Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Prospective evaluation of prognostic variables from patient-completed questionnaires. North Central Cancer Treatment Group.

PURPOSE This study was developed to determine whether descriptive information from a patient-completed questionnaire could provide prognostic information that was independent from that already obtained by the patient's physician. PATIENTS AND METHODS An initial detailed questionnaire was administered to approximately 150 patients with advanced cancer. This questionnaire was subsequently revised and given to a total of 1,115 patients with advanced colorectal or lung cancer. Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed to evaluate the data from these questionnaires. RESULTS A total of 36 variables showed statistically significant prognostic information for survival in univariate analyses, even though many of these variables were associated with only a minimal increase in risk. A multivariate analysis demonstrated that there was a high correlation between many variables. Three major groups of variables became apparent as providing strong prognostic information. These included the following: (1) a physician's assessment of performance status (PS); (2) a patient's assessment of their own PS; and (3) a nutritional factor such as appetite, caloric intake, or overall food intake. CONCLUSION Data generated by a patient-completed questionnaire can provide important prognostic information independent from that obtained by other physician-determined prognostic factors.
Personal food systems of male collegiate football players: a grounded theory investigation.

CONTEXT Factors that affect food choices include the physical and social environments, quality, quantity, perceived healthfulness, and convenience. The personal food choice process was defined as the procedures used by athletes for making food choices, including the weighing and balancing of activities of daily life, physical well-being, convenience, monetary resources, and social relationships. OBJECTIVE To develop a theoretical model explaining the personal food choice processes of collegiate football players. DESIGN Qualitative study. SETTING National Collegiate Athletic Association Division II football program. PATIENTS OR OTHER PARTICIPANTS Fifteen football players were purposefully sampled to represent various positions, years of athletic eligibility, and ethnic backgrounds. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS For text data collection, we used predetermined, open-ended questions. Data were analyzed using the constant comparison method. The athletes' words were used to label and describe their interactions and experiences with the food choice process. Member checks and an external audit were conducted by a qualitative methodologist and a nutrition specialist, and the findings were triangulated with the current literature to ensure trustworthiness of the text data. RESULTS Time was the core category and yielded a cyclic graphic of a theoretical model for the food choice system. Planning hydration, macronutrient strategies, snacks, and healthful food choices emerged as themes. CONCLUSIONS The athletes planned meals and snacks around their academic and athletic schedules while attempting to consume foods identified as healthful. Healthful foods were generally lower in fat but high in preferred macronutrients. High-protein foods were the players' primary goal; carbohydrate consumption was secondary. The athletes had established plans to maintain hydration. Professionals may use these findings to implement educational programs on food choices for football players.
Potential Effects of Pomegranate on Lipid Peroxidation and Pro-inflammatory Changes in Daunorubicin-induced Cardiotoxicity in Rats

Background: Daunorubicin-induced acute cardiotoxicity caused by oxidative stress and free radical formation. Pomegranate possessed a significant in vitro free radical scavenging activity. Therefore, the aim of this study was estimations of the role of pomegranate effects in daunorubicin-induced cardiotoxicity. Methods: A total of 21 Sprague male rats were allocated into three groups, seven animals in each group. Group A: Control group received distilled water. Group B: Treated group with daunorubicin 20 mg/kg via intraperitoneal injection daily for the 12th day for total cumulative dose of 240 mg/kg. Group C: Pretreatment group with pomegranate 25 mg/kg for 6 days orally, then daunorubicin 20 mg/kg administrated concomitantly for the next 6 days with a cumulative dose of 120 mg/kg. Cardiac troponin I([cTn I] pg/ml), malondialdehyde (MDA) (ng/ml), interleukin 17 (IL-17 pg/ml), and cardiac lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) (pm/ml), all these biomarkers were used to measure the severity of cardiotoxicity. Results: Daunorubicin at a dose of 20 mg/kg lead to pronounced cardiac damage that reflected on through elevations of serum cTn and serum LDH levels significantly P < 0.01, it induced lipid peroxidation during cardiotoxicity that reflected through an elevation in the serum MDA significantly P < 0.01, moreover, daunorubicin induces pro-inflammatory changes in cardiotoxicity; it raises the IL-17 serum level significantly P < 0.01 as compared with control. Pomegranate pretreatment demonstrated a significant cardioprotection from daunorubicin-induced cardiotoxicity; it attenuated the cardiac damage through reduction of cTn, LDH, MDA, and serum IL-17 level significantly P < 0.01 as compared with daunorubicin-treated group. Conclusions: Pomegranate demonstrated significant cardioprotection in daunorubicin-induced cardiotoxicity through reduction of oxidative stress, lipid peroxidation, pro-inflammatory, and cardiac injury biomarkers.
Person Re-Identification via Multiple Coarse-to-Fine Deep Metrics

Person re-identification, aiming to identify images of the same person from various cameras views in different places, has attracted a lot of research interests in the field of artificial intelligence and multimedia. As one of its popular research directions, the metric learning method plays an important role for seeking a proper metric space to generate accurate feature comparison. However, the existing metric learning methods mainly aim to learn an optimal distance metric function through a single metric, making them difficult to consider multiple similar relationships between the samples. To solve this problem, this paper proposes a coarse-to-fine deep metric learning method equipped with multiple different Stacked Auto-Encoder (SAE) networks and classification networks. In the perspective of the human’s visual mechanism, the multiple different levels of deep neural networks simulate the information processing of the brain’s visual system, which employs different patterns to recognize the character of objects. In addition, a weighted assignment mechanism is presented to handle the different measure manners for final recognition accuracy. The experimental results conducted on two public datasets, i.e., VIPeR and CUHK have shown the prospective performance of the proposed method.
Curriculum-Based Measurement in the Content Areas

The purpose of this study was to examine the reliability and validity of curriculum-based measures as indicator of growth in content-area learning. Participants were 58 students in 2 seventh-grade social studies classes. CBM measures were student- and administrator-read vocabulary-matching probes. Criterion measures were performance on a knowledge test, the social studies subtest of the Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS), and student grades. Both the student- and examiner-read measures reflected change in performance; however, only the student-read measure resulted in interindividual differences in growth rates. Significant relations were found between the growth rates generated by the student-read vocabulary measure and student course grades, ITBS scores, and growth on the knowledge test. These results support the validity of a vocabulary-matching measure as an indicator of student learning in the content areas. The results are discussed in terms of the use of CBM as a system for monitoring performance and evaluating interventions for students with learning disabilities in content-area classrooms.
Mean corpuscular volume is associated with endothelial dysfunction and predicts composite cardiovascular events in patients with chronic kidney disease

Mean corpuscular volume (MCV) is a measure of size of red blood cells. Recently a few studies showed an association of macrocytosis with all‐cause mortality. We aimed to assess the relationship of MCV with cardiovascular (CV) morbidity and mortality in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD), and the effect of MCV on endothelial function.
Nitric oxide and mitochondrial status in noise-induced hearing loss

This study investigated the distribution of nitric oxide (NO) within isolated outer hair cells (OHCs) from the cochlea, its relationship to mitochondria and its modulation of mitochondrial function. Using two fluorescent dyes—4,5-diaminofluorescein diacetate (DAF-2DA), which detects NO, and tetramethyl rhodamine methyl ester (TMRM+), a mitochondrial membrane potential dye—it was found that a relatively greater amount of the DAF fluorescence in OHCs co-localized with mitochondria in comparison to DAF fluorescence in the cytosole. This study also observed reduced mitochondrial membrane potential of OHCs and increased DAF fluorescence following exposure of the cells to noise (120 dB SPL for 4 h) and to an exogenous NO donor, NOC-7 (>350 nm). Antibody label for nitrotyrosine was also increased, indicating NO-related formation of peroxynitrite in both mitochrondria and the cytosol. The results suggest that NO may play an important physiological role in regulating OHC energy status and act as a potential agent in OHC pathology.
Effect of concurrent experimentally induced bovine respiratory syncytial virus and bovine viral diarrhea virus infection on respiratory tract and enteric diseases in calves.

OBJECTIVE To compare experimentally induced concurrent bovine viral diarrhea virus (BVDV) and bovine respiratory syncytial virus (BRSV) infection with single virus infection. ANIMALS 9- to 12-month-old calves. PROCEDURE Calves were allotted to 4 groups: 1, mock-infected control (n = 3); 2, BRSV infected (5); 3, BVDV infected (5); and 4, concurrent BRSV and BVDV infected (5). Total and differential WBC counting was done. Concentration and duration of BVDV in nasal secretions and serum, and duration of BRSV in nasal secretions were determined. Concentration of BVDV in various tissues was determined, and isolation of BRSV from lung tissue was attempted. Histologic examination and immunohistochemical analysis were done to detect lesions and distribution of viral antigens, respectively. RESULTS Calves with concurrent infection developed more severe clinical signs of disease (fever and diarrhea), leukopenia, and more severe lesions. They also shed virus from nasal secretions in greater concentration and for longer duration, and BRSV was isolated from their lungs. Calves with concurrent infection also had more extensive lung lesions. Alimentary epithelial necrosis and severe lymphoid depletion were associated with BVDV infection in calves with or without concurrent BRSV infection. BVDV antigen in lymphatic tissue was detected in stromal cells only. CONCLUSIONS Concurrent infection with BRSV and BVDV resulted in more severe respiratory tract and enteric disease than did infection with either virus alone, possibly indicating synergistic effect between the viruses. BVDV's role in causing respiratory tract disease is attributable, indirectly, to effects on the host's immune system, not to infection of the lungs.
Basis-momentum

We propose a new commodity-return predictor related to the slope and curvature of the futures curve: basis-momentum. Basis-momentum strongly outperforms benchmark characteristics, such as basis and momentum, in predicting commodity spot and term premiums in the time series and cross section. The basis-momentum effect is varying within the curve of a single commodity, driven by roll returns, present in currency markets, and increasing in volatility -- all consistent with maturity-specific price pressure. Asset pricing tests show that a parsimonious two-factor model provides an excellent cross-sectional fit, with a large premium for exposure to basis-momentum that largely represents compensation for volatility risk.
Liver dysfunction in Dengue infection: an analysis of the previously published Thai cases.

BACKGROUND Dengue infection is a major vector-borne disease. The classical sings and symptoms of this infection include high fever, violent headache, chill and rash. However, there are a number of atypical forms of dengue infection including those presented with liver dysfunction. However, there are only a few reports concerning the liver dysfunction among the patients with dengue infections. METHODS Here, the author presents a summative study on the liver dysfunction and its clinical correlation among Thai patients in the previous studies. A literature review on the prospective studies concerning liver function and dengue infection in Thailand was performed. RESULTS According to this study, there are 4 reports included covering 191 Thai pediatric patients with dengue infection. The overall rate of liver dysfunction among 191 subjects is 34.6 % (66/191). The rate of liver dysfunction among the patients without shock (36/120) is not significant different from those with shock. The rate of liver dysfunction in this study is considerable high, similar to the previous reports from other developing Asian countries. In addition, about 8 % (5/66) the patients with liver dysfunction developed hepatic encephalopathy. CONCLUSIONS This can imply the importance of detection of abnormal high transaminase enzyme among the patients with dengue infection since the consequently developed hepatic encephalopathy can be expected.
Creative Thinking Deficits in Patients With Schizophrenia: Neurocognitive Correlates

Abstract The aim of this study was to investigate selected measures of creativity in schizophrenic patients and their relationship with neurocognitive executive functions Forty-three inpatients with paranoid schizophrenia who were in symptomatic remission (a total of 60) and 45 healthy control participants were included. Creativity was assessed using the Barron-Welsh Art Scale (BWAS) and the inventiveness part of the Berlin Intelligence Structure Test (BIS). Executive functions were measured by means of the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST). Schizophrenic patients gave responses on the BWAS, had lower total score on the BIS and in the figural test, and performed worse on all domains of the WCST compared with control subjects. Their lower scores on the BIS correlated with lower scores on the WCST. Our results indicate that remitted schizophrenic patients perform worse on selected measures of creativity than healthy subjects and that executive dysfunctions may partially explain these deficits.
Relation between bitter taste sensitivity and incidence or intensity of propofol injection pain

Background and objective: In human beings, pain and taste perception are two major sensory inputs. We investigated whether increasing bitter taste sensitivity would increase intensity or incidence of pain associated with propofol, and whether there is a relationship between bitter sensitivity and venepuncture pain. Methods: One hundred (50 males, 50 females) American Society of Anesthesiologists Grade I adults undergoing elective surgery were included in this study. Determination of the taste thresholds employed a series of propylthiouracil solutions. The filter paper disk method was used to measure the taste threshold. A 20‐G intravenous (i.v.) cannula was inserted in the dorsum of the non‐dominant hand. Venepuncture pain was assessed by using a numerical rating scale (NRS; 0, no pain and 10, extreme pain). Propofol 10 mL (100 mg) was injected over 30 s. Assessment of pain with i.v. propofol was made using a 4‐point scale: 0, no pain; 1, mild pain; 2, moderate pain; 3, severe pain. Results: The NRS score of venepuncture pain was 2.8 ± 1.5. Sixty patients had pain during propofol injection. There was statistically significant correlation between bitter sensitivity and propofol injection pain, and between bitter sensitivity and venepuncture pain (P < 0.05). Conclusions: We conclude that increased bitter taste sensitivity correlates with increased intensity or incidence of propofol injection pain and NRS of venepuncture pain.
Modeling the binding specificity of the RNA-binding protein GLD-1 suggests a function of coding region–located sites in translational repression

This paper focuses on the C. elegans RNA-binding protein, GLD-1. GLD-1 is a translational repressor whose targets have been difficult to predict. The authors develop a simple biophysical model, which, by taking into account target accessibility, significantly improves target prediction. They find that CDS-located binding sites contribute most to translational repression.
Giardia duodenalis genotypes among schoolchildren and their families and pets in urban and rural areas of Sinaloa, Mexico.

INTRODUCTION Giardiasis is a human health concern worldwide, especially among schoolchildren. Giardia duodenalis genotypes A and B are infective to humans, but their zoonotic potential remains controversial. In Mexico, the most prevalent genotype is A, but B was also detected in southeastern Mexico. In Sinaloa state, northwestern Mexico, giardiasis is highly prevalent, but Giardia genotypes have been poorly studied. METHODOLOGY This study aimed to investigate the distribution and clinical-epidemiological correlation of G. duodenalis genotypes in schoolchildren and their families and pets in urban and rural areas of Sinaloa state, Mexico. RESULTS Among 395 schoolchildren (274 urban, 121 rural), 76 (49 urban, 27 rural) were infected with G. duodenalis. In total, 22 families (15 urban, 7 rural) of infected schoolchildren, consisting of 60 family members (41 urban, 19 rural) and 21 pet dogs (15 urban, 6 rural) were examined; 10 family members (5 urban, 5 rural) and 5 pet dogs (3 urban, 2 rural) of 10 families (6 urban, 4 rural) were infected. After PCR-RFLP analyses of vsp417 and gdh genes, genotype prevalence among infected urban schoolchildren was 79.5% AI, 12.8% AII, and 7.7% mixed AI+B. However, only AI genotype was found in family members and pets. In the rural area, only the AI genotype was detected. Genotypes were not correlated with clinical manifestations. CONCLUSIONS This paper shows the presence of B genotype in northwestern Mexico for the first time. Detection of AI genotype in dogs suggested the possible role of dogs as the reservoir for human giardiasis in Sinaloa, Mexico.
Geomorphic constraints on surface uplift, exhumation, and plateau growth in the Red River region, Yunnan Province, China

Field observations, digital elevation model (DEM) data, and longitudinal profi le analysis reveal a perched low-relief upland landscape in the Red River region, Yunnan Province, China, which correlates to an uplifted, regional low-relief landscape preserved over the eastern margin of the Tibetan Plateau. As with other major rivers of the plateau margin, the Red River has deeply incised the lowrelief upland landscape, which we interpret to be the remnants of a pre-uplift or relict landscape. We examine longitudinal river profi les for 97 tributaries of the Red River. Most profi les consist of three segments separated by sharp knickpoints: an upper, lowgradient channel segment, a steeper middle channel segment, and a very steep lower channel segment. Upper channel segments correspond to the relict landscape and have not yet experienced river incision. Steeper middle and lower segments indicate onset of rapid, two-phase river incision, on the basis of which changes in external forcings, such as climate or uplift, can be inferred. In terms of two end-member scenarios, two-phase incision could be the result of pulsed plateau growth, in which relatively slow uplift during the fi rst phase is followed by rapid uplift during the second phase, or it could refl ect adjustments of the main channel to changing climate conditions against the backdrop of steady plateau growth. Reconstruction of the paleo‐Red River indicates ~1400 m river incision, 1400‐1500 m surface uplift, and a maximum of 750 m vertical displacement across the northern Red River fault, elevating the northern Ailao Shan range above the surrounding relict landscape. On the basis of stratigraphic constraints, incision along the Red River likely began in Pliocene time.
N-methyl carbamate pesticide residues in conventional and organic infant foods available on the Canadian retail market, 2001–03

Seven parent N-methyl carbamate insecticides, in addition to two transformation products of aldicarb (aldicarb sulfoxide and aldicarb sulfone), and a single transformation product of carbofuran (3-hydroxycarbofuran) were measured in infant and junior foods available on the Canadian retail market between 2001 and 2003. Carbaryl and methomyl were the only analytes present at levels above the limits of detection in juice, cereals, fruit, vegetables or meat samples analysed. Carbaryl was the most frequently (7.6%) detected compound and concentrations ranged from 0.6 to 18 ng g−1. Detectable levels of carbaryl were most frequently found in foods prepared with fruit. Methomyl was detected (0.8 ng g−1) in one chicken with broth sample analysed in the present study. In all cases, the concentrations observed were orders of magnitude below the maximum residue limits established for these compounds in the corresponding raw food commodities in Canada (100–10 000 ng g−1). Dietary intakes of carbaryl and methomyl based on the consumption of infant foods tested ranged between 0.2–343 and 0.4–2.0 ng kg−1 body weight day−1, respectively.
Influence of morphohydraulic habitat structure on invertebrate communities (Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera and Trichoptera)

Fluvial geomorphology proposes the methodology of cognition and assessment of the riverine landscape and points to the possibilities of exploitation of its results in hydrobiological research. Habitat structure of two reaches of the Drietomica brook (Biele Karpaty Mts, Slovakia) was assesed at level of morphological and morphohydraulic units in the sense of the River Morphology Hierarchical Classification (RMHC)). Physical habitats were described by flow hydraulics and substrate properties as directly measured variables (current velocity, depth, substrate size) and related variables (flow type, Froude and Reynolds numbers). According to the shear stress (expressed by Fr and Re), the morphological units were divided into two main groups — with low shear stress — pools, glides, edgewaters, bar nooks and bars; with high shear stress — riffles, runs, rapids and scours; characterized also by different Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera and Trichoptera (EPT) communities. The EPT communities were analyzed in relation to the morphological, hydraulic and substrate characteristics of the stream channel. The main environmental gradient responsible for the variation in EPT fauna was found using Principal Component Analysis and was related to gradient of flow in term of current velocity and other hydraulic attributes covered by Fr and Re numbers. The EPT communities (by means of abundance, feeding types, current, microhabitat and zonation preferences) showed preferences for different morphological units, flow type and current velocity. Depth and substrate grain size showed only weak relation to EPT communities.