Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Comparison of breast-conserving surgery with mastectomy in locally advanced breast cancer after good response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy

Background: The application of breast-conserving surgery (BCS) on patients with locally advanced breast cancer (LABC) with good response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NACT) still remains controversial. The objective in this study is to analyze the safety of BCS in the management of LABC in patients with good response to NACT. Methods: We searched the electronic databases of Medline (Pubmed) and Cochrane Library for reports on local recurrence (LR), regional recurrence (RR), distant recurrence (DR), 5-year disease-free survival (DFS) or 5-year overall survival (OS) in patients with LABC receiving BCS or mastectomy (MT) and with good response to NACT. Based on the research results, we conducted a meta-analysis using Review Manager 5.3. Results: Our study showed that 16 studies with a combined total of 3531 patients, of whom 1465 patients underwent BCS, whereas 2066 patients underwent MT. There was no significant heterogeneity among these studies (Q statistic: P = .88; I2 = 0%). Patients with good response to NACT showed no significant difference in LR and RR [odd ratio (OR) = 0.83; 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.60–1.15; P = . 26; OR = 0.56; 95% CI: 0.33–0.93; P = . 03], while we figured out a lower DR (OR = 0.51; 95% CI: 0.42–0.63; P < .01), a higher DFS (OR = 2.35; 95% CI: 1.84 to 3.01, P < .01) and a higher OS (OR = 2.12; 95% CI: 1.51 to 2.98, P < .01) in BCS compared with MT. Conclusion: This meta-analysis concluded that BCS was a safe surgery for patients with LABC and had good response to NACT.
On time-inconsistency in bargaining

This paper analyzes dynamically inconsistent time preferences in Rubinstein's (1982) seminal model of bargaining. When sophisticated bargainers have time preferences that exhibit a form of present bias - satisfied by the hyperbolic and quasi-hyperbolic time preferences increasingly common in the economics literature - equilibrium is unique and lacks delay. However, when one bargainer is more patient about a single period's delay from the present than one that occurs in the near future, the game permits a novel form of equilibrium multiplicity and delay. Time preferences with this property have most recently been empirically documented; they can also arise when parties who weight probabilities non-linearly bargain under the shadow of exogenous breakdown risk, as well as in settings of intergenerational bargaining with imperfect altruism. The paper's main contributions are (i) a complete characterization of the set of equilibrium outcomes and payoffs for separable time preferences, and (ii) present bias as a readily interpretable sufficient condition for uniqueness at the level of individual preferences.
Modulation of murine phenobarbital-inducible CYP2A5, CYP2B10 and CYP1A enzymes by inhibitors of protein kinases and phosphatases.

Phenobarbital causes a multitude of effects in hepatocytes, including increased cell proliferation, inhibition of apoptosis and upregulation of xenobiotic and endobiotic metabolizing enzymes. In this study, the involvement of several protein kinase and phosphatase pathways on constitutive and phenobarbital-induced activities of CYP2A5, CYP2B10 and CYP1A1/2 in primary mouse hepatocytes was determined using well-defined chemical modulators of intracellular protein phosphorylation and desphosphorylation events. A 48-h treatment of the hepatocytes with 2-aminopurine, a nonspecific serine/threonine kinase inhibitor, elicited dose-dependent increases in both basal and phenobarbital-induced CYP2A5 catalytic activity (assayed as coumarin 7-hydroxylation), the maximal induction being 60-fold greater than the control value upon cotreatment with 1.5 mM phenobarbital and 10 mM 2-aminopurine. In contrast, phenobarbital induction of CYP2B10 (pentoxyresorufin O-deethylase) and CYP1A1/2 (ethoxyresorufin O-deethylase) activities were blocked by 2-aminopurine. Increases in CYP2A5 activity were also observed after exposure of the hepatocytes to other protein kinase inhibitors affecting the cell cycle, i.e. roscovitine, K-252a and rapamycin. Inhibitors of protein kinases A and C, as well as tyrosine kinases, did not appreciably affect CYP2A5 activity levels. The serine/threonine phosphatase inhibitors tautomycin, calyculin A and okadaic acid all reduced both basal and phenobarbital-induced CYP2A5, CYP2B10 and CYP1A1/2 activities. These results further strengthen the concept that hepatic CYP2A5 is regulated in a unique way compared with CYP2B10 and CYP1A.
The CSI Effect and the Canadian and the Australian Jury *,†

Abstract: Television shows, such as CBS’s CSI and its spin‐offs CSI: Miami; CSI: Las Vegas; and CSI: New York, have sparked the imagination of thousands of viewers who want to become forensic scientists. The shows’ fictional portrayals of crime scene investigations have prompted fears that jurors will demand DNA and other forensic evidence before they will convict, and have unrealistic expectations of that evidence. This has been dubbed the “CSI effect. ” This phenomenon was explored using results from a Canadian study based on 605 surveys of Canadian college students who would be considered jury‐eligible and Australian quantitative and qualitative findings from a study that surveyed and interviewed real posttrial jurors. Information about the way jurors deal with forensic evidence in the context of other evidence and feedback about the way in which understanding such evidence could be increased were gained from both these studies. The comparison provides insights into the knowledge base of jurors, permitting adaptation of methods of presenting forensic information by lawyers and experts in court, based on evidence rather than folklore. While the Canadian juror data showed statistically significant findings that jurors are clearly influenced in their treatment of some forensic evidence by their television‐viewing habits, reassuringly, no support was found in either study for the operation of a detrimental CSI effect as defined above. In the Australian study, in fact, support was found for the proposition that jurors assess forensic evidence in a balanced and thoughtful manner.
What motivates employees to participate in continuous improvement activities?

Continuous improvement (CI) is still one of the strongest ways for companies to achieve process excellence in order to survive in nowadays’ competitive environments. Yet, it is still very difficult to implement and sustain CI systems, mainly because of the difficulty in engaging people in these activities. Based on an exhaustive literature review, followed by a three-round Delphi study with Spanish experts, this paper helps to assess what the main elements are with respect to the CI system that could motivate employees’ intention to participate in CI activities. Main results show 44 elements grouped into 10 factors that could affect employees’ intention to participate. These factors were structured into a more comprehensive model following an interpretive structural modelling approach.
Roles of His-Rich Hpn and Hpn-Like Proteins in Helicobacter pylori Nickel Physiology

ABSTRACT Individual gene-targeted hpn and hpn-like mutants and a mutant with mutations in both hpn genes were more sensitive to nickel, cobalt, and cadmium toxicity than was the parent strain, with the hpn-like strain showing the most metal sensitivity of the two individual His-rich protein mutants. The mutant strains contained up to eightfold more urease activity than the parent under nickel-deficient conditions, and the parent strain was able to achieve mutant strain activity levels by nickel supplementation. The mutants contained 3- to 4-fold more and the double mutant about 10-fold more Ni associated with their total urease pools, even though all of the strains expressed similar levels of total urease protein. Hydrogenase activities in the mutants were like those in the parent strain; thus, hydrogenase is fully activated under nickel-deficient conditions. The histidine-rich proteins appear to compete with the Ni-dependent urease maturation machinery under low-nickel conditions. Upon lowering the pH of the growth medium from 7.3 to 5, the wild-type urease activity increased threefold, but the activity in the three mutant strains was relatively unaffected. This pH effect was attributed to a nickel storage role for the His-rich proteins. Under low-nickel conditions, the addition of a nickel chelator did not significantly affect the urease activity of the wild type but decreased the activity of all of the mutants, supporting a role for the His-rich proteins as Ni reservoirs. These nickel reservoirs significantly impact the active urease activities achieved. The His-rich proteins play dual roles, as Ni storage and as metal detoxification proteins, depending on the exogenous nickel levels.
Amino-terminal polymorphisms of the human beta 2-adrenergic receptor impart distinct agonist-promoted regulatory properties.

We have recently delineated three naturally occurring polymorphisms of the human beta 2-adrenergic receptor caused by missense mutations encoding for amino acids 16 and 27 of the extracellular N-terminus of the receptor. We have studied the functional consequences of these polymorphisms by site-directed mutagenesis and the recombinant expression of these receptors in Chinese hamster fibroblasts. The polymorphisms consist of substitutions of Gly for Arg at amino acid 16 (Arg16-->Gly), Glu for Gln at amino acid 27 (Gln27-->Glu), and a combination of both substitutions. All three mutated receptors displayed normal agonist binding and functional coupling to Gs, resulting in the stimulation of adenylyl cyclase activity. However, these mutations markedly altered the degree of agonist-promoted downregulation of receptor expression. After 24-h exposure to 10 microM isoproterenol, wild-type beta 2AR underwent a 26 +/- 3% reduction in receptor density. In contrast, Arg16-->Gly underwent a 41 +/- 3% reduction. Gln27-->Glu, on the other hand, was found to be completely resistant to downregulation. Arg16-->Gly+Gln27-->Glu also underwent an increased downregulation compared to wild-type beta 2AR (39 +/- 4%). The rates of new receptor synthesis after irreversible alkylation were not different between these receptors, nor were the rates of agonist-promoted receptor internalization to the intracellular pool. Gln27-->Glu cellular mRNA minimally increased during agonist exposure, and wild-type beta 2AR and the other mutated receptor mRNAs did not change, which infer that the aberrant downregulation patterns of these polymorphisms may be due to the altered degradation of receptor protein. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
The venous leg ulcer quality of life (VLU‐QoL) questionnaire: development and psychometric validation

To develop and validate a disease‐specific quality of life (QoL) measure, based on the conceptual model of the SKINDEX‐29 for patients with a chronic venous leg ulcer (VLU), in‐depth interviews, and focus groups of patients (n=36) with VLU were used to generate VLU‐specific items. These items were added to selected SKINDEX‐29 items that were adapted for use in VLU. Further samples of VLU patients were used for item reduction (n=124) and to assess the psychometric properties of the new tool (n=120). The final VLU‐QoL contained 34 items: 17 items adapted from the SKINDEX‐29 and 17 VLU‐specific items. Factor analysis of the items confirmed the existence of three hypothesized domains: Activities (12 items), Psychological (12 items), and Symptom Distress (10 items). Reliability in terms of internal consistency and test–retest reliability was found to be good. The measure was also found to be valid and responsive to clinical change. The VLU‐QoL has good psychometric properties. The instrument's sensitivity to differences in clinical outcome and responsiveness to change in clinical parameters makes it a useful tool to assess the outcomes of treatment from the patients' perspective.
A comparison of mirtazapine and nortriptyline following two consecutive failed medication treatments for depressed outpatients: a STAR*D report.

OBJECTIVE Few controlled studies have addressed the issue of which antidepressant medications should be recommended for outpatients who have not responded to multiple treatment trials. This study compared the efficacy of switching to mirtazapine to that of switching to a tricyclic antidepressant (nortriptyline) following two prospective, consecutive, unsuccessful medication treatments for nonpsychotic major depressive disorder. METHOD Following lack of remission or an inability to tolerate an initial trial of citalopram for up to 12 weeks (first step) and a second trial with either monotherapy involving another antidepressant or augmentation of citalopram with bupropion or buspirone (second step), adult outpatients (N=235) with nonpsychotic major depressive disorder were randomly assigned to 14 weeks of treatment with mirtazapine (up to 60 mg/day) (N=114) or nortriptyline (up to 200 mg/day) (N=121). The primary outcome, symptom remission, was defined a priori as a total exit score of </=7 on the 17-item Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression. The 16-item Quick Inventory of Depressive Symptomatology-Self-Report (QIDS-SR(16)), obtained at treatment visits, provided secondary outcomes of remission (score </=5 at exit) and response (>/=50% reduction in score from baseline). RESULTS For mirtazapine, remission rates were 12.3% and 8.0% per the Hamilton and QIDS-SR(16) scores, respectively. For nortriptyline, remission rates were 19.8% and 12.4%, respectively. QIDS-SR(16) response rates were 13.4% for mirtazapine and 16.5% for nortriptyline. Neither response nor remission rates statistically differed by treatment, nor did these two treatments differ in tolerability or adverse events. CONCLUSIONS Switching to a third antidepressant monotherapy regimen after two consecutive unsuccessful antidepressant trials resulted in low remission rates (<20%) among patients with major depressive disorder.
Breast Cancer Screening: Women's Experiences of Waiting for Further Testing.

PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES To describe anxiety experienced by participants in a breast cancer screening program who have received an abnormal screening mammography result and are waiting for further testing and diagnosis and to identify the social support needed during this period. DESIGN Exploratory, descriptive. SETTING Quebec Breast Cancer Screening Program (QBCSP) participants in Montreal, Canada. SAMPLE Nonprobability sample of 631 asymptomatic women, aged 50-69, who had abnormal screening mammogram results in the two months prior to the survey and who spoke or read French or English. METHODS Mailed self-report questionnaire. MAIN RESEARCH VARIABLES Anxiety, social support, and breast cancer screening. FINDINGS Fifty-one percent of the participants were quite or very anxious at every stage of the prediagnostic phase. Seventy-five percent expressed their feelings to family and friends whose support was comforting but did not diminish participants' anxiety. Satisfaction from social support offered by healthcare professionals reduced their anxiety. CONCLUSIONS To decrease anxiety in the prediagnostic phase, women need support from healthcare professionals during the early stage of the screening process to prevent exacerbation of their concerns. Support has to be integrated into a continuity-of-care process. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING Nurses can play a significant role in breast cancer screening programs. They can evaluate, at an early stage, participant anxiety and offer the appropriate social support. They also can ensure the follow-up and personalized support required while a patient awaits a diagnosis.
Data-Driven Decision Making

Too much information can distract rather than inform a person. The amount of information in the world is growing at a compound annual rate of 60 percent (“All to Much,” 2010, para. 1). At that rate, a one-dollar investment would grow to a million dollars in less than 30 years! As economist Herbert Simon wrote in 1971, this barrage of information “consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention” (Handling the Cornucopia, 2010, para. 4). While the growth of information in education may not be quite as rapid as it is in other fields, schools struggle to make sense of the mounds of data they accumulate (Goren, 2010; Shen & Cooley, 2008; Shirley & Hargreaves, 2006; U.S. Department of Education [USDOE], 2010; Zavadsky & Dolejs, 2006). While experts in many fields are well-equipped to make data-driven decisions, many educators lack the knowledge and skills to enact data-driven decision making in an efficient and productive manner (Shen & Cooley) and, as Wayman and Stringfield (2006a) note, professional guidance on the topic has been severely limited.
RSFQ logic/memory family: a new Josephson-junction technology for sub-terahertz-clock-frequency digital systems

Recent developments concerning the rapid single-flux-quantum (RSFQ) circuit family are reviewed. Elementary cells in this circuit family can generate, pass, memorize, and reproduce picosecond voltage pulses with a nominally quantized area corresponding to transfer of a single magnetic flux quantum across a Josephson junction. Functionally, each cell can be viewed as a combination of a logic gate and an output latch (register) controlled by clock pulses, which are physically similar to the signal pulses. Hand-shaking style of local exchange by the clock pulses enables one to increase complexity of the LSI RSFQ systems without loss of operating speed. The simplest components of the RSFQ circuitry have been experimentally tested at clock frequencies exceeding 100 GHz, and an increase of the speed beyond 300 GHz is expected as a result of using an up-to-date fabrication technology. This review includes a discussion of possible future developments and applications of this novel, ultrafast digital technology. <<ETX>>
Nutritional consequences of the radiotherapy of head and neck cancer

Nutrition‐related complications of radiotherapy were evaluated in 74 head and neck cancer patients. Subjective changes of mouth dryness, taste, dysphagia, appetite, and food preferences were determined by questionnaire before and at weekly intervals during curative radiotherapy. Changes in body weight during therapy were also recorded. In addition, 24‐hour dietary histories were taken from eight patients at the beginning and end of treatment. Results of the study indicate that patients were subjectively aware of nutritional problems prior to therapy and that therapy exacerbated these problems. As many as 25% of the patients experienced oral complications such as taste loss and/or dry mouth prior to initiation of radiotherapy. By the end of radiotherapy, over 80% of the patients were aware of oral and nutritional problems. Patients had an average weight loss of 5 kg prior to therapy; this loss of weight did not change during therapy. Diet histories of eight patients indicate significant caloric deficiencies early and late in radiotherapy. The oral and nutritional problems experienced by patients, even prior to therapy, support the idea that nutritional evaluation and maintenance are important not only during therapy, but prior to radiotherapy as well. Nutritional evaluation should be made a routine, integral part of therapy for every cancer patient.
Damage Control Resuscitation In Trauma

Introduction: Most preventable trauma deaths are due to uncontrolled hemorrhage. Methods: In this article, we briefly describe the pathophysiology of the classical triad of death in trauma, namely, acidosis, hypothermia, and coagulopathy, and then suggest damage control resuscitation strategies to prevent and/or mitigate the effects of each in the bleeding patient. Results: Damage control resuscitation strategies include body rewarming, restrictive fluid administration, permissive hypotension, balanced blood product administration, and the implementation of massive transfusion protocols. Conclusion: Resuscitating and correcting the coagulopathy of the exsanguinating trauma patient is essential to improve chances of survival.
Rab11b is essential for recycling of transferrin to the plasma membrane.

Members of the Rab family of small GTPases play important roles in membrane trafficking along the exocytic and endocytic pathways. The Rab11 subfamily consists of two highly conserved members, Rab11a and Rab11b. Rab11a has been localized both to the pericentriolar recycling endosome and to the trans-Golgi network and functions in recycling of transferrin. However, the localization and function of Rab11b are completely unknown. In this study green fluorescent protein (GFP)-tagged Rab11b was used to determine its subcellular localization. GFP-Rab11b colocalized with internalized transferrin, and using different mutants of Rab11b, the role of this protein in transferrin uptake and recycling was examined. Two of these mutants, Rab11b-Q/L (constitutively active) and Rab11b-S/N (constitutively inactive), strongly inhibited the recycling of transferrin. Interestingly, both of them had no effect on transferrin uptake. In contrast, the C-terminally altered mutant Rab11b-DeltaC, which cannot be prenylated and therefore cannot interact with membranes, did not interfere with wild-type Rab11b function. From these data we concluded that functional Rab11b is essential for the transport of internalized transferrin from the recycling compartment to the plasma membrane.
Face recognition using Multi-modal Binary Patterns

A new descriptor called Multi-modal Binary Patterns (MMBP) is proposed for face recognition. It balances well important requirements for real-world applications, including the robustness, discriminative power, and the low computational cost. The proposed algorithm has several desirable properties: 1) it captures information from face image in any direction as it is oriented feature, 2) being a spatial multi-scale structure, the descriptor catches not only local but also more global information about object, 3) it is robust to image transformation like variations of lighting, expressions, and 4) it is computationally efficient. In more detail, to catch information in a given direction, a Local Line Binary Pattern (LLBP) based operator is first applied. The MMBP feature is then built by applying a LBP-based self-similarity operator on the values being calculated by LLBP operators across different directions. A Whitened PCA dimensionality reduction technique is applied to get more a compact and efficient descriptor. Experimental results achieved on the comprehensive FERET data set being comparable to state-of-the-art validates the efficiency of our method.
Sp_ToBI and the Phonological Analysis of Spanish Intonation: A Critical Perspective

Abstract A Spanish version of the Tones and Break Indices framework for the phonological analysis of intonation, Sp_ToBI, has existed, in one level of development or another, for over a decade. The early, preliminary system was incomplete, but since, the system has been revised and expanded to the point of being a fully developed analytical tool. With recent work, Sp_ToBI has come into its own and now has a significant place in research on Spanish intonational phonology, especially given the considerable amount of research that has applied it to a wide range of Spanish varieties. As a system that is explicitly designed to be pan-Spanish, such research is crucial. After outlining the development of Sp_ToBI, this paper considers both the benefits and the challenges of the pan-Spanish nature of Sp_ToBI. Additionally, the contributions that Sp_ToBI has made to the phonological analysis of Spanish intonation are considered, as are the general challenges it faces. The paper concludes with a look at the future of Sp_ToBI as a tool for intonational phonologists.