Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Lung cancer stigma predicts timing of medical help-seeking behavior.

PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES To examine relationships among demographic variables, healthcare system distrust, lung cancer stigma, smoking status, and timing of medical help-seeking behavior in individuals with symptoms suggestive of lung cancer after controlling for ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and social desirability. DESIGN Descriptive, cross-sectional, correlational study. SETTING Outpatient oncology clinics in Louisville, KY. SAMPLE 94 patients diagnosed in the past three weeks to six years with all stages of lung cancer. METHODS Self-report, written survey packets were administered in person followed by a semistructured interview to assess symptoms and timing characteristics of practice-identified patients with lung cancer. MAIN RESEARCH VARIABLES Timing of medical help-seeking behavior, healthcare system distrust, lung cancer stigma, and smoking status. FINDINGS Lung cancer stigma was independently associated with timing of medical help-seeking behavior in patients with lung cancer. Healthcare system distrust and smoking status were not independently associated with timing of medical help-seeking behavior. CONCLUSIONS FINDINGS suggest that stigma influences medical help-seeking behavior for lung cancer symptoms, serving as a barrier to prompt medical help-seeking behavior. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING When designing interventions to promote early medical help-seeking behavior in individuals with symptoms suggestive of lung cancer, methods that consider lung cancer stigma as a barrier that can be addressed through public awareness and patient-targeted interventions should be included.
Scoring system to identify patients at high risk of oesophageal cancer

Identification of a patient cohort at high risk of developing oesophageal cancer might enable a greater proportion of patients with curable disease stages to be identified and permit better use of investigative resources. The aim of this study was to develop a scoring system that identifies patients with dysphagia at greatest risk of having oesophageal cancer.
Safety and efficacy of intravitreal injection of ranibizumab in combination with verteporfin PDT on experimental choroidal neovascularization in the monkey.

OBJECTIVE To study the safety and efficacy of intravitreal injections of anti-vascular endothelial growth factor antibody fragment (ranibizumab [formerly known as rhuFabV2], Lucentis; Genentech, South San Francisco, Calif) in combination with intravenous verteporfin (Visudyne; Novartis, East Hanover, NJ) photodynamic therapy (PDT) on experimental choroidal neovascularization in the monkey eye. METHODS Choroidal neovascularization was induced by laser injury in both eyes of cynomolgus monkeys and followed with weekly fundus photography and fluorescein angiography. Two weeks after induction, weekly treatments were initiated. These treatments included using either an intravitreal injection of ranibizumab (previously known as rhuFabV2) in combination with verteporfin PDT or a ranibizumab vehicle (placebo) in combination with verteporfin PDT (PDT only). Six animals (group 1) initially received intravitreal injections followed 1 week later by PDT. Four animals (group 2) initially received PDT followed 1 week later by intravitreal injection. Two animals (group 3) received injections and PDT on the same day at 2-week intervals. Photodynamic therapy was applied in all 3 groups every 2 weeks for 3 treatments with follow-up through 2 weeks after the last PDT treatment. Fluorescein angiograms were graded using a masked standardized protocol. The data were analyzed using the McNemar chi(2) test for matched pairs. RESULTS No choroidal neovascularization leakage was observed in the eyes of animals treated with ranibizumab and PDT at day 21 or 42 after the start of the first treatment. Leakage persisted in eyes treated with PDT alone at 21 days (3 of 12 eyes) and 42 days (2 of 12 eyes). At all time points studied, the ranibizumab and PDT-treated eyes experienced better angiographic outcomes than the eyes receiving PDT alone. CONCLUSION These preliminary data indicate that an intravitreal ranibizumab injection in combination with verteporfin PDT (ranibizumab and PDT) causes a greater reduction in angiographic leakage than PDT and intravitreal vehicle injection (PDT only) in experimental choroidal neovascularization. CLINICAL RELEVANCE This combination therapy can potentially offer a new treatment modality for choroidal neovascularization in patients with macular degeneration and other diseases.
$rm Nb_3rm Al$Wire Development for Future Accelerator Magnets

Recent developments in RHQ Nb3Al wire for accelerator magnets are presented and discussed. The main items of the development are to increase the critical current density (Jc) and to find a good stabilization method. For the former item, test wires with different Nb-matrix/filament ratios were made, and the effect of the ratio on Jc was investigated in correlation with the heat treatment and the area reduction after the RHQ process. For the latter item, a special copper electroplating technique was developed to deposit a thick Cu layer on the surface of the wire. The mechanical bonding strength and the electrical characteristics of the Cu layer were studied by bending and drawing the wire, and by measuring the resistance. Although the present piece length of the Cu stabilized Nb3Al wire is about 40 cm, we can draw and reduce the wire down to 60% of the original diameter, without breaking the wire or damaging the bonding of the Cu stabilizer. The highest noncopper Jc achieved during this study was 2156 A/mm2 at 10T and 4.2 K
Novel Techniques in Tapered Slot Antenna for Linearity Phase Center and Gain Enhancement

In ultrawideband communications, various parameters are important such as high gain, bandwidth, linear phase center, and endfire pattern. In this letter, endfire tapered slot Vivaldi has been noticed because of its high gain and wide bandwidth, however achieving linear phase center was a big problem. Although the phase of the antenna changes near the aperture area in horn antennas, we have suggested a novel technique using composite aperture structure to make a linear phase center. Therefore, in our proposed structure, we separated a part of a double exponentially tapered slot antenna from its dielectric with an angle of 8° upwards in the y -axis. In this case, we accomplish increasing the antenna gain and solve the phase center problem. The prototype antenna with added aperture in order to operate in a wide bandwidth shows good performance in 6–18 GHz with VSWR less than 2, and the proposed antenna achieves higher gain, more than 2–4 dBi, in comparison with conventional tapered slot antennas. The antenna is fabricated on Rogers-4003, and experimental results confirm the simulations.
A Diet-Induced Developmental Polymorphism in a Caterpillar

Caterpillars of the spring brood of Nemoria arizonaria develop into mimics of the oak catkins upon which they feed. Caterpillars from the summer brood emerge after the catkins have fallen and they develop instead into mimics of oak twigs. This developmental polymorphism may be triggered by the concentration of defensive secondary compounds in the larval diet: all caterpillars raised on catkins, which are low in tannin, developed into catkin morphs; those raised on leaves, which are high in tannin, developed into twig morphs; most raised on artificial diets of catkins with elevated tannin concentrations developed into twig morphs.
Lung cancer detection with digital chest tomosynthesis: first round results from the SOS observational study.

OBJECTIVE Baseline results of the Studio OSservazionale (SOS), observational study, a single-arm observational study of digital chest tomosynthesis for lung cancer detection in an at-risk population demonstrated a detection rate of lung cancer comparable to that of studies that used low dose CT scan (LDCT). We present the results of the first round. METHODS Totally 1,703 out of 1,843 (92%) subjects who had a baseline digital chest tomosynthesis underwent a first round reevaluation after 1 year. RESULTS At first round chest digital tomosynthesis, 13 (0.7%) subjects had an indeterminate nodule larger than 5 mm and underwent low-dose CT scan for nodule confirmation. PET/CT study was obtained in 10 (0.5%) subjects and 2 subjects had a low-dose CT follow up. Surgery, either video-assisted thoracoscopic or open surgery for indeterminate pulmonary nodules was performed in 10 (0.2%) subjects. A lung cancer was diagnosed and resected in five patients. The lung cancer detection rate at first round was 0.3% (5/1,703). CONCLUSIONS The detection rate of lung cancer at first round for tomosynthesis is comparable to rates reported for CT. In addition, results of first round digital chest tomosynthesis confirm chest tomosynthesis as a possible first-line lung cancer-screening tool.
The effects of rhGM‐CSF on the neutrophil respiratory burst when studied in whole blood

A simple semiquantitative cytofluorometric method has been developed for measuring neutrophil respiratory burst activity in whole blood samples. This technique avoids the introduction of laboratory artefacts which modulate neutrophil function. In addition, flow cytometric analysis allows the response to be studied in individual cells. We show here that neutrophils examined freshly ex vivo, exhibit only weak respiratory burst activity in response to stimulation with the chemotactic peptide FMLP (10−6m). Prior incubation with rhGM‐CSF results in an increase in the number of responding cells from 13.5±2.36% (mean ±SEM) to 46.7±6.3% (P<0.0001) with an increase in total respiratory burst activity of 567% (P=0.001). The majority of neutrophils in whole blood (67.1±8.1%) exhibit respiratory burst activity in response to stimulation with phorbol ester (1 μg/ml of TPA), and this response is also significantly primed by rhGM‐CSF (P=0.004). The enhancement of respiratory burst activity induced by rhGM‐CSF is due to both recruitment of previously unresponsive neutrophils, and to intensification of the response of the responding cells.
Modeling the Mental Lexicon as a Complex System: Some Preliminary Results Using Graph Theoretic Measures 1

The mental lexicon used for spoken word recognition was modeled as a complex system using tools of graph theory. Words were represented as nodes in the model, and an edge was placed between two nodes if the corresponding words could be changed into one another via a single phoneme deletion, addition, or substitution. The resulting graph had a small-world, scale-free structure. However, the scale-free property reflected the fact that words have different lengths and are created from a relatively small set of phonemes, rather than reflecting the way the network evolves over time. Various network properties of words were also found to be correlated with listeners’ performance in an open-set word identification task and in a word repetition task. Those properties included the number of lexical neighbors of a word at different network distances from that word, the mean shortest distance from a word to all other words within the mental lexicon, and a word’s clustering coefficient, a measure of the probability that a word’s neighbors are also neighbors of one another. The results suggest that including these new measures did not significantly improve the ability to predict the accuracy with which a word can be recognized in various levels of noise using only the word’s neighborhood size. In contrast, repetition latencies tended to be longer for words with higher clustering coefficients. Furthermore, this effect did not appear to be modulated by the word’s neighborhood size. Possible reasons for the effects of this non-local, global variable are discussed.
Reduced level of serum thiols in patients with a diagnosis of active disease.

Oxidative stress, or the production of oxygen-centered free radicals, has been hypothesized as the major source of DNA damage that in turn can lead to altered genetic expression, disease, and aging of humans. Serum protein thiol levels in blood are a direct measure of the in vivo reduction/oxidation (redox) status in humans, because thiols react readily with oxygen-containing free radicals to form disulfides. Moreover, serum thiols also reflect DNA repair capacity and the possible eventual accumulation of genetic damage, since a key DNA repair enzyme, poly ADP-ribose polymerase (PARP), is thiol/disulfide redox regulated. This study tests the hypothesis that serum protein thiols can be used to estimate individual aging status by comparing the levels of apparently healthy subjects (n = 90) to those of individuals (n = 306) with an active disease diagnosis. Nine categories of human disorders all showed highly significant reductions in serum protein thiols from 46 to 91 nM cysteine/200 microL serum (mean +/- S.D. = 59 +/- 40) compared to a control mean of 128 +/- 39 nM cysteine/200 microL serum (p <.001). These data strongly confirm an important role of oxidative stress in human disease development, and identify serum thiol status as a potential biochemical endpoint useful in the assessment of aging.
The Evaluation of Eastern European accents of English in the Netherlands

There has been an ample amount of studies conducted on attitudes towards different varieties of English by native speakers of the English language. However, little has been done on how different foreign accents are perceived by non-native speakers of English. The main aim of this study was to investigate whether the Western European accented speech is perceived better than the Eastern European one by non-native English speakers in a non-English-speaking country. The research was conducted using the matched-guise technique (Lambert, 1967) in the Netherlands. 94 subjects participated in the study. All were asked to fill in a survey constructed in accordance with a Likert Scale. The findings revealed that although it could not be generalised that the Eastern European accents are perceived less positive than the Western European ones, it could be generalised that speaking without a foreign accent at all is perceived more favourably in terms of intelligence, education, and social class. Moreover, speaking with a Standard American or British accent increases your chances on the job market. Whereas that could be justified in the native English-speaking environment, it is interesting to acknowledge that much the same attitudes hold in non-English-speaking European countries.
Pre-event stereotypes and misinformation effects in young children

This study examined the effects of pre-event stereotypes on 5-year-old children's memories for the visit of an adult male to their school. Children were read three stories in which this man was described in positive, negative, or neutral terms. Following the visit, children were read post-event narratives which contained positive and negative misinformation that was consistent and inconsistent with the pre-event stereotype. Children were then given a recognition test under inclusion and exclusion instructions. Negative misinformation was correctly rejected more often than positive misinformation. Children given a positive pre-event stereotype were more likely to accept positive misinformation than those in the other stereotype conditions. Process dissociation analyses revealed that recollection for negative misinformation was larger than for positive misinformation; the opposite was the case for familiarity.
Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Studies of Muscle and Applications to Exercise and Diabetes

Natural-abundance 13C nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy is a noninvasive technique that enables in vivo assessments of muscle and/or liver glycogen concentrations. When directly compared with the traditional needle biopsy technique, NMR was found to be more precise. Over the last several years, we have developed and used 13C-NMR to obtain information about human glycogen metabolism both under conditions of altered blood glucose and/or insulin and with exercise. Because NMR is noninvasive, we have been able to obtain more data points over a specified time course, thereby dramatically improving the time resolution. This improved time resolution has enabled us to document subtleties of the resynthesis of muscle glycogen after severe exercise that have not been observed previously. An added advantage of NMR is that we are able to obtain information simultaneously about other nuclei, such as 31P. With interleaved 13C- and 31P-NMR techniques, we have been able to follow simultaneous changes in muscle glucose-6-phosphate and muscle glycogen. In this article, we review some of the work that has been reported by our laboratory and discuss the relevance of our findings for the management of diabetes.
CSF‐1 stimulated multiubiquitination of the CSF‐1 receptor and of Cbl follows their tyrosine phosphorylation and association with other signaling proteins

Addition of colony stimulating factor‐1 (CSF‐1) to macrophages stimulates the rapid, transient tyrosine phosphorylation, membrane association and multiubiquitination of Cbl (Wang et al. [1996] J. Biol. Chem. 271:17–20). Kinetic analysis reveals that the tyrosine phosphorylation of Cbl is coincident with its plasma membrane translocation and association with the activated tyrosine phosphorylated CSF‐1R, p85, Grb2, and tyrosine phosphorylated p58Shc and that these events precede the simultaneous multiubiquitination of Cbl and the CSF‐1R. Tyrosine phosphorylation and multiubiquitination of the cell surface CSF‐1R are stoichiometric and the multiubiquitinated CSF‐1R is degraded. Similarly, the membrane associated Cbl is almost stoichiometrically ubiquitinated, but the ubiquitinated Cbl is not degraded, being recovered, deubiquitinated, in the cytosol 3–10 min after stimulation at 37°C. In the membrane fraction of cells stimulated at 4°C, the association of p58Shc and Grb2 with Cbl is stable, whereas its association with Sos and p85 is transient and their dissociation occurs at the time CSF‐1R and Cbl multiubiquitination commence. The membrane translocation and the pattern of association of Sos with the CSF‐1R, p85, Grb2, and p58Shc resemble those of Cbl but Sos is not tyrosine phosphorylated, nor multiubiquitinated and the coprecipitation of these proteins, other than Grb2, with Sos is much less. Complexes formed by Sos and Cbl are largely independent and membrane complexes of Cbl with other tyrosine phosphorylated proteins, p85 and Grb2 also contain CSF‐1R. These data raise the possibility that the predicted negative regulatory role of Cbl in macrophages is its enhancement of ligand‐induced CSF‐1R internalization/degradation. J. Cell. Biochem. 72:119–134, 1999. © 1999 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Instructional Technology Practices in Developmental Education in Texas

The purpose of this study was to examine the current state of technology integration in developmental education in Texas higher education. Analyzing survey data from developmental education faculty members in 70 2- and 4-year colleges in Texas, researchers identified instructor-reported best instructional technology practices in developmental education and barriers impeding technology integration into developmental education instruction. Based on the findings, practical implications were drawn to supplement instructional and learning practices in developmental education courses.
Establishment of major histocompatibility complex homozygous gnotobiotic miniature swine colony for xenotransplantation.

To overcome shortages of human donor organs for organ failure patients, we made a commitment to develop gnotobiotic miniature swine as an alternative organ donor source for xenotransplantation. For this, we have constructed an absolute barrier-sustained gnotobiotic facility. Pregnant sows of gnotobiotic miniature swine, were procured and germfree piglets were obtained by hysterectomy. These were maintained in germfree isolators for about 4 weeks, deprived of colostrum and were fed sterilized soybean milk. They were associated with di-flora, anaerobic Lactobacillus sp. and Streptococcus sp. After confirmation of successful associations, gnotobiotic piglets were transferred into the facility aseptically. The piglets are maintained on high-efficiency particle air-filtered air in and out; maintaining constant room air pressure of 33 ± 3 mmAq, and sterile water and diet. In 10 sessions of hysterectomy, 18 male and 32 female piglets were obtained of which piglets (M six, F eight) died within 5 days. Among live piglets, piglets (M eight, F 12) were confirmed to be germfree by microbiological monitoring. For research of xenotransplantation, one consistent experimental result was essential. Therefore, major histocompatibility complex class II which related innate immunity, homozygotic gnotobiotic miniature swine was developed. As a result, genotyping revealed 14 individuals to be homozygous for major histocompatibility complex class II (DRB, DQB) as 0301, three individuals were homozygous as 0201 and each of two were homozygous for DQB as 0701 and DRB as 0404, respectively. Genetic modifications and immunological research for ideal alternative organ sources are in progress.
Protein Deposition and Its Effect on Bacterial Adhesion to Contact Lenses

Purpose Bacterial adhesion to contact lenses is believed to be the initial step for the development of several adverse reactions that occur during lens wear such as microbial keratitis. This study examined the effect of combinations of proteins on the adhesion of bacteria to contact lenses. Methods Unworn balafilcon A and senofilcon A lenses were soaked in commercially available pure protein mixtures to achieve the same amount of various proteins as found ex vivo. These lenses were then exposed to Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus. Following incubation, the numbers of P. aeruginosa or S. aureus that adhered to the lenses were measured. The possible effect of proteins on bacterial growth was investigated by incubating bacteria in medium containing protein. Results Although there was a significant (p < 0.003) increase in the total or viable counts of one strain of S. aureus (031) on balafilcon A lenses soaked in the lysozyme/lactoferrin combination, the protein adhered to lenses did not alter the adhesion of any other strains of P. aeruginosa or S. aureus (p > 0.05). Growth of S. aureus 031 (p < 0.0001) but not of P. aeruginosa 6294 was stimulated by addition of lysozyme/lactoferrin combination (2.8/0.5 mg/mL). Addition of lipocalin did not affect the growth of any strains tested (p > 0.05). Conclusions Adsorption of amounts of lysozyme and lactoferrin or lipocalin equivalent to those extracted from worn contact lenses did not affect the adhesion of most strains of S. aureus or P. aeruginosa to lens surfaces.
How do consumers’ perceptions differ across dimensions of corporate social responsibility and hotel types?

ABSTRACT This study develops three hypotheses regarding corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the context of the hotel industry. First, the study examines a ranking of consumers’ perceived importance of the four CSR dimensions proposed by Carroll’s hierarchy of CSR in 1991, expecting the following orders: philanthropic, ethical, legal, and economic dimensions, from most to least important. Second, the study investigates the relationship between consumers’ perceived importance of and their overall support for CSR. Third, the study introduces the type of hotel (for example, economy, mid-scale, and upscale) as a moderator to provide a better explanation of the relationship between consumers’ perceived importance of the CSR dimensions and support for CSR. Contributions to the CSR literature in general, and also specifically relating to the hotel context, and managerial implications are discussed.