Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Is There More to Radiotherapy than Hitting the Target

One in two cancer patients are routinely treated with radiotherapy, using a linear accelerator to deliver the radiation dose. Conventionally, a treatment meets guidelines when the tumour is uniformly irradiated, but the surrounding normal tissue is avoided [1]. However, our recent study upsets this radiation therapy “dogma” [2]. We have shown that a radiation field with many high dose gradients may have an advantage over a uniform field [2], because it is more lethal to cancer cells than to normal cells. We attribute this effect predominantly to the production, diffusion and response to radiation induced bystander signals, which is consistent with previous reports of up to 60% of cell death following irradiation being attributed to bystander effects [3,4].
Chromosome position determines the success of double-strand break repair

Significance Based on published chromosome conformation capture data, we investigated the effect of 3D nuclear architecture in budding yeast on repair of a broken chromosome by homologous recombination. When a nuclease-induced double-strand break (DSB) is created at one locus, efficiency of repair depends on the contact frequency of the donor locus with the DSB site. When the location of the DSB is shifted to another location, the recombination rate of a donor can change by almost 20-fold. The rate of repair of a given locus is strongly influenced by four key factors: the size of donor homology, the rate of 5′ to 3′ resection of DSB ends, and the abundance of single-strand DNA binding protein complex, replication protein factor A (RPA), as well as a cis-acting recombination enhancer. Repair of a chromosomal double-strand break (DSB) by gene conversion depends on the ability of the broken ends to encounter a donor sequence. To understand how chromosomal location of a target sequence affects DSB repair, we took advantage of genome-wide Hi-C analysis of yeast chromosomes to create a series of strains in which an induced site-specific DSB in budding yeast is repaired by a 2-kb donor sequence inserted at different locations. The efficiency of repair, measured by cell viability or competition between each donor and a reference site, showed a strong correlation (r = 0.85 and 0.79) with the contact frequencies of each donor with the DSB repair site. Repair efficiency depends on the distance between donor and recipient rather than any intrinsic limitation of a particular donor site. These results further demonstrate that the search for homology is the rate-limiting step in DSB repair and suggest that cells often fail to repair a DSB because they cannot locate a donor before other, apparently lethal, processes arise. The repair efficiency of a donor locus can be improved by four factors: slower 5′ to 3′ resection of the DSB ends, increased abundance of replication protein factor A (RPA), longer shared homology, or presence of a recombination enhancer element adjacent to a donor.
Cystic Echinococcoses in Mongolia: Molecular Identification, Serology and Risk Factors

Background Cystic echinococcosis (CE) is a globally distributed cestode zoonosis that causes hepatic cysts. Although Echinococcus granulosus sensu stricto (s.s.) is the major causative agent of CE worldwide, recent molecular epidemiological studies have revealed that E. canadensis is common in countries where camels are present. One such country is Mongolia. Methodology/Principal Findings Forty-three human hepatic CE cases that were confirmed histopathologically at the National Center of Pathology (NCP) in Ulaanbaatar (UB) were identified by analysis of mitochondrial cox 1 gene as being caused by either E. canadensis (n = 31, 72.1%) or E. granulosus s.s. (n = 12, 27.9%). The majority of the E. canadensis cases were strain G6/7 (29/31, 93.5%). Twenty three haplotypes were identified. Sixteen of 39 CE cases with data on age, sex and province of residence were citizens of UB (41.0%), with 13 of the 16 cases from UB caused by E. canadensis (G6/7) (81.3%). Among these 13 cases, nine were children (69.2%). All pediatric cases (n = 18) were due to E. canadensis with 17 of the 18 cases (94.4%) due to strain G6/7. Serum samples were available for 31 of the 43 CE cases, with 22 (71.0%) samples positive by ELISA to recombinant Antigen B8/1 (rAgB). Nine of 10 CE cases caused by E. granulosus s.s. (90.0%) and 13 of 20 CE cases by E. canadensis (G6/7) (65.0%) were seropositive. The one CE case caused by E. canadensis (G10) was seronegative. CE cases caused by E. granulosus s.s. showed higher absorbance values (median value 1.131) than those caused by E. canadensis (G6/7) (median value 0.106) (p = 0.0137). Conclusion/Significance The main species/strains in the study population were E. canadenis and E. granulossus s.s. with E. canadensis the predominant species identified in children. The reason why E. canadensis appears to be so common in children is unknown.
Wide-Field Retinotopy Defines Human Cortical Visual Area V6

The retinotopic organization of a newly identified visual area near the midline in the dorsalmost part of the human parieto-occipital sulcus was mapped using high-field functional magnetic resonance imaging, cortical surface-based analysis, and wide-field retinotopic stimulation. This area was found in all 34 subjects that were mapped. It represents the contralateral visual hemifield in both hemispheres of all subjects, with upper fields located anterior and medial to areas V2/V3, and lower fields medial and slightly anterior to areas V3/V3A. It contains a representation of the center of gaze distinct from V3A, a large representation of the visual periphery, and a mirror-image representation of the visual field. Based on similarity in position, visuotopic organization, and relationship with the neighboring extrastriate visual areas, we suggest it might be the human homolog of macaque area V6, and perhaps of area M (medial) or DM (dorsomedial) of New World primates.
Daughters of the Drum: Decolonizing health and wellness with Native American women

In many pre-colonial tribal communities, Native American women held significant positions as keepers and teachers of health and wellness practices. Today, however, Native American women's status is often relegated to the margins in colonial society, as they are disproportionately affected by health disparities resulting from legacies of historical trauma. This study explores the decolonization of the health and wellness of Native American women in the United States Pacific Northwest. Through a culturally centered qualitative study utilizing photovoice and talking circles, several themes emerge illuminating important and nuanced aspects of resilience related to perceptions of health and wellness. Four Native American women aged 26–46, including myself, participated in the study in the summer of 2014. Utilizing the indigenist stress-coping model, interpretive coding in real time suggests that land, language, and diet are important principles of a decolonized perception of health and wellness centered on the women's experiences together as members of the drum group Daughters of the Drum.
High-Performance Transparent AZO TFTs Fabricated on Glass Substrate

High-performance transparent low-temperature top-gate type aluminum doped zinc oxide (AZO) thin-film transistors (TFTs) (<i>W</i>/<i>L</i>=100 or 10 μm) are successfully fabricated on glass substrate. All the process temperature is below 100°C. For <i>VG</i>=-2 to 5 V, the TFTs using sputtering deposit AZO layer at room temperature as channel layer exhibits excellent properties, such as a saturation mobility μ<i>s</i> of 285 cm<sup>2</sup>/V·s, a linear field effect mobility μ<i>l</i> of 143 cm<sup>2</sup>/V·s, a threshold voltage <i>Vth</i> of 0.9 V, a steep subthreshold swing of 108 mV/decade, a low off-state current value <i>I</i><sub>off</sub> of 5×10<sup>-13</sup> A, a high ON/OFF ratio of 2×10<sup>9</sup> and a high transmittance of 82.5%. The results highlight that excellent device performance can be realized in AZO TFTs. Note that this is the best performance of AZO TFT ever reported.
Rapid, Specific, No-wash, Far-red Fluorogen Activation in Subcellular Compartments by Targeted Fluorogen Activating Proteins

Live cell imaging requires bright photostable dyes that can target intracellular organelles and proteins with high specificity in a no-wash protocol. Organic dyes possess the desired photochemical properties and can be covalently linked to various protein tags. The currently available fluorogenic dyes are in the green/yellow range where there is high cellular autofluorescence and the near-infrared (NIR) dyes need to be washed out. Protein-mediated activation of far-red fluorogenic dyes has the potential to address these challenges because the cell-permeant dye is small and nonfluorescent until bound to its activating protein, and this binding is rapid. In this study, three single chain variable fragment (scFv)-derived fluorogen activating proteins (FAPs), which activate far-red emitting fluorogens, were evaluated for targeting, brightness, and photostability in the cytosol, nucleus, mitochondria, peroxisomes, and endoplasmic reticulum with a cell-permeant malachite green analog in cultured mammalian cells. Efficient labeling was achieved within 20–30 min for each protein upon the addition of nM concentrations of dye, producing a signal that colocalized significantly with a linked mCerulean3 (mCer3) fluorescent protein and organelle specific dyes but showed divergent photostability and brightness properties dependent on the FAP. These FAPs and the ester of malachite green dye (MGe) can be used as specific, rapid, and wash-free labels for intracellular sites in live cells with far-red excitation and emission properties, useful in a variety of multicolor experiments.
Control of swarms with multiple leader agents

The study of human control of robotic swarms involves designing interfaces and algorithms for allowing a human operator to influence a swarm of robots. One of the main difficulties, however, is determining how to most effectively influence the swarm after it has been deployed. Past work has focused on influencing the swarm via statically selected leaders-swarm members that the operator directly controls. This paper investigates the use of a small subset of the swarm as leaders that are dynamically selected during the scenario execution and are directly controlled by the human operator to guide the rest of the swarm, which is operating under a flocking-style algorithm. The goal of the operator in this study is to move the swarm to goal regions that arise dynamically in the environment.We experimentally investigated three different aspects of dynamic leader-based swarm control and their interactions: leader density (in terms of guaranteed hops to a leader), sensing error, and method of information propagation from leaders to the rest of the swarm. Our results show that, while there was a large drop in the number of goals reached when moving from a 1-hop to a 2-hop guarantee, the difference between a 2-hop, 3-hop, and 4-hop guarantee was not statistically significant. Furthermore, we found that sensing error impacted the explicit information-propagation method more than the tacit method conditions, and caused participants more trouble the lower the density of leaders, although the explicit method performed better overall.
Surveillance for Cancer Incidence and Mortality — United States, 2013

This report provides, in tabular and graphic form, official federal statistics on cancer incidence and mortality for 2013 and trends for 1999-2013 as reported by CDC and the National Cancer Institute (NCI). Data in this report come from the United States Cancer Statistics (USCS) system (1), which includes cancer incidence data from population-based cancer registries that participate in CDC's National Program of Cancer Registries (NPCR) and NCI's Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) program reported as of November 2015 and cancer mortality data from death certificate information reported to state vital statistics offices as of June 2015 and compiled into a national file for the entire United States by CDC's National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) National Vital Statistics System (NVSS).
Kinetic Characterization of Human Glutamine-fructose-6-phosphate Amidotransferase I

Glutamine-fructose-6-phosphate amidotransferase (GFAT) catalyzes the first committed step in the pathway for biosynthesis of hexosamines in mammals. A member of the N-terminal nucleophile class of amidotransferases, GFAT transfers the amino group from the l-glutamine amide tod-fructose 6-phosphate, producing glutamic acid and glucosamine 6-phosphate. The kinetic constants reported previously for mammalian GFAT implicate a relatively low affinity for the acceptor substrate, fructose 6-phosphate (Fru-6-P, K m 0.2–1 mm). Utilizing a new sensitive assay that measures the production of glucosamine 6-phosphate (GlcN-6-P), purified recombinant human GFAT1 (hGFAT1) exhibited a K m for Fru-6-P of 7 μm, and was highly sensitive to product inhibition by GlcN-6-P. In a second assay method that measures the stimulation of glutaminase activity, a K d of 2 μm was measured for Fru-6-P binding to hGFAT1. Further, we report that the product, GlcN-6-P, is a potent competitive inhibitor for the Fru-6-P site, with a K i measured of 6 μm. Unlike other members of the amidotransferase family, where glutamate production is loosely coupled to amide transfer, we have demonstrated that hGFAT1 production of glutamate and GlcN-6-P are strictly coupled in the absence of inhibitors. Similar to other amidotransferases, competitive inhibitors that bind at the synthase site may inhibit the synthase activity without inhibiting the glutaminase activity at the hydrolase domain. GlcN-6-P, for example, inhibited the transfer reaction while fully activating the glutaminase activity at the hydrolase domain. Inhibition of hGFAT1 by the end product of the pathway, UDP-GlcNAc, was competitive with aK i of 4 μm. These data suggest that hGFAT1 is fully active at physiological levels of Fru-6-P and may be regulated by its product GlcN-6-P in addition to the pathway end product, UDP-GlcNAc.
Exploring Explicit and Implicit Influences on Prospective Secondary Mathematics Teachers’ Development of Beliefs and Classroom Practice Through Case Study Analysis

ii Acknowledgments . vi Vita . viii List of Tables . xv List of Figures . xvi Chapter 1: Introduction . 1 The Context of Reform in Mathematics Education . 1 Guiding Conceptual Framework . 3 The Complex Construct of Teacher Beliefs . 4 Defining Beliefs . 5 Focus on Student Thinking . 7 Thesis Organization . 10 Chapter 2: Literature Review . 12 Beliefs About Learning Mathematics . 13 Beliefs About Effective Teaching . 17 x Beliefs About the Nature of Mathematics . 20 Teacher Beliefs and Classroom Practice . 22 Impacting Prospective Teacher Beliefs . 26 Learning about Children’s Thinking . 31 Cognitive Modeling Cycles of Learning . 31 Professional Noticing of Children’s Mathematical Thinking . 38 Situated Cognition . 43 Building a Conceptual Framework and Research Objective . 47 Research questions . 51 Study Significance . 52 Chapter 3: Methodology . 55 Methodological Rationale . 56 A teacher development experiment. 57 Research Design . 58 Researcher as Participant Observer . 59 Background . 59 A Glimpse into my Teacher Educator Approach . 61 The Teacher Preparation Program . 66 Participants . 67
Sex differences in the risk of receiving potentially inappropriate prescriptions among older adults

Objectives: to measure sex differences in the risk of receiving potentially inappropriate prescription drugs and to examine what are the factors that contribute to these differences. Design: a retrospective cohort study. Setting: community setting of British Columbia, Canada. Participants: residents of British Columbia aged 65 and older (n = 660,679). Measurements: we measured 2013 period prevalence of prescription dispensations satisfying the American Geriatrics Society's 2012 version of the Beers Criteria for potentially inappropriate medication use in older adults. We used logistic regressions to test for associations between this outcome and a number of clinical and socioeconomic factors. Results: a larger share of women (31%) than of men (26%) filled one or more potentially inappropriate prescription in the community. The odds of receiving potentially inappropriate prescriptions are associated with several clinical and socioeconomic factors. After controlling for those factors, community-dwelling women were at 16% higher odds of receiving a potentially inappropriate prescription than men (adjusted odds ratio = 1.16, 95% confidence interval = 1.12–1.21). Much of this sex difference stemmed from women's increased odds of receiving potentially inappropriate prescriptions for benzodiazepines and other hypnotics, for tertiary tricyclic antidepressants and for non-selective NSAIDs. Conclusion: there are significant sex differences in older adults' risk of receiving a potentially inappropriate prescription as a result of complex intersections between gender and other social constructs. Appropriate responses will therefore require changes in the information, norms and expectations of both prescribers and patients.
Prevalence of Cigarette Smoking and Factors Associated with it Among Undergraduate Students of Jigjiga University

Cigarette smoking is one of the public health problems which killed about 100 million people in the 20th century and supposed to kill about one billion people in the 21st century if the pattern of its consumption continues. Currently the prevalence of smoking is increasing at the global level and highly associated with increased rate of mortality and morbidity. The objective of this study was to assess the prevalence of smoking and its associated factors among undergraduate students of Jigjiga University. A descriptive institutional based cross sectional study design was employed on 648 students. Self-administered structured questionnaire which was adopted and developed from different previously conducted studies was used to collect data. Data were entered using epi data 3.1 and exported to SPSS version 16.0 for further analysis. Descriptive statistics were done in the form of graphs and tables to summarize data. Data were analysed through univariate for frequencies, and percentage; bivariate analysis to see association between dependent and independent variables and logistic regression to see the independent effect of selected variables on the status of substance using odds ratio. From the total study participants 87 (14.5%) of them smokes and 32 (36.8%) of them smokes greater 12 than cigarettes per week. students at 3rd year of study were at higher chance of smoking cigarette, AOR=17.89 (95% CI=5.21, 61.42), and the odds of smoking cigarette was higher among year 4 and above students comparing with those at year 2, AOR=30.08 (95% CI=6.56, 137.21). Similarly students who chew khat were about 27 times likely to smoke, AOR 27.23 (95% CI=9.47, 78.31) compared with those who didn’t chew khat. Generally the prevalence of smoking among undergraduate Jigjiga university students was 14.5%. Student’s cigarette smoking was significantly associated to year of study; students ever khat chewing habit, ever drinking alcohol and ever drug use.
Effects of Ageing on Visual Attention and Perception

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Transplantation of choroid plexus epithelial cells into contusion-injured spinal cord of rats

Purpose: The effect of the transplantation of choroid plexus epithelial cells (CPECs) on locomotor improvement and tissue repair including axonal extension in spinal cord lesions was examined in rats with spinal cord injury (SCI). Methods: CPECs were cultured from the choroid plexus of green fluorescent protein (GFP)-transgenic rats, and transplanted directly into the contusion-injured spinal cord lesions of rats of the same strain. Locomotor behaviors were evaluated based on BBB scores every week after transplantation until 4 weeks after transplantation. Histological and immunohistochemical examinations were performed at 2 days, and every week until 5 weeks after transplantation. Results: Locomotor behaviors evaluated by the BBB score were significantly improved in cell-transplanted rats. Numerous axons grew, with occasional interactions with CPECs, through the astrocyte-devoid areas. These axons exhibited structural characteristics of peripheral nerves. GAP-43-positive axons were found at the border of the lesion 2 days after transplantation. Cavity formation was more reduced in cell-transplanted than control spinal cords. CPECs were found within the spinal cord lesion, and sometimes in association with astrocytes at the border of the lesion until 2 weeks after transplantation. Conclusion: The transplantation of CPECs enhanced locomotor improvement and tissue recovery, including axonal regeneration, in rats with SCI.
A Hybrid Data Compression Scheme for Power Reduction in Wireless Sensors for IoT

This paper presents a novel data compression and transmission scheme for power reduction in Internet-of-Things (IoT) enabled wireless sensors. In the proposed scheme, data is compressed with both lossy and lossless techniques, so as to enable <italic>hybrid transmission mode</italic>, support adaptive data rate selection and save power in wireless transmission. Applying the method to electrocardiogram (ECG), the data is first compressed using a lossy compression technique with a high compression ratio (CR). The residual error between the original data and the decompressed lossy data is preserved using entropy coding, enabling a lossless restoration of the original data when required. Average CR of 2.1<inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\times$</tex-math></inline-formula> and 7.8<inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\times$</tex-math></inline-formula> were achieved for lossless and lossy compression respectively with MIT/BIH database. The power reduction is demonstrated using a Bluetooth transceiver and is found to be reduced to 18% for lossy and 53% for lossless transmission respectively. Options for <bold><italic>hybrid transmission mode</italic></bold>, adaptive rate selection and system level power reduction make the proposed scheme attractive for IoT wireless sensors in healthcare applications.
Clocking Arbitrarily Large Computing Structures Under Constant Skew Bound

A scheme for global synchronization of arbitrarily large computing structures such that clock skew between any two communicating cells is bounded above by a constant is described. The scheme utilizes clock nodes that perform simple processing on clock signals to maintain a constant skew bound irrespective of the size of the computing structure. Among the salient features of the scheme is the interdependence between network topology, skew upper bound, and maximum clocking rate achievable. A 2-D mesh framework is used to present the concepts, introduce three network designs, and to prove some basic results. For each network the (constant) upper bound on clock skew between any two communicating processors, is established, and its independence of network size is shown. Simulations were carried out to verify correctness and to check the workability of the scheme. A 4*4 network was built and successfully tested for stability. Such issues as node design, clocking of nonplanar structures such as hypercubes, and the concept of fuse programmed clock networks are addressed. >