Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Association of the CYP24A1-rs2296241 polymorphism of the vitamin D catabolism enzyme with hormone-related cancer risk: a meta-analysis

Background The evidence for vitamin D reducing cancer risk is inconsistent, and it is not clear whether this reduction is related to variation in cytochrome P450 (CYP)24A1, the only enzyme known to degrade active vitamin D. We focused on evaluating the association of CYP24A1-rs2296241 polymorphism with hormone-related cancer risk by conducting a meta-analysis. Methods A systematic literature search was conducted in April 2014 (updated in December 2014) to identify eligible studies. A random-effects model was used to pool the odds ratio (OR). Results Eleven studies including 5,145 cases and 5,136 controls were considered for the allelic model, and eight studies of 3,959 cases and 3,560 controls were utilized for the additive, recessive, and dominant models. There was no significant association between CYP24A1-rs2296241 and hormone-related cancer risk in any of the models, yet substantial heterogeneity was observed. Subgroup analyses indicated that CYP24A1-rs2296241 variation reduced the prostate cancer risk in the additive (OR 0.91, 95% confidence interval 0.85–0.97) and recessive (OR 0.80, 95% confidence interval 0.67–0.95) models, with no evidence of heterogeneity. Conclusion This meta-analysis indicated that CYP24A1-rs2296241 polymorphism reduced the androgen-related prostate cancer risk in additive and recessive models. More genetic loci are needed to confirm the effect of CYP24A1 variation on the risk of prostate cancer.
Toxic effects of a modified montmorillonite clay on the human intestinal cell line Caco‐2

The incorporation of the natural mineral clay montmorillonite into polymeric systems enhances their barrier properties as well as their thermal and mechanical resistance, making them suitable for a wide range of industrial applications, e.g., in the food industry. Considering humans could easily be exposed to these clays due to migration into food, toxicological and health effects of clay exposure should be studied. In the present work, the cytotoxic effects induced by two different clays (the unmodified clay Cloisite® Na+, and the organically modified Cloisite® 30B) on Caco‐2 cells were studied after 24 and 48 h of exposure. The basal cytotoxicity endpoints assessed were total protein content, neutral red uptake and a tetrazolium salt reduction. Our results showed that only Cloisite® 30B induced toxic effects. Therefore, the effects of subcytotoxic concentrations of this clay on the generation of intracellular reactive oxygen species, glutathione content and DNA damage (comet assay) were investigated. Results indicate that oxidative stress may be implicated in the toxicity induced by Closite® 30B, in regards of the increases in intracellular reactive oxygen species production and glutathione content at the highest concentration assayed, while no damage was observed in DNA. The most remarkable morphological alterations observed were dilated cisternae edge in the Golgi apparatus and nucleolar segregation, suggesting impairment in the secretory functions, which could be related to inhibition in the synthesis of proteins. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Attitudes toward forensic science: a disconnect between expectations and reality

Following the development of the Attitudes Toward Forensic Science (ATFS) instrument (Horton et al., 2012), students across various tertiary institutions were surveyed to measure their: perception of popular media as a motivator to study forensic science; personal interest in forensic science; perspective of forensic science as a science; and perspective of forensic science as a profession. The focus of the study was changed from a single survey to pre- and post-unit completion testing, in order to compare not only the teaching/learning experience across the institutions, but also the efficiency and effectiveness of each individual unit. However, before pre- and post-unit completion testing could be utilised effectively, the observable differences in a single data collection were ascertained along with the psychometric properties (reliability and validity) of the instrument itself, in order to determine what constructs were truly being measured. The data underwent a preliminary exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to identify the underlying relationship between measured variables to establish a tenable model of the data. After a second round of surveying students, a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was undertaken to determine how well the data fit the hypothesised eleven-item, three-factor model. The three factors and the overall scale were examined for evidence of internal consistency using Cronbach’s alpha. The emergent model has provided a better understanding of students’ attitudes toward the discipline of forensic science. The disconnect between our anticipated a priori model and the reality of the respondents’ attitudes illustrates the importance of addressing measurement issues of reliability and validity when exploring contemporary affective concepts. References Horton, R.C. , Kelly, T.L. , Lenehan, C.E. , Lennard, C. , Lewis, S.W. , Lim, K.F. , Roux, C. , & Southam, D.C. (2012). Assessing Students’ Attitudes Toward Forensic Science: Collecting an Expert Consensus. Forensic Science Policy & Management: An International Journal, 3(4), 180-188.
Ghrelin in the pilosebaceous unit: alteration of ghrelin in patients with acne vulgaris

BackgroundGhrelin in the pilosebaceous tissues of human skin and ghrelin levels in patients with acne vulgaris have not yet been investigated.ObjectiveThe purpose of this study was to screen ghrelin immunoreactivity by immunohistochemistry in human pilosebaceous tissues of human skin and also to determine the quantities of ghrelin in the serum of the patients with acne vulgaris.Methods30 patients presenting with acne vulgaris and 30 control subjects participated in this study. Ghrelin levels were determined by enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Human hair follicles and sebaceous glands were immunohistochemically examined.ResultsImmunohistochemistry results showed that there is a strong ghrelin immunoreactivity in the hair follicles and sebaceous glands in sections of human skin. The mean serum ghrelin levels (27.58 ± 15.44 pg/mL) in patients with acne vulgaris was significantly lower than those of controls (35.62±20.46 pg/mL). ConclusionsGhrelin produced in hair follicles and sebaceous glands of the skin might participate in the pathogenesis of acne vulgaris and also acne vulgaris in humans might be associated with decreased serum ghrelin.
A Scalable Framework and Prototype for CAS e-Science

Based on the Small-World model of CAS e-Science and the power low of Internet, this paper presents a scalable CAS e-Science Grid framework based on virtual region called Virtual Region Grid Framework (VRGF). VRGF takes virtual region and layer as logic manage-unit. In VRGF, the mode of intra-virtual region is pure P2P, and the model of inter-virtual region is centralized. Therefore, VRGF is decentralized framework with some P2P properties. Further more, VRGF is able to achieve satisfactory performance on resource organizing and locating at a small cost, and is well adapted to the complicated and dynamic features of scientific collaborations. We have implemented a demonstration VRGF based Grid prototype—SDG.
Affective learning design: A principled approach to emotion in learning

This PhD project set out to explore the role of emotion during learning in sport, focusing on how actions, emotions and cognitions interact under the influence of constraints. Key outcomes include the development of the theoretical concept - Affective Learning Design, and a new tool for assessing the intensity of emotions during learning - the Sport Learning and Emotions Questionnaire. The findings presented in this thesis provide both theoretical and practical implications discussing why emotion should be considered in the design of learning environments in sport.
Mutation in the protease cleavage site of GDF9 increases ovulation rate and litter size in heterozygous ewes and causes infertility in homozygous ewes.

Litter size (LS) in sheep is determined mainly by ovulation rate (OR). Several polymorphisms have been identified in the growth differentiation factor 9 (GDF9) gene that result in an increase in OR and prolificacy of sheep. Screening the databank of the Brazilian Sheep Breeders Association for triplet delivery, we identified flocks of prolific Ile de France ewes. After resequencing of GDF9, a point mutation (c.943C>T) was identified, resulting in a non-conservative amino acid change (p.Arg315Cys) in the cleavage site of the propeptide. This new allele was called Vacaria (FecG(v) ). A flock of half-sib ewes was evaluated for OR in the first three breeding seasons, and Vacaria heterozygotes had higher OR (P < 0.001), averaging 2.1 ± 0.1 when compared to 1.2 ± 0.1 in wild-type ewes. The OR was also influenced by age, increasing in the second and third breeding seasons (P < 0.001). In flocks segregating this allele, the LS was higher in mutant sheep (P < 0.001), averaging 1.61 ± 0.07 in heterozygotes and 1.29 ± 0.03 in wild-type ewes. Analysis of homozygote reproductive tract morphology revealed uterine and ovarian hypoplasia. Ovarian follicles continue to develop up to small antral stages, although with abnormal oocyte morphology and altered arrangement of granulosa cells. After the collapse of the oocyte in most follicles, the remaining cells formed clusters that persisted in the ovary. This SNP is useful to improve selection for dam prolificacy and also as a model to investigate GDF9 post-translation processing and the fate of the follicular cells that remain after the oocyte demise.
Evidence-based technical skills training in pre-practicum psychological assessment.

The use of practice in prepracticum assessment training is extremely widespread (Childs & Eyde, 2002); however, multiple studies have observed practice to be an ineffective method for fostering basic scoring competencies. The aim of the current study was to determine whether the use of practice as a competency training method in psychological assessment could be improved. A conceptual map was developed that incorporates feedback with sequential, cumulative, and increasingly complex practice. This map was then applied to prepracticum training in the technical skills required for psychological assessment of intelligence and personality. In addition to examining errors associated with the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale and Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, the Rorschach Comprehensive System was also investigated. Using the methods herein, Wechsler scoring errors were significantly reduced within three training experiences to a mean well below published error rates. Training in the Rorschach Comprehensive System also indicated substantial gains in coding accuracy within three practice experiences that remained largely intact at 8-weeks follow-up. Future research of this prepracticum training model, which lends itself to a full range of competencies across training levels, is strongly encouraged.
Development of a fuzzy logic-based adaptive Kalman filter

In this paper, after reviewing the traditional Kalman filter formulation, a development of a fuzzy logic-based adaptive Kalman filter is outlined. The adaptation is in the sense of adaptively tuning, on-line, the measurement noise covariance matrix R or the process noise covariance matrix Q. This improves the Kalman filter performance and prevents filter divergence when R or Q are uncertain. Based on the whiteness of the filter innovation sequence and employing the covariance-matching technique the tuning process is carried out by a fuzzy inference system. If a statistical analysis of the innovation sequence shows discrepancies with its expected statistics then a fuzzy inference system adjusts a factor through which the matrices R or Q are tuned on line. This fuzzy logic-based adaptive Kalman filter is tested on a numerical example. The results are compared with these obtained using a conventional Kalman filter and a traditionally adapted Kalman filter. The fuzzy logic-based adaptive Kalman filter showed better results than its traditional counterparts.
Psychodynamic psychotherapy with adolescents and young adults: Outcome in routine practice

This naturalistic study examined the outcome of psychodynamic psychotherapy with 218 adolescents and young adults aged 14–24 years. Analysis of variance showed significant improvement of general functioning on Children’s Global Assessment Scale (CGAS) and Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF) and decreased symptom severity on Symptoms Checklist-90 (SCL-90) upon completion of psychotherapy, as well as a clinically significant improvement in a large percentage of cases. Effect sizes were equivalent to those evident in a clinical comparison group and larger than in prior research. The main limitation of this study was the lack of a control group, partially compensated for through the use of comparison groups and high external validity. The study seeks to fill a gap in an important yet overlooked field of research.
An orthogonal multi-objective evolutionary algorithm with lower-dimensional crossover

This paper proposes an multi-objective evolutionary algorithm. The algorithm is based on OMOEA-II[2]. A new linear breeding operator with lower-dimensional crossover and copy operation is used. By using the lower-dimensional crossover, the complexity of searching is decreased so the algorithm converges faster. The orthogonal crossover increase probability of producing potential superior solutions, which helps the algorithm get better results. Ten unconstrained problems in [1] are used to test the algorithm. For three problems, the obtained solutions are very close to the true Pareo Front, and for one problem, the obtained solutions distribute on part of the true Pareo Front.
Vegetarian dietary patterns and mortality in Adventist Health Study 2.

IMPORTANCE Some evidence suggests vegetarian dietary patterns may be associated with reduced mortality, but the relationship is not well established. OBJECTIVE To evaluate the association between vegetarian dietary patterns and mortality. DESIGN Prospective cohort study; mortality analysis by Cox proportional hazards regression, controlling for important demographic and lifestyle confounders. SETTING Adventist Health Study 2 (AHS-2), a large North American cohort. PARTICIPANTS A total of 96,469 Seventh-day Adventist men and women recruited between 2002 and 2007, from which an analytic sample of 73,308 participants remained after exclusions. EXPOSURES Diet was assessed at baseline by a quantitative food frequency questionnaire and categorized into 5 dietary patterns: nonvegetarian, semi-vegetarian, pesco-vegetarian, lacto-ovo-vegetarian, and vegan. MAIN OUTCOME AND MEASURE The relationship between vegetarian dietary patterns and all-cause and cause-specific mortality; deaths through 2009 were identified from the National Death Index. RESULTS There were 2570 deaths among 73,308 participants during a mean follow-up time of 5.79 years. The mortality rate was 6.05 (95% CI, 5.82-6.29) deaths per 1000 person-years. The adjusted hazard ratio (HR) for all-cause mortality in all vegetarians combined vs nonvegetarians was 0.88 (95% CI, 0.80-0.97). The adjusted HR for all-cause mortality in vegans was 0.85 (95% CI, 0.73-1.01); in lacto-ovo-vegetarians, 0.91 (95% CI, 0.82-1.00); in pesco-vegetarians, 0.81 (95% CI, 0.69-0.94); and in semi-vegetarians, 0.92 (95% CI, 0.75-1.13) compared with nonvegetarians. Significant associations with vegetarian diets were detected for cardiovascular mortality, noncardiovascular noncancer mortality, renal mortality, and endocrine mortality. Associations in men were larger and more often significant than were those in women. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE Vegetarian diets are associated with lower all-cause mortality and with some reductions in cause-specific mortality. Results appeared to be more robust in males. These favorable associations should be considered carefully by those offering dietary guidance.
A Data Mining Framework for Tea Price Evaluation

Tea price evaluation is a key issue in the process of tea trade. The traditional tea price evaluating methods mainly depend on the experience of tea experts. The evaluating results using these methods are usually unstable and imprecise. So far, how to develop an automatic tea price evaluating system is still a challenging work. In this paper, we propose a data-mining-based tea price evaluation framework, which incorporates anomaly detection, feature importance analysis, and classification forecast models. Experimental evaluation on the real Tie-guan-yin tea database demonstrates the effectiveness of our proposed framework.
Reasoning about Partially Observed Actions

Partially observed actions are observations of action executions in which we are uncertain about the identity of objects, agents, or locations involved in the actions (e.g., we know that action move(? o, ? x, ? y) occurred, but do not know ? o, ? y). Observed-Action Reasoning is the problem of reasoning about the world state after a sequence of partial observations of actions and states. In this paper we formalize Observed-Action Reasoning, prove intractability results for current techniques, and find tractable algorithms for STRIPS and other actions. Our new algorithms update a representation of all possible world states (the belief state) in logic using new logical constants for unknown objects. A straightforward application of this idea is incorrect, and we identify and add two key amendments. We also present successful experimental results for our algorithm in Blocks-world domains of varying sizes and in Kriegspiel (partially observable chess). These results are promising for relating sensors with symbols, partial-knowledge games, multi-agent decision making, and AI planning.
Single trial visual evoked potential extraction using fast PLS

This paper evaluates the single trial extraction of Visual Evoked Potential (VEP) signal. Single trial extraction of VEP contributes in the integration of fMRI-EEG application as well as in the Brain Computer Interface application. The extraction is performed by using the Fast Partial Least Square (PLS) algorithm. The extraction of the desired VEP signals, both in artificial and real Electroencephalography (EEG) signal is quantified. Moreover, the latency or average error rates of P100, P200 and P300 in the artificial signal have been measured. The results illustrate the advantages and drawbacks of the algorithm in the single trial VEP extraction case.
The Prevalence of Cardiac Risk Factors in Men with Localized Prostate Cancer Undergoing Androgen Deprivation Therapy in British Columbia, Canada

Background. While androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) reduces the risk of prostate cancer-specific mortality in high-risk localized prostate cancer, it adversely affects cardiovascular (CV) risk factor profiles in treated men. Methods. We retrospectively reviewed the charts of 100 consecutive men with intermediate- or high-risk localized prostate cancer referred to the British Columbia Cancer Agency for ADT. Data on CV risk factors and disease were collected and Framingham risk scores were calculated. Results. The median age of the study cohort was 73 years. Established cardiovascular disease was present in 25% of patients. Among patients without established CV disease, calculated Framingham risk was high in 65%, intermediate in 33%, and low in 1%. Baseline hypertension was present in 58% of patients, dyslipidemia in 51%, and diabetes or impaired glucose tolerance in 24%. Hypertension was more prevalent in the study cohort than in an age- and sex-matched population sample (OR 1.74, P = 0.006); diabetes had a similar prevalence (OR 0.93, P = 0.8). Conclusions. Patients receiving ADT have a high prevalence of cardiovascular disease and risk factors and are more likely to be hypertensive than population controls. Low rates of CV risk screening suggest opportunities for improved primary and secondary prevention of CV disease in this population.
Morphological Analysis for Phrase-Based Statistical Machine Translation

We present a language-independent approach to capture morphological information from parallel corpora, and successfully integrate it into the normal machine translation system. Our results show that the system performs well on even limited training data, and has significantly reduced the out-of-vocabulary rate in the final translation. We look at the translation direction from English to Finnish in which the target language is no longer English as many works often deal with. Instead, the presence of a morphologically-rich language like Finnish poses a great challenge for the normal statistical machine translation. Our detailed study on Finnish confirms the belief about important correspondence between English function words and Finnish morphemes. Based on our proposed morpheme model and the expectation of such correspondence, we suggest a preliminary model for self-correction on the translation output using the knowledge from both source and target languages. We show by evidence from our error analysis that the model is promising in substantially improve the translation quality. Subject Descriptors: I.2. 6 [Learning]: Parameter learning. I.2. 7 [Natural language processing]: Machine translation.
Progressive Retinal Degeneration and Glial Activation in the CLN6nclf Mouse Model of Neuronal Ceroid Lipofuscinosis: A Beneficial Effect of DHA and Curcumin Supplementation

Neuronal ceroid lipofuscinosis (NCL) is a group of neurodegenerative lysosomal storage disorders characterized by vision loss, mental and motor deficits, and spontaneous seizures. Neuropathological analyses of autopsy material from NCL patients and animal models revealed brain atrophy closely associated with glial activity. Earlier reports also noticed loss of retinal cells and reactive gliosis in some forms of NCL. To study this phenomenon in detail, we analyzed the ocular phenotype of CLN6nclf mice, an established mouse model for variant-late infantile NCL. Retinal morphometry, immunohistochemistry, optokinetic tracking, electroretinography, and mRNA expression were used to characterize retinal morphology and function as well as the responses of Müller cells and microglia. Our histological data showed a severe and progressive degeneration in the CLN6nclf retina co-inciding with reactive Müller glia. Furthermore, a prominent phenotypic transformation of ramified microglia to phagocytic, bloated, and mislocalized microglial cells was identified in CLN6nclf retinas. These events overlapped with a rapid loss of visual perception and retinal function. Based on the strong microglia reactivity we hypothesized that dietary supplementation with immuno-regulatory compounds, curcumin and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), could ameliorate microgliosis and reduce retinal degeneration. Our analyses showed that treatment of three-week-old CLN6nclf mice with either 5% DHA or 0.6% curcumin for 30 weeks resulted in a reduced number of amoeboid reactive microglia and partially improved retinal function. DHA-treatment also improved the morphology of CLN6nclf retinas with a preserved thickness of the photoreceptor layer in most regions of the retina. Our results suggest that microglial reactivity closely accompanies disease progression in the CLN6nclf retina and both processes can be attenuated with dietary supplemented immuno-modulating compounds.