Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Prenatal Stress as a Modifier of Associations between Phthalate Exposure and Reproductive Development: results from a Multicentre Pregnancy Cohort Study.

BACKGROUND Prenatal phthalate exposure is associated with altered male reproductive tract development, and in particular, shorter anogenital distance (AGD). AGD, a sexually dimorphic index of prenatal androgen exposure, may also be altered by prenatal stress. How these exposures interact to impact AGD is unknown. Here, we examine the extent to which associations between prenatal phthalate exposure and infant AGD are modified by prenatal exposure to stressful life events (SLEs). METHODS Phthalate metabolites [including those of diethylhexyl phthalate (DEHP) and their molar sum (ΣDEHP)] were measured in first trimester urine from 738 pregnant women participating in The Infant Development and the Environment Study (TIDES). Women completed questionnaires on SLEs, and permitted infant AGD measurements at birth. Subjects were classified as 'lower' and 'higher' stress (0 first trimester SLEs vs. 1+). We estimated relationships between phthalate concentrations and AGD (by infant sex and stress group) using adjusted multiple regression interaction models. RESULTS In the lower stress group, first trimester ΣDEHP was inversely associated with two measures of male AGD: anoscrotal distance (AGD-AS; β = -1.78; 95% CI -2.97, -0.59) and anopenile distance (AGD-AP; β = -1.61; 95% CI -3.01, -0.22). By contrast, associations in the higher stress group were mostly positive and non-significant in male infants. No associations were observed in girls. CONCLUSIONS Associations between prenatal phthalate exposure and altered genital development were only apparent in sons of mothers who reported no SLEs during pregnancy. Prenatal stress and phthalates may interact to shape fetal development in ways that have not been previously explored.
Racing Pigeons: A Reservoir for Nitro-Imidazole–Resistant Trichomonas gallinae

Abstract: Trichomonas gallinae, the cause of avian trichomonosis, is most commonly found in the order Columbiformes. Racing pigeons are often treated preventively with nitro-imidazoles, which could result in the emergence of resistant isolates, and these isolates can be a threat to wildlife when exchanges occur. The sequence type of 16 T. gallinae isolates obtained from racing pigeons and 15 isolates from wild pigeons was determined based on the ITS1/5.8S rRNA/ITS2 region sequence. In addition, the resistance profiles of these isolates against 5 different nitro-imidazoles (metronidazole, dimetridazole, ronidazole, tinidazole, and carnidazole) were determined. Two different Trichomonas sequence types were isolated. Sequence type A isolates were recovered from racing and wild pigeons, in contrast to sequence type B, which was only isolated from wild pigeons. Isolates with sequence type B were all susceptible to the tested nitro-imidazoles, except for tinidazole resistance in 3 isolates. Resistance to the nitro-imidazoles was observed more frequently in isolates obtained from racing pigeons than from wild pigeons, with most isolates belonging to sequence type A. A higher percentage of the sequence type A isolated from racing pigeons, in comparison with those isolated from the wild pigeons, were resistant to the nitro-imidazoles and displayed higher mean lethal concentration (MLC) values. Two isolates belonging to sequence type A, 1 recovered from a racing pigeon and 1 from a wild pigeon, displayed a similar resistance pattern, suggesting a potential exchange of resistant isolates between racing pigeons and wild pigeons.
CORNEAL ENDOTHELIAL CELL DENSITY AFTER AN ATTACK OF ACUTE GLAUCOMA

The corneal endothelial cells of 25 patients with unilateral acute glaucoma were photographed with a clinical specular microscope. Photography was performed as soon as (average 6–12 h) the IOP had been lowered with iv Acetazolamide and/or Mannitol and topical Pilocarpine therapy, and the corneas had become clear. Peripheral iridectomy was performed on the affected eye and prophylactically on the fellow eye in most of these patients. The follow‐up endothelial photographs were taken 6–24 months postoperatively.
General Music Teachers' Perceptions of District-Mandated Professional Development and Its Impact on Teaching Practices

Meaningful professional development has long been a concern of the teaching profession. This extends into the field of music education, as K-12 music teachers desire professional development opportunities that will add to their knowledge base and also assist them in their daily teaching practices. General music teachers may feel this need more strongly than their instrumental and choral music teacher counterparts. This may be due to the distinct differences of general music teachers’ responsibilities and isolated environments, with fewer opportunities to collaborate with peers. If professional development within districts was specifically aimed at meeting the needs of general music teachers, this might help to alleviate issues of isolation and promote collaboration with peers. For this reason, it is important to consider what professional development exists for general music teachers within their districts. This quantitative study considers general music teachers in two northeastern Ohio counties and seeks to answer the following: What percentage of general music teachers in Trumbull and Mahoning Counties have had district-mandated professional development focused on the needs of general music teachers within the last two years? How do these teachers view specialized versus generalized professional development? Were there differences in general music teachers’ feelings of isolation for those who collaborated with others outside of professional development versus those who did not? It is hoped that a better understanding of the professional development needs of general music teachers as related to issues of isolation and collaboration will be more fully realized as a result of this study.
Corneal Endothelium Evaluation With 2 Noncontact Specular Microscopes and Their Semiautomated Methods of Analysis

Purpose: Noncontact specular microscopes and semiautomated methods of endothelial analysis are widely used in the clinical practice and for research purposes. In this study, the interexaminer reproducibility between two noncontact specular microscopes using different semiautomated methods was assessed in normal corneas. Methods: Average cell size (ACS), endothelial cell density (ECD), coefficient of variation (CV), and hexagonality values were independently calculated by two examiners with the Topcon SP 2000P Image-NET retraced method and the Konan CC7000 center method in 49 normal subjects. Interexaminer reproducibility and correlation between instruments/methods were assessed through 95% limits of agreement, intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC), Pearson correlation coefficient, and Spearman rank test. Results: Interexaminer reproducibility was good for ACS and ECD measurements (ICC> 0.85) but weak for CV and hexagonality (ICC < 0.65). Significantly higher ACS and lwer ECD values (P <0.05) were obtained with the Topcon in comparison with the Konan method by both examiners. ACS and ECD mean differences were respectively, +26&mgr;m2 and −184 cell/mm2 for examiner 1 and +36&mgr;m2 and −228 cell/mm2 for examiner 2. No significant difference (P > 0.05) between instruments/methods was found in CV or hexagonality values; however, the correlation for these parameters was low (r < 0.20). Conclusions: Either instrument or method allows reproducible and accurate ACS and ECD measurements on normal corneas, but the difference between the two instruments is systematic and significant. The difference found were not clinically meaningful however for research/longitudinal study purposes, the data collected with the two systems cannot be used interchangeably.
This house would ethically engage: a critical examination of competitor and coach leadership in National Parliamentary Debate Association (NPDA) debate

vi CHAPTER ONE: INHERENCY.1 Theoretical and Pragmatic Ethics.3 Philosophical and Pragmatic Ethical Grounding.4 Existing Studies on Ethics in Forensics.10 Tension in NPDA Debate.13 Kritiks (Critiques) of NPDA.16 Competitive Success vs. Ethical Training Tension.22 Conclusion.26 CHAPTER TWO: STATUS QUO.28 Forensics as a Particular Rhetorical Culture.28 Some Styles of Leadership.35 Team Leadership.37 Directors of Forensics Leadership.39 Conclusion.46 CHAPTER THREE: PLAN, PLANK ONE: ARGUMENTATIVENESS, VERBAL AGGRESSIVENESS, AND COMPETITIVE RELATIONAL SATISFACTION IN THE PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE DYAD . 48 National Parliamentary Debate Association (NPDA) Debate.48 Argumentativeness and Verbal Aggressiveness.49 Distinctions between Argumentativeness and Verbal Aggressiveness.50 Verbal Aggressiveness and Argumentativeness in the Communication Classroom.53 Forensics: A Culture of Argumentativeness.53 Hypotheses and Research Question.55 Methods.56 Instruments.56 Procedure.57 Demographics.58 Results.59 Discussion.61 Differences in Argumentativeness and Verbal Aggressiveness.63 Limitations.65 Directions for Future Research.66 Conclusion.67 CHAPTER FOUR: PLAN, PLANK TWO: COACH REACTIONS TO NPDA COMPETITOR ARGUMENTATIVENESS, VERBAL AGGRESSIVENESS, AND COMPETITIVE RELATIONAL SATISFACTION.69
Urokinase-type plasminogen activator, plasminogen activator inhibitor type 1 and cathepsin D: analysis of their prognostic significance in squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck.

BACKGROUND The aim of the study was to evaluate the prognostic significance of tumour and serum concentrations of urokinase-type plasminogen activator (uPA), its type 1 inhibitor (PAI-1) and cathepsin D (Cath D) in patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (SCCHN). PATIENTS AND METHODS Determinations of uPA and PAI-1 were made using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays in tumour and serum samples of 47 and 32/47 patients, respectively. For the determination of tumour (94 patients) and serum (34/94 patients) Cath D concentrations, an immunoradiometric assay was used. RESULTS In an univariate survival analysis, the risk of disease recurrence and SCCHN-related death was significantly higher in the patients with high uPA (P = 0.046, P = 0.010) tumours, compared to those with low uPA tumours. In addition, the high serum levels of uPA correlated positively with the rate of relapse (P = 0.007), but not with the mortality rate (P = 0.200). There was no statistically significant difference between low and high PAI-1 groups, regarding either tumour or serum concentration of the inhibitor, and between low and high Cath D tumours. Low Cath D serum levels appeared to be related to longer disease-free interval (P = 0.055), but not to disease-specific survival (P = 0.120). CONCLUSIONS The tumour levels of uPA, as well as serum levels of uPA and Cath D could potentially predict the survival probability of patients with SCCHN. However, the strength of this association remains to be investigated on a larger and more homogeneous group of patients.
Radiation therapy combined with (or without) cisplatin-based chemotherapy for patients with nasopharyngeal cancer: 15-years experience of a single institution in Korea.

PURPOSE This retrospective study was carried out to evaluate the efficacy and toxicity of radiation therapy (RT) with/without cisplatin-based chemotherapy in nasopharyngeal cancer (NPC). MATERIALS AND METHODS One hundred forty six patients with NPC received curative RT and/or cisplatin-based chemotherapy. Thirty-nine patients were treated with induction chemotherapy (IC), including cisplatin and 5-fluorouracil followed by RT. Another 63 patients were treated with concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRT) using cisplatin, and 22 patients were treated with IC followed by CCRT. The remaining 22 patients were treated with RT alone. RESULTS One hundred four (80.0%) patients achieved complete response (CR), and 23 (17.7%) patients achieved partial response (PR). The patterns of failure were: locoregional recurrences in 21.2% and distant metastases in 17.1%. Five-year overall survival (OS) and progression free survival (PFS) were 50.7% and 45.0%, respectively. Multivariate Cox stepwise regression analysis revealed CR to chemoradiotherapy to be a powerful prognostic factor for OS. CR to chemoradiotherapy and completion of radiation according to the time schedule were favorable prognostic factors for PFS. A comparison of each treatment group (IC --> RT vs. CCRT vs. IC --> CCRT vs. RT alone) revealed no significant differences in the OS or PFS. However, subgroup analysis showed significant differences in both OS and DFS in favor of the combined chemoradiotherapy group compared with RT alone, for stage IV and T3-4 tumors. Grade 3-4 toxicities were more common in the combined chemoradiotherapy arm, particularly in the CCRT group. CONCLUSIONS This study was limited in that it was a retrospective study, much time was required to collect patients, and there were imbalances in the number of patients in each treatment group. Combined chemoradiotherapy remarkably prolonged the OS and PFS in subgroup patients with stage IV or T3-4 NPC.
An Economic and Pedagogical Defense of Gratuities

A few upscale restaurants in the United States recently have ended the practice of tipping their wait staff, preferring a fixed labor cost method of compensation. This attempt to change this long-standing cultural practice presents a fascinating opportunity to explore a variety of economic concepts including principal-agent problems, gains-from-trade, price discrimination, and cultural institutions designed to build trust. I argue that tipping remains an economically efficient means of providing quality service wherein restaurant owners, wait staff, and customers all benefit in what can be a win-win-win situation. The norm of tipping also provides an excellent example to teach basic economic principles and foster classroom discussion.
Political Leadership as Meta-Governance in Sustainability Transitions: A Case Study Analysis of Meta-Governance in the Case of the Dutch National Agreement on Climate

Sustainability transitions are of an inherently political nature. In particular, discussions on climate policy are dominated by national and international politics. Furthermore, sustainability transitions involve network governance in which both private, public, and societal actors are involved. These governance processes call for closely scrutinizing their performance in terms of democratic legitimacy. To study and assess the democratic quality of governance processes regarding climate policy, this article focuses on the role of political leadership, conceptualized as political meta-governance, in enhancing the democratic legitimacy in the field of sustainability transitions. In doing so, it examines the case of the Dutch National Agreement on Climate (“Nationaal Klimaatakkoord”). The findings of this study underline the theoretical assumption that governments seek to use network governance to address climate change and develop policies. Seeking to address the application of political meta-governance, this study finds that political leaders struggle to bring about a fully-fledged, deliberative, and integrative meta-governance approach. However, disparate meta-governance strategies are reported. Although democratic legitimacy concerning the Dutch Agreement on Climate in terms of accountability can be regarded as high, values concerning voice (inclusiveness) and due deliberation (transparency) score comparatively low. As such, this study further justifies the close attention governance scholars and practitioners pay to the democratic values at stake when governing through governance networks.
Data acquisition system for continuous monitoring of grounding grids in energized substations

Grounding systems play an important role in electrical substations. They prevent grounding potential rise (GPR) during current fault events. GPR can cause the known step or touch voltages that can hurt people around the substations. Over time, grounding systems suffer from degradation such as materials erosion. This work proposes a new data acquisition system for continuously monitoring grounding grids in energized substations. The proposed system is based on a wireless sensor network that periodically measures both the current going to ground and the GPR in many points of the grid and then transmits the measurements for a coordinator that is connected to a gateway computer. This system enables remote and continuous evaluation of the grounding grid. The system has been implemented and evaluated with respect to its transmission and instrumentation modules.
Emergency contraception: knowledge and practice of Gondar University students, northwest Ethiopia.

OBJECTIVES To assess the knowledge and practice of Gondar University students regarding emergency contraceplion. PATIENTS AND METHODS A university based cross-sectional study was conducted in the University of Gondar in May 2004. All undergraduate students of the university were included in the study. A self-administered anonymous questionnaire was used for data collection. RESULTS A total of 2323 students (1764 males & 559 females) responded to the questionnaire. Five hundred fifty eight students (24.0%) thought that there are methods that can be used to prevent pregnancy when a woman had unprotected sex. Overall, 437 students (18.8%) knew the correct methods of emergency contraception (pill or IUCD). Of those who mentioned pill as the only method of emergency contraception, 285 (73.3%) said the pill should be used within 72 hours after unprotected sex. Only one student used pill as emergency contraceptive. Students in the health field have 6.8 times higher knowledge on emergency contraception compared to students of FBE. Generally, there was an increasing trend in the knowledge of students when their age and year of study increases. Married or divorced students had 3.36 times higher knowledge when compared with never married students. CONCLUSION In general, except students in the health field, other students have low awareness about emergency contraception. Emergency contraceptive user rate is very low. Even in those who are aware of emergency contraception, the information they have regarding the methods that can be used and the timing of emergency contraception was not sufficient. Students should be provided with appropriate information regarding emergency contraception and access to emergency contraception should be improved in the university.
Quantum discord and the power of one qubit.

We use quantum discord to characterize the correlations present in the model called deterministic quantum computation with one quantum bit (DQC1), introduced by Knill and Laflamme [Phys. Rev. Lett. 81, 5672 (1998)10.1103/PhysRevLett.81. 5672]. The model involves a collection of qubits in the completely mixed state coupled to a single control qubit that has nonzero purity. The initial state, operations, and measurements in the model all point to a natural bipartite split between the control qubit and the mixed ones. Although there is no entanglement between these two parts, we show that the quantum discord across this split is nonzero for typical instances of the DQC1 ciruit. Nonzero values of discord indicate the presence of nonclassical correlations. We propose quantum discord as figure of merit for characterizing the resources present in this computational model.
Human Amniotic Mesenchymal Cells Have Some Characteristics of Cardiomyocytes

Background. Cellular cardiomyoplasty (CCM) is a major method for the treatment of heart failure because adult cardiomyocytes do not regenerate after ischemic injury, which results in heart failure. There is a great deal of interest in finding suitable new cell sources for use in CCM. Here, we report that human amniotic mesenchymal cells (hAMC), which are multipotent cells derived from fetal mesoderm, may be a suitable cell source for CCM. Methods. Freshly isolated hAMC were examined to detect the expression of cardiac-specific genes by reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction and immunocytochemistry. hAMC were cocultivated with neonatal rat heart explants and transplanted into myocardial infarcts in the rat heart. Results. hAMC expressed cardiac-specific transcription factor GATA4, cardiac-specific genes, such as myosin light chain (MLC)-2a, MLC-2v, cTnI, and cTnT, and the &agr;-subunits of the cardiac-specific L-type calcium channel (&agr;1c) and the transient outward potassium channel (Kv4.3). After stimulation with basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) or activin A, hAMC expressed Nkx2.5, a specific transcription factor for the cardiomyocyte and cardiac-specific marker atrial natriuretic peptide. In addition, the cardiac-specific gene &agr;-myosin heavy chain was detected after treatment with activin A. Coculture experiments confirmed that hAMC were able to both integrate into cardiac tissues and differentiate into cardiomyocyte-like cells. After transplantation into the myocardial infarcts in rat hearts, hAMC survived in the scar tissue for at least 2 months and differentiated into cardiomyocyte-like cells. Conclusion. The results of the present study suggest that hAMC possess some characteristics of cardiomyocytes.
Safety and Efficacy of Conversion from External Fixation to Plate Fixation in Humeral Shaft Fractures

Objective: Immediate external fixation and planned conversion to internal fixation of humeral shaft fractures is an option in the treatment of associated severe soft-tissue injuries and severely injured patients. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the outcome and complications of patients who sustained humeral shaft fractures and were treated with initial unilateral external fixation followed by plate fixation. Design: Retrospective analysis of a prospective database. Setting: Academic level I trauma center. Patient/Participants: We identified 17 patients treated between June 2003 and August 2007 with immediate unilateral external fixation followed by planned conversion to internal plate fixation. All patients were seen for follow-up until bony union occurred, with a minimum follow-up of 6 months. Main Outcome Measurements: Initial patient condition, local and systemic complications, and short-term outcomes were evaluated. Results: The main reason for immediate placement of an external fixator was multiple trauma in nine patients (damage control orthopedics group); six open fractures with massive soft-tissue injury; one temporarily decreased perfusion to the forearm and hand; and one associated compartment syndrome of the upper arm. The average timing of the conversion to internal fixation was 6.2 (range, 2-14) days from the time of external fixation. There were no iatrogenic nerve injuries after either the external fixation or the conversion to internal fixation. Fifteen of 17 fractures united with an average time to healing of 11.1 (range, 8-14) weeks. Two fractures failed to heal after conversion from external to internal fixation. Both were open fractures from the non-damage control orthopedics group that developed a deep infection. There were no systemic complications after conversion from external to internal fixation. Conclusions: Immediate external fixation with planned conversion to plate fixation within 2 weeks proved to be a safe and effective approach for the management of humeral shaft fractures in selected patients with multiple injuries or severe soft-tissue injuries that preclude early plate fixation.