Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Factors that influence the DNA repair capacity of normal and skin cancer-affected individuals.

DNA repair capacity (DRC) was studied in 49 patients affected by basal cell carcinoma (BCC) and 68 cancer-free controls belonging to a larger case-control population enrolled for studying BCC risk factors. DRC was measured in the subjects' peripheral blood lymphocytes by using a host-cell reactivation assay that measures cellular activation of a reporter gene irradiated with UV light. A statistically significant age-related decline in DRC was observed in the controls from 20 to 70 years of age but not in the BCC cases. When the DRC values of the BCC patients and controls were compared by age, young BCC cases (age, < or =40 year) repaired less than the controls, although the difference was not statistically significant. Conversely, older BCC patients (age, >40 years) presented an enhanced repair capacity (P < 0.001) as compared with their controls. The search for possible factors associated with the high repair rate of elderly BCC cases revealed that both target cell physiology and life-style habits may affect host DNA repair. Smoking was the variable that explained most of the increase in DRC among older patients. The understanding of how these factors affect host DRC will be relevant for a correct use of this biomarker.
Effect of ethanol concentration, extraction time and extraction temperature on the recovery of phenolic compounds and antioxidant capacity of Orthosiphon stamineus extracts

Optimization of phenolic extraction from Orthosiphon stamineus was carried out in present study by investigating the effects of ethanol concentration (0-100%, v/v), extraction time (60-300 min) and extraction temperature (25-65oC) on the phenolic recovery using single factor experiment. Total phenolic content (TPC), total flavonoid content (TFC) and condensed tannins content (CTC) were used for determination of phenolic compounds while 2,2’-azino-bis(3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulphonic acid) (ABTS) radical-scavenging capacity and 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical-scavenging capacity were used for evaluating the antioxidant capacities of crude extract. Experimental results showed that all extraction parameters had significant (p<0.05) effect on phenolic contents (TPC, TFC and ABTS) and antioxidant capacities (ABTS and DPPH) of crude extract. The optimized conditions for phenolic extraction were 40% ethanol for 120 min at 65oC with values of 2003.4 mg GAE/100 g DW for TPC, 1611.9 mg CE/100 g DW for TFC, 202.4 mg CE/100 g DW for CTC, 765.4 μmol TEAC/100 g DW for ABTS and 2180.9 μmol TEAC/100 g DW for DPPH. DPPH was found to be positively significantly correlated with TPC but negatively significantly correlated with CTC under the influence of ethanol concentration. As a function of extraction temperature, all antioxidant compounds assays (TPC, TFC and CTC) were negatively correlated with antioxidant capacities (ABTS and DPPH).
Septic arthritis in childhood

Abstract Background: The purpose of the present study was to determine whether there was a difference between septic arthritis (SA) combined with osteomyelitis and SA alone with regard to clinical and laboratory findings, such as symptoms on admission, age, sex, joint involvement and isolated micro‐organisms, and a relationship between age and joint involvement in SA. In addition, we also aimed to determine the prognostic factors in SA.
Characteristics and Caries Experience of Tetracycline-Affected Dentitions

A study of the caries experience of children with tetracycline-affected, but not hypoplastic, dentitions showed significantly lower DMF surface scores for the complete dentition, deciduous molars, and first permanent molars in comparison with paired control dentitions. Tetracycline and fluoride appeared to have an additive effect in lowering caries experience.
Group consensus of multiple integrator agents under general topology

The group consensus algorithm for multiple integrator agents with the presence of negative couplings among different clusters is considered in this note which aims mainly to address the general concern that whether the group consensus can be reached from any initial states if the underlying topology of each cluster (subgroup) has a directed spanning tree and the couplings within each cluster, compared to those among different clusters, are sufficiently strong. In addition to the group convergence analysis, both the lower bounds for such strengths and the the group convergence rate can be explicitly specified as well. Moreover, this note also analyzes the factors that decide the final consensus value of each cluster.
Effect of the efflux inhibitors 1-(1-naphthylmethyl)-piperazine and phenyl-arginine-beta-naphthylamide on antimicrobial susceptibility and virulence factor production in Vibrio cholerae.

OBJECTIVES The aim of the study was to test the hypothesis that the efflux pump inhibitors (EPIs) 1-(1-naphthylmethyl)-piperazine (NMP) and phenyl-arginine-beta-naphthylamide (PAbetaN) can inhibit the Vibrio cholerae resistance-nodulation-division (RND) family efflux systems, and thereby render V. cholerae susceptible to antimicrobial agents and inhibit the production of the virulence factors cholera toxin (CT) and the toxin coregulated pilus (TCP). METHODS The susceptibility of V. cholerae to antimicrobial compounds was determined in the presence or absence of NMP and PAbetaN. Transcriptional reporters were used to assess the effects of NMP and PAbetaN on the expression of the genes encoding the virulence factor regulators TcpP and ToxT, whereas CT and TCP production were determined by ELISA using GM1 ganglioside-coated microtitre plates and TcpA Western immunoblotting, respectively. RESULTS NMP and PAbetaN potentiated antimicrobial compounds that were substrates for the V. cholerae RND efflux systems. PAbetaN exhibited complete inhibition of the RND efflux systems for Triton X-100 and deoxycholate, but partial inhibition of the efflux systems for cholate and erythromycin. NMP exhibited partial inhibition for all compounds tested except for SDS. The presence of NMP reduced the MIC of SDS to a level that was lower than that observed in an RND efflux-deficient strain, whereas the SDS MIC was unaffected by the presence of PAbetaN. Neither EPI potentiated polymyxin B, penicillin, ampicillin or chloramphenicol. Both NMP and PAbetaN inhibited the production of CT and the TCP and appeared to have additional virulence gene repressing activity independent of RND efflux inhibition. CONCLUSIONS RND efflux inhibitors represent potential novel therapeutics for the treatment of cholera.
A rare case of ossifying granular cell (Abrikossoff) tumour.

Sir, Granular cell tumours first described by Abrikossoff (1), are uncommon and usually present as small non-tender solitary nodules. We report here for the first time a case of a granular cell tumour with marked osseous metaplasia on the back of a 68-year-old man. The lesion showed typical features of a granular cell tumour, with the unusual feature of prominent bone formation under microscopic examination. To our knowledge, ossification has not previously been reported in a granular cell tumour.
A longitudinal study of feline immunodeficiency virus-specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes in experimentally infected cats, using antigen-specific induction

The evolution of the virus-specific cytotoxic T-lymphocyte response in two cats experimentally infected with feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) was monitored. Effector cells were derived from peripheral blood lymphocytes during the acute and chronic phases of infection (0 to 21 and 62 to 127 weeks, respectively) and from the spleen and lymph nodes at 127 weeks after infection. Lymphocytes were restimulated in vitro with paraformaldehyde-fixed, autologous lymphoblasts which had been infected with recombinant vaccinia viruses expressing FIV GAG or ENV proteins. Unstimulated lymphocytes were also used as effectors in some assays. 51Cr-labelled autologous skin fibroblasts infected with recombinant vaccinia viruses were used as targets. FIV GAG-specific cytotoxic precursors were detected in restimulated circulating lymphocytes during acute infection in both cats. The onset of this activity was as early as 2 weeks postinfection (p.i.) in one cat. From 62 weeks p.i. neither FIV GAG- nor ENV-specific precursors could be detected in the peripheral blood. However, at 127 weeks p.i. , GAG- and ENV-specific cytotoxic precursors were detected in lymphocytes isolated from lymph nodes. The FIV-specific cytotoxic cells were predominantly major histocompatibility complex class I restricted. No cytotoxic activity was detected from unstimulated lymphocytes. These studies demonstrate the use of an assay system for dissecting the FIV-specific cytotoxic cell response and show that precursor cells appear in the circulation very early after infection and prior to a detectable antibody response. Our results also suggest that the persistent high-level circulating antiviral cytotoxic T-lymphocyte responses seen in human immunodeficiency virus-infected humans may not be a feature of FIV infections in cats.
Applying HCI principles to AR systems design

To date most Augmented Reality (AR) design guidelines that can be found in the literature are rather narrow suggestions derived from specific problems by researchers. Applying general HCI principles to AR systems has only been partially explored. In this paper we investigate how such general guidelines may relate to the emerging domain of AR application design. CR
The amino terminus of Tax is required for interaction with the cyclic AMP response element binding protein

Tax of human T-cell leukemia virus type 1 was analyzed for interaction with the cyclic AMP response element binding protein (CREB) in vitro with and without Tax response element DNA. Mutations in the carboxy terminus of Tax (L296G and L320G) did not affect binding to CREB and led to supershifts. In contrast, mutants with changes in the amino-terminal cysteine-rich region lost the ability to bind to CREB. The S10A mutant protein bound moderately. Thus, the amino terminus of Tax is essential for Tax-CREB interaction.
Unsupervised Object Modeling and Segmentation with Symmetry Detection for Human Activity Recognition

In this paper we present a novel unsupervised approach to detecting and segmenting objects as well as their constituent symmetric parts in an image. Traditional unsupervised image segmentation is limited by two obvious deficiencies: the object detection accuracy degrades with the misaligned boundaries between the segmented regions and the target, and pre-learned models are required to group regions into meaningful objects. To tackle these difficulties, the proposed approach aims at incorporating the pair-wise detection of symmetric patches to achieve the goal of segmenting images into symmetric parts. The skeletons of these symmetric parts then provide estimates of the bounding boxes to locate the target objects. Finally, for each detected object, the graphcut-based segmentation algorithm is applied to find its contour. The proposed approach has significant advantages: no a priori object models are used, and multiple objects are detected. To verify the effectiveness of the approach based on the cues that a face part contains an oval shape and skin colors, human objects are extracted from among the detected objects. The detected human objects and their parts are finally tracked across video frames to capture the object part movements for learning the human activity models from video clips. Experimental results show that the proposed method gives good performance on publicly available datasets.
Disorder-Speci fi c White Matter Alterations in Adolescent Borderline Personality Disorder

Background: The pathogenesis of borderline personality disorder (BPD) is complex and not fully understood. Using diffusion tensor imaging, recent studies suggest that white matter abnormalities may occur in adult patients with BPD. However, deeper insight into the disorder-specific developmental psychobiology (e.g., analysis of adolescents with BPD; inclusion of clinical control groups) is missing.
Pineal‐specific expression of green fluorescent protein under the control of the serotonin‐N‐acetyltransferase gene regulatory regions in transgenic zebrafish

Zebrafish serotonin‐N‐acetyltransferase‐2 (zfAANAT‐2) mRNA is exclusively expressed in the pineal gland (epiphysis) at the embryonic stage. Here, we have initiated an effort to study the mechanisms underlying tissue‐specific expression of this gene. DNA constructs were prepared in which green fluorescent protein (GFP) is driven by regulatory regions of the zfAANAT‐2 gene. In vivo transient expression analysis in zebrafish embryos indicated that in addition to the 5′‐flanking region, a regulatory sequence in the 3′‐flanking region is required for pineal‐specific expression. This finding led to an effort to produce transgenic lines expressing GFP under the control of the 5′ and 3′ regulatory regions of the zfAANAT‐2 gene. Embryos transiently expressing GFP were raised to maturity and tested for germ cell transmission of the transgene. Three transgenic lines were produced in which GFP fluorescence in the pineal was detected starting 1 to 2 days after fertilization. One line was crossed with mindbomb and floating head mutants that cause abnormal development of the pineal and an elevation or reduction of zfAANAT‐2 mRNA levels, respectively. Homozygous mutant transgenic embryos exhibited similar effects on GFP expression in the pineal gland. These observations indicate that the transgenic lines described here will be useful in studying the development of the pineal gland and the mechanisms that determine pineal‐specific gene expression in the zebrafish. Published 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Risk assessment of knowledge management system

This paper considers the risk assessment in the field of knowledge management. Since knowledge management systems can be observed at the stage of implementation and use, the risks also differ. An overview of the factors critical to the success of a knowledge management system is presented, as well as one method of risk assessment including its possible application to a knowledge management system. It is pointed out that the identification of risk factors is highly significant, together with the evaluation of their impact on knowledge management system. The presented method provides for the quantifying of risk and allows corrections and comparison of the results.
The Reliability and Validity of Interview Data Obtained from 59 Narcotic Drug Addicts

The question of the reliability and validity of interview data obtained from various deviant populations has been an issue of recurrent interest in the social sciences. Two contrary positions have been advanced: (a) Deviant groups, and especially those engaged in illegal behavior, are motivated to-and do-conceal or deny their proscribed behavior,' and (b) deviant subjects will, under appropriate research procedures, report their deviant actions.2 The present report is restricted to an analysis of interview data obtained from a single deviant population, narcotic drug addicts. The sample consists of fifty-nine Puerto Rican addicts who were formerly incarcerated at the U.S. Public Health Service Hospital at Lexington, Kentucky. This sample was drawn from a larger study population of the 242 patients admitted to the hospital from Puerto Rico between 1935 and 1962. Although considerable field, clinical, and institutional data were available with respect to the 242 follow-up subjects, the 59 addicts consisted of all those in,terviewed who had also been federal prisoners at the Lexington or Fort Worth hospitals. The remaining 183 subjects had either been voluntary patients at the hospital (N = 98) on whom FBI records could not be obtained or they were not interviewed (N = 85). One purpose of the follow-up study was to ascertain the posthospital history of the former addict, including whether or not he had relapsed to drug use. The procedure employed in ascertaining the relability and validity of the interview data consisted of a comparison of interview items with: (a) clinical and administrative records of the hospital, (b) FBI arrest records, and (c) urine samples obtained from the patient. A brief description of each of these sources of information is pertinent. The interview schedule consisted of six pages of questions pertaining to the addiction, employment, and criminal history of the former patient. Most of these interviews were obtained in Puerto Rico by an experienced interviewer ; 3in the case that the addict returned to the Lexington hospital after 1962, he was interviewed upon re-admission. The clinical and administrative records of the Lexington hospital contain quite voluminous, but often noncomparable, information. Commonly included in these patients' records were the following: the physician's examination, including drug diagnosis; psychiatric diagnosis; criminal history and pre-sentence report; family and employment data; and treatment progress while hospitalized. The FBI record enumerates arrests re' Howard Becker, Outsiders (New York: Free Press, 1963), pp. 168-70; William Butler Eldridge, Narcotics and the Law (New York: American Bar Association, 1962), p. 26.
An indicator gene for detection of germline retrotransposition in transgenic Drosophila demonstrates RNA‐mediated transposition of the LINE I element.

We have marked a cloned Drosophila transposable element‐‐the I element‐‐with an engineered neomycin‐containing indicator gene, whose expression is conditioned by passage of the transposon through an RNA intermediate. Mobility of the marked element introduced into Drosophila as a transgene could be detected in vivo, upon in toto selection of developing embryos on G418‐containing medium. For resistant individuals, Southern blot analysis and nucleotide sequencing after PCR amplification disclosed transposition of the marked element into new loci, with target site duplications and splicing out of the intron in the indicator gene. It demonstrates that the I element, which is closely related to the widespread mammalian LINEs, transposes through an RNA intermediate, as up to now only conjectured from sequence singularities of this class of ‘non‐viral retrotransposons’. The developed indicator gene provides a potent new genetic tool for detection and quantitative analysis of retrotransposon mobility and its regulation as it occurs in vivo.
Mixing across the Arctic Ocean: Microstructure observations during the Beringia 2005 Expedition

Turbulent‐scale temperature and conductivity were measured during the pan‐arctic Beringia 2005 Expedition. The rates of dissipation of thermal variance and diapycnal diffusivities are calculated along a section from Alaska to the North Pole, across deep flat basins (Canada and Makarov Basins) and steep ridges (Alpha‐Mendeleev and Lomonosov Ridges). The mixing rates are observed to be small relative to lower latitudes but also remarkably non‐uniform. Relatively elevated turbulence is found over deep topography, confirming the dominant role of bottom‐generated internal waves. Measured patterns of mixing in the Arctic are also associated with other mechanisms, such as double‐diffusive structures and deep overflows. A better knowledge of the distribution of mixing is essential to understand the dynamics of the changing Arctic environment.
Quitting Patterns and Predictors of Success Among Participants in a Tobacco Cessation Program Provided by Pharmacists in New Mexico

BACKGROUND: Tobacco use causes hundreds of thousands of deaths in the United States each year. Pharmacists are available in the community to provide tobacco cessation interventions. Between 2004 and 2010, the New Mexico Pharmaceutical Care Foundation (NMPCF) provided a pharmacist-led tobacco cessation program to residents in New Mexico. OBJECTIVES: To (a) obtain point prevalence quit rates at 1 month, 3 months, and 6 months follow-up for participants enrolled in the NMPCF program; (b) differentiate between the quitting patterns of enrolled participants; and (c) identify predictors associated with the quitting patterns. METHODS: Seven-year data were combined for the pattern analysis. Four quitting patterns were defined, including immediate quitters, delayed quitters, once quitters, and never quitters. Multinomial logistic regression was used to identify characteristics of participants with different quitting patterns. RESULTS: The analysis included 1,437 participants. The average point prevalence quit rate at 1 month, 3 months, and 6 months was 29.3%, 23.3%, and 18.0%, respectively. Based on our definition for quitting patterns, the study sample consisted of 145 (10.1%) immediate quitters, 113 (7.9%) delayed quitters, 298 (20.7%) once quitters, and 881 (61.3%) never quitters. Multinomial logistic regression identified associations between quitting patterns and demographics, tobacco use and restrictions, baseline confidence in successful quitting, and pharmacotherapy aids used to quit. Relationships varied between quitting patterns. CONCLUSIONS: The study findings showed that having community pharmacists provide smoking cessation interventions resulted in quitting success rates similar to other health care professionals, which ranged from 9.9% to 26.0%. Since pharmacists are a widely available resource for their patients, managed care organizations may be able to improve the health, and avoid subsequent tobacco-related adverse health outcomes, of their members by implementing a program similar to the NMPCF Tobacco Cessation Program.
Cooperative Spectrum Sensing Scheme over Imperfect Feedback Channels

A practical cooperative spectrum sensing scheme suitable for wireless cognitive radio with imperfect feedback channels is proposed. In the proposed scheme, binary local decision bits are transmitted over feedback channels and combined to form a soft-valued decision statistics by a "majority-decision-aided" weighting rule in the fusion center. The proposed scheme provides high sensing reliability with avoiding overhead problems caused by imperfect feedback channels such as bandwidth expansion and instantaneous channel estimation.
KEPLER-10 c: A 2.2 EARTH RADIUS TRANSITING PLANET IN A MULTIPLE SYSTEM

The Kepler mission has recently announced the discovery of Kepler-10 b, the smallest exoplanet discovered to date and the first rocky planet found by the spacecraft. A second, 45 day period transit-like signal present in the photometry from the first eight months of data could not be confirmed as being caused by a planet at the time of that announcement. Here we apply the light curve modeling technique known as BLENDER to explore the possibility that the signal might be due to an astrophysical false positive (blend). To aid in this analysis we report the observation of two transits with the Spitzer Space Telescope at 4.5 μm. When combined, they yield a transit depth of 344 ± 85 ppm that is consistent with the depth in the Kepler passband (376 ± 9 ppm, ignoring limb darkening), which rules out blends with an eclipsing binary of a significantly different color than the target. Using these observations along with other constraints from high-resolution imaging and spectroscopy, we are able to exclude the vast majority of possible false positives. We assess the likelihood of the remaining blends, and arrive conservatively at a false alarm rate of 1.6 × 10−5 that is small enough to validate the candidate as a planet (designated Kepler-10 c) with a very high level of confidence. The radius of this object is measured to be Rp = 2.227+0.052−0.057 R⊕ (in which the error includes the uncertainty in the stellar properties), but currently available radial-velocity measurements only place an upper limit on its mass of about 20 M⊕. Kepler-10 c represents another example (with Kepler-9 d and Kepler-11 g) of statistical “validation” of a transiting exoplanet, as opposed to the usual “confirmation” that can take place when the Doppler signal is detected or transit timing variations are measured. It is anticipated that many of Kepler's smaller candidates will receive a similar treatment since dynamical confirmation may be difficult or impractical with the sensitivity of current instrumentation.