Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Serial pulmonary function tests in the diagnosis of P. carinii pneumonia.

The predictive value of serial versus isolated measurements of transfer factor for carbon monoxide (TLCO) in the diagnosis of pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP) in a cohort of 474 HIV-1 seropositive patients, with all stages of HIV disease, was evaluated. Two groups of patients were studied, one group with serial lung function measurements (Group 1) and another with only a single set of measurements (Group 2). During the study period 118 patients performing serial tests developed a respiratory illness of which 58 were performing monthly and 60 three monthly measurements of lung function (Group 1). In 36 patients from Group 1, where PCP was diagnosed, monthly lung function tests showed a decrease in TLCO from 68% (+/- 3.2) (SEM), (8 weeks prior to illness), to 44% (+/- 2.5) predicted normal at presentation, whereas in 22 patients who did not have PCP, TLCO fell from 71% (+/- 4.5) to 57% (+/- 3.1). TLCO was thus reduced to lower values in these with PCP than in those without PCP (p < 0.05). A fall of TLCO of 5% from initial values when used as predictive for presence of PCP had a sensitivity of 75% and a specificty of 28% (positive predictive value 56%; negative predictive value 48%). TLCO was < 70% predicted in 72/78 patients with PCP who performed only single lung function tests (Group 2), which gave a sensitivity of 92% and a specificity of 71% as a diagnostic test for PCP when compared with the cohort as a whole. The positive predictive value was 34%, negative predictive value was 98%. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Thermal Characterization of Electrically Injected Thin-Film InGaAsP Microdisk Lasers on Si

We have performed a numerical and experimental analysis of the thermal behavior of electrically injected microdisk lasers that are defined in an InGaAsP-based thin film bonded on top of a silicon wafer. Both the turn-on as well as the pulsed-regime temperature evolution in the lasing region was simulated using the finite-element method. The simulation results are in good agreement with experimental data, which was extracted from the broadening of the time-averaged emission spectra. Lasing at room temperature was only possible in pulsed regime due to the high thermal resistance (10 K/mW). Some strategies to decrease the thermal resistance of the microdisk lasers are proposed and discussed.
Lack of Effect of Prior Treatment with Fluoride on Genotoxicity of Two Chemical Agents in vitro

The goal of this study was to investigate the ability of fluoride to modulate the genotoxic effects induced by the oxidative agent hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) and the alkylating agent methyl methanesulfonate (MMS) in vitro by the single-cell gel (comet) assay. Chinese hamster ovary cells were exposed in culture for 1 h at 37°C to sodium fluoride at 7–100 µg/ml. NaF-treated and control cells were then incubated with 0–10 µM MMS in phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) for 15 min at 37°C, or 0–100 µM H2O2 in distilled water for 5 min on ice. Negative control cells were treated with PBS for 1 h at 37°C. Clear concentration-related effects were observed for the two genotoxins. Increase of DNA damage induced by either MMS or H2O2 was not significantly altered by pretreatment with NaF. The data indicate that NaF does not modulate alkylation-induced genotoxicity or oxidative DNA damage as measured by the single-cell gel (comet) assay.
Shape change of the vitreous chamber influences retinal detachment and reattachment processes: is mechanical stress during eye rotations a factor?

PURPOSE We aim to understand how mechanical causation influences retinal detachment and reattachment processes. In particular, myopes suffer retinal detachment more frequently than emmetropes, and following a retinal detachment, scleral buckling promotes retinal reattachment. We test the hypothesis that stresses arising from saccadic eye rotations are involved in the processes, and that the alteration in the stress due to the change in the vitreous chamber geometry is sufficient to explain the phenomena. METHODS The vitreous chamber of the eye has an approximately spherical shape and it is filled with vitreous humor. We developed a mathematical model, treating the vitreous chamber in emmetropic and myopic eyes as a spheroid and in eyes subjected to scleral buckling as a sphere with a circumferential indentation. We assume that the eye performs prescribed small-amplitude, periodic, torsional rotations and we solve semi-analytically for the fluid pressure, velocity, and stress distributions. RESULTS The shape of the vitreous chamber has a large effect on the retinal stress. The vitreous and the retina of a highly myopic eye continuously experience shear stresses significantly higher than those of an emmetropic eye. An eye fitted with a scleral buckle experiences large stress levels localized around the buckle. CONCLUSIONS Our results provide a mechanical explanation for the more frequent occurrence of posterior vitreous detachment and retinal detachment in myopic eyes. To understand how the stress distribution in a buckled eye facilitates reattachment, an additional model of the details of the reattachment process should be coupled to this model.
Ubiquilin1 promotes antigen-receptor mediated proliferation by eliminating mislocalized mitochondrial proteins

Ubiquilins (Ubqlns) are a family of ubiquitin receptors that promote the delivery of hydrophobic and aggregated ubiquitinated proteins to the proteasome for degradation. We carried out a proteomic analysis of a B cell lymphoma-derived cell line, BJAB, that requires UBQLN1 for survival to identify UBQLN1 client proteins. When UBQLN1 expression was acutely inhibited, 120 mitochondrial proteins were enriched in the cytoplasm, suggesting that the accumulation of mitochondrial client proteins in the absence of UBQLN1 is cytostatic. Using a Ubqln1−/− mouse strain, we found that B cell receptor (BCR) ligation of Ubqln1−/− B cells led to a defect in cell cycle entry. As in BJAB cells, mitochondrial proteins accumulated in BCR-stimulated cells, leading to protein synthesis inhibition and cell cycle block. Thus, UBQLN1 plays an important role in clearing mislocalized mitochondrial proteins upon cell stimulation, and its absence leads to suppression of protein synthesis and cell cycle arrest.
Suicide Risk in Youth with Intellectual Disabilities: The Challenges of Screening

Children and adolescents with intellectual disabilities (IDs), often diagnosed with comorbid psychiatric disorders, are a vulnerable population who may be at risk for developing suicidal thoughts and behaviors. Previous research has demonstrated that direct suicide screening can rapidly and effectively detect suicide risk and facilitate further clinical evaluation and management. Currently, there are no measures that screen for suicide risk designed specifically for individuals with ID. A review of the literature was conducted to (1) estimate the prevalence of suicidal thoughts, behaviors, and deaths by suicide in children and adolescents with ID; (2) describe associations between youth with ID and suicide risk; and (3) identify the limitations of commonly used suicide screening measures developed for non-ID youth. The literature review confirms that suicide risk exists in this population; youth with ID think about, attempt, and die by suicide. Standardized suicide risk screening is challenged by the lack of measures developed for this population. A summary of the findings is followed by a discussion of the practical clinical considerations surrounding the assessment of suicide risk in youth with ID.
Takotsubo cardiomyopathy: Pathophysiology and role of cardiac biomarkers in differential diagnosis

Takotsubo cardiomyopathy (TC) is characterized by reversible ventricular dysfunction, not limited to the distribution of an epicardial coronary artery. A disease primarily afflicting post-menopausal women, it is frequently mistaken for acute anterior wall myocardial infarction. Alternatively called Stress Cardiomyopathy, physical or emotional triggers are identified in only three fourths of TC patients. Long considered a benign condition, recent findings suggest poor short term prognosis similar to acute coronary syndrome (ACS). Despite the widely recognized pathophysiological role of catecholamine excess, its diagnostic role is uncertain. TC is suspected based on typical wall motion abnormalities in ventriculogram or echocardiogram. Several additional electrocardiographic, laboratory and imaging parameters have been studied with the goal of clinical diagnosis of TC. While several clinical clues differentiate it from ACS, a clinical diagnosis is often elusive leading to avoidable cardiac catheterizations. Natriuretic peptides (NPs), a family of peptide hormones released primarily in response to myocardial stretch, play a significant role in pathophysiology, diagnosis as well as treatment of congestive heart failure. TC with its prominent ventricular dysfunction is associated with a significant elevation of NPs. NPs are elevated in ACS as well but the degree of elevation is typically lesser than in TC. Markers of myocardial injury such as troponin are usually elevated to a higher degree in ACS than in TC. This differential elevation of NPs and markers of myocardial injury may play a role in early clinical recognition of TC.
Phenotypic and genetic parameters for longissimus muscle fiber characteristics in relation to growth, carcass, and meat quality traits in large white pigs.

A total of 383 barrows and gilts from a French Large White experimental herd were slaughtered at 100 kg BW. Samples of longissimus muscle were taken to categorize myofibers according to their contractile (I, IIA, and IIB) and metabolic (oxidative and nonoxidative) properties. Myofiber percentages, cross-sectional areas (CSA), and relative areas were measured. Growth rate, carcass composition, muscle chemical composition, metabolic enzyme activities, and meat quality traits were also measured to estimate phenotypic and genetic correlations between these traits and myofiber characteristics. Genetic parameters were estimated using a REML procedure applied to an individual animal model. Heritabilities of fiber traits were moderate to high (h2 = .20 to .59). Highest heritabilities were found for type I fiber percentage (h2 = .46 +/- .11), type IIBw fiber percentage (h2 = .58 +/- .11), and type I fiber cross-sectional area (h2 = .59 +/- .10). For a given fiber type, the relative area was phenotypically and genetically more closely related to the percentage than to the CSA. Phenotypic correlations between fiber type composition and other traits were low. Genetically, growth rate, carcass leanness, and loin eye area were positively related to fiber CSA. Intramuscular fat content was not related to fiber type composition (r(g) = -. 05 to . 06), whereas it was positively related to fiber CSA (r(g) = . 68). Type IIBw fiber percentage was related to pH at 30 min (r(g) = -. 46), pH at 24 h (r(g) = -. 62), glycolytic potential (r(g) = . 31), and lightness of color (r(g) = . 55) of longissimus muscle.
Optimistic posterior sampling for reinforcement learning: worst-case regret bounds

We present an algorithm based on posterior sampling (aka Thompson sampling) that achieves near-optimal worst-case regret bounds when the underlying Markov decision process (MDP) is communicating with a finite, although unknown, diameter. Our main result is a high probability regret upper bound of [Formula: see text] for any communicating MDP with S states, A actions, and diameter D. Here, regret compares the total reward achieved by the algorithm to the total expected reward of an optimal infinite-horizon undiscounted average reward policy in time horizon T. This result closely matches the known lower bound of [Formula: see text]. Our techniques involve proving some novel results about the anti-concentration of Dirichlet distribution, which may be of independent interest.
Acquisition of learning processing in a navigation task using a functional parts combination model

In past studies of intelligent systems for problem solving, the internal structure of the system that determines the output for problem solving, that is, the computation process, is confined to the process built in by the designer. Thus, the program must be rewritten manually, even for a problem of similar type which can be handled by modifications. To deal with this point, we propose the functional parts combination (FPC) model, which can acquire different computation processes according to the individual problem. With the navigation of a mobile agent as a sample problem, the search power of the FPC model for the computation process is demonstrated by computer simulation for the case in which systems with different structures are applied to the same problem, and for the case in which a system with the same structure is applied to multiple problems. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Syst Comp Jpn, 37(4): 64–76, 2006; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/scj.20272
Increased neurocognitive intra-individual variability is associated with declines in medication adherence in HIV-infected adults.

OBJECTIVE There is cross-sectional evidence that neurocognitive intra-individual variability (IIV), or dispersion, is elevated in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) disease and is associated with declines in activities of daily living, including medication adherence. METHODS This longitudinal study extends this literature by examining whether increased neurocognitive IIV in HIV-positive persons over time predicts declines in medication adherence above and beyond changes in mean level of performance over a 6-month observation. RESULTS After controlling for drug use, declines in mean performance, and changes in depressive symptoms, results confirmed that increases in IIV were associated with overall poorer antiretroviral medication adherence. HIV-positive individuals with the greatest increases in dispersion demonstrated marked reductions in adherence by the third month that exceeded what was observed in less variable individuals. CONCLUSIONS Our results indicate that increases in dispersion are associated with poorer declines in medication adherence in HIV disease, which may have implications for the early detection and remediation of suboptimal antiretroviral adherence.
Detoxification of organophosphate nerve agents by immobilized Escherichia coli with surface-expressed organophosphorus hydrolase.

An improved whole-cell technology for detoxifying organophosphate nerve agents was recently developed based on genetically engineered Escherichia coli with organophosphorus hydrolase anchored on the surface. This article reports the immobilization of these novel biocatalysts on nonwoven polypropylene fabric and their applications in detoxifying contaminated wastewaters. The best cell loading (256 mg cell dry weight/g of support or 50 mg cell dry weight/cm2 of support) and subsequent hydrolysis of organophosphate nerve agents were achieved by immobilizing nongrowing cells in a pH 8, 150 mM citrate-phosphate buffer supplemented with 1 mM Co2+ for 48 h via simple adsorption, followed by organophosphate hydrolysis in a pH 8, 50 mM citrate-phosphate buffer supplemented with 0.05 mM Co2+ and 20% methanol at 37 degrees C. In batch operations, the immobilized cells degraded 100% of 0.8 mM paraoxon, a model organophosphate nerve agent, in approximately 100 min, at a specific rate of 0.160 mM min-1 (g cell dry wt)-1. The immobilized cells retained almost 100% activity during the initial six repeated cycles and close to 90% activity even after 12 repeated cycles, extending over a period of 19 days without any nutrient supplementation. In addition to paraoxon, other commonly used organophosphates, such as diazinon, coumaphos, and methylparathion were hydrolyzed efficiently. The cell immobilization technology developed here paves the way for an efficient, simple, and cost-effective method for detoxification of organophosphate nerve agents.
[Single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) for the diagnosis of depressive disorders, neurotic and eating disorders].

AIM The aim of the study was to estimate usefulness of the single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) for the diagnostics of the depressive disorders, neurotic and eating disorders, and detect the organic factors and correlation between cerebral hypoperfusion and results of Benton's and Bender's tests. MATERIAL AND METHOD Study of 43 patients (33 women and 10 men) aged 16--59 years (SD+38, 65 +/- 11, 62) which were examined with single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) and Benton's and Bender's tests during their treatment in the 1st Department of Psychiatry, Medical University in Gdańsk in the years 2000 to 2003. 30 patients were diagnosed with depression (first depressive episodes--8, recurrent depressive disorders--9, organic depression--13), 8--neurotic disorders and 5--eating disorders. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS SPECT in 38 (88,37%) cases showed hypoperfusion mostly on the left side and in the frontal region. Hypoperfusion in the recurrent depressive disorders was considerably greater (nearly significant) in comparison with the first depressive episodes. The correlation between hypoperfusion and CNS impairment examined with Benton's and Bender's tests was observed. The correlation coefficient of was 0.6845.
Spatial analysis of Relative Risks for skin cancer morbidity and mortality in Iran, 2008-2010.

BACKGROUND One of the most prevalent cancers in whole world is skin cancer and its prevalence is growing. The present research sought to estimate relative risk of morbidity and mortality due to skin cancer. MATERIALS AND METHODS In this cross-sectional study. The required data were gathered from the registered cancer reports of Cancer Control Office in the Center for Non Communicable Disease of the Iranian Ministry of Health (MOH). The data were extracted at province level in the time span of 2008-10. WINBUGS software was used to analyze the data and to identify high risk regions. ArcGIS10 was utilized to map the distribution of skin cancer and to demonstrate high risk provinces by using classic and fully Bayesian models taking into account spatial correlations of adjacent regions separately for men and women. RESULTS Relative risk of morbidity for women in Yazd and for men in Kurdistan and relative risk of mortality for women in Bushehr and for men in Kohgiluyeh were found to be the highest. Bayesian model due to regarding adjacent regions correlation, have precise estimation in comparing to classical model. More frequent epidemiological studies to enact skin cancer prevention programs. CONCLUSIONS High risk regions in Iran include central and highland regions. Therefore it is suggested that health decision makers enact public education, using anti UV creams and sunglasses for those parts as a short preventing program.
Hedge Funds and Survival Analysis

Using data from Hedge Fund Research, Inc. (HFR), this study adapts and expands on existing methods in survival analysis in an attempt to investigate whether hedge funds mortality can be predicted on the basis of certain hedge funds characteristics. The main idea is to determine the characteristics which contribute the most to the survival and failure probabilities of hedge funds and interpret them. We establish hazard models with time-independent covariates, as well as time-varying covariates to interpret the selected hedge funds characteristics. Our results show that size, age, performance, strategy, annual audit, fund offshore and fund denomination are the characteristics that best explain hedge fund failure. We find that 1% increase in performance decreases the hazard by 3.3%, the small size and the less than 5 years old hedge funds are the most likely to die and the event-driven strategy is the best to use as compare to others. The risk of death is 0.668 times lower for funds who indicated that an annual audit is performed as compared to the funds who did not indicated that an annual audit is performed. The risk of death for the offshore hedge funds is 1.059 times higher than the non-offshore hedge funds.
Differential Amplitude/Phase Modulation for Correlated Rayleigh Fading Channels: Performance Analysis and Labeling Design

In this paper, we investigate differential amplitude/ phase modulation (APM) schemes for correlated Rayleigh fading channels. Considering the noncoherent maximum-likelihood receiver, a theoretical pairwise error probability (PEP) formula for differential signal vectors with arbitrary power values is derived. The design criterion for the signal set of differential vectors is then proposed based on the asymptotic analysis of the PEP. For both uncoded and coded APM schemes, the design criteria and optimization procedures for bit labeling rules are investigated. The designed differential APM schemes are shown to provide significant improvement in bit-error-rate performance, particularly in the error-floor regions.
The Development of Naming and Word Fluency: Evidence From Hebrew-Speaking Children Between Ages 8 and 17

Naming and word fluency tests are commonly used in neuropsychological evaluations of both children and adults. The current work examines at which age performance on these tests reaches adult level. One hundred fifty children, 30 in each of 5 age groups (8–9, 10–11, 12–13, 14–15, 16–17), and 30 adults ages 18 to 29, participated in the study. Participants completed a Hebrew naming test, a three-letter phonemic fluency task, and a three-category semantic fluency task (animals, fruits and vegetables, and vehicles). Results show that all measures increase steadily from age 8 to age 17. No difference between the 16- to 17-year-old adolescents and the adults was found on the naming test and on the phonemic fluency task, but such a difference was documented for semantic fluency. The relative contribution of the maturation of vocabulary and the development of efficient retrieval processes to performance on naming and fluency tasks is discussed.
Three-dimensional simulation of realistic single electron transistors

We present an approach, and its implementation in a computer program, for the three-dimensional (3-D) simulation of realistic single electron transistor (SET) structures, in which subregions with different degrees of quantum confinement are simultaneously considered. The proposed approach is based on the self-consistent solution of the many body Schrodinger equation with density functional theory and on the computation of the conductance of tunnel constrictions through the solution of the 3-D Schrodinger equation with open boundary conditions. We have developed an efficient code (ViDES) based on such an approach. As examples of addressable SET structures, we present the simulation of a SET, one defined by metal gates on an AlGaAs/GaAs heterostructures, and of a SET defined by etching and oxidation on the silicon-on-insulator material system. Since SETs represent prototypical nanoscale devices, the code may be a valuable tool for the investigation and optimization of a broad range of nanoelectronic solid-state devices.