Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Polycystic ovary syndrome: association of a C/T single nucleotide polymorphism at tyrosine kinase domain of insulin receptor gene with pathogenesis among lean Japanese women.

OBJECTIVE To assess whether the insulin receptor (INSR) gene contributes to genetic susceptibility to polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) in a Japanese population. STUDY DESIGN We ex-amined the frequency of the His 1058 C/T single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) found in exon 17 of the INSR gene in 61 Japanese PCOS patients and 99 Japanese healthy controls. In addition, we analyzed the association between the genotype of this SNP and the clinical phenotypes. RESULTS The frequency of the C/C genotype was not significantly different between all PCOS patients (47.5%) and controls (35.4%). However, among the lean cases (body mass index < or = 20 kg/m2) the frequency of the C/C genotype was significantly increased (p < 0.05) in PCOS patients (65.0%) as compared with controls (36.6%). CONCLUSION We concluded that the His 1058 C/T polymorphism at the tyrosine kinase domain of the INSR gene had a relationship to the pathogenesis of lean PCOS patients in a Japanese population.
Digital breast tomosynthesis: computer-aided detection of clustered microcalcifications on planar projection images

This paper describes a new approach to detect microcalcification clusters (MCs) in digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT) via its planar projection (PPJ) image. With IRB approval, two-view (cranio-caudal and mediolateral oblique views) DBTs of human subject breasts were obtained with a GE GEN2 prototype DBT system that acquires 21 projection angles spanning 60° in 3° increments. A data set of 307 volumes (154 human subjects) was divided by case into independent training (127 with MCs) and test sets (104 with MCs and 76 free of MCs). A simultaneous algebraic reconstruction technique with multiscale bilateral filtering (MSBF) regularization was used to enhance microcalcifications and suppress noise. During the MSBF regularized reconstruction, the DBT volume was separated into high frequency (HF) and low frequency components representing microcalcifications and larger structures. At the final iteration, maximum intensity projection was applied to the regularized HF volume to generate a PPJ image that contained MCs with increased contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) and reduced search space. High CNR objects in the PPJ image were extracted and labeled as microcalcification candidates. Convolution neural network trained to recognize the image pattern of microcalcifications was used to classify the candidates into true calcifications and tissue structures and artifacts. The remaining microcalcification candidates were grouped into MCs by dynamic conditional clustering based on adaptive CNR threshold and radial distance criteria. False positive (FP) clusters were further reduced using the number of candidates in a cluster, CNR and size of microcalcification candidates. At 85% sensitivity an FP rate of 0.71 and 0.54 was achieved for view- and case-based sensitivity, respectively, compared to 2.16 and 0.85 achieved in DBT. The improvement was significant (p-value = 0.003) by JAFROC analysis.
Primary structure of a coagulant enzyme, bilineobin, from Agkistrodon bilineatus venom.

The amino acid sequence and disulfide bridge location of the coagulant enzyme, named bilineobin, isolated from the venom of Agkistrodon bilineatus was determined by Edman sequencing of the peptides derived from digests with cyanogen bromide, clostripain, Staphylococcus aureus V8 protease, trypsin, and chymotrypsin. This enzyme has a molecular weight of 57,000 Da by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis; however, bilineobin consists of 235 amino acids and has a calculated molecular weight of 26,481. The enzyme contains fucose, GlcNAc, galactose, mannose and NeuAc and six N-linked glycosylation consensus sites. The carboxyterminal amino acid, proline, was determined using carboxypeptidase Y. The six disulfide bonds of bilineobin link Cys78 to Cys234, Cys120 to Cys188, Cys178 to Cys203, Cys7 to Cys141, Cys152 to Cys167, and Cys28 to Cys44. The amino acid sequence similarity to flavoxobin (T.C. Shieh et al., 1988, J. Biochem (Tokyo) 103, 596-605) and batroxobin (N. Itoh et al., 1987, J. Biol. Chem. 262, 3132-3135) was 67%. The deglycosylated enzyme more rapidly generated fibrinopeptide A than native bilineobin.
Log-driven backups: A recovery scheme for large memory database systems

A recovery scheme for main memory database systems (MMDBS) is presented. The scheme is both practical and unique compared to other proposals in this area, since it is geared to accommodate databases that are not necessarily memory-resident. The scheme capitalizes on the performance advantages offered by MMDBS, without precluding the possibility of having some portions of the database on secondary storage. The heart of the scheme is an innovative approach to recovery processing in MMDBS that eliminates expensive checkpointing activity, which is the commonly used alternative. The main idea is to have an auxiliary processor in charge of reading log records and applying updates to the disk databases accordingly, without accessing the main memory database at all. The advanced I/O technology of disk arrays is incorporated for the implementation of the approach. <<ETX>>
Mycobacterium paraterrae sp. nov. recovered from a clinical specimen: novel chromogenic slow growing mycobacteria related to Mycobacterium terrae complex

A previously unidentified, slowly growing scotochromogenic Mycobacterium was isolated from a Korean patient with symptomatic pulmonary infection. Phenotypically, this strain was generally similar to Mycobacterium terrae complex strains, however it uniquely produced orange pigmentation. Unique mycolic acid profiles and phylogenetic analyses based on three alternative chronometer molecules, 16S rRNA gene, hsp65 and rpoB, confirmed the taxonomic status of this strain as a novel species. These results support that this strain represents a novel Mycobacterium species. The name Mycobacterium paraterrae sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is 05‐2522 (= DSM 45127 = KCTC 19556).
Effects of stimulus salience and methamphetamine on choice reaction time in the rat: central tendency versus distribution skew

Stimulants decrease reaction time in humans as well as laboratory rats. This effect is seen as a decrease in average reaction time or a shift in the distribution peak towards shorter reaction times. However, response-time distributions are typically skewed, exhibiting a positive tail. Our goal for this project was to develop a method of analyzing reaction-time distributions in the rat which will allow us to study systematically measures of central tendency and distribution skew. This analysis subdivided reaction time into initiation time and movement time, and also subdivided the response time distributions into distribution mode and distribution skew. Rats were trained on a two-choice visual reaction-time task. We then evaluated the effects of stimulus salience and methamphetamine (METH) treatment (vehicle, 0.25, 0.5, 1.0, and 1.5 mg/kg) on measures of distribution mode and skew. Stimulus salience decreased initiation time mode, initiation time skew and movement time skew, but had no effect on movement time mode. METH had a greater effect on skew for the initiation time distribution and a greater effect on mode for the movement time distribution. This analysis will serve as a useful method of determining whether initiation time and movement time, as well as distribution mode and distribution skew, represent different behavioral processes in the rat.
Search for mutants of the helicase MCM defective in DNA damage tolerance

: DNA damage compromises genome integrity and can lead to cell death. Cells have evolved a variety of processes to respond to DNA damage including the DNA damage tolerance (DDT) response. DDT pathways promote the bypass of blocking lesions by DNA polymerases during DNA replication, and the subsequent filling of the ssDNA left behind the fork. Two distinct DDT mechanisms have been characterized. One is translesion synthesis (TLS), which uses specialized TLS polymerases that have the ability to replicate across DNA lesions. The other is the error-free template switching (TS) mechanism, which uses homologous recombination (HR) proteins to bypass the damage and filling the ssDNA gaps using the sister chromatid as a template. The binding of HR proteins to the damage is coupled to the replication process during DDT. A potential candidate to promote this binding is the replicative helicase MCM, which interacts physically with the homologous recombination proteins Rad51 and Rad52. In this work, we have searched for MMS sensitive mutants of MCM subunits to demonstrate the implication of MCM in DDT. In addition, we have analyzed the putative role of Mcm4-T355 in DDT. We have found that both mutations in Mcm2 and the replacement of Mcm4-T355 by either a phosphomimetic or a phosphomutant order to understand the function of the MCM complex in DDT process, and in particular its connection with the recombination proteins, we have carried out a search for mutants of the Mcm2 and Mcm4 subunits of the MCM complex sensitive to the alkylating MMS. Our results suggest that this helicase plays a role in DDT that is independant of its function in DNA replication.
Whole-body bioelectrical impedance analysis in assessing upper-limb lymphedema after breast cancer therapy.

AIM The purpose of this prospective study was to evaluate single-frequency whole-body bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) as a predictor for the onset of edema of the upper limb in patients undergoing treatment for breast cancer. MATERIALS AND METHODS Whole-body BIA was performed before surgery, as well as at two days, and one, three, six and twelve months after surgery. RESULTS Sixty women undergoing breast cancer surgery were examined, with loss of follow-up of 18 patients. Seven patients (14.3%) developed an edema of the upper limb within the first 12 months after surgery. Resistance (R) using whole-body BIA showed a fairly good performance in terms of sensitivity (85.71%) and specificity (97.4%) at predicting edema. The positive predictive value of 54.6% was unsatisfactory, whereas the negative predictive value was 97.4%. CONCLUSION Resistance in whole-body BIA can be used to rule-out a developing edema of the upper limb.
Does blood urea nitrogen level predict severity and high-risk endoscopic lesions in patients with nonvariceal upper gastrointestinal bleeding?

BACKGROUND Nonvariceal upper gastrointestinal bleeding (UGIB) is a serious medical condition requiring prompt resuscitation and early endoscopic therapy in those with high-risk endoscopic lesions (HRLs). There are little or no data correlating sole blood urea nitrogen (BUN) level with the severity of nonvariceal UGIB or the presence of HRLs in the adult population. OBJECTIVES To determine if the BUN level on presentation correlates with parameters of severity of UGIB (need for blood transfusion or intensive care unit [ICU] admission) or to the subsequent finding of HRL, and in so doing identify patients who will require early endoscopic intervention. METHODS The Canadian Registry of patients with Upper Gastrointestinal Bleeding undergoing Endoscopy was used to identify patients enrolled from the McGill University Health Centre (Montreal, Quebec) who presented with or developed acute nonvariceal UGIB while admitted. All comparisons were performed using Student's t test or Wilcoxon's signed rank test, as appropriate. Logistic regression modelling using a stepwise method was performed to identify independent predictors of severe nonvariceal UGIB and HRL. RESULTS Two hundred nine patients were enrolled in the study. The mean age was 67+/-18 years and 59.8% were male. The mean BUN level was 13.4+/-9.4 mmol/L. Univariate analysis demonstrated that the BUN level was a significant predictor of ICU admission (BUN 14.7+/-10.4 mmol/L versus 12.0+/-8.0 mmol/L, P=0.035). However, when adjusted for systolic blood pressure, BUN level became a weaker predictor of ICU admission, just failing to achieve statistical significance (OR 1.03, 95% CI 1.00 to 1.06; P=0.08). Univariate analysis also demonstrated that BUN level was not a statistically significant predictor of blood transfusion requirement (BUN 14.1+/-10.6 mmol/L versus 13.6+/-8.6 mmol/L, P=0.508), nor of HRL (BUN 14.2+/-10.7 mmol/L versus 12.9+/-8.6 mmol/L, P=0.605). CONCLUSION In patients with nonvariceal UGIB, the BUN level at initial presentation is a weak predictor of the severity of UGIB as defined by ICU admission, but is not helpful in identifying patients with a HRL.
Analyzing an agent-based selective information retrieval

A dynamic cooperation model for different agents' message exchanging is proposed. It is thought that the curve of surrounding words' relevant influence approximatively fits normal distribution with a mean of 0 and a standard deviation of /spl sigma/. Following those mechanisms, agent-based selective information retrieval based on topical crawling, high-performance indexing and an efficient search algorithm is implemented. The agents' cooperation model expresses the procedure of agent organization and communication. Topical crawling based on anchor word concept analysis can guarantee a higher performance. The topical crawler makes it easy to find as many relevant pages as possible and as few irrelevant pages as possible.
Stability of Power Control in Multiple Coexisting Wireless Networks: An $\mathscr {L}_{2}$ Small-Gain Perspective

Owing to the emerging techniques such as heterogeneous network and cognitive radio that allow a large number of wireless networks to intensively and flexibly use resources of radio spectrum, the network densification and dynamic spectrum access have become two important trends of wireless networking systems, so that the spectral environments will be increasingly crowded in the near future. Under such a background, this study addresses the stability related problem of the power control in multiple coexisting wireless networks. We develop an analytical framework that is capable of utilizing the small-gain theorem to show the considered power control is bounded-input bounded-output (BIBO) stable in the sense of the $ {\mathscr {L}}_{2}$ gain if proper sufficient conditions are satisfied. Through modeling the power control as a feedback system and making use of the uncertainty representation, this framework can derive generalized results for the power-control algorithms that emerge in previous works. The framework developed in this study also admits the incorporation of multipath propagation that is a very common phenomenon in wireless communication systems. Within our derivation, making use of the theory for positive systems dramatically simplifies the analysis and leads to many refined results.
Characterizing PLL Jitter from power supply fluctuation using mixed-signal simulations

Characterizing PLL Jitter is important yet challenging. Usually done through transistor-level transient analysis, slow simulation speed has been the major bottleneck preventing jitter from being characterized in a timely manner. This paper presents an approach for fast jitter characterization using mixed-signal simulation (combination of transistor-level blocks and calibrated behavioral models). Among various PLL jitter mechanisms, jitter from CMOS gate switching threshold variation due to power supply fluctuation is chosen to be the focus. Analog/digital converters carrying dynamic power supply dependency, together with behavioral models written in Verilog-AMS, are used to approximately model and characterize the targeted type of jitter. Jitter characterization using this method is applied to two PLL blocks, phase detector and frequency divider. Results show that jitter measured from the proposed method is in good agreement with transistor-level simulation and the speed improvement from mixed-signal simulation is significant, proving this method to be a feasible approach for fast jitter characterization.
Magnetic resonance imaging of normal and osteoarthritic trabecular bone structure in the human knee.

OBJECTIVE To use high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to evaluate the trabecular bone structure in the distal femur and the proximal tibia and its to correlate the findings with different stages of osteoarthritis (OA) of the human knee. METHODS Axial images of the distal femur and proximal tibia were obtained at 1.5 T in patients without and with mild OA and with severe OA. The spatial resolution was 195 x 195 microm(2) with a 1-mm slice thickness. Apparent measures of trabecular bone volume fraction (BV/TV), trabecular number (Tb.N), trabecular separation (Tb.Sp), and trabecular thickness (Tb.Th) were calculated. RESULTS Significant differences existed in the trabecular bone structure of the femur and tibia. Differences in trabecular bone structure between the tibia and the femur decreased with the degree of OA. The apparent BV/TV, Tb.N, and Tb.Sp in the femoral condyles could be used to differentiate healthy patients or patients with mild OA from patients with severe OA (P < 0.05). Among individuals, the structural variation of the lateral and medial femoral condyle was indicative of the extent of the disease. CONCLUSION High-resolution MRI of the knee joint can provide a noninvasive assessment of trabecular bone structure. Trabecular bone structure, determined by high-resolution MRI, shows significant variation in patients with varying degrees of OA. The impact of OA on trabecular bone is different in the tibia than in the femur, and this difference depends on the extent of the disease.
Resonance analysis of the leaky-wave antenna

The resonance analysis of the leaky-wave antenna with the microstrip feeding has been presented in this paper. Owing to an open-end structure of the leaky-wave antenna, we analyze the antenna by using the cavity-mode technique. Two conventional leaky-wave antennas with two different lengths, defined by the short and long cases, are shown to examine their radiation mechanism and frequency characteristics. Without using commercial EM simulation tools, the location of the resonance modes of the leaky-wave antenna can be predicted.
Teachers’ Perception on the Use of Recreational Activities for Peace Building and Peace Culture in Bayelsa State Secondary School

The study examined the perception of teachers in the use of recreational activities for peace building and peace culture in Bayelsa State secondary schools. The descriptive research design was adopted in the study. Three research questions were posed to guide the study. The 2,982 teachers in the 154 senior secondary schools in Bayelsa State constituted the population of the study. The sample of the study consisted 317 teachers drawn through the simple random sampling technique. A researchers’ developed “Teachers’ Perception of Recreational Activities for Peace Building/Culture Questionnaire (TPRAPBCQ)”, formatted on four point Likert type scale was the instrument used for data collection. It was validated by experts in measurement and evaluation; with a reliability coefficient of 0.69 established using the Crombach Alpha technique. Data was analyzed using the mean and standard divation. A criterion mean of 2.50 was used to accept or reject responses. The results showed that recreational activities could be used for peace building and peace culture in secondary schools in Bayelsa State as responses exceeded the criterion mean of 2.50. It was therefore recommended that an enabling framework for the use of recreational activities for peace building and peace culture be put in place for secondary schools. More so, high level collaboration should be encouraged between Government agencies, multinational corporations, the organized private sector, public spirited individuals and schools in the provision of appropriate recreational activities with the aim of peace building and enhanced peace culture among the youth.
Evaluation of Radial Artery Atherosclerosis by Intravascular Ultrasound

We quantified radial artery atherosclerosis by intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) and determined the relationship between established cardiovascular risk factors and the extent of atherosclerotic plaque. Intravascular ultrasound examination of the radial artery was performed in patients undergoing transradial angiography or intervention. Total 50-mm segments starting at the radioulnar bifurcation were analyzed at 2-mm intervals to compute atheroma volume. In 115 consecutive patients, atheroma volume averaged 67.4 mm3 and percentage atheroma volume was 25.2%. Radial arteries showed age-related acceleration of atherosclerosis. Total atheroma volume was strongly associated with square of age and male gender. Hypertension and diabetes were strong independent predictors of larger radial artery atheroma burden. Radial artery atherosclerosis, which can be quantitatively analyzed by IVUS, could be used as a surrogate marker for atherosclerosis.
Effects of Head Nodding and Shaking Motions on Perceptions of Likeability and Approachability

It has been demonstrated that bowing motion of computer-generated female three-dimensional figures enhanced perceived attractiveness. Given that nodding and shaking head motions are used as communicative signals, such as signals of approval (and denial), these motions could be expected to modulate perceived trait impressions of model faces. We used movie clips of the nodding and shaking head motions of computer-generated figures and examined the modulation effects of these motions on perceived trait impressions (i.e., attractiveness, likability, and approachability). The results showed that the nodding head motion significantly increased ratings of subjective likability and approachability relative to those of the shaking or control conditions, whereas the shaking motion did not influence the ratings. Furthermore, it was shown that a nodding head motion of the computer-generated models primarily increased likability attributable to personality traits, rather than to physical appearance. We concluded that head nodding motion is treated as information regarding approach-related motivations and enhances perceived likeability.
Peer-to-Peer Result Dissemination in High-Volume Data Filtering

Data filtering is the problem of matching high-volume document streams, against a set of client profiles, often represented by queries. Recent work in highvolume data filtering, like the YFilter project at Berkeley, has focused on efficiently indexing client queries, by exploiting the similarity between queries. However, the problem of result dissemination in data filtering has not been received enough attention. Each filtered document has to be delivered to a unique, and typically large set of clients, making this a problem of highly dynamic multicast. We observe fundamental limitations in the client-server delivery model for the high-volume data filtering problem and describe a peer-to-peer scheme to solve it. It exploits the bandwidths of participating clients for data dissemination by building an unstructured overlay network. Our deployment on the PlanetLab testbed shows that the approach proposed is scalable and offers acceptable delivery delays and network economy.