Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The use of serologic tests for Lyme disease in a prepaid health plan in California.

OBJECTIVE To determine the reason(s) why serologic tests for Lyme disease are performed, who initiates the test requests, and how the test results are used in a clinical setting. DESIGN Retrospective cohort. SETTING Prepaid health plan in northern California. PATIENTS Consecutive sample of 117 patients for whom at least one serologic test for Lyme disease was performed during a 3-month period. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Reason for ordering and result of the serologic test, differential diagnoses, and treatment. RESULTS One of 117 patients had antibodies to Borrelia burgdorferi. Fifty-six percent of test requests were initiated by the physician and 35% by the patient. Of 66 tests ordered by the physician, 20% were performed because of suspected early Lyme disease, 6% as follow-up of a tick bite, 2% to confirm a prior history of Lyme disease, 14% as a workup for arthritis, and 60% as one of a battery of laboratory tests for vague symptoms. Of 41 tests initiated by the patient, 51% were performed because of a history of a tick bite. The reasons for ordering 10 tests were undetermined. CONCLUSION Only 19% of all serologic tests for Lyme disease were performed because the physician suspected Lyme disease in the patient. Particularly in light of the low probability of contracting Lyme disease in California, it appears that this serologic test is being overused. Indiscriminate testing increases health care costs and does not appear to affect treatment decisions. Education is needed regarding the limitations of this serologic test.
Clinical success and parental satisfaction with anterior preveneered primary stainless steel crowns.

PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to evaluate the clinical success of and parental satisfaction with treatment using prefabricated resin-faced stainless steel crowns (SSCs; Kinder Krowns, Mayclin Dental Studios, Minneapolis, Minn) on anterior primary teeth. METHODS Patients treated with Kinder Krowns within the last 3 years were recalled for dinical evaluation and completion of a parental satisfaction survey in this retrospective cross-sectional study. Clinical evaluation was performed for crown retention, facing retention, and resin veneer wear. RESULTS Forty-six teeth were evaluated in 12 children. The average age of the crown at the time of examination was 17.5 months (range 5-38 months). All crowns were present in the mouth, and resin fracture resulting in partial or total facing loss was seen in 24% of the crowns. No resin facing fracture or visible wear was seen in 61% of the crowns. Six crowns had total facing loss from fracture (13%), while 5 (11%) had partial facing fracture. Wear (7 crowns, 15%) was limited to less than the incisal one third of the crown. The parental satisfaction with the preveneered SSCs overall was high, with satisfaction for appearance and the shape being the lowest. CONCLUSIONS Kinder Krown prefabricated resin-faced SSCs showed a low failure rate, and the parental satisfaction with treatment was positive.
Improving Biometric Device Interoperability by Likelihood Ratio-based Quality Dependent Score Normalization

As biometric technology is being deployed, it will be a common situation to have a template acquired by one biometric device to be used by another during testing. In our problem formulation, we assume that the device may not be known to the system but can be inferred by a set of automatically derived quality measures. The proposed method of device inference results in a novel device-specific quality-dependent score normalisation called the DS-norm. Experiments based on the BioSecure DS2 data set confirm the benefits and feasibility of the proposed approach.
Atrioventricular defects--a study of 92 families.

There is no simple mode of inheritance in isolated congenital heart disease (Polani and Campbell, 1955; Lamy, de Grouchy, and Schweisguth, 1957; McKusick, 1964; Campbell, 1965; Ehlers and Engle, 1966), though the high consanguinity index in situs inversus, secundum atrial septal defect, pulmonary valve stenosis, persistent ductus arteriosus, and ventricular septal defect suggests that a recessive gene may play a part in the production of these lesions (Campbell, 1965). The importance of genetic factors, however, probably differs in various forms of congenital heart disease, for in secundum atrial septal defects both the parents and children of the propositi as well as the sibs are at increased risk, whereas with most other types of congenital cardiac defects only the sibs are more frequently affected than normal (Campbell, 1965). Chromosome analysis has not helped to elucidate the pattern of inheritance, unless the presence of marker chromosomes is relevant. German, Ehlers, and Engle (1966) found these variants more frequently in familial cases of congenital heart disease than expected, but in our previous study, mainly of non-familial cases, the frequency of marker chromosomes was similar to that in the general population (Anders, Moores, and Emanuel, 1965; Moores, Anders, and Emanuel, 1966). Family studies have been reported in patients with cardiomyopathy (Evans, 1949; Pare et al., 1961; Barry and Hall, 1962), persistent ductus arteriosus (Polani and Campbell, 1960), coarctation ofthe aorta (Campbell and Polani, 1961a), secundum atrial septal defect (Campbell and Polani, 1961b; Zuckerman et al., 1962; Nora, McNamara, and Clarke Fraser, 1967), pulmonary stenosis (Campbell, 1962), situs inversus (Campbell, 1963), congenital aortic stenosis (Zoethout, Bonham-Carter, and Carter, 1964), and ventricular defect (Campbell and Goodwin, 1965).
Risk Indicators and Road Accident Analysis for the Period 2012–2016

Road accidents are a major societal issue for every country. The purpose of this paper is to assess the number of traffic and road accidents depending on a series of variables (collision mode, road configuration, conditions of occurrence, road category, type of vehicle involved, personal factors, and length of time of the driving license) in Romania from 2012–2016. The analysis of the road accident trend identifies the causes of accidents, road safety performance indicators, and risk indicators. Having these identified data, a framework is proposed for improving the road safety system and reducing accidents. The Romanian Police, the National Institute of Statistics (NIS) in Romania, and the European Commission provided the data used for this analysis. The data obtained from these databases are analysed and evaluated according to a series of variables. This paper will outline an informative image of road accidents and establish a framework for reducing their effects in road transport. As a result of the analysis, we have seen that the combination of vehicles and personal factors influences the number of traffic and road accidents.
Oxidation Products and Antioxidant Markers in Plasma of Patients with Graves' Disease and Toxic Multinodular Goiter: Effect of Methimazole Treatment

Oxidative stress plays an important role in hyperthyroidism-induced tissue damage, as well as in development of autoimmune disorders. To clarify influence of thyroid metabolic status and autoimmune factors on blood extracellular indices of reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation and free radical scavenging in hyperthyroidism, we studied patients with newly diagnosed and untreated Graves' disease without infiltrative ophthalmopathy (17 female and 8 male, aged 41.8±8.9) and toxic multinodular goiter (15 female and 9 male, aged 48.4±10.1) under the same antithyroid treatment protocol. Initially and after achievement of stable euthyroidism with methimazole, plasma levels of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), lipid hydroperoxides (ROOH) and ceruloplasmin (CP) and serum concentrations of thiobarbituric acid-reacting substances (TBARS) were determined. Similarly, activities of plasma superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), glutathione peroxidase (GPx) and glutathione reductase (GR) were assayed. The results were compared to those of age- and sex-matched controls. Average duration of hyperthyroidism and treatment period were similar in both patients groups. H2O2, ROOH and TBARS concentrations were significantly higher in hyperthyroid patients compared to controls. Hyperthyroidism caused an evident increase in SOD and CAT activities and CP level, as well as a decrease in GPx and GR activities. Achievement of euthyroidism resulted in normalization of all analyzed parameters in both hyperthyroid patients groups. These findings suggest that the changes in blood extracellular indices of oxidative stress and free radical scavenging in hyperthyroid patients are influenced by thyroid metabolic status, and are not directly dependent on autoimmune factors present in Graves' disease.
Decomposition of 13 C-labelled wheat root systems following growth at di erent CO 2 concentrations

We tested whether the amounts of carbon (C) mineralized from decomposing wheat (Triticum aestivum L. cv. Tonic) roots were related to the quantity (i.e. root dry weight per plant) or the chemical composition of material which had been grown at ambient or elevated CO2 concentrations (350 or 700 mmol CO2 mol ÿ1). Plants were grown in C-depleted CO2 to distinguish root-derived C from soil-derived C. Over periods of up to ca. 400 d, root C, soil C and nitrogen (N) mineralization were measured from: (i) root systems left in situ in soil; (ii) soil after removal of visible roots; and (iii) equal amounts of roots added to fresh soil. Root systems in situ showed transiently faster C mineralization rates after growth at elevated [CO2] compared with ambient [CO2]. Ultimately, there were no [CO2]-related dierences in the amounts of C or N mineralized from root systems in situ. Speci®c rates of C loss from extracted roots were not signi®cantly dierent for roots from the two [CO2] treatments. The potential accuracy of the C method was demonstrated and C/C fractionation during root decomposition was negligible. We conclude that when wheat is grown under elevated [CO2], subsequent root decomposition will not necessarily be aected. If it does, it is likely to do so via an eect of [CO2] on the amounts of root material produced per unit of soil rather than on the chemical quality of that material. # 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
A hemagglutination test and a specific depolymerase for studying immunologic paralysis in mice.

The specificity of a hemagglutination test for detecting antibodies against the polysaccharide of type III Diplococcus pneumoniae (SIII) and the ability of a specific depolymerase to clear the SIII from the blood of mice are described. Mice injected with relatively large quantities of SIII are specifically prevented from responding to further immunogenic doses of that antigen. The response of different strains of mice injected with varying quantities of SIII is compared on the basis of the hemagglutination and challenge tests.
Epidemiologic and genetic approaches in the study of gene-environment interaction: an overview of available methods.

The interest in conducting studies to examine geneenvironment interaction is increasing for most chronic and complex diseases such as cancer. This increased interest is mostly due to considerable advances in molecular genetic techniques. Gene-environment studies are motivated by different situations including: 1) The detection of major genes that do not have estimated lifetime risks that reach 100 percent (i.e., incomplete penetrance); the incomplete penetrance may result from the role of other factors in disease etiology, such as environmental factors, that may or may not interact with the genetic factors. In such a situation, the genetic factor would be considered as the major risk factor and the environmental exposure as a modifier. 2) The identification of gene-environment interaction as a common biologic process in pharmacogenetic studies of complex diseases; pharmacogenetics hypothesizes that hereditary factors that control the metabolism of carcinogens or other toxic substances may modulate risk of disease. Indeed, different genotypes (for example, GSTM1 null genotype versus nonnull) seem to respond differently to environmental risk factors. In this situation, the environmental factor would be considered as the major risk factor and the genetic factor as a modifier. 3) Inconsistent associations across studies between a disease and a suspected risk factor; one reason for the inconsistencies is that relevant risk factors may be difficult to detect, possibly due to heterogeneity in the studied populations. One source of heterogeneity could be unknown genetic susceptibility that predisposes to differential
The Search for Peer Firms: When Do Crowds Provide Wisdom?

We compare the performance of a comprehensive set of alternative peer identification schemes. Our results show the peer firms identified from aggregation of informed agents' revealed choices in Lee, Ma, and Wang (2014) perform best, followed by peers with the highest overlap in analyst coverage. Conversely, peers firms identified by Google and Yahoo Finance, as well as product market competitors gleaned from 10-K disclosures, turned in consistently worse performances. We contextualize these results in a simple model that predicts when information aggregation across heterogeneously informed individuals is likely to lead to improvements in dealing with the problem of economic benchmarking.
Spatial and temporal frequency selectivity of neurones in visual cortical areas V1 and V2 of the macaque monkey.

The spatial and temporal frequency selectivity of 148 neurones in the striate cortex, V1, and of 122 neurones in the second visual cortical area, V2, of the macaque monkey were studied using sine‐wave gratings of suprathreshold contrast drifting over the receptive field at the preferred orientation and direction. Neurones in V1 and V2 were selective for different but partially overlapping ranges of the spatial frequency spectrum. At retinal eccentricities of 2‐5 deg from the fovea, the spatial frequency preferences for neurones ranged from 0.5 to 8.0 cycles/deg in V1 and from 0.2 to 2.1 cycles/deg in V2 and were on average almost 2 octaves lower in V2 than in V1. Spatial frequency full band widths in the two cortical areas were in the range 0.8‐3.0 octaves, with a mean value of 1.8 octaves, in the parafoveal representation of both V1 and V2, and 1.4 and 1.6 octaves respectively in the foveal representation of V1 and V2. Most neurones in V1 and some in V2 responded well at temporal frequencies up to 5.6‐8.0 Hz before their responses dropped off at still higher frequencies. In V1, 68% of the neurones exhibited low‐pass temporal tuning characteristics and 32% were very broadly tuned, with a mean temporal frequency full band width of 2.9 octaves. However, in V2 only 30% of the neurones showed low‐pass temporal selectivity and 70% of the cells had bandpass temporal characteristics, with a mean full band width of 2.1 octaves. In V2 the minimal overlap of bandpass tuning curves across the temporal frequency spectrum suggests that there are at least two distinct bandpass temporal frequency mechanisms as well as neurones with low‐pass temporal frequency tuning at each spatial frequency. A matrix of spatial and temporal frequency combinations was employed as stimuli for neurones with bandpass temporal frequency selectivity in both V1 and V2. The resultant spatio‐temporal surfaces provided evidence that a neurone's preference for spatial frequency is essentially independent of the test temporal frequency; however, in V2 there was some tendency for temporal frequency peaks to shift slightly towards lower frequencies when non‐optimum values of spatial frequency either above or below the preferred value were tested. Neurones with pronounced directional selectivity were encountered over a wide range of spatial frequencies, although in both cortical areas there was a tendency for an increased incidence of directional selectivity among neurones which were selective for lower spatial frequencies and higher temporal frequencies.
Switching of the transmitters that mediate hindbrain correlated activity in the chick embryo

Widely propagating correlated neuronal activity is a hallmark of the developing nervous system. The activity is usually mediated by multiple transmitters, and the contribution of gap junctions has also been suggested in several systems. In some structures, such as the retina and spinal cord, it has been shown that the dominant transmitter mediating the correlated wave switches from acetylcholine to glutamate during development, although the functional significance of this phenomenon has not been clarified. An important question is whether such a transmitter switch occurs in other systems, especially in the brain. In the present study, we demonstrate that the major transmitter mediating correlated wave activity in the embryonic chick hindbrain changes from acetylcholine/γ‐aminobutyric acid (GABA)/glycine to glutamate/GABA as development proceeds. The results show for the first time that the dominant transmitter switches from acetylcholine to glutamate in a region other than the retina and spinal cord. This finding sheds more light on the role of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors in the generation of correlated wave activity, which is considered to regulate the development of the nervous system.
Test Anxiety and Academic Achievement among South African University Students

Although studies in Western and a few developing countries have indicated students with low scores on test anxiety tend to perform better on academic tasks than those who score higher on test anxiety, at this South African university no statistically significant mean difference on a test in educational psychology was noted for 121 students who scored high on the Anxiety Achievement Test and those 117 who scored low.
Gender abuse, depressive symptoms, and substance use among transgender women: a 3-year prospective study.

OBJECTIVES We examined the effects of gender abuse (enacted stigma), depressive symptoms, and demographic, economic, and lifestyle factors on substance use among transgender women. METHODS We conducted a 3-year prospective study (December 2004 to September 2007) of 230 transgender women aged 19 to 59 years from the New York Metropolitan Area. Statistical techniques included generalized estimating equations with logistic and linear regression links. RESULTS Six-month prevalence of any substance use at baseline was 76.2%. Across assessment points, gender abuse was associated with alcohol, cannabis, cocaine, or any substance use during the previous 6 months, the number of days these substances were used during the previous month, and the number of substances used. Additional modeling associated changes in gender abuse with changes in substance use across time. Associations of gender abuse and substance use were mediated 55% by depressive symptoms. Positive associations of employment income, sex work, transgender identity, and hormone therapy with substance use were mediated 19% to 42% by gender abuse. CONCLUSIONS Gender abuse, in conjunction with depressive symptoms, is a pervasive and moderately strong risk factor for substance use among transgender women. Improved substance abuse treatment is sorely needed for this population.
Combination Chemotherapy (CVP or Chop)-Radiotherapy Approach in Early Stage Non-Hodgkin's Lymphomas

From January 1978 to December 1980, 42 patients with early stage non-Hodgkin's lymphoma other than of the gastrointestinal tract were treated with radiotherapy and combination chemotherapy. Eighteen patients in stage I were submitted to locally extended-field radiotherapy up to a mean dose of 48 Gy with a Co60 source and, after a 3-week rest period, to 6 cycles of combination chemotherapy. Twenty-four patients in stage II received 3 cycles of combination chemotherapy before and after irradiation, the same as for stage I. Combination chemotherapy consisted of cyclophosphamide, vincristine and prednisone (CVP) for 15 cases with favorable histology (3 NWDL, 1 NPDI, 11 DWDL), whereas it included cyclophosphamide, adriamycin, vincristine and prednisone (CHOP) for 27 cases with unfavorable histology (20 DPDL, 3 DM, 4 DH). Complete remission (CR) was achieved in 35/42 (83%) patients, with a highly significant difference between stage I (100%) and stage II (71%). After 42 months of follow-up, the probability of survival for all patients was 72%. Survival was better for stage I (88%) than for stage II (68%) and for favorable histology (87%) as compared to unfavorable histology (70%). Furthermore, survival was highly influenced by response to therapy. Indeed, actuarial survival rate for CR was 91% as compared to a median survival time of 10.2 months for the remaining patients. Four patients, all with poor histology, relapsed after 5–24 (mean 11) months of CR. Only one of them had an extension in extranodal sites and eventually died, despite the salvage treatment utilized. In our experience, locally extended-field irradiation combined with chemotherapy gave a high proportion of CR and seemed to prevent relapses, particularly in extranodal sites.
Spectrophotometric analysis of total ascorbic acid contetnt in various fruits and vegetables

Total ascorbic acid (ascorbic acid + dehydroascorbic acid) has been determined in twenty-one different samples of fruits and vegetables by spectrophotometric method. This method is based on the oxidation ascorbic acid to dehydroascorbic acid by bromine water in the presence of acetic acid. After coupling with 2,4-dinitrophenylhydrazine (DNPH) a red complex was produced and absorbance of that complex was spectrophotometrically measured at 521 nm. A linear concentration range for standard solutions of ascorbic acid was obtained up to 10 μg mL, with a correlation coefficient of 0.9929. The contents of ascorbic acid were found between 9 and 49 mg/100 g of fresh fruits, also 3 and 90 mg/100 g of fresh vegetables. The interferences of glucose, fructose and sucrose were also investigated. The limit of detection of ascorbic acid was found to be 0.01 μg mL (3σ from 10 measurements of ascorbic acid concentration of 3 μg mL), and limit of quantification of ascorbic acid was 0.017 μg mL. A relative standard deviation was 2.4 % (n = 10, c = 7 μg mL). The content of total ascorbic acid in twenty-one different samples of fruits and vegetables was compared with results of spectrofluorimetric method and literature values. Article info Received: 20/03/2012 Accepted: 26/03/2012