Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Human Epididymis Protein 4 (HE4) as a Serum Tumor Biomarker in Patients With Ovarian Carcinoma

Background: Ovarian cancer remains a leading cause of death from gynecological malignancy. Early diagnosis is the most important determinant of survival. For more than 25 years, cancer antigen 125 (CA 125) has been the criterion standard biomarker for the diagnosis and management of women with epithelial ovarian cancer. This study evaluated human epididymis protein 4 (HE4), a novel ovarian cancer biomarker, both alone and in combination with CA 125 as a diagnostic marker for ovarian cancer in a Chinese population. Methods: Sera from 491 Chinese women with ovarian cancer or nonmalignant disorders and healthy women were analyzed. Sensitivities and specificities for both biomarkers and the combination were determined using predefined cutoffs (HE4 >150 pmol/L and CA 125 >35 U/mL) and receiver operator characteristic curves to define cutoffs based on 95% and 98% sensitivities. Results: At baseline, serum HE4 and CA 125 levels were significantly higher in the ovarian cancer group versus the 5 reference groups. Using predefined cutoffs, HE4 specificity for ovarian cancer ranged from 90% to 100%; CA 125 specificity ranged from 36% (benign gynecologic disease) to 99%. Combining both markers yielded specificity for ovarian cancer of 100%. Using receiver operator characteristic curve analysis, the cutoff for 95% and 98% specificity was 102.6 and 150.2 pmol/L for HE4, respectively, and 127.2 and 325.5 U/mL for CA 125, respectively; the sensitivity of CA 125 for distinguishing ovarian cancer from benign gynecologic disease was 54% (95% specificity) and 28% (98% specificity), improving to 78% and 68%, respectively, with the addition of HE4. Conclusions: Human epididymis protein 4 used in conjunction with CA 125 yields improved specificity for ovarian cancer compared with the use of CA 125 alone, generally similar to results seen in non-Chinese populations.
Treatment effects of methylphenidate on behavioral adjustment in children with mental retardation and ADHD.

OBJECTIVE The effects of stimulant medication treatment were investigated in children with mental retardation (MR) and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). METHOD Parent and teacher behavioral ratings and reports of side effects were obtained for children (N = 24, mean age = 10.9 years, SD = 2.4) during a placebo-controlled, double-blind, crossover treatment trial with 0.15 mg/kg, 0.30 mg/kg, and 0.60 mg/kg b.i. d. dosages of methylphenidate. RESULTS The most significant improvements occurred at the 0.60 mg/kg methylphenidate dose for teacher ratings of inattention (p =.024), hyperactivity (p <.001), aggression (p <.001), and asocial behavior (p =.009). No significant improvements, relative to placebo, occurred at the 0.15 mg/kg dosage. Of interest, nearly all significant medication-related behavioral improvements were detected by teachers. However, parents were sensitive raters of side effects, noting more sleeping problems and loss of appetite at the 0.60 mg/kg dose compared with placebo. CONCLUSIONS These results suggest that symptoms of ADHD can be treated successfully in children with ADHD/MR, and consistent with MTA study results, higher doses were most effective. Furthermore, these improvements were not accompanied by increases in symptoms such as staring, social withdrawal, or anxiety.
Long-Term Proliferation in Culture and Germline Transmission of Mouse Male Germline Stem Cells1

Abstract Spermatogenesis is a complex process that originates in a small population of spermatogonial stem cells. Here we report the in vitro culture of spermatogonial stem cells that proliferate for long periods of time. In the presence of glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor, epidermal growth factor, basic fibroblast growth factor, and leukemia inhibitory factor, gonocytes isolated from neonatal mouse testis proliferated over a 5-month period (>1014-fold) and restored fertility to congenitally infertile recipient mice following transplantation into seminiferous tubules. Long-term spermatogonial stem cell culture will be useful for studying spermatogenesis mechanism and has important implications for developing new technology in transgenesis or medicine.
The establishment of bilateral asymmetry in sea urchin embryos

Although much is known about the specification and determination of the two primary axes (animal/vegetal and dorsoventral or oral/aboral) in a number of embryos, little is understood about bilaterality. In the sea urchin, left/right asymmetry is crucial to normal development as the echinus or adult rudiment is positioned on the left side of the larva. We examined the establishment of bilateral asymmetry in Lytechnis variegatus embryos by determining the relationship of the first cleavage planes to the left/right axis. Embryos were bisected at different times to determine when the bilateral axis is committed. These lineage tracing and cell separation experiments demonstrated that the first cleavage plane divides the embryo into left and right halves, although this is conditional until after late blastula stage. The relationship between the specification of the dorsoventral axis and the bilateral axis was examined experimentally. In other species when the dorsal and ventral halves of early echinoderm embryos (preblastula) are separated, the dorsal half often reverses (180°) its dorsoventral axis. We asked whether those larvae with an inverted dorsoventral axis would shift the position of the echinus rudiment from the original left side to the new left side. If so, it would demonstrate that the larval asymmetry is dependent upon specification of the dorsoventral axis. Using a combination of lineage tracing and cell separation techniques, we show that the left/right asymmetry is specified with respect to the dorsoventral axis.
Electrophysiological evidence of the motivational salience of drug cues in opiate addiction

ABSTRACT Background Drug-related stimuli reliably induce craving in experimental paradigms, yet are rarely cited by drug users as major precipitants of relapse. We examined the motivational significance of drug cues in opiate dependence, by exploring their impact on central attentional processes. Method Fourteen methadone-maintained subjects and 14 matched controls were studied. Subjects performed a novel active visual oddball task, consisting of opiate-related and matched neutral pictures, some of which (the oddballs) included a white cup. Subjects were fitted with a 32-channel electrode cap. The P300 for each stimulus category was identified using temporal principal components analysis. Results The P300 elicited by opiate stimuli was significantly larger than that elicited by neutral stimuli in the methadone-maintained group but not in the controls. There was also a non-significant trend for the opiate stimuli to elicit larger P300s than the oddball stimuli in the addicted group. Conclusions These results suggest that drug cues acquire motivational salience and automatically capture attentional resources in opiate addicts, even when engaged in a non-drug-related task. Enhanced P300s to drug cues may provide an important biological marker of crucial psychological mechanisms relevant to addiction.
Equivariant K‐theory of compact Lie group actions with maximal rank isotropy

Let G denote a compact connected Lie group with torsion‐free fundamental group acting on a compact space X such that all the isotropy subgroups are connected subgroups of maximal rank. Let T⊂G be a maximal torus with Weyl group W. If the fixed‐point set XT has the homotopy type of a finite W–CW complex, then we prove that the rationalized complex equivariant K‐theory of X is a free module over the representation ring of G. Given additional conditions on the W‐action on the fixed‐point set XT, we show that the equivariant K‐theory of X is free over R(G). We use this to provide computations for a number of examples, including the ordered n‐tuples of commuting elements in G with the conjugation action.
Loneliness among Portuguese adolescents

The purpose in this study was to investigate the psychometrics characteristics of the revised UCLA Loneliness Scale with Portuguese adolescents. Adolescents from the public schools of Porto were presented with the UCLA Loneliness Scale, with the Self-Consciousness Scale, with the Clinical Self-Concept Inventory, and also responded some additional questions. The Loneliness Scale proved satisfactory on various criteria with adolescents. No gender and sociocultural differences were found. A negative correlation was found with public self-consciousness, total self-concept and their dimensions, and self-rated physical attractiveness. Positive correlations were found with social anxiety and shyness. The psychological variables that best predicted loneliness were happiness, social anxiety, social acceptance, and public self-consciousness. The factorial structure of the UCLA Loneliness Scale tended to support the multidimensionality of the scale. The obtained results provided evidence supporting the validity and reliability of the scale with Portuguese adolescents.
A Poisson limit for buffer overflow probabilities

A key criterion in the design of high-speed networks is the probability that the buffer content exceeds a given threshold. We consider n independent identical traffic sources modelled as point processes, which are fed into a link with speed proportional to n. Under fairly general assumptions on the input processes we show that the steady state probability of the buffer content exceeding a threshold b>0 tends to the corresponding probability assuming Poisson input processes. We verify the assumptions for a large class of long-range dependent sources commonly used to model data traffic. Our results show that with superposition, significant multiplexing gains can be achieved for even smaller buffers than suggested by previous results, which consider O(n) buffer size. Moreover, simulations show that for realistic values of the exceedance probability and moderate utilisations, convergence to the Poisson limit takes place at reasonable values of the number of sources superposed. This is particularly relevant for high-speed networks in which the cost of high-speed memory is significant.
Chronic wasting disease

Transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (prion diseases) in animals may be associated with a zoonotic risk potential for humans as shown by the occurrence of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in the wake of the bovine spongiform encephalopathy epidemic. Thus, the increasing exposure of humans in North America to cervid prions of chronic wasting disease (CWD) in elk and deer has prompted comprehensive risk assessments. The susceptibility of humans to CWD infections is currently under investigation in different studies using macaques as primate models. The necessity for such studies was recently reinforced when disease-associated prion protein and its seeding activity were detected in muscles of clinically inconspicuous CWD-infected white-tailed deer (WTD). Increasing evidence points to the existence of different CWD strains, and CWD prions may also change or newly emerge over time. Therefore, CWD isolates examined in macaques should be characterized as precisely as possible for their molecular identity. On this basis other CWD field samples collected in the past, present or future could be systematically compared with macaque-tested inocula in order to assess whether they are covered by the ongoing risk assessments in primates. CWD typing by Fourier transform-infrared spectroscopy of pathological prion protein may provide a method of choice for this purpose.
Large-Scale Graph-based Transductive Inference

We consider the issue of scalability of graph-based semi-supervised learning (SSL) algorithms. In this context, we propose a fast graph node ordering algorithm that improves (parallel) spatial locality by being cache cognizant. This approach allows for a near linear speedup on a shared-memory parallel machine to be achievable, and thus means that graph-based SSL can scale to very large data sets. We use the above algorithm in a multi-threaded multi-core implementation to solve a SSL problem on a 120 million node graph in a reasonable amount of time.
Progressive resistance training before and after total hip and knee arthroplasty: a systematic review

Objective: To investigate the effect of progressive resistance training (PRT) on muscle strength and functional capacity before and/or after total hip arthroplasty (THA) and total knee arthroplasty (TKA). The effects of THA and TKA upon quality of life and the rate of adverse events were also investigated. Data sources: Literature from nine databases. Review methods: Studies were included if 1) the effect of a PRT intervention was compared with no intervention or another type of intervention; 2) the outcomes included muscle strength and/or functional capacity; 3) all participants were scheduled for or had just undergone THA or TKA; 4) they were randomized, controlled trials (RCT); and 5) only full-length papers in English were studied. Data on patient characteristics, training regime, controls, and outcome measures were extracted. Results: Four RCT studies on PRT and THA including 136 patients and three RCT studies on PRT and TKA including 284 patients were identified and rated according to the PEDro scale. The general methodological quality of the studies was low. No adverse events were reported in any of the studies. Weak evidence of a beneficial effect of PRT before and/or after THA on muscle strength and functional capacity was found. No effect of PRT before TKA on muscle strength and functional capacity was found. The results of postoperative PRT were too heterogeneous to allow conclusions. Conclusion: PRT is safe and feasible before and/or after THA. PRT is safe, but the methodological quality of existing evidence permits no conclusion on the effectiveness of PRT before and/or after TKA.
Let's Do Smart Routing: For Distributed Graph Querying with Decoupled Storage

We study online graph queries that retrieve nearby nodes of a query node from a large network, e.g., find all 2-hop neighbors of Al ice in theLinkedIn social network who are currently employed by Google. To answer such queries with high throughput and low latency, we partition the graph and process the data in paralle l across a cluster of servers. State-of-the-art distributed graph q uerying systems place each graph partition on a separate server, where q u y answering over that partition takes place. This design has t wo major disadvantages. First, the router needs to maintain a fixe d routing table. Hence, these systems are less flexible with respect to query routing, fault tolerance, and graph updates. Second, the gr aph data must be partitioned such that the workload across the server s is balanced, and the inter-machine communication is minimize d. In addition, to maintain good-quality partitions, it is requi red to update the existing partitions based on workload changes over graph nodes. However, graph partitioning, online monitoring of w orkloads, and dynamically updating the graph partitions are ex p nsive. In this work, we mitigate both these problems of state-of-th eart systems by decoupling graph storage from query processo rs, and by developing smart routing strategies with the usage of raph landmarks and embedding, that improve the cache locality in query processors. Since a query processor is no longer assigned an y fixed part of the graph, it is equally capable of handling any r equest, thus facilitating load balancing and fault toleranc e. On the other hand, due to our smart routing strategies, query proce ss rs can effectively leverage their cache contents, reducing th e overall impact of how the graph is partitioned across storage server s. A detailed experimental evaluation with several real-world, l arge graph datasets demonstrates that our proposed framework, gRouting — even with simple hash partitioning of the data — achieves up t o an order of magnitude better query throughput compared to exis ting graph querying systems that employ expensive graph partiti oning and re-partitioning strategies.
Spatially and temporally resolved thermal imaging of cyclically heated interconnects by use of scanning thermal microscopy

A scanning thermal microscope with a Wollaston probe was used to investigate the spatial distribution and temporal variation of temperature in interconnect structures subjected to thermal cycling. The probe, utilized in passive temperature sensing mode, was calibrated from 20°C to 200°C using a single‐layer aluminum microdevice. Spatial measurements were performed on nonpassivated aluminum interconnects sinusoidally heated by a 6 MA/cm2 current at 200 Hz. The interconnects were determined to have temperatures that decreased with position from a maximum located at the center of both the interconnect length and width. Time‐resolved temperature measurements were performed on the same structures sinusoidally heated by a 6 MA/cm2 current at 2 Hz. Both the peak‐cycle temperature and average‐cycle temperature were found to decrease with increasing distance from the center of the width of the interconnects. Microsc. Res. Tech., 2008. Published 2008 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Factored Language Models Tutorial

The Factored Language Model (FLM) is a e xible framework for incorporating various information sources, such as morphology and part-of-speech, into language modeling. FLMs have so far been successfully applied to tasks such as speech recognition and machine translation; it has the potential to be used in a wide variety of problems in estimating probability tables from sparse data. This tutorial serves as a comprehensive description of FLMs and related algorithms. We document the FLM functionalities as implemented in the SRI Language Modeling toolkit and provide an introductory walk-through using FLMs on an actual dataset. Our goal is to provide an easy-to-understand tutorial and reference for researchers interested in applying FLMs to their problems.
The Cognitive Map of a Master Teacher Conducting Discussions With Gifted Students

Teachers have many methods available to them for instructing students. This article presents a teacher’s perspective on conducting a discussion with a group of children who were gifted and talented. I studied one teacher using participant observation and ethnographic interviewing as he taught in a special program. I used the concept of professional practical knowledge to describe the information and skills acquired through past experience that characterized his teaching. Eight patterns of thought and behavior were central to how he conducted discussions. I organized these patterns and their subroutines into a cognitive map to represent his teaching. I discuss the cognitive map and the implications of this study for future research and for the preparation of teachers of children who are gifted.
The Readiness of Lecturers in Embedding Soft Skills in the Bachelor's Degree Program in Malaysian Institutes of Teacher Education.

This is a preliminary research to obtain information to formulate a problem statement for an overall study of the embedding of soft skills in the program courses in higher learning institutions. This research was conducted in the form of single case and multi-case studies. The research data was attained through mixed methods; the quantitative method by utilizing questionnaires and the qualitative method utilizing open-ended questionnaires. Qualitative data were used as supporting data in this research. This research sought to study two main issues; the readiness of lecturers and problems encountered in embedding soft skills into teachers’ bachelor’s degree courses in the institutes of teacher education in Malaysia. Quantitative data was processed manually to show frequency, while qualitative data was processed according to themes. Research findings indicated that a majority of lecturers are interested and ready to embed soft skills in the core courses. However, lecturers lamented about problems encountered in embedding soft skills in teaching and learning of courses even though the curriculum of the programs have been designed holistically to fulfill the needs to develop soft skills within trainee teachers.
Peer review practices: a content analysis of external reviews in science funding

The primary purpose of this study is to open up the black box of peer review and to increase its transparency, understanding, and credibility. To this end, two arguments will be presented: First, epistemic and social aspects of peer review procedures are inseparable and mutually constitutive. Second, a content analysis of written reviews indicates that certain elements of peer culture from the 17th century are still active in the scientific community. These arguments are illustrated by a case study on the peer review practices of a national funding institution, the Swiss National Science Foundation. Based on the case study and the two arguments it will be concluded more generally that peer review procedures show a distinctive specificity to the reviewed objects (e.g. papers or proposals), the organizational format (e.g. panels or external reviewers), or the surrounding context (e.g. disciplinary or interdisciplinary). Scientists, administrators, and the public may conclude that appraising peer review procedures should not be done by way of general principles but should be based on concrete factual knowledge on the specific process under discussion. Copyright , Beech Tree Publishing.
Prevalence of Poor Performance Status in Lung Cancer Patients: Implications for Research

Introduction: Performance status (PS) is a standard functional classification in oncology research and practice. However, despite its widespread use, little is known about the prevalence of poor PS in lung cancer patients, in relation to other cancers, based on the assessments of health care providers and patients. Methods: Data from two quality of life studies were pooled for analysis. Analyses were performed on the subset of patients with lung cancer (n = 503) from the entire population of cancer patients (n = 2885). The prevalence of poor PS (defined as PS = 2–4 on a 0–4 scale) was determined for lung cancer patients. Results: Prevalence of poor PS among lung cancer patients was 34% when estimated by providers and 48% when estimated by patients themselves. Agreement between providers and patients was only fair (weighted [kappa] = 0.41). For both advanced and early stage disease, lung cancer patients were at the highest risk for poor PS compared with other common cancers. Conclusions: The prevalence of poor PS is quite high in lung cancer patients. Providers tend to underestimate poor PS. Specific clinical trials and treatment guidelines for this patient population are urgently needed.
Multi-Objective Metrics to Evaluate Deduplication Approaches

Data deduplication is a lossless compression technology that has been widely used in storage systems for space optimization. However, due to the removal of redundant data, the data deduplication has negative influences on data writing, data reading, and data reliability. In this paper, we propose a multi-objective-based performance evaluation framework to analyze the data deduplication performances and evaluate existing well-known deduplication approaches with multiple performance objectives, including compression ratio, data read performance, data write performance, and data reliability. Based on the proposed multi-objective framework and the obtained evaluation results, we further propose a multi-objective-based optimization method. Though our extensive experimental evaluation driven by real-world data sets, it is shown that this method can improve data read/write performance and data reliability while at the cost of little compression ratio.