Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cancer incidence in 13811 patients skin tested for allergy.

AIM Several studies have shown a negative correlation between cancer and atopy-related diseases. There are also a few reports of a positive relationship. We wanted to further evaluate these relationships in a prospective study. SUBJECTS AND METHODS The incidence of malignant diseases among adult patients with atopy-related diseases (asthma, rhinitis, urticaria, eczema etc; n = 13811), who had been skin prick tested in 1976-1999 was compared with the incidence in the general population. Expected cancer incidence from the date of skin prick testing up to 1999 was obtained from cause-, sex-, calendar-year-, and 5-year-age-group specific incidence rates for the county. These rates were calculated from cancer incidence and population counts obtained from the Swedish Cancer Register. The 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for cause-specific standardized incidence ratios (SIRs) were calculated. Skin prick tests were performed with Dermatophagoides pteronyssinus, horse, dog, cat, timothy, mugwort, birch, and Cladosporium. Patients having one or several positive skin prick test reactions (> or = 2+) were regarded as atopics. RESULTS 119 cases of cancer occurred among 6224 atopic individuals (SIR 1.0) compared with 216 cases (SIR 0.94, CI 0.82-1.08) among 6358 non-atopics. There was a slight excess of Hodgkin's lymphoma cases among atopic men (SIR 4.03, 95% CI 1-10.3), and of non Hodgkin lymphoma cases among atopic women (SIR 4.52, 95% CI 1.23-11.6). However, a large number of comparisons were made which can have caused random findings. CONCLUSIONS The results showed no associations between atopy or allergic symptoms, and subsequent cancer risk, but supported the theory that type-I allergy is not related to cancer risk.
Voltage is a partial activator of rat thermosensitive TRP channels

TRPV1 and TRPM8 are sensory nerve ion channels activated by heating and cooling, respectively. A variety of physical and chemical stimuli activate these receptors in a synergistic manner but the underlying mechanisms are unclear. Both channels are voltage sensitive, and temperature and ligands modulate this voltage dependence. Thus, a voltage‐sensing mechanism has become an attractive model to explain the generalized gating of these and other thermo‐sensitive TRP channels. We show here using whole‐cell and single channel measurements that voltage produces only a partial activation of TRPV1 and TRPM8. At room temperature (20–25°C) membrane depolarization evokes responses that saturate at ∼50–60% of the maximum open probability. Furthermore, high concentrations of capsaicin (10 μm), resiniferatoxin (5 μm) and menthol (6 mm) reveal voltage‐independent gating. Similarly, other modes of TRPV1 regulation including heat, protein kinase C‐dependent phosphorylation, and protons enhance both the efficacy and sensitivity of voltage activation. In contrast, the TRPV1 antagonist capsazepine produces the opposite effects. These data can be explained by an allosteric model in which voltage, temperature, agonists and inverse agonists are independently coupled, either positively or negatively, to channel gating. Thus, voltage acts separately but in concert with other stimuli to regulate channel activation, and, therefore, a voltage‐sensitive mechanism is unlikely to represent a final, gating mechanism for these channels.
Genetic structure of the endangered species Pinna nobilis (Mollusca: Bivalvia) inferred from mtDNA sequences

This study examines the population genetic structure of the endangered bivalve Pinna nobilis (Mollusca: Bivalvia), based on novel mtDNA sequences (partial COI and 16S rDNA mtDNA genes). The analyzed nucleotide sequences of COI were 729 bp in size, coding for a 243 amino acid peptide, while the analyzed nucleotide sequences of 16S rDNA were 489 bp in size. These sequences of P. nobilis were the first DNA sequences of the species submitted to any Genetic Data Base. Population samples from four geographic regions from Greece, as well as a population sample of Atrina fragilis (as an outgroup) were used. High values of haplotypic diversity were found in the population samples of P. nobilis, based on the COI sequences. A single base in the analyzed 16S rDNA sequences was different in all analyzed individuals from a single population sample (Chios island) differentiating it from the other ones. These mtDNA sequences could be informative for further genetic analyses of the endangered species, contributing in conservation plans for its protection and/or aquaculture investigations.
The lack of short-term impact of cohesion policy on the competitiveness of SMEs

The purpose of this article is to study the relationship between the competitiveness of small- and medium-sized companies and the public support offered to them in the form of direct subsidies allocated through European structural funds. Using micro-data gathered by the Operational Programme Enterprise and Innovations for Competitiveness (OPEIC) of European structural funds from 2007–2013, this analysis focuses on small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the Czech Republic. We employed a counterfactual approach based on Propensity Score Matching (PSM), Nearest Neighbour Estimator and Difference in Difference design with two groups of companies: applicants receiving support and a control group. When using value added and value added per labour cost as the competitiveness indicators for SMEs, we found that Cohesion Policy (CP) support had no statistically significant impact on these indicators. On the other hand, we a found positive impact on personnel expenditure. These results highlight a number of doubts regarding the effectiveness of SME cohesion funding, given that a rise in personnel expenditure, which is not supported by an appropriate increase in added value, is unlikely to be sustainable.
Situational and Dispositional Determinants of College Men’s Perception of Women’s Sexual Desire and Consent to Sex: A Factorial Vignette Analysis

Sexual victimization of women by men on college campuses is a growing societal concern, with research identifying a host of situational and characterological factors that may predict men’s likelihood to engage in sexual misconduct. In the present study, we examined the relative contribution and potential interplay of these various determinants on college men’s perceptions of women’s sexual desire and consent in hypothetical dating scenarios depicting a sexual interaction. We found that the men (N = 145) in this sample (a) conflated sexual desire with consent, (b) varied their appraisals of consent and desire depending on whether and how the woman in the vignette communicated consent or refusal, (c) perceived higher levels of consent if the man in the vignette had intercourse with the woman previously and as a function of escalating sexual intimacy in the ongoing interaction, (d) endorsed higher levels of perceived desire and consent across situations if they more strongly held rape-supportive attitudes, and (e) moderated their association between situational factors and perceptions of a woman’s sexual intentions based on their endorsement of rape myths and a hypermasculine ideology. We conclude that efforts to prevent sexual violence among college students may benefit from being modeled on our findings that some men are likelier to infer consent regardless of the situation, that specific situational factors can foster misperceptions of consent across men in general, and that certain individuals in particular situations may pose the greatest risk for sexual misconduct.
Long-term psychopathological and cognitive outcome of children with fetal alcohol syndrome.

OBJECTIVE The long-term outcome of a large cohort of children suffering from fetal alcohol syndrome was studied. METHOD Structured psychiatric interviews, behavior checklists for parents and teachers, and intelligence tests were used. Assessments took place during preschool age, early school age (6 to 12 years), and late school age (> or = 13 years). RESULTS There was an excess of psychopathology with a wide variety of psychiatric syndromes in this cohort. Hyperkinetic disorders, emotional disorders, sleep disorders, and abnormal habits and stereotypes persisted over time. Interview findings were largely in accordance with parents' and teachers' questionnaire findings. Intelligence test findings included a large proportion of mentally retarded children and displayed high stability at follow-up. CONCLUSIONS The development of children suffering from fetal alcohol syndrome is jeopardized by a high rate of persistent psychiatric and cognitive impairments.
Retention of Pax3 Expression in Satellite Cells of Muscle Spindles

Intrafusal fibers within muscle spindles retain features characteristic of immaturity, unlike the larger and more numerous extrafusal fibers constituting the bulk of skeletal muscle. Satellite cells (SCs), myogenic progenitors, are detected on the surfaces of both intrafusal and extrafusal fibers, but little is known of spindle SCs. We have recently demonstrated that, like their extrafusal counterparts, SCs in muscle spindles of posthatch chickens express paired box transcription factor 7 (Pax7) protein. During vertebrate embryogenesis, myogenic progenitors express both Pax7 and Pax3 proteins. In postnatal mice, Pax3 appears in rare SC subsets, whereas Pax7 is expressed by all SCs within extrafusal fibers. Here we test the hypothesis that Pax3 protein maintains localized expression within SCs of muscle spindles. Immunohistochemical techniques were used to identify SCs by their Pax7 expression within anterior latissimus dorsi muscle excised from posthatch chickens of various ages. A greater percentage of SCs express Pax3 within intrafusal than extrafusal fibers at each age, and the proportion of SCs expressing Pax3 declines with aging. This is the first study to localize Pax3 expression in posthatch avian muscle and within SCs of muscle spindles. We suggest that Pax3-positive SCs are involved in fiber maintenance.
FISH on sperm heads allows the analysis of chromosome segregation and interchromosomal effects in carriers of structural rearrangements: results in a translocation carrier, t(5;8)(q33;q13)

Using three-color fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) with specific DNA probes, we have determined the chromosome segregation pattern of the translocated chromosomes in a human male carrier of a reciprocal translocation, t(5;8)(q33;q13). At the same time, we have assessed the possible interchromosomal effect on pair 21 using dual-color FISH. The segregation results showed that a 45.12% of the spermatozoa analyzed resulted from alternate segregation, 38.31% resulted from adjacent I, 6.97% from adjacent II, and 6.56% from 3:1 segregation. Finally, 1.23% could be either diploid sperm or 4:0 segregation. In both types of adjacent segregations, an excess of products containing short translocated segments (adjacent I) and interstitial regions (adjacent II) were found. Products resulting from the presence of an interstitial chiasma in pair 5 (1.26%), were found much more frequently (P < 0.0001) than those resulting from an interstitial chiasma in pair 8 (0.13%) (evaluated after adjacent II segregation). In 3:1 segregation, the products containing one chromosome were observed more frequently than those containing three chromosomes (P < 0.0001). No evidence of an interchromosomal effect on chromosome 21 was detected, the percentage of disomy 21 being similar to that in the controls (0.23% vs. 0.37%). However, the percentage of diploid sperm (1.18%) was significantly higher (P < 0.0001) than that in the controls (0.27%). FISH therefore appears to be a useful technique for assessing the percentage of abnormal sperm in translocation carriers. Their application in assisted reproduction centers could offer patients more accurate genetic counseling.
Robust hybrid wrapper/filter biomarker discovery from gene expression data based on generalised island model

In the last few years, researchers have dedicated growing attention to biomarker identification given due to its extreme importance in genomics and personalised medicine. In this paper, biomarker discovery is handled by means of a cooperative parallel and distributed approach based on metaheuristics. More specifically, metaheuristics are employed according to a generalised island model architecture, and a hybrid wrapper/filter mechanism is applied within the selection process. In addition, a new initialisation strategy based on an ensemble of filters is proposed to bootstrap the metaheuristics. Experiments on 12 publicly available cancer datasets have shown that our approach competes with and even outperforms recent state-of-the-art methods in terms of the predictive performance and also provides robust selection through the different similarity measures. Biological interpretation of the selected signature reveals that the proposed method guarantees the selection of highly informative genes for cancer diagnosis.
Influence of ALDH2 Polymorphism on Ethanol Kinetics and Pulmonary Effects in Male and Female Rats Exposed to Ethanol Vapors

Ethanol is being added in various proportions to fuel in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This is likely to result in involuntary exposure to ethanol vapors. Whether or not such exposure might cause health effects is still unknown. Acetaldehyde, an important metabolite of ethanol detoxified by aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH2) is more toxic that ethanol. This study assessed the impact of genetic ALDH2 polymorphism in male and female Sprague-Dawley rats on ethanol kinetics and pulmonary effects following sub-chronic exposure to ethanol vapors. Homozygote rats ALDH2Q/2Q (fast ALDH2 activity) and ALDH2R/2R (ALDH2 deficiency) were exposed to 1000 or 3000 ppm, 6 h/day, 5 days/week for 13 weeks. Blood ethanol concentrations (BEC) were measured at various post-exposure times. Cellularity in bronchoalveolar lavages (BAL) and lung histological evaluation were performed at week 13. Results showed that BEC in males were systematically lower than in females, e.g. BEC in ALDH2Q/2Q males (2 min, 1,000 ppm, day 1) was significantly (p < 0.05) lower (66.8 ± 10.7 μ M) compared to females (87.6 ± 15.3 μ M). BEC for ALDH2Q/2Q rats were different from ALDH2R/2R only for males exposed for more than 64 days. Repeated exposures resulted in a significant decrease of BEC, e.g. for ALDH2Q/2Q males (3,000 ppm) BEC on day 1 and day 85 were 324.6 ± 102.6 μ M and 187.5 ± 32.1 μ M, respectively. BAL and histological evaluation revealed no pulmonary toxicity for all groups. Overall, results showed that 3,000 ppm of ethanol vapors represents no observed adverse effect level (NOAEL) for pulmonary toxicity in the rat.
Real-Time Device-Level Transient Electrothermal Model for Modular Multilevel Converter on FPGA

Real-time simulation of modular multilevel converters (MMCs) is challenging due to their complex structure consisting of a large number of submodules (SMs). In the literature, the computational speed is emphasized for MMC modeling in real-time simulation, while accurate and detailed information of insulated-gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) modules in SMs is sacrificed. A novel datasheet-based device-level electrothermal model for an MMC on the field programmable gate array (FPGA) is presented in this paper for real-time hardware emulation. Conduction and switching power losses, junction temperatures, temperature-dependent electrical parameters, and linearized switching transient waveforms of IGBT modules are adequately captured in the proposed model. Simultaneously the system-level behavior of the MMC is accurately modeled. Five-level and nine-level MMC systems are emulated in the hardware with the time step of 10 μs and 10 ns for system-level and device-level computations, respectively. The paralleled and pipelined hardware design using IEEE 32-bit floating point number precision runs on Xilinx Virtex-7 XC7VX485T device. The emulated real-time results by an oscilloscope have been validated by offline simulation on SaberRD software.
The diversity of wage regimes: why the Eurozone is too heterogeneous for the Euro

Why did the transnational synchronization of wage inflations fail during the first 10 years of the euro? We analyze data from 1999 to 2008 for 12 euro members and estimate increases of nominal unit labor costs both in the overall economy and in manufacturing as dependent variables. While our analysis confirms that differences in economic growth shaped the inflation of labor costs, we add a political-institutional argument to the debate and argue that the designs of the wage regimes had an additional, independent impact. In coordinated labor regimes, increases in nominal unit labor costs tended to fall below the European Central Bank’s inflation target, while in uncoordinated labor regimes, the respective increases tended to exceed the European inflation target. Due to the stickiness of wage-bargaining institutions, the lack of the capacity to synchronize inflation is not likely to disappear in the foreseeable future.
Entry of OpaA+ gonococci into HEp‐2 cells requires concerted action of glycosaminoglycans, fibronectin and integrin receptors

Heparan sulphate proteoglycans are increasingly implicated as eukaryotic cell surface receptors for bacterial pathogens. Here, we report that Neisseria gonorrhoeae adheres to proteoglycan receptors on HEp‐2 epithelial cells but that internalization of the bacterium by this cell type requires the serum glycoprotein fibronectin. Fibronectin was shown to bind specifically to gonococci producing the OpaA adhesin. Binding assays with fibronectin fragments located the bacterial binding site near the N‐terminal end of the molecule. However, none of the tested fibronectin fragments supported gonococcal entry into the eukaryotic cells; a 120 kDa fragment carrying the cell adhesion domain with the amino acid sequence RGD even inhibited the fibronectin‐mediated uptake of MS11‐OpaA. This inhibition could be mimicked by an RGD‐containing hexapeptide and by α5β1 integrin‐specific antibodies, suggesting that interaction of the central region of fibronectin with integrin receptors facilitated bacterial uptake. Fibronectin was unable to promote gonococcal entry into HEp‐2 cells that had been treated with the enzyme heparinase III, which degrades the glycosaminoglycan side‐chains of proteoglycan receptors. On the basis of these results, we propose a novel cellular uptake pathway for bacteria, which involves the binding of the pathogen to glycosaminoglycans that, in turn, act as co‐receptors facilitating fibronectin‐mediated bacterial uptake through integrin receptors. In this scenario, fibronectin would act as a molecular bridge linking the Opa–proteoglycan complex with host cell integrin receptors.
Ushahidi: Empowering Citizens through Crowdsourcing and Digital Data Collection. Interview of Juliana Rotich

Created in 2007, Ushahidi which means “testimony” in Swahili, is both the name of a Kenyan not-for-profit civic tech company and of a crowdsourcing platform allowing to submit violence reports and map the events. In this interview, Juliana Rotich, co-founder and former Executive Director of Ushahidi, introduces the Ushahidi technology and the next challenges to face, notably in the context of African smart cities.
Amplification of a species-specific DNA fragment of Mycobacterium tuberculosis and its possible use in diagnosis

In recent work, a species-specific Mycobacterium tuberculosis DNA fragment was cloned and sequenced. On the basis of its nucleotide sequence, two oligonucleotides were synthesized and used as primers for polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification. A 396-bp fragment was specifically amplified from the M. tuberculosis genome. No amplification was observed from any of 10 different mycobacterial strains, included those belonging to the M. tuberculosis complex. Neither was this fragment amplified from genomes of humans or different species of clinically important bacteria. The PCR product was detected by dot blot hybridization even when as little as 10 fg of purified M. tuberculosis DNA was used. This amplification method was subsequently used to detect and identify bacilli in different clinical samples, such as sputum, urine, and cerebrospinal fluid. A good correlation was observed between the results obtained with the PCR method that we describe and other diagnostic tests currently used. Thus, PCR amplification of this genomic fragment is proposed as a specific, rapid, and sensitive test for the diagnosis of infection with M. tuberculosis.
Next place prediction in unfamiliar places considering contextual factors

This research aims to develop a method for maximizing the accuracy of next place prediction (NPP) in places that are unfamiliar to each mobile phone users. NPP is a problem of predicting the next place of the user given his/her current place and current time. In places that are unfamiliar to the person, it is difficult to predict the next place based on the person's historical location data because there are just a few or no data in such places for each user. Furthermore, it is also difficult to rely on the regularity of human mobility because tourists' mobility is easily affected by many external factors, such as weather. Our research aims to solve the difficulties in NPP in unfamiliar places by focusing on contextual factors such as weather, transportation means, place of residence, and time.
Socio‐economic status and obesity in children in Africa

nicely reviewed studies assessing the associa-tion between socio-economic status (SES) and obesity inadults and children of low- and middle-income developingcountries(LMICs)(1). Inchildren,theauthorsidentiﬁed11studies, all showing a positive association between SES andobesity in boys and girls. In the African region, the authorsreported ﬁndings from only one small study in SouthAfrica. However, they did not include a large school-basedstudy conducted in Seychelles, a middle-income Africancountry (2). In this study, we compared the prevalence ofoverweight and obesity in 8,462 children aged 9–16 in the4th, 7th and 10th grades from all public and privateschools. The prevalence of overweight (including obesity[3]) was 37% in boys and 33% in girls attending a privateschool compared with 15% in boys and 20% in girlsattending a public school (2). Similar observations weremade in a recent study using school type as an SES indica-tor in Botswana (4). These data add information on therelation between SES and obesity in LMCIs, as reviewed byDinsa