Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Occupational risk factors and asthma among health care professionals.

RATIONALE Recent U.S. data suggest an increased risk of work-related asthma among health care workers, yet only a few specific determinants have been elucidated. OBJECTIVES To evaluate associations of asthma prevalence with occupational exposures in a cross-sectional survey of health care professionals. METHODS A detailed questionnaire was mailed to a random sample (n=5,600) of all Texas physicians, nurses, respiratory therapists, and occupational therapists with active licenses in 2003. Information on asthma symptoms and nonoccupational asthma risk factors obtained from the questionnaire was linked to occupational exposures derived through an industry-specific job-exposure matrix. MEASUREMENTS There were two a priori defined outcomes: (1) physician-diagnosed asthma with onset after entry into health care ("reported asthma") and (2) "bronchial hyperresponsiveness-related symptoms," defined through an 8-item symptom-based predictor. MAIN RESULTS Overall response rate was 66%. The final study population consisted of 862 physicians, 941 nurses, 968 occupational therapists, and 879 respiratory therapists (n=3,650). Reported asthma was associated with medical instrument cleaning (odds ratio [OR], 2.22; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.34-3.67), general cleaning (OR, 2.02; 95% CI, 1.20-3.40), use of powdered latex gloves between 1992 and 2000 (OR, 2.17; 95% CI, 1.27-3.73), and administration of aerosolized medications (OR, 1.72; 95% CI, 1.05-2.83). The risk associated with latex glove use was not apparent after 2000. Bronchial hyperresponsiveness-related symptoms were associated with general cleaning (OR, 1.63; 95% CI, 1.21-2.19), aerosolized medication administration (OR, 1.40; 95% CI, 1.06-1.84), use of adhesives on patients (OR, 1.65; 95% CI, 1.22-2.24), and exposure to a chemical spill (OR, 2.02; 95% CI, 1.28-3.21). CONCLUSIONS The contribution of occupational exposures to asthma in health care professionals is not trivial, meriting both implementation of appropriate controls and further study.
Murine platelet endothelial cell adhesion molecule (PECAM‐1)/CD31 modulates β2 integrins on lymphokine‐activated killer cells

Lymphokine‐activated killer (LAK) cells are able to colonize sites of tumor lesions in mouse and man. The molecular mechanisms of homing in on tumors are largely unknown. However, before LAK cells can reach the tumor, they must adhere to the vascular endothelia within the lesion and then extravasate. We developed a novel mAb, EA‐3, which recognizes the murine homologue of the human adhesion molecule CD31. It is present on a subpopulation of murine LAK cells and all endothelial cells. CD31 was also involved in the adhesion of LAK cells to endothelium. Since CD31 can initiate integrin activation by inside‐out signaling after binding to its ligand, EA‐3 was used to minimic this in adhesion assays. It induces modifications in the β2 integrin LFA‐1, leading to increased binding capacities of the cells to endothelium. In contrast, β1 integrins and RGD‐binding integrins were not affected. These results suggest that expression of CD31 might confer adhesive advantages for LAK cells prone to tumor infiltration.
A portable breast cancer imaging system with cross-shaped dome antenna array

Imaging of a breast cancer phantom was demonstrated by use of radar-based ultra-wide-band (UWB) complementary metal oxide semiconductor integrated circuits (CMOS) with 16 cross-shaped dome array antennas on a hemispherical breast phantom. The dome antenna array was rotated and the combinations of transmitter and receiver antennas were selected by two CMOS switching matrices. A breast cancer phantom target in a silicone-based breast phantom was successfully detected by confocal imaging.
Conductance Quantization in Gold Nanowires

Using a piezoelectric transducer to repeatedly create and break contact between two gold wires, we measure the conductance of nanowires formed just prior to separation. The histogram of these conductances exhibits a clear peak at G0 = 2e2/h, the fundamental quantum of conductance, and two smaller peaks near integer multiples of this value. Our measurement of G0 = (7.77± 0.14)× 10−5 S lies within 0.3% of the theoretical value, and the first and second conductance peaks lie in a ratio of 2.000± 0.050, consistent with integral quantization. In performing this analysis, we identified differential nonlinearities in our digital oscilloscope corresponding to a 10% spread in bin sizes and successfully compensated for their effects using histograms of voltage ramps.
Expression of delta-like 4 (Drosophila) and vascular endothelial growth factor A in colon cancer and association with tumour angiogenesis

Objective Angiogenesis depends on interaction between a variety of promoting and inhibiting factors, and is known to involve vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) A and the Notch signaling pathway. The present study investigated the expression of Notch ligand delta-like (DLL) 4 (Drosophila), and VEGFA in colon cancer and colorectal adenoma tissue, and the association with tumour angiogenesis. Methods Protein level DLL4, VEGFA and CD34 molecule (CD34) expression was detected immunohistochemically in tissue sections from patients with colon cancer and colorectal adenoma. Results Out of 80 cases (35 with colon cancer, 45 with colorectal adenoma) DLL4 and VEGFA expression was closely related to tumour diameter, clinical stage, histological grade and lymph node metastasis. DLL4 expression was significantly higher in colon cancer tissue than colorectal adenoma tissue. Conclusion High levels of DLL4 expression were closely related to metastasis and prognosis in patients with colon cancer. The results of the present study support the conclusion that prognosis of colon cancer is significantly correlated with angiogenesis.
In Vitro and In Vivo Antibacterial Activities of DW-224a, a New Fluoronaphthyridone

ABSTRACT DW-224a showed the most potent in vitro activity among the quinolone compounds tested against clinical isolates of gram-positive bacteria. Against gram-negative bacteria, DW-224a was slightly less active than the other fluoroquinolones. The in vivo activities of DW-224a against gram-positive bacteria were more potent than those of other quinolones.
Economics of customer's decisions in smart grid

In this study, the authors study the problem of allowing customers to use their storage energy, grid energy, as well as privately owned renewable sources of energy. The customer has three options – grid, storage and self-generated energy, to fulfill the energy requirements. The grid decides real-time price to maximise its revenue, while ensuring customers’ participation depending on three factors – ‘demand’, ‘supply’ and ‘time of use’. On the other hand, a customer needs to choose strategies on his/her required energy and associated cost, depending on the storage and self-generated energy, to maximise the pay-off. They use Markov decision process (MDP) to design this decision making policy of the customer. In such a MDP-based decision model, a cost-effective energy management process is established, and, thus, utility of the customers is maximised. Simulation results show that using the proposed approach, the customers decide the strategies to optimise a trade-off between energy exchange and associated cost. Thus, the utility for customer is increased approximately 60% with the presence of grid, storage and self-generated energy sources than that of using only grid and storage energy.
A Non-canonical DNA Structure Enables Homologous Recombination in Various Genetic Systems*

Homologous recombination, which is critical to genetic diversity, depends on homologous pairing (HP). HP is the switch from parental to recombinant base pairs, which requires expansion of inter-base pair spaces. This expansion unavoidably causes untwisting of the parental double-stranded DNA. RecA/Rad51-catalyzed ATP-dependent HP is extensively stimulated in vitro by negative supercoils, which compensates for untwisting. However, in vivo, double-stranded DNA is relaxed by bound proteins and thus is an unfavorable substrate for RecA/Rad51. In contrast, Mhr1, an ATP-independent HP protein required for yeast mitochondrial homologous recombination, catalyzes HP without the net untwisting of double-stranded DNA. Therefore, we questioned whether Mhr1 uses a novel strategy to promote HP. Here, we found that, like RecA, Mhr1 induced the extension of bound single-stranded DNA. In addition, this structure was induced by all evolutionarily and structurally distinct HP proteins so far tested, including bacterial RecO, viral RecT, and human Rad51. Thus, HP includes the common non-canonical DNA structure and uses a common core mechanism, independent of the species of HP proteins. We discuss the significance of multiple types of HP proteins.
The Human Escort Protein Hep Binds to the ATPase Domain of Mitochondrial Hsp70 and Regulates ATP Hydrolysis*

Hsp70 escort proteins (Hep) have been implicated as essential for maintaining the function of yeast mitochondrial hsp70 molecular chaperones (mtHsp70), but the role that escort proteins play in regulating mammalian chaperone folding and function has not been established. We present evidence that human mtHsp70 exhibits limited solubility due to aggregation mediated by its ATPase domain and show that human Hep directly enhances chaperone solubility through interactions with this domain. In the absence of Hep, mtHsp70 was insoluble when expressed in Escherichia coli, as was its isolated ATPase domain and a chimera having this domain fused to the peptide-binding domain of HscA, a soluble monomeric chaperone. In contrast, these proteins all exhibited increased solubility when expressed in the presence of Hep. In vitro studies further revealed that purified Hep regulates the interaction of mtHsp70 with nucleotides. Full-length mtHsp70 exhibited slow intrinsic ATP hydrolysis activity (6.8 ± 0.2 × 10-4 s-1) at 25 °C, which was stimulated up to 49-fold by Hep. Hep also stimulated the activity of the isolated ATPase domain, albeit to a lower maximal extent (11.5-fold). In addition, gel-filtration studies showed that formation of chaperone-escort protein complexes inhibited mtHsp70 self-association, and they revealed that Hep binding to full-length mtHsp70 and its isolated ATPase domain is strongest in the absence of nucleotides. These findings provide evidence that metazoan escort proteins regulate the catalytic activity and solubility of their cognate chaperones, and they indicate that both forms of regulation arise from interactions with the mtHsp70 ATPase domain.
Topological frustrations in Mn films on Fe(001)

The high lateral resolution of spin‐polarized scanning tunneling microscopy allows new insights into the spin structure of antiferromagnets on the nanometer range. We demonstrate the capability to image a well‐defined in‐plane component of the sample spin polarization and discuss the spin structure of antiferromagnetic bct Mn in contact with the ferromagnetic Fe(001) substrate. Mn atoms couple ferromagnetically within a Mn atomic plane, while normal to the surface a layer‐wise antiferromagnetic order was found. Magnetic frustrations arise in this system at Fe substrate steps at the interface, where topologically induced 180° domain walls are created in the Mn film. A clear widening of the enforced domain walls with increasing Mn thickness was found. The measured widths could be fitted with a linear function and are explained on the basis of a Heisenberg model. Microsc. Res. Tech. 66: 105–116, 2005. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Soft switching resonant converter with flying capacitor

A new soft switching resonant converter is presented in this paper to reduce the switching losses on power MOSFETs and overcome the reverse recovery losses on rectifier diodes. Two half-bridge legs connected in series and two split capacitors are adopted to limit the voltage stress of each MOSFET at half input voltage and to reduce the current rating of transformer windings and passive components at output side. A flying capacitor is connected between two half-bridge legs in order to automatically balance two input capacitor voltages. Therefore, MOSFETs with low voltage stress can be used at high input voltage applications. The resonant converter is adopted in each half-bridge circuit to reduce the switching losses of active devices. Finally, experiments based on a laboratory prototype are provided to verify the circuit performance.
Mass assembly in quiescent and star-forming galaxies since z ≃ 4 from UltraVISTA

We estimate the galaxy stellar mass function and stellar mass density for star-forming and quiescent galaxies with 0.2 1.5 consistent with the expected uncertainties. We also develop a new method to infer the specific star formation rate from the mass function of star-forming galaxies. We find that the specific star formation rate of 1010 − 10. 5ℳ⊙ galaxies increases continuously in the redshift range 1 < z < 4. Finally, we compare our results with a semi-analytical model and find that these models overestimate the density of low mass quiescent galaxies by an order of magnitude, while the density of low-mass star-forming galaxies is successfully reproduced.
Phospholipids from Bacillus stearothermophilus

The lipids of Bacillus stearothermophilus strain 2184 were extracted with chloroform-methanol and separated into neutral lipid and three phospholipid fractions by chromatography on silicic acid columns. The phospholipids were identified by specific staining reactions on silicic acid-impregnated paper, by chromatography of alkaline and acid hydrolysis products, and by determination of acyl ester:glycerol:nitrogen:phosphorus molar ratios. The total extractable lipid was 8% of the dry weight of whole cells and consisted of 30 to 40% neutral lipid and 60 to 70% phospholipid. The phospholipid consisted of diphosphatidyl glycerol (23 to 42%), phosphatidyl glycerol (22 to 39%), and phosphatidyl ethanolamine (21 to 32%). The concentrations of diphosphatidyl glycerol and phosphatidyl glycerol were lower in 2-hr cells than in 4- and 8-hr cells. Whole cells were fractionated by sonic treatment and differential centrifugation. The total lipid content, expressed in per cent of dry weight of each fraction was: whole protoplasts, 10%; membrane fraction, 18%; 30,000 × g particulate fraction, 22%; and 105,000 × g particulate fraction, 26%. The relative phospholipid concentrations in each fraction were about the same. As had been previously reported, none of the phospholipid was stable to alkaline hydrolysis.
Prevention of Peritendinous Adhesions Following Flexor Tendon Injury With Seprafilm

Peritendinous adhesions are the most important complication of flexor tendon injury. In this study, Seprafilm was used for the prevention of peritendinous adhesions following flexor tendon repair. Seprafilm Bioresorbable Membrane (Genzyme Corporation, Cambridge, MA) contains sodium hyaluronate and carboxymethyl cellulose. Thirty New Zealand white male rabbits were divided equally into 3 groups. In all groups, the deep flexor tendon of the third finger of the left back foot was cut and repaired by Kessler-Tajima suture technique. In the first study group following tendon repair, Seprafilm was wrapped around the repaired tendon. In the second study group, sodium hyaluronate gel was injected to the operation field after tendon repair. In the control group, no external material was applied to the field. The study groups had better range of motion. Histopathologically, study groups had less adhesions compared with the control groups. As a result, it was concluded that in rabbit the peritendinous adhesions following flexor tendon repairs could be lowered with Seprafilm and hyaluronic acid.
Data accessing based on the popularity value for cloud computing

Nowadays, Big Data (BD) is one of the advanced areas of Information Technology (IT) sector. BD can be explained as a large volume of file or data. Since there are many hackers and malicious users over the internet, it is very important to distinguish between the authorized and unauthorized users for securing the confidentiality of BD. Access control method allows data accessing of an authorized user. In recent years, file or data access control is a very challenging issue in BD. Existing access control schemes mainly focus on the confidentiality of the data storage from the unauthorized users. In this paper, a novel file or data access control scheme has been presented. The proposed scheme allows reducing the searching cost and accessing time, while providing BD to the user. It also minimizes the problem of data redundancy.
Complexes of Ras.GTP with Raf-1 and mitogen-activated protein kinase kinase.

The guanosine triphosphate (GTP)-binding protein Ras functions in regulating growth and differentiation; however, little is known about the protein interactions that bring about its biological activity. Wild-type Ras or mutant forms of Ras were covalently attached to an insoluble matrix and then used to examine the interaction of signaling proteins with Ras. Forms of Ras activated either by mutation (Gly12Val) or by binding of the GTP analog, guanylyl-imidodiphosphate (GMP-PNP) interacted specifically with Raf-1 whereas an effector domain mutant, Ile36Ala, failed to interact with Raf-1. Mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAP kinase) activity was only associated with activated forms of Ras. The specific interaction of activated Ras with active MAP kinase kinase (MAPKK) was confirmed by direct assays. Thus the forming of complexes containing MAPKK activity and Raf-1 protein are dependent upon the activity of Ras.
A Least-Squares Monte Carlo Approach to the Calculation of Capital Requirements ∗

The calculation of capital requirements for financial institutions usually entails a reevaluation of the company’s assets and liabilities at some future point in time for a (large) number of stochastic forecasts of economic and firm-specific variables. The complexity of this nested valuation problem leads many companies to struggle with the implementation. Relying on a well-known method for pricing non-European derivatives, the current paper proposes and analyzes a novel approach to this computational problem based on least-squares regression and Monte Carlo simulations. We show convergence of the algorithm, we analyze the resulting estimate for practically important risk measures, and we derive optimal basis functions based on spectral methods. Our numerical examples demonstrate that the algorithm can produce accurate results at relatively low computational costs, particularly when relying on the optimal basis functions. JEL classification: G12; G20; C60
Model to estimate survival in ambulatory patients with hepatocellular carcinoma

Survival of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is determined by the extent of the tumor and the underlying liver function. We aimed to develop a survival model for HCC based on objective parameters including the Model for Endstage Liver Disease (MELD) as a gauge of liver dysfunction. This analysis is based on 477 patients with HCC seen at Mayo Clinic Rochester between 1994 and 2008 (derivation cohort) and 904 patients at the Korean National Cancer Center between 2000 and 2003 (validation cohort). Multivariate proportional hazards models and corresponding risk score were created based on baseline demographic, clinical, and tumor characteristics. Internal and external validation of the model was performed. Discrimination and calibration of this new model were compared against existing models including Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer (BCLC), Cancer of the Liver Italian Program (CLIP), and Japan Integrated Staging (JIS) scores. The majority of the patients had viral hepatitis as the underlying liver disease (100% in the derivation cohort and 85% in the validation cohort). The survival model incorporated MELD, age, number of tumor nodules, size of the largest nodule, vascular invasion, metastasis, serum albumin, and alpha‐fetoprotein. In cross‐validation, the coefficients remained largely unchanged between iterations. Observed survival in the validation cohort matched closely with what was predicted by the model. The concordance (c)‐statistic for this model (0.77) was superior to that for BCLC (0.71), CLIP (0.70), or JIS (0.70). The score was able to further classify patient survival within each stage of the BCLC classification. Conclusion: A new model to predict survival of HCC patients based on objective parameters provides refined prognostication and supplements the BCLC classification. (HEPATOLOGY 2012)
Birth Weight Variability and Language Development: Risk, Resilience, and Responsive Parenting.

OBJECTIVE This study examined whether birth weight variation within the normal range was associated with language ability at 36 months, and whether responsive parenting-the putative protective factor-buffered children from the risk of relatively low birth weight. METHODS In all, 467 community mother-child dyads were followed longitudinally from birth. Receptive language was measured at 36 months. Responsive parenting was assessed through observed interactions at 18 months and examined as the hypothesized moderator. RESULTS Controlling for confounds, both birth weight and responsive parenting positively predicted children's language skills. There was also a significant interaction between birth weight and responsive parenting-higher responsivity was associated with better language ability, and this link was especially pronounced for children at risk owing to relatively low birth weight. CONCLUSION Normative differences in birth weight are a source of variability in children's language, but postnatal socialization factors such as parenting may buffer this risk.
A new method of genotyping MDX4CV mice by PCR‐RFLP analysis

Introduction: The mdx4cv mouse is a common model to study Duchenne muscular dystrophy. The most used methodology to identify the genotype of these mice is Sanger DNA sequencing. Methods: Here, we provide a simple, cost‐effective alternative approach to identify the wild‐type, heterozygous, or homozygous/hemizygous genotypes of these mice, using commonly available laboratory equipment and reagents. Results: Our technique exploits a restriction fragment length polymorphism that is generated by the point mutation found in exon 53 of mdx4cv mice. Conclusions: This technique can benefit laboratories that require complex breeding strategies involving mdx4cv mice. Muscle Nerve 56: 522–524, 2017
Improving the spectrum sensing performance in cognitive radio networks using the stochastic resonance approach

In this paper, a spectrum sensing approach based on stochastic resonance (SR) technique is proposed. According to the Theorem of the Improvability of Detection via SR and the spectral power amplification (SPA) promotion of the SR system, the property of the primary users (PUs) in cognitive radio (CR) networks can be detected easier when the SR phenomenon is realized. Performance analyses and computer simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed SR-based spectrum sensing approach especially under low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) circumstances. The computational complexity of the proposed approach can also be guaranteed to be comparable with the traditional spectrum sensing methods.