minorities in the Criminal Courts

This book is based on questionnaire research, which investigated the experiences of ethnic minority, as well as, white, defendants and witnesses in the English criminal courts between 2000 and 2002. It examines in particular, the extent to which black and Asian people who had appeared in both the crown court and the magistrates’ courts perceived their treatment to have been unfair, whether they believed any unfairness to have been the result of ethnic bias, and whether this had affected their confidence in the criminal courts of England. The research on which this monograph is based is concerned with such perceptions and beliefs held by minority ethnic citizens who have come into contact with the criminal courts. It is the first large-scale study in Britain to have concentrated on how minority ethnic defendants and witnesses experienced their treatment, as compared with white defendants and witnesses. It raises the question of the extent to which those members of ethnic minorities who felt they were not treated fairly and with equal respect by the criminal courts believed that this was due to discriminatory treatment based on their race, colour or culture. As we said, the study on which this monograph is based was carried out by the Oxford Center for Criminology in association with the University of Birmingham for the Lord Chancellor’s Department (now the Department for Constitutional Affairs). The first fruits were published as a report by the Lord Chancellor’s Department: Roger Hood, Stephen Shute and Florence Seemungal, Ethnic Minorities in the Criminal Courts: Perceptions of Fairness and Equality of treatment. With the Department’s support, that report has been transformed into this monograph in the hope that the findings will reach a wider audience. In undertaking the transformation, the authors have tried to place the research in the broader context of the concerns that have been expressed over the last fifteen years or so about the treatment of minority ethnic people by the English Criminal Courts. The authors have also rearranged the ordering and presentation of the findings and augmented the text in various ways. This book involved observations of cases and interviews with more than a thousand people (defendants, witnesses, barristers, solicitors,
Acquired type 2A von Willebrand syndrome caused by aortic valve disease corrects during valve surgery.

BACKGROUND Aortic valve (AV) defects can destroy high molecular weight multimers (HMWM) of von Willebrand factor (VWF), leading to acquired von Willebrand syndrome (aVWS) type IIA. This syndrome is considered a cause for increased perioperative bleeding in AV surgery. If diagnosed before operation, administration of VWF/FVIII concentrates is recommended. However, there is currently no evidence that the VWF HMWM defect persists during surgery long enough to require haemostatic therapy. We hypothesized that the preoperative VWF HMWM defect corrects already during cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) before any haemostatic therapy. METHODS This prospective observational study enrolled 17 patients undergoing AV surgery, either isolated or associated with mitral valve or aorta surgery, and also 10 patients undergoing coronary artery bypass surgery (CABG) for comparison. VWF HMWM, VWF antigen (VWF:Ag) concentration, and collagen-binding capacity (VWF:CB) were measured before operation, directly after weaning from CPB, and on the first postoperative day. RESULTS In 12 of the 17 subjects undergoing AV surgery (71%), VWF HMWM were abnormally absent before operation. At the end of CPB, VWF HMWM were normal in 15 of AV subjects (88%), and was normal in 16 subjects on the first postoperative day. VWF:Ag and VWF:CB were within or above the normal range at all three times. Two out of 10 subjects undergoing CABG (20%) had preoperative deficits of VWF HMWM that normalized after operation. CONCLUSIONS Preoperative VWF HMWM defects corrected at the end of CPB in the absence of haemostatic therapy in most patients undergoing AV surgery. Diffuse bleeding occurring after CPB is unlikely to be related to persisting type 2A von Willebrand syndrome; other causes of coagulopathy should be suspected. Administration of VWF/FVIII concentrates appears unnecessary in this setting.
Stakeholders’ conflicting aims undermine the washback function of a high-stakes test

High-stakes tests are often used as agents for change, but ‘attempts to introduce change in the classroom are often not as effective as their designers hoped they would be’ (Wall, 1996: 334). The National Matriculation English Test (NMET) in China is such a case. Apart from its primary function of selecting candidates for institutions of higher education, the NMET was designed specifically to promote changes in ELT (English language teaching) in schools. Unfortunately, it has fallen short of the goal. This study set out to examine the reasons why the NMET failed to bring about the intended changes or washback effects. For this purpose, data were collected through interview and questionnaire from 8 NMET constructors, 6 English inspectors, 388 teachers and 986 students. The results show that the most important reason for the test failing to achieve the intended washback is that its two major functions - the selection function and the function of promoting change - are in many ways in conflict with each other, making it a powerful trigger for teaching to the test but an ineffective agent for changing teaching and learning in the way intended by its constructors and the policymakers.
Local and Global Existence Theorems for the Einstein Equations

This article is a guide to the literature on existence theorems for the Einstein equations which also draws attention to open problems in the field. The local in time Cauchy problem, which is relatively well understood, is treated first. Next global results for solutions with symmetry are discussed. A selection of results from Newtonian theory and special relativity which offer useful comparisons is presented. This is followed by a survey of global results in the case of small data and results on constructing spacetimes with given singularity structure. The article ends with some miscellaneous topics connected with the main theme.
Computer Anxiety: A Longitudinal Study and Discourse Analysis Investigation

Two studies on computer anxiety among undergraduate students are briefly reported. Using a computer anxiety questionnaire, the first study showed that various aspects of students’ (N = 44) computer anxiety and feelings of alienation decreased by necessary, but non-intensive use of microcomputers over a period of a year. In the second study, three computer-anxious and three computer-confident students were interviewed about their attitudes to computers; and the resultant discourse was analysed using a computerized form of discourse analysis. The studies provide a stimulus for further exploration of longitudinal attitude change to information technology and using discourse analysis as a method for studying attitudes and feelings about computers.
Acculturation and cardiovascular disease screening practices among Mexican Americans living in Chicago.

OBJECTIVE To examine acculturation as a correlate of cardiovascular disease screening practices among Mexican Americans. METHODS A modified Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) survey was administered to adults age 18 and older in four Chicago neighborhoods during the winter of 2000 (N=435). RESULTS Regression analyses that accounted for complex sampling design found that Mexican Americans who were acculturated, were female, and had healthcare coverage were more likely to have been screened after controlling for age, healthcare coverage, education, and marital status. Acculturated Mexican Americans were 4.97 times more likely to have had blood cholesterol screening, 3.4 times more likely to have had blood pressure screening, and 7.99 times more likely to have had a routine checkup in the preceding two years when compared to unacculturated Mexican Americans. Mexican Americans with healthcare coverage were more likely to have had their blood pressure checked and to have obtained a routine check-up than did those without coverage. Women were more likely to have had a blood pressure screening and have obtained a routine check-up in the past two years. CONCLUSIONS The results suggest that more acculturated Mexican Americans, as well as those who are female and who have healthcare coverage, are more likely to obtain cardiovascular disease (CVD)-related screenings. The findings indicate a need for promoting CVD-related screenings among Mexican Americans and underscores the need for Spanish-speaking health professionals.
Mercury in the snow and firn at Summit Station, Central Greenland, and implications for the study of past atmospheric mercury levels

Gaseous Elemental Mercury (Hg° or GEM) was investigated at Summit Station, Greenland, in the interstitial air extracted from the perennial snowpack (firn) at depths ranging from the surface to 30 m, during summer 2005 and spring 2006. Photolytic production and destruction of Hg° were observed close to the snow surface during summer 2005 and spring 2006, and we observed dark oxidation of GEM up to 270 cm depth in June 2006. Photochemical transformation of gaseous elemental mercury resulted in diel variations in the concentrations of this gas in the near-surface interstitial air, but destruction of Hg° was predominant in June, and production was the main process in July. This seasonal evolution of the chemical mechanisms involving gaseous elemental mercury produces a signal that propagates downward through the firn air, but is unobservably small below 15 m in depth. As a consequence, multi-annual averaged records of GEM concentration should be well preserved in deep firn air at depths below 15 m, and available for the reconstruction of the past atmospheric history of GEM over the last decades.
Respiratory gating with EPID-based verification: the MDACC experience

We have investigated the feasibility and accuracy of using a combination of internal and external fiducials for respiratory-gated image-guided radiotherapy of liver tumors after screening for suitable patients using a mock treatment. Five patients were enrolled in the study. Radio-opaque fiducials implanted adjacent to the liver tumor were used for daily online positioning using either electronic portal or kV images. Patient eligibility was assessed by determining the degree of correlation between the external and internal fiducials as analyzed during a mock treatment. Treatment delivery was based on the modification of conventional amplitude-based gating. Finally, the accuracy of respiratory-gated treatment using an external fiducial was verified offline using the cine mode of an electronic portal imaging device. For all patients, interfractional contribution to the random error was 2.0 mm in the supero-inferior direction, which is the dominant direction of motion due to respiration, while the interfractional contribution to the systematic error was 0.9 mm. The intrafractional contribution to the random error was 1.0 mm. One of the significant advantages to this technique is improved patient set-up using implanted fiducials and gated imaging. Daily assessment of images acquired during treatment verifies the accuracy of the delivered treatment and uncovers problems in patient set-up.
Language assessment literacy as self-awareness: Understanding the role of interpretation in assessment and in teacher learning

The increasing influence of sociocultural theories of learning on assessment practices in second language education necessitates an expansion of the knowledge base that teacher-assessors need to develop (what teachers need to know) and related changes in the processes of language teacher education (how they learn and develop it). Teacher assessors need to acquire concepts from diverse assessment paradigms; they need to learn to use these concepts in developing, using and analysing assessment procedures and results; they need to exercise critical perspectives on their own assessment practices for particular purposes in diverse contexts, especially in seeking to do justice to all in education. In this paper I argue that, to develop language assessment literacy with the dual goals of transforming teacher assessment practices and developing teacher understanding of the phenomenon of assessment itself and themselves as assessors, it is necessary to reconsider both the knowledge base and the complex processes of language teacher education. I draw on projects I have conducted on developing and investigating teacher understanding and practices in second language assessment, to discuss the need to work with the often tacit preconceptions, beliefs, understandings and world-views about assessment that teacher-assessors bring to teacher professional learning programs and that inform their conceptualizations, interpretations, judgments and decisions in assessment. I discuss the need in developing language assessment literacy for processes that develop teacher-assessors’ capability to explore and evaluate their own preconceptions so as to become aware of how they interpret their own assessment practices and their students’ second language learning. Through these processes they develop a deeper understanding of the interpretive nature of assessment and their own self-awareness as assessors.
Failure Diagnosis for Distributed Systems Using Targeted Fault Injection

This paper introduces a novel approach to automating failure diagnostics in distributed systems by combining fault injection and data analytics. We use fault injection to populate the database of failures for a target distributed system. When a failure is reported from production environment, the database is queried to find “matched” failures generated by fault injections. Relying on the assumption that similar faults generate similar failures, we use information from the matched failures as hints to locate the actual root cause of the reported failures. In order to implement this approach, we introduce techniques for (i) reconstructing end-to-end execution flows of distributed software components, (ii) computing the similarity of the reconstructed flows, and (iii) performing precise fault injection at pre-specified executing points in distributed systems. We have evaluated our approach using an OpenStack cloud platform, a popular cloud infrastructure management system. Our experimental results showed that this approach is effective in determining the root causes, e.g., fault types and affected components, for 71-100 percent of tested failures. Furthermore, it can provide fault locations close to actual ones and can easily be used to find and fix actual root causes. We have also validated this technique by localizing real bugs that occurred in OpenStack.
The influence of vascular risk factors and white matter hyperintensities on the degree of cognitive impairment in Parkinson's disease.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Vascular risk factors may contribute to deterioration of cognitive functions in Alzheimer's disease and vascular (or mixed) dementia. Parkinson's disease (PD) is an age-related disorder and vascular risk factors potentially might be the main co-morbidity responsible for motor and cognitive impairment. However, only a few studies focused on this problem have been published. The aim of the study was to assess the contribution of vascular risk factors and white matter abnormalities in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) on cognitive impairment in PD patients. MATERIAL AND METHODS Sixty consecutive patients (M: 35, F: 25), mean age 68.36 years (SD: 7.25, range: 51-81) with diagnosis of idiopathic PD underwent a semi-structured questionnaire on demographics and vascular risks factors, neurological, neuropsychological and neuroimaging (MRI) examinations with quantitative assessment according to the scale by Wahlund et al. According to cognitive status they were divided into 3 groups: without cognitive disability (I, n=17), with mild cognitive impairment (II, n=25) and with dementia (III, n=18). RESULTS There were no significant differences between groups in terms of the number of vascular risk factors (except for the ischaemic heart disease difference between group I and III) and severity of white matter hyperintensities in MRI studies. CONCLUSIONS Vascular risk factors along with white matter vascular abnormalities probably do not contribute to cognitive impairment in patients with PD. This is in concordance with previously published studies.
Density of the Human Crystalline Lens is Related to the Macular Pigment Carotenoids, Lutein and Zeaxanthin

Purpose. Although oxidative stress may play an important role in the development of age-related cataract, the degree of protection reported for antioxidant vitamins and carotenoids has been inconsistent across studies. These varied results may be due in part to the lack of good biomarkers for measuring the long-term nutritional status of the eye. The present experiments investigated the relationship between retinal carotenoids (i.e., macular pigment), used as a long-term measure of tissue carotenoids, and lens optical density, used as an indicator of lens health. Methods. Macular pigment (460 nm) and lens (440, 500, and 550 nm) optical density were measured psychophysically in the same individuals. Groups of younger subjects—7 females (ages 24 to 36 years), and 5 males (ages 24 to 31 years)—were compared with older subjects—23 older females (ages 55 to 78 years), and 16 older males (ages 48 to 82 years). Results. Lens density (440 nm) increased as a function of age (r=0.65, p<0.001), as expected. For the oldest group, a significant inverse relationship (y=1.53−0.83x, r=−0.47, p<0.001) was found between macular pigment density (440 nm) and lens density (440 nm). No relationship was found for the youngest group (p<0.42). Conclusions. The main finding of this study was an age-dependent, inverse relationship between macular pigment density and lens density. Macular pigment is composed of lutein and zeaxanthin, the only two carotenoids that have been identified in the human lens. Thus, an inverse relationship between these two variables suggests that lutein and zeaxanthin, or other dietary factors with which they are correlated, may retard age-related increases in lens density.