Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Clinical PET of Neuroendocrine Tumors Using 64Cu-DOTATATE: First-in-Humans Study

The use of positron emitter–labeled compounds for somatostatin receptor imaging (SRI) has become attractive because of the prospect of improved spatial resolution, accelerated imaging procedures, and the ability to quantify tissue radioactivity concentrations. This paper provides results from first-in-humans use of 64Cu-DOTATATE, an avidly binding somatostatin receptor ligand linked to a radioisotope with intermediate half-life and favorable positron energy (half-life, 12.7 h; maximum positron energy, 0.653 MeV). Methods: In a prospective setup, 14 patients with a history of neuroendocrine tumors underwent both PET/CT with 64Cu-DOTATATE and SPECT/CT with our current routine imaging agent 111In-diethylenetriaminepentaacetic acid–octreotide. After intravenous injection of 193–232 MBq of 64Cu-DOTATATE, whole-body PET scans were acquired at 1 h (n = 14), 3 h (n = 12), and 24 h (n = 5) after administration. Tissue radioactivity concentrations for normal organs and lesions were quantified, and standardized uptake values were calculated for the early (1 h) and delayed (3 h) scans. Using the data for 5 patients, we assessed the radiation dose with OLINDA/EXM software. Furthermore, the clinical performance of 64Cu-DOTATATE with respect to lesion detection was compared with conventional SRI. Results: SRI with 64Cu-DOTATATE produced images of excellent quality and high spatial resolution. Images were characterized by high and stable tumor-to-background ratios over an imaging time window of at least 3 h. Compared with conventional scintigraphy, 64Cu-DOTATATE PET identified additional lesions in 6 of 14 patients (43%). In 5 patients, lesions were localized in organs and organ systems not previously known as metastatic sites, including the early-stage detection of a secondary neuroendocrine tumor in a patient with a known mutation in the multiple endocrine neoplasia type I gene. All major additional findings seen only on PET could be confirmed on the basis of a clinical follow-up interval of 18 mo. Calculated radiation dose estimates yielded an effective dose of 6.3 mSv for an injected activity of 200 MBq of 64Cu-DOTATATE, with the liver being the organ with the highest absorbed radiation dose (0.16 mGy/MBq). Conclusion: This first-in-humans study supports the clinical use of 64Cu-DOTATATE for SRI with excellent imaging quality, reduced radiation burden, and increased lesion detection rate when compared with 111In-diethylenetriaminepentaacetic acid–octreotide.
Adolescent Students' Beliefs about Aggression and the Association between Beliefs and Reported Level of Aggression: A Study of Senior High School Students in Ghana

This study examines the gender differences among Ghanaian adolescent students' beliefs about aggression and its association with their reported level of aggression. A total of 800 students selected from eight same-sex senior high schools participated in the study. It was hypothesized that male and female students will score high on the instrumental and expressive beliefs of aggression respectively. Instrumental belief will be positively related to reported level of aggression while expressive belief will relate negatively with reported level of aggression. The EXPAGG (Revised) Questionnaire and the Fuch's Questionnaire on levels of aggression were the instruments used. It was found that male students scored high on the instrumental belief scale and female students on the expressive belief scale. Instrumental beliefs about aggression correlated positively with reported levels of aggression while expressive beliefs about aggression correlated negatively with reported levels of aggression. The study adds to our understanding of the relationship between beliefs and levels of aggression by considering it in a non-western culture.
Optimization of a Stern–Gerlach Magnet by Magnetic Field–Circuit Coupling and Isogeometric Analysis

Stern-Gerlach magnets are used to magnetically separate a beam of atoms or atom clusters. The design is difficult, since both the magnetic field gradient and its homogeneity should be maximized. This paper proposes the numerical optimization of the device's pole-shoe shapes, starting from a reference geometry given in the literature. The main contributions of this paper are the generalization of a magnetic field-magnetic circuit coupling and the application of isogeometric analysis (IGA), which are shown to reduce the computational complexity and increase the accuracy. The field-circuit coupling significantly reduces the size of the field model part, in which the IGA's spline-based framework enables a highly accurate evaluation of local field quantities, even across elements.
Preferences for depression treatment among elderly home health care patients.

OBJECTIVE The authors hypothesized that the depression treatment preferences of elderly home care patients would vary by their experience of depression and that preferences for active treatment would be associated with current depression and with antidepressant treatment. METHODS The authors conducted cross-sectional secondary analyses of data from the TRIAD study (Training in the Assessment of Depression) of 256 randomly selected elderly patients newly admitted to home care. The study assessed preference for active treatments (medication or psychotherapy) and nonactive or complementary approaches (such as religious activities or doing nothing). Nondepressed patients were asked to choose as if they had serious depression. Two separate indicators of depression experience were used: a current diagnosis of major or minor depression and current or previous antidepressant treatment. RESULTS Of the 256 patients, 16% (N=41) met criteria for major or minor depression. Forty-seven percent of the sample (N=121) preferred an active treatment as their first choice, and others preferred nonactive or complementary approaches. Logistic regression indicated that current antidepressant use, previous psychotherapy experience, white or Hispanic race-ethnicity (versus black), greater impairment in instrumental activities of daily living, and less personal stigma about depression were independently associated with preference for an active treatment. CONCLUSIONS Elderly home care patients had a variety of treatment preferences, ranging from active treatments, to religious or spiritual activities, to no treatment. Several factors were associated with a preference for active treatment, including treatment experience, physical impairment, race-ethnicity, and attitudes and beliefs. An understanding of patient preferences may help engage older depressed home care patients in treatment.
An approach to voice admission control in multihop wireless networks

Admission-control schemes for voice traffic in circuit-switched multihop radio networks are studied. The problem formulation is based on the methodology of multiple-service, multiple-resource (MSMR) modeling, and only those admission-control policies that yield a coordinate convex state space are considered. This restriction, in conjunction with reasonable modeling assumptions, results in a product-form stationary distribution for the system state. A recursive procedure to accelerate the evaluation of a large number of different admission-control policies and a descent-search method to minimize the number of policies that must be evaluated in searching for the optimal one are developed. Numerical examples indicate that performance can be improved by administering admission control, but the improvement is typically small unless different revenues or costs are associated with the various call types. <<ETX>>
Medical termination of pregnancy: a study of acceptor characteristics.

Characteristics of 616 Indian women who underwent therapeutic abortions between 1976-78 are described. The group is mostly young with the majority in the 25-34 age group followed by the 20-24 group. Parity is 2-3 with the majority having 2-3 living children. Women with middle or higher levels of education tended to have fewer living children than women with only primary or no education; the mean number of living children among the better educated urban women was 2.73 but 3.55 in those with no, or only primary, education. The number of living children was lower in the few women gainfully employed outside the home than in those who were housewives. Most of the abortions (about 82%) were carried out in the 1st trimester with a tendency for slightly later abortions in the rural sample; contraceptive failure was the reason in 22% of urban and 11% of rural cases while the mother's health was the reason in about 50% of all cases. The opportunity to accept family planning methods at the time of or after the pregnancy was rejected in about 17% but 54% of the urban and 62% of the rural accepted sterilization at the time of the abortion.
Towards a Collaboration Framework for Selection of ICT Tools

Appropriate selection of ICT (Information Communication Technology) tools is valuable in project development activities where an organization can setup consistent means of collaboration to ensure that all the stakeholders use specific technology. This paper presents the conceptual framework for collaboration. The collaboration framework facilitates selection of the correct ICT tools for different project development activities. It is designed using a layer based approach and divided into three layers. We believe that the use of the framework will improve the collaboration between the teams.
Pelvic Examination Training for Interns: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Purpose. To evaluate the effectiveness of pelvic examination training for internal medicine interns conducted by instructors who also serve as models for the examination. Method. In 2001, 80 interns from three university internal medicine residencies completed questionnaires about their experiences with pelvic examinations. Interns who were available for training underwent baseline assessment of their pelvic examination skills and were randomized to training or to a control group that received only educational literature. Skills were assessed with a 29-item checklist at baseline and at follow-up by evaluators blinded to group assignment, and interrater agreement was estimated by review of audiotapes. Results. Seventy-two interns were randomized and underwent baseline skills assessment. Seventy interns returned for follow-up assessment after approximately 14 weeks (range, 10-17 weeks). The 39 interns randomized to training and 33 randomized to the control group did not differ with respect to age, gender, or prior pelvic examination training. In both groups there was substantial variability in skills at baseline, with graduates of U.S. medical schools scoring significantly higher than did graduates of non-U.S. medical schools (0.66 versus 0.41, p < 10-5). Interns randomized to training had significantly higher scores at follow-up than did interns in the control group (0.79 versus 0.57, p < 10-6). For seven items verifiable by audiotape, interrater agreement was good (overall &kgr;, 0.54; range among items, 0.3-0.85). Conclusion. Specialized trainers can reliably evaluate and improve the pelvic examination skills of interns, and improvements are demonstrable three months after training. Further research is needed to ascertain whether training efficiency can be improved and to measure the impact of training on patient satisfaction and clinical outcomes.
A framework for the evaluation of texture features with application to diagnostic ultrasound images

A novel framework is presented to evaluate a given set of texture features, based on the set of textures they are to characterize. The textures are sampled from real images which are to be segmented, rather than the commonly used Brodatz textures. Using robust statistics, the number of outliers produced by each feature is used to determine its effectiveness in characterizing the set of textures. This framework is applied to a set of textures sampled from a sequence of diagnostic ultrasound images of an ovary in vitro. Thirty-two spatial and frequency domain texture features are evaluated. <<ETX>>
Bacteriology of the teeth from a great white shark: potential medical implications for shark bite victims

Bacteria were cultured for the first time from the teeth of a great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias). Isolates included Vibrio alginolyticus, Vibrio fluvialis, Vibrio parahaemolyticus, and other genera. All are common in the marine environment and some may be associated with wound infections in humans. Shark bite lacerations may serve as a source of these potentially infectious bacteria, particularly Vibrio spp. , and should be treated immediately. Antibiotic susceptibility patterns are shown for representatives of Vibrio isolates and indicate that a variety of new agents may be appropriate chemotherapy for shark bite victims.
Nutrient-centrism and perceived risk of chronic disease

This experiment explored consequences of two common lay theories about the diet–disease link: nutrient-centrism, the belief that nutrients (e.g. potassium) are crucial to staving off disease, and whole-food centrism, the belief that whole foods (e.g. bananas), containing these nutrients in their natural context, are most beneficial. Depicting an individual’s diet in terms of nutrients rather than whole foods containing these nutrients reduced the perceived likelihood that the individual would experience leading diet-related diseases (e.g. heart disease, diabetes). Although nutrition experts increasingly emphasize the health benefits of natural whole foods, people nevertheless appear to privilege nutrients when estimating disease risks.
[Angiogenic effect of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells transfected with human VEGF gene on myocardial infarcts in rats].

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the angiogenic effect of the bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) transfected with human vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF(165)) gene on myocardial infarcts in rats. METHODS The animal model of heart ischemic was established by ligating the left anterior descending coronary artery in Wistar rats. The ligated rats were divided into 4 groups (n=12 each), and 2 weeks later they were injected hVEGF-transfected MSC at the heart infarct zone (Group A), MSC (Group B), liposome-hVEGF gene plasmid (Group C), and medium (Group D). Four weeks after the injection, the capillary density of the infracted zone and the expression of human VEGF in vivo were examined. RESULTS Four weeks after the transplantation,the capillary density was significantly greater in Group A than that in Group B and Group D, slightly greater than that in Group C. The highest expression of hVEGF was Group A, and followed by Group C, Group B, and Group D. CONCLUSION MSC is helpful for the stable expression of hVEGF gene, and is an ideal cellular vehicle for VEGF genes.
Enhancing Stem Cell Mobility: New Hope for Treatment of Cardiovascular Complications in Patients With Diabetes?

Local healing processes, including reparative angiogenesis mounted by resident vascular cells, are remarkably deteriorated in patients with diabetes. Vascular problems are worsened by the scarcity and dysfunction of circulating proangiogenic cells. Stem cell depauperization in bone marrow (BM), disruption of BM microvasculature, and alteration in chemokine signaling mechanisms concur in reducing the mobilization of proangiogenic cells in patients with diabetes (1–4). Diabetic mobilopathy has relevant implications for risk stratification. In fact, the abundance and migratory activity of circulating mononuclear cells (MNCs) expressing the antigenic markers CD34 and vascular endothelial growth factor receptor 2 (VEGFR2)/KDR has been proposed as a new biomarker for prediction of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality (5–9). Moreover, forcing stem cell release with mobilizing agents, a modality initially introduced for harvesting cells in view of autologous or allogeneic transplantation for treatment of hematologic diseases, may help improve the outcome of ischemic complications (10). Currently, granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) and granulocyte macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) remain the standard mobilizing agents. Both require repeated administrations to achieve the target (usually 4 × 106 CD34+ cells/kg), with success being influenced by basal CD34+ cell levels and donor age (11). Additionally, patients with diabetes are often unresponsive to G-CSF (12,13). Plerixafor (AMD3100) represents a promising new mobilizing agent with the potential to overcome the limits of indirect mobilizers. It acts as a direct antagonist of the interaction between the chemokine stromal-derived factor-1 (SDF-1)/CXCL12 and its receptor CXCR4, does not show residual agonistic activity or cross-reactivity with other chemokine receptors, mobilizes stem cells within hours, and is well tolerated (14). In this issue of Diabetes , a new study from Fadini et al. (15) provides evidence that plerixafor may be preferred to G-CSF as a mobilizing agent in patients with diabetes. This …
Unraveling Oxygen Reduction Reaction Mechanisms on Carbon-Supported Fe-Phthalocyanine and Co-Phthalocyanine Catalysts in Alkaline Solutions

In this work, we combine electrochemical measurements, such as the rotating disk electrode (RDE) and the rotating ring-disk electrode (RRDE) techniques, and density functional theory (DFT) calculations to elucidate the mechanisms of the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) on carbon-supported Fe-phthalocyanine (FePc/C) and Co-phthalocyanine (CoPc/C) catalysts in 0.1 M NaOH solutions. The onset potential for ORR on FePc/C catalyst is found to be around 0.05 V vs. Hg/HgO in 0.1 M NaOH solutions, which is 100 mV more positive than that on CoPc/C. RDE and RRDE measurements show that the ORR mechanism is via a 4e− pathway on the FePc/C while it is through a 2e− pathway on the CoPc/C catalyst. The catalyst stability tests reveal that FePc is much less stable than CoPc under fuel cell cathode working conditions. Moreover, DFT calculations were performed to study the adsorption of O2, H2O, OH, HOOH, and H2OO molecules on FePc and CoPc molecule catalysts. We conclude the following from our theoretical and experimental .
Perceived Risk of Burglary and Fear of Crime

Given the scarcity of prior studies, the current research introduced country-level variables, along with individual-level ones, to test how they are related to an individual’s perceived risk of burglary (PRB) and fear of crime (FC), separately, by using mixed-level logistic regression analyses. The analyses of 104,218 individuals, residing in 50 countries, showed that country-level poverty was positively associated with FC only. However, individual-level variables, such as prior property crime victimization and female gender, had consistently positive relationships with both PRB and FC. However, age group and socioeconomic status were inconsistent between those two models, suggesting that PRB and FC are two different concepts. Finally, no significant difference in the pattern of PRB and FC was found between a highly developed group of countries and a less developed one.
The Role of Tropospheric Rossby Wave Breaking in the Pacific Decadal Oscillation

Abstract The leading pattern of extratropical Pacific sea surface temperature variability [the Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO)] is shown to depend on observed variability in the spatiotemporal distribution of tropospheric Rossby wave breaking (RWB), where RWB is the irreversible overturning of potential vorticity on isentropic surfaces. Composite analyses based on hundreds of RWB cases show that anticyclonic (cyclonic) RWB is associated with a warm, moist (cool, dry) column that extends down to a surface anticyclonic (cyclonic) circulation, and that the moisture and temperature advection associated with the surface circulation patterns force turbulent heat flux anomalies that project onto the spatial pattern of the PDO. The RWB patterns that are relevant to the PDO are closely tied to El Nino–Southern Oscillation, the Pacific–North American pattern, and the northern annular mode. These results explain the free troposphere-to-surface segment of the atmospheric bridge concept wherein El Nino anomalies eme.
SC35 autoregulates its expression by promoting splicing events that destabilize its mRNAs

SC35 belongs to the family of SR proteins that regulate alternative splicing in a concentration‐dependent manner in vitro and in vivo. We previously reported that SC35 is expressed through alternatively spliced mRNAs with differing 3′ untranslated sequences and stabilities. Here, we show that overexpression of SC35 in HeLa cells results in a significant decrease of endogenous SC35 mRNA levels along with changes in the relative abundance of SC35 alternatively spliced mRNAs. Remarkably, SC35 leads to both an exon inclusion and an intron excision in the 3′ untranslated region of its mRNAs. In vitro splicing experiments performed with recombinant SR proteins demonstrate that SC35, but not ASF/SF2 or 9G8, specifically activates these alternative splicing events. Interestingly, the resulting mRNA is very unstable and we present evidence that mRNA surveillance is likely to be involved in this instability. SC35 therefore constitutes the first example of a splicing factor that controls its own expression through activation of splicing events leading to expression of unstable mRNA.
Chromatin binding of Gcn 5 in Drosophila is largely mediated by CP 190

Centrosomal 190 kDa protein (CP190) is a promoter binding factor, mediates long-range interactions in the context of enhancer-promoter contacts and in chromosomal domain formation. All Drosophila insulator proteins bind CP190 suggesting a crucial role in insulator function. CP190 has major effects on chromatin, such as depletion of nucleosomes, high nucleosomal turnover and prevention of heterochromatin expansion. Here, we searched for enzymes, which might be involved in CP190 mediated chromatin changes. Eighty percent of the genomic binding sites of the histone acetyltransferase Gcn5 are colocalizing with CP190 binding. Depletion of CP190 reduces Gcn5 binding to chromatin. Binding dependency was further supported by Gcn5 mediated co-precipitation of CP190. Gcn5 is known to activate transcription by histone acetylation. We used the dCas9 system to target CP190 or Gcn5 to a Polycomb repressed and H3K27me3 marked gene locus. Both, CP190 as well as Gcn5, activate this locus, thus supporting the model that CP190 recruits Gcn5 and thereby activates chromatin.
The Role of the Nucleolus in the Transfer of RNA from Nucleus to Cytoplasm

The role of the nucleolus in the transfer of RNA from nucleus to cytoplasm was examined by means of experiments in which inactivation of the whole nucleus, or of the nucleolus, was achieved by a microbeam of ultraviolet light. In heterokaryons in which a chick erythrocyte nucleus had been reactivated, no detectable amount of RNA was transferred from the reactivated nucleus to the cytoplasm of the cell until this nucleus has developed a nucleolus. In HeLa cells, inactivation of the nucleolus alone inhibited the transfer to the cytoplasm, not only of the RNA synthesized at the nucleolar site, but also of the RNA made elsewhere in the nucleus. It thus appears that the nucleolus governs the transport not only of its own RNA, but also of the RNA which is made on other parts of the chromosomes.