Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Determination of 1-phenylazo-2-naphthol (Sudan I) in chilli powder and in chilli-containing food products by GPC clean-up and HPLC with LC/MS confirmation

A simple and rapid method is reported for the routine determination 1-phenylazo-2-naphthol (Sudan I) in chilli powder and in chilli-containing food products. The method involved Soxtec extraction from the products followed by high-pressure gel permeation chromatographic clean-up collecting the appropriate fraction. Analysis of this fraction was by HPLC with UV/VIS detection. The limit of detection was 7 μg kg−1 and the limit of quantification was 13 μg kg−1. The identity of Sudan I in food products was established by electrospray LC/MS with MS/MS confirmation. From a small survey of 30 retail samples, 11 samples of crushed chilli, Italian pasta, chilli-snack and vegetable sauce contained levels of Sudan I ranging from 24 to 5591 μg kg−1.
Metabolomics: Creating new potentials for unraveling the mechanisms in response to salt and drought stress and for the biotechnological improvement of xero-halophytes

Breeders have long been interested in understanding the biological function and mechanism of xero-halophytes and their ability for growth in drought-stricken and salinized environments. However, the mechanisms in response to stress have been difficult to unravel because their defenses require regulatory changes to the activation of multiple genes and pathways. Metabolomics is becoming a key tool in comprehensively understanding the cellular response to abiotic stress and represents an important addition to the tools currently employed in genomics-assisted selection for plant improvement. In this review, we highlight the applications of plant metabolomics in characterizing metabolic responses to salt and drought stress, and identifying metabolic quantitative trait loci (QTLs). We also discuss the potential of metabolomics as a tool to unravel stress response mechanisms, and as a viable option for the biotechnological improvement of xero-halophytes when no other genetic information such as linkage maps and QTLs are available, by combining with germplasm-regression-combined marker-trait association identification.
Care and Outcomes of Patients With In-Hospital Stroke.

IMPORTANCE A sizeable minority of strokes occur in hospitalized patients. However, little is known about the presentation, care, and outcomes of stroke in this subgroup of patients. OBJECTIVE To examine stroke care delivery and outcomes for patients with in-hospital vs community-onset stroke. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS Prospective cohort study of all patients older than 18 years with acute stroke seen in the emergency department or admitted to the hospital at participating centers (all regional stroke centers in Ontario, Canada) between July 1, 2003, and March 31, 2012, including those with stroke onset during hospitalization for another cause. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES We compared processes of stroke care delivery, including time to neuroimaging and rates of thrombolysis, as well as outcomes, including death and disability, in those with in-hospital vs community-onset stroke. We used multiple logistic regression models to adjust for age, sex, comorbid conditions, and stroke type and severity. RESULTS The study sample included 973 patients with in-hospital stroke and 28 837 with community-onset stroke. Patients with in-hospital stroke compared with those with community-onset stroke had significantly longer waiting times from symptom recognition to neuroimaging (median, 4.5 vs 1.2 hours; P < .001; for <2 hours, 32% vs 63%; adjusted odds ratio [AOR] = 0.21; 95% CI, 0.18-0.24), lower use of thrombolysis (12% vs 19% of those with ischemic stroke; AOR = 0.54; 95% CI, 0.43-0.67; P < .001), and longer time from stroke recognition to administration of thrombolysis (median, 2.0 vs 1.2 hours; P < .001). After adjustment for age, stroke severity, and other factors, mortality rates at 30 days and 1 year after stroke were similar in those with in-hospital stroke and community-onset stroke; however, those with in-hospital stroke had a longer median length of stay following stroke onset (17 vs 8 days; P < .001), were more likely to be dead or disabled at discharge (77% vs 65% with modified Rankin Scale score of 3-6; AOR = 1.64; 95% CI, 1.38-1.96; P < .001), and were less likely to be discharged home from the hospital (35% vs 44%; AOR = 0.76; 95% CI, 0.64-0.90; P < .001). CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE Compared with those with community-onset stroke, patients with in-hospital stroke had delays in investigations and treatment, suggesting a need for a standardized approach to the recognition and management of in-hospital stroke, with the aim of ensuring access to rapid acute stroke care.
Cancer in Greenlandic Inuit 1973–1997: A cohort study

The increasing westernization of the Arctic countries may influence the very particular cancer profile of these populations. Our objective was to investigate the development in cancer incidence from 1973 to 1997 in a large and well‐defined Inuit population in Greenland. Greenland is part of the Danish Kingdom, and population statistics covering both countries are available from the same registry resource. Data from the Danish Civil Registration System and from the Danish Cancer Registry were used to calculate age‐standardized cancer incidence rates for the periods 1973–1987 and 1988–1997 for persons born in Greenland. Using rates for Denmark, sex‐specific standardized incidence ratios (SIRs) for 1988–1997 were calculated. Furthermore, age‐ and sex‐specific incidence rates in the 2 periods were calculated for selected cancers. Total cancer incidence increased from 248.5 to 277.9 per 100,000 person‐years in men and from 269.4 to 302.2 per 100,000 person‐years in women. The incidence of lung, stomach, breast and colon cancer increased, whereas the incidence of cervical cancer decreased. Compared to the Caucasian population in Denmark, high SIRs were found for cancers of the nasopharynx, salivary gland, esophagus, stomach and cervix and low SIRs for testis, bladder, prostate, breast and hematologic cancers. Overall cancer incidence among Greenlandic Inuit is increasing as a result of increases in several cancers that are common in Western populations. A significant increase in the incidence of stomach cancer in both sexes, which contrasts global trends for this cancer, warrants further investigation. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Oscillatory and steady laminar shear stress differentially affect human endothelial redox state: role of a superoxide-producing NADH oxidase.

Atherosclerotic lesions are found opposite vascular flow dividers at sites of low shear stress and oscillatory flow. Since endothelial proinflammatory genes prominent in lesions are regulated by oxidation-sensitive transcriptional control mechanisms, we examined the redox state of cultured human umbilical vein endothelial cells after either oscillatory or steady laminar fluid shear stress. Endothelial oxidative stress was assessed by measuring activity of the superoxide (O2.- )-producing NADH oxidase (a major source of reactive oxygen species in vascular cells), intracellular O2. - levels, induction of the redox-sensitive gene heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1), and abundance of Cu/Zn superoxide dismutase (Cu/Zn SOD), an antioxidant defense enzyme whose level of expression adapts to changes in oxidative stress. When cells were exposed to oscillatory shear (+/-5 dyne/cm2, 1 Hz) for 1, 5, and 24 hours, NADH oxidase activity and the amount of HO-1 progressively increased up to 174+/-16% (P<0.05) and 505+/-111% (P<0.05) versus static conditions, respectively, whereas levels of Cu/Zn SOD remained unchanged. This upregulation of HO-1 was completely blocked by the antioxidant N-acetylcysteine (NAC, 20 mmol/L). In contrast, steady laminar shear (5 dyne/cm2) induced NADH oxidase activity and NAC-sensitive HO-1 mRNA expression only at 1 and 5 hours, a transient response that returned toward baseline at 24 hours. Levels of Cu/Zn SOD mRNA and protein were increased after 24 hours of steady laminar shear. Furthermore, intracellular O2. -, as measured by dihydroethidium fluorescence, was higher in cells exposed to oscillatory than to laminar shear. These data are consistent with the hypothesis that continuous oscillatory shear causes a sustained activation of pro-oxidant processes resulting in redox-sensitive gene expression in human endothelial cells. Steady laminar shear stress initially activates these processes but appears to induce compensatory antioxidant defenses. We speculate that differences in endothelial redox state, orchestrated by different regimens of shear stress, may contribute to the focal nature of atherosclerosis.
Direct aperture optimization of breast IMRT and the dosimetric impact of respiration motion

We have studied the application of direct aperture optimization (DAO) as an inverse planning tool for breast IMRT. Additionally, we have analysed the impact of respiratory motion on the quality of the delivered dose distribution. From this analysis, we have developed guidelines for balancing the desire for a high-quality optimized plan with the need to create a plan that will not degrade significantly in the presence of respiratory motion. For a DAO optimized breast IMRT plan, the tangential fields incorporate a flash field to cover the range of respiratory motion. The inverse planning algorithm then optimizes the shapes and weights of additional segments that are delivered in combination with the open fields. IMRT plans were generated using DAO with the relative weights of the open segments varied from 0% to 95%. To assess the impact of breathing motion, the dose distribution for the optimized IMRT plan was recalculated with the isocentre sampled from a predefined distribution in a Monte Carlo convolution/superposition dose engine with the breast simulated as a rigid object. The motion amplitudes applied in this study ranged from 0.5 to 2.0 cm. For a range of weighting levels assigned to the open field, comparisons were made between the static plans and the plans recalculated with motion. For the static plans, we found that uniform dose distributions could be generated with relative weights for the open segments equal to and below 80% and unacceptable levels of underdosage were observed with the weights larger than 80%. When simulated breathing motion was incorporated into the dose calculation, we observed a loss in dose uniformity as the weight of the open field was decreased to below 65%. More quantitatively, for each 1% decrease in the weight, the per cent volume of the target covered by at least 95% of the prescribed dose decreased by approximately 0.10% and 0.16% for motion amplitudes equal to 1.5 cm and 2.0 cm, respectively. When taking into account the motion effects, the most uniform and conformal dose distributions were achieved when the open segment weights were in the range of 65–80%. Within this range, high-quality IMRT plans were produced for each case. The study demonstrates that DAO with tangential fields provides a robust and efficient technique for breast IMRT planning and delivery when the open segment weight is selected between 65% and 80%.
Crown Copyright and Copyright Reform in Canada

This chapter seeks to call attention to Crown copyright, an area that is not included on the current copyright reform agenda but is slated for review as a "medium-term" issue. It recommends that Canada should engage in a comprehensive review of Crown copyright in the short term and suggests changes to the Crown copyright system. Crown copyright, or government copyright, refers generally to copyright in materials produced by the government. The tension with Crown copyright has been between, on the one hand, the acknowledged need to provide wide access to government information, particularly laws, in a free and democratic society and, on the other hand, the inclination to exercise government control over the printing of government materials. Canada's conclusion thus far has been that Crown copyright must be retained in order to ensure accuracy and integrity of government materials. The exercise of Crown copyright is sometimes combined with permissive licensing to reproduce materials, as is the situation with federal law. In support of the joint objective of review and reform, this chapter provides a summary of other jurisdictions' approaches to government ownership of government-produced works. The chapter recommends that Crown copyright in Canada should not apply to public legal information because those works are produced with the obligation to make them available for the purposes of public access and notice of the law. Accuracy and integrity of those materials are important objectives, and copyright may have been an appropriate legal mechanism at one time to achieve those ends; however, other legal and technological mechanisms are better suited now to ensure accuracy and integrity, while at the same time facilitating the public's access to those materials. The chapter also recommends that the royal prerogative should be eliminated so that the scope of Crown copyright is clearly ascertainable from the statutory provisions. With respect to government-produced works other than public legal information, the article recommends that the Crown copyright statute should be re-drafted to clarify (and narrow) the category of works to which it applies and to specify reciprocal obligations by government to publish these materials in publicly-accessible formats and media using appropriate updated technologies. These recommendations comply with international copyright obligations and are consistent with other jurisdictions' approaches and with movements to facilitate public access.
Relationship analysis between user's contexts and real input words through Twitter

In this paper, we propose a method to evaluate effectiveness of our proposed context-aware text entry by using Twitter. We focus on ”geo-tagged” public tweets because they include user's important contexts, real location and time. We also focus on TV program listing because 50% traffic of iPhone in Japan is generated from our home, in which I often tweets in watching a TV. Cyclical collecting system based on Streaming API and Search API of Twitter is proposed for gathering the target tweets efficiently. In order to find the relationship between user's contexts and really used words, we compare really-tweeted words with words obtained from Local Search API of Yahoo! Japan that is used for our context-aware text entry and words obtained from TV program listing. We analyze 471274 tweets that have been collected from 15 December 2009 to 10 June 2010 for specifying the relationship to landmark information and TV program. As a result, we show that 5.1% of tweets include landmark words, and 9% of tweets include TV program words. Additionally, we bring out that there are location dependent words and time dependent words.
The effect of external KISA on innovation in manufacturing firms

Manufacturing firms increasingly rely on externally supplied knowledge and services, which motivate many of them to pay increased attention to external knowledge-intensive service activities (KISA). This article aims to increase understandings of how and through which mechanisms external KISA can facilitate the generation of innovations by manufacturing firms. Results from this study of Chinese manufacturing firms and KISA suggest that knowledge integration (including knowledge combination and knowledge allocation) mediates between external KISA and innovation.
ThinPrep® Pap Test™

The ThinPrep® Pap Test™ (TP), a liquid‐based cervical cytology preparation, was approved for use in the U.S. in 1996. The purpose of this study was to compare TP performance and biopsy follow‐up studies with a similar population of high risk patients sampled by conventional Papanicolaou (Pap) smear (CS).
Neurosurgery at an earlier stage of Parkinson disease

Background: Stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus is an effective treatment for advanced Parkinson disease (PD) and is currently performed after a mean disease duration of 14 years, when severe motor complications have resulted in marked loss of quality of life. We examined whether surgery at an early stage would maintain quality of life as well as improve motor function. Methods: Twenty patients with PD of short duration (time elapsed since first symptom ± SD: 6.8 ± 1.0 years) with mild to moderate motor signs (Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale III “off” medication: 29 ± 12) who responded well to levodopa treatment were included in pairs, matched for age, duration and severity of disease, and impairment in socioprofessional functioning. Patients were prospectively randomized to undergo bilateral subthalamic nucleus stimulation (n = 10) or receive optimized medical treatment (n = 10). Parkinsonian motor scores, quality of life, cognition, and psychiatric morbidity were assessed at inclusion and at 6, 12, and 18 months after randomization. Results: Quality of life was improved by 24% in surgical and 0% in nonsurgical patients (p < 0.05). After 18 months, the severity of parkinsonian motor signs “off” medication, levodopa-induced motor complications, and daily levodopa dose were reduced by 69%, 83%, and 57% in operated patients and increased by 29%, 15%, and 12% in the group with medical treatment only (p < 0.001). Adverse events were mild or transient, and overall psychiatric morbidity and anxiety improved in the surgical group. Conclusions: Subthalamic nucleus stimulation should be considered a therapeutic option early in the course of Parkinson disease.
Noise reduction to decrease radiation dose and improve conspicuity of hepatic lesions at contrast-enhanced 80-kV hepatic CT using projection space denoising.

OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to investigate the combined potential of 80-kV CT and noise reduction using a projection space denoising algorithm to reduce radiation dose reduction or to improve the image quality of hepatic CT. MATERIALS AND METHODS Twenty patients with 56 liver lesions underwent dual-energy (80 and 140 kV) contrast-enhanced hepatic CT. Low-dose 80-kV-only images (comprising 26-54% of the total radiation dose), low-dose 80-kV projection space denoising images (routine and sharper reconstruction kernel), and full-dose mixed-kilovoltage with projection space denoising images were evaluated by three radiologists for lesion conspicuity, image noise, and sharpness. Lesions were compared with full-dose images using 5-point scales (0 = no change, +2 = markedly better, and -2 = markedly worse). Quantitative conspicuity in the form of lesion-to-liver contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR), image noise, and image sharpness were measured. RESULTS For all readers, the mean conspicuity rating of low-dose 80-kV projection space denoising images was better than that for full-dose images (mean conspicuity, 0.36-0.57; p < 0.001), with only 1.2% of lesions less conspicuous on 80-kV projection space denoising images. Eighty-kilovolt projection space denoising images reconstructed with a sharper kernel were subjectively similar to full-dose mixed-kilovoltage images comparing image noise (-0.054 to 0.018; p < 0.001 to p = 0.058) and sharpness (-0.64 to -0.09; p < 0.001 to p = 0.057). For 80-kV projection space denoising images with a sharper kernel, lesion-to-liver CNR was slightly higher than that for full-dose mixed-kilovoltage images (p < 0.001), whereas image sharpness and noise were unchanged (p = 0.74 and p = 0.02). CONCLUSION Eighty-kilovolt imaging with noise reduction can simultaneously increase lesion conspicuity and facilitate radiation dose reduction and image quality improvement at contrast-enhanced hepatic CT.
Cerebral metabolic changes associated with Lyme disease

There are no positron emission tomography (PET) studies reported in the literature with regards to brain metabolism and function in patients with Lyme disease. These patients frequently present with various neurological symptoms, including memory problems. We used [18F]fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) PET to determine the metabolic landscape in 23 patients with Lyme disease. Images were evaluated for cortical and subcortical abnormalities by two experienced reviewers blinded to the clinical information. The most striking finding was hypometabolism in the temporal lobes in 17/23 (74%) patients. Of these, 12 had bilateral temporal lobe hypometabolism, two had left temporal lobe, and three had right temporal lobe hypometabolism. Seven of the patients with temporal lobe hypometabolism had diffuse cortical hypometabolism that included the frontal and parietal lobes. Lyme disease appears to have two primary patterns of brain involvement on FDG PET scans, specific temporal lobe hypometabolism or a diffuse cortical hypometabolism. The involvement of the temporal lobes in both patterns is likely associated with the memory disturbances described in many of these patients. Although there was no clear diagnostic pattern, and many of the defects were mild, FDG PET imaging may provide important information regarding the areas of the brain affected in patients with neurological symptoms associated with Lyme disease.
High-frequency generation of transgenic zebrafish which reliably express GFP in whole muscles or the whole body by using promoters of zebrafish origin.

Despite a number of reports on transgenic zebrafish, there have been no reports on transgenic zebrafish in which the gene is under the control of a promoter of zebrafish origin. Neither have there been reports on transgenic zebrafish in which the gene is under the control of a tissue-specific promoter/enhancer. To investigate whether it is possible to generate transgenic zebrafish which reliably express a reporter gene in specific tissues, we have isolated a zebrafish muscle-specific actin (alpha-actin) promoter and generated transgenic zebrafish in which the green fluorescent protein (GFP) reporter gene was driven by this promoter. In total, 41 GFP-expressing transgenic lines were generated with a frequency of as high as 21% (41 of 194), and GFP was specifically expressed throughout muscle cells in virtually all of the lines (40 of 41). Nonexpressing transgenic lines were rare. This demonstrates that a tissue-specific promoter can reliably drive reporter gene expression in transgenic zebrafish in a manner identical to the control of the endogeneous expression of the gene. Levels of GFP expression varied greatly from line to line; i.e., fluorescence was very weak in some lines, while it was extremely high in others. We also isolated a zebrafish cytoskeletal beta-actin promoter and generated transgenic zebrafish using a beta-actin-GFP construct. In all of the four lines generated, GFP was expressed throughout the body like the beta-actin gene, demonstrating that consistent expression could also be achieved in this case. In the present study, we also examined the effects of factors which potentially affect the transgenic frequency or expression levels. The following results were obtained: (i) expression levels of GFP in the injected embryo were not strongly correlated to transgenic frequency; (ii) the effect of the NLS peptide (SV40 T antigen nuclear localization sequence), which has been suggested to facilitate the transfer of a transgene into embryonic nuclei, remained to be elusive; (iii) a plasmid vector sequence placed upstream of the construct might reduce the expression levels of the reporter gene.