Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Assessing multidimensional worry in cancer survivors

Anxiety in cancer survivors has been characterized in numerous ways. One way is posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms [1]. This approach usefully captures intrusive thoughts, avoidance, and hyperarousal – focusing on cancer as a past trauma creating current symptoms. Another characterization of anxiety focuses on the fear of recurrence (FOR) [2]. FOR appears common in survivors, potentially lasting for many years post-treatment. Still, others have characterized anxiety with multidimensional scales, such as for prostate cancer [3] and breast cancer [4]. Worry differs from these in that it is future oriented; therefore, it is unlike PTSD symptoms, which are past-focused. Worry shares with FOR that both are cognitive behaviors aimed at reducing anxious arousal. FOR is a contextually specific and important worry, but survivors may also worry about other issues. At least two worry scales have been developed for women with breast cancer. The 8-item Cancer Worries Scale includes worries about recurrence, future surgery, and family [5], yielding a one factor solution. The 15-item Brief Cancer-Related Worry Inventory includes worries about cancer getting worse, effects of current treatment, work, and economics [6], yielding a three factor solution for (i) future prospects; (ii) physical and somatic problems; and (iii) social and interpersonal problems. Building on important work with breast cancer survivors, we aimed to develop a multidimensional measure of worry, which (i) creates items based on the words of survivors; (ii) describes a range of concerns; and (iii) is brief, and therefore, practical in clinical and research applications.
Theoretical Fermi-Surface Properties and Superconducting Parameters for K3C60

Quantitative theories of superconductivity in alkali-doped C60 require an accurate and detailed description of the Fermi surface. First-principles calculations of Fermi-surface properties and electronic parameters for K3C60, the prototype fulleride-superconductor, are reported. The Fermi surface has two sheets; the first is free-electron-like, and the second is multiply-connected, forming two interlocked symmetry-equivalent pieces that never touch. The calculated (clean limit) London penetration depth is Λ = 1600 �. Comparing the Fermi velocity with the experimental coherence length leads to a superconducting pairing strength λ ∼ 5, indicating very strong coupling. Partial nesting in the second Fermi-surface sheet may favor coupling to short-wavelength q,0,0 optic modes.
Trade and Communication Costs

Two models in which communication costs are a cost to trade are investigated. One model looks at the role of communication in determining the firms' geographic extent in the use of local factor services. Communication costs are modelled as a quasi-public-good network in which communication services are provided by an average cost-pricing monopolist. The network technology is subject to increasing returns, congestion effects, and network externalities. The second model focuses on communication for the purposes of international trade in goods with similar assumptions on the technology of communication as in the first model. In this model an important distinction is made between international equilibrium and global equilibrium. In both models the impact of reductions in communication costs on the market extent of firms, trade volumes, and productivity are examined. The models have generic multiple equilibria with quite different welfare and comparative static properties.
An MDCT-domain audio denoising method with a block switching scheme

In this paper, an audio denoising method is proposed for improving the quality of handheld audio recording devices. The proposed method reduces noise differently depending on the block size in the modified discrete cosine transform (MDCT) analysis of an audio coder. Specifically, denoising for a long block is performed by multi-band spectral subtraction (MBSS) with perceptually weighted scalefactor bands, while that for a short block is performed by subband power scaling to maintain coherence of power with the previously-denoised long block. In order to evaluate the performance of the proposed method, it is first embedded into MPEG-2 advanced audio coding (AAC) that is popularly used for audio recording devices. Then, its performance is compared with that of a conventional audio denoising method based on block thresholding in terms of cepstral distortion, subjective quality, and computational complexity. It is shown from performance comparison that the proposed method outperforms the block thresholding method in both objective and subjective measurements. Moreover, the complexity of the proposed method is sufficiently lowered to be implemented on most resource-constrained handheld audio recording devices, unlike the conventional method.
Comparison of acute toxicities of two chemotherapy schedules for head and neck cancers.

BACKGROUND Chemo-radiotherapy has become the standard of care for loco-regionally advanced head and neck cancers. Platinum based regimens are the most effective. Although benefits are proven with chemo-radiation, acute toxicities are markedly increased. The dose and delivery schedules of Cisplatin have ranged from intermittent higher dose [100 mg/m2] every 3 weeks to low dose [6 mg/m2] daily administration. At present there is no data indicating which regimen is superior. PURPOSE To compare acute toxicities of two chemotherapy schedules for head and neck cancers. MATERIALS AND METHODS A total of 83 head and neck cancer patients treated with two schedules of concurrent chemo RT were analyzed, retrospectively, for treatment toxicity. In group A [51 patients], chemotherapy [CT] was administered on week 1, 4 and 7 [cisplatin 100 mg/m2] over a period of 2-3 days. In group B [32 patients], CT was delivered weekly [cisplatin 40 mg/m2]. Radiotherapy dose was 7000 cGy in 35 fractions for definitive concurrent chemo-radiation and 6600 cGy in 33 fractions for adjuvant treatment. RESULTS Group B patients had increased grade III skin and hematological toxicity, where as patients in group A had more pharyngeal toxicity. Treatment interruptions and percentage of weight loss were higher in group B. Weekly CT schedule had higher rate of severe mucositis, which was statistically significant on both univariate [P = 0.005] and multivariate [P = 0.007] analysis. CONCLUSIONS Three weekly CT is less toxic than weekly. Weekly CT can be made more acceptable by reducing the dose and using feeding tubes for nutrition.
Characterization of the cytochrome P450 enzymes involved in the in vitro metabolism of ethosuximide by human hepatic microsomal enzymes

1. The relative roles of human hepatic cytochrome P450 (CYP) subfamilies participating in ethosuximide metabolism have been studied in vitro using humanized heterologous CYP microsomal systems expressing either CYP1A2, CYP2A6, CYP2C9, CYP2D6, CYP2E1 or CYP3A4. 2. Ethosuximide was incubated with each expression system at 37 °C, and its hydroxylated metabolite was quantified by HPLC assay. 3. K m and V max values for metabolite formation were estimated for CYP3A4 and CYP2E1. The K m values for the metabolite formed were 1.40 and 0.24 mM for CYP3A4 and CYP2E1, respectively. The V max values were 0.65 and 0.14 nmol mg − 1 protein min − 1 for CYP3A4 and CYP2E1, respectively. 4. These parameters could not be measured for other enzymes, since metabolite concentrations formed were below the HPLC detection limits. 5. Immuno-inhibition studies using specific antibodies against CYP3A4 or CYP2E1 revealed that ethosuximide metabolite levels decreased when the amount of added CYP3A4 or CYP2E1 antibody increased, with anti-CYP3A4 antibodies yielding a greater inhibitory effect. 6. Simulations of scaled-up in vivo ethosuximide CL hepatic mediated by CYP3A4 and CYP2E1 based on the in vitro CL' int values, which were calculated from the foregoing respective V max and K m values, project that well over 90% of in vivo CL hepatic is due to CYP3A4. These results support an important role for CYP3A in human ethosuximide metabolism, and a minor role for CYP2E1.
Moderate alcohol consumption during adult life, drinking patterns, and breast cancer risk.

CONTEXT Multiple studies have linked alcohol consumption to breast cancer risk, but the risk of lower levels of consumption has not been well quantified. In addition, the role of drinking patterns (ie, frequency of drinking and "binge" drinking) and consumption at different times of adult life are not well understood. OBJECTIVE To evaluate the association of breast cancer with alcohol consumption during adult life, including quantity, frequency, and age at consumption. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS Prospective observational study of 105,986 women enrolled in the Nurses' Health Study followed up from 1980 until 2008 with an early adult alcohol assessment and 8 updated alcohol assessments. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Relative risks of developing invasive breast cancer. RESULTS During 2.4 million person-years of follow-up, 7690 cases of invasive breast cancer were diagnosed. Increasing alcohol consumption was associated with increased breast cancer risk that was statistically significant at levels as low as 5.0 to 9.9 g per day, equivalent to 3 to 6 drinks per week (relative risk, 1.15; 95% CI, 1.06-1.24; 333 cases/100,000 person-years). Binge drinking, but not frequency of drinking, was associated with breast cancer risk after controlling for cumulative alcohol intake. Alcohol intake both earlier and later in adult life was independently associated with risk. CONCLUSIONS Low levels of alcohol consumption were associated with a small increase in breast cancer risk, with the most consistent measure being cumulative alcohol intake throughout adult life. Alcohol intake both earlier and later in adult life was independently associated with risk.
The Europe–U.S. Productivity Gap in a Rear‐View Mirror: Will Measurement Differences in the Services Sector Output Please Rise?

The deterioration in 1995 of Europe's productivity performance relative to the U.S. coincided with the ‘renaissance’ of the U.S. statistical system, which can be regarded, by now, as the frontier in official statistics. This paper raises the natural question whether the European statistical system was ‘left at the station’ while its U.S. counterpart ‘departed’, making it possible for measurement differences to become the primary suspect for the existing productivity gap. My retrospective review of the development path in the services sector productivity statistics suggests that Europe lags significantly behind the U.S. in the services producer price index program, both in terms of scope and timing of its implementation. Accordingly, the role of these measurement differences in the post‐1995 Europe–U.S. productivity story cannot reasonably be ruled out. The paper concludes with a ‘structured guess’ that provides a circumstantial evidence on the benefits generated by the upgrades in the U.S. services sector statistics. The results show that these enhancements led to two kinds of benefits during the post‐1995 period – a considerable reduction in the contribution of industries that traditionally dampened the aggregate productivity trend combined with a larger contribution of those that generally lifted it. This contrasts markedly with Europe where the contribution of these two sources remained unchanged in the meantime.
Line protection in inverter supplied networks

New protection methods are required to protect a distribution system when supplied by current limited converters. In this paper, a method of converter control is proposed to limit the current by reducing the voltage in the faulted phase or phases while keeping the voltage of the healthy phases unaltered. Unsymmetrical fault analysis is performed to calculate the sequence currents and voltages at the relay location, when system is supplied by a converter. Based on that converter control, distance relay performances have been evaluated in both grid-connected and islanded mode operations. Distance relay, combined with MHO and negative sequence impedance directional characteristics, is proposed as a protection scheme for the distribution system for different types of faults under the current limited environment. The results are validated through PSCAD/EMTDC simulation and MATLAB calculations.
Reactive response of fibrocytes to vocal fold mucosal injury in rat

Fibrocytes hold a prominent role in inflammatory and tissue repair processes in various organ systems. In this study, we identified and quantified a reactive fibrocyte population in the vocal fold mucosa postinjury using immunohistochemistry and stereological analysis. These cells, which expressed CD11b on their surface and prolyl‐4‐hydroxylase β (P4H‐β) intracellularly, were largely restricted to the lamina propria, and were morphologically and immunochemically distinguishable from newly recruited epithelial cells. We validated our immunohistochemistry findings using flow cytometry, and additionally characterized a reactive fibrocyte population in circulating peripheral blood using a novel detection panel (CD16−CD11b+P4H‐β+). Fibrocyte recruitment peaked at 3 days postinjury in peripheral blood, and 5 days postinjury in the vocal fold mucosa. These findings suggest that circulating fibrocytes are recruited to sites of tissue injury in the vocal fold mucosa, and may play an important role in vocal fold tissue repair. The results of this study are consistent with published data from other organ systems and strongly suggest the importance of fibrocytes as therapeutic targets. Our newly reported antigen panel facilitating the direct characterization of fibrocytes via flow cytometry is a useful tool with the potential to facilitate improved study of this cell population.
Mixed Spectral-Element Method for Overcoming the Low-Frequency Breakdown Problem in Subsurface EM Exploration

One fundamental difficulty in low-frequency subsurface electromagnetic exploration is the low-frequency breakdown phenomenon in numerical computation. It makes the discretized linear system very poorly conditioned and thus difficult to solve. This issue is present in both integral equation and partial differential equation solution methods, and thus has attracted many researchers who have proposed various methods to overcome this difficulty. In this paper, we propose a new mixed spectral element method (mixed SEM) to eliminate this low-frequency breakdown problem and apply this method to solve the subsurface electromagnetic exploration problem. Since Gauss’ law is now explicitly enforced in the mixed SEM to make the system matrix well-conditioned even at extremely low frequency, we can solve the linear system from dc to high frequencies. With the proposed method, we study the surface-to-borehole electromagnetic system for hydrocarbon exploration. Numerical examples show that the mixed SEM is accurate and efficient, and has significant advantages over conventional methods.
Sleep‐Related Myoclonus in Rheumatic Pain Modulation Disorder (Fibrositis Syndrome) and in Excessive Daytime Somnolence

&NA; We describe a new syndrome, Rheumatic Pain Modulation Disorder (RPMD) (“fibrositis syndrome”) with sleep‐related myoclonus (involuntary periodic leg movements). Measures of sleepiness, fatigue and pain, before and after sleep, and aspects of sleep of nine subjects (Ss) with RPMD and sleep‐related myoclonus were compared to nine subjects with excessive daytime somnolence and sleep‐related myoclonus. In eight of the RPMD with sleep‐related myoclonus and three of those with daytime sleepiness, an alpha (7.5‐11 Hz) EEG Non‐Rapid Eye Movement sleep disorder was demonstrated. The RPMD with sleep‐related myoclonus group contained a greater number of women, more pain, morning fatigue, and disturbances in sleep (more stage changes and alpha EEG sleep prior to leg myoclonus); but in comparison to the sleep‐related myoclonus, daytime somnolent group, there were no differences in evening and morning sleepiness, number of limb movements, movement arousals, awakenings after sleep onset, sleep duration, and percent sleep stages.
Application of a High-Content Multiparameter Cytotoxicity Assay to Prioritize Compounds Based on Toxicity Potential in Humans

Prioritization of compounds based on human hepatotoxicity potential is currently a key unmet need in drug discovery, as it can become a major problem for several lead compounds in later stages of the drug discovery pipeline. The authors report the validation and implementation of a high-content multiparametric cytotoxicity assay based on simultaneous measurement of 8 key cell health indicators associated with nuclear morphology, plasma membrane integrity, mitochondrial function, and cell proliferation. Compounds are prioritized by (a) computing an in vitro safety margin using the minimum cytotoxic concentration (IC20) across all 8 indicators and cell-based efficacy data and (b) using the minimal cytotoxic concentration alone to take into account concentration of drug in tissues. Feasibility data using selected compounds, including quinolone antibiotics, thiazolidinediones, and statins, suggest the viability of this approach. To increase overall throughput of compound prioritization, the authors have identified the higher throughput, plate reader—based CyQUANT® assay that is similar to the high-content screening (HCS) assay in sensitivity of measuring inhibition of cell proliferation. It is expected that the phenotypic output from the multiparametric HCS assay in combination with other highly sensitive approaches, such as microarray-based expression analysis of toxic signatures, will contribute to a better understanding and predictivity of human hepatotoxicity potential. (Journal of Biomolecular Screening 2008: 527-537)
Social support and cancer screening in African American, Hispanic, and Native American women.

PURPOSE Minority women have higher rates of mortality from breast and cervical cancers and lower rates of utilization of screening tests than white women. Innovative ways to increase screening in these populations are needed urgently. This report examines the effectiveness of screening interventions based on social support for breast and cervical cancers in African American, Hispanic, and Native American women. OVERVIEW Despite the availability of mammography, clinical breast examination, and Papanicolaou smears, many women do not follow recommendations to obtain these tests. Further, many of the traditional approaches to health education have not been effective in minority populations. Additional strategies to promote screening for breast and cervical cancers are needed, particularly for women who, by virtue of language and/or culture, are outside the mainstream. Nontraditional approaches, or social support interventions, may be particularly effective in promoting cancer screening and reducing cancer mortality in high-risk minority women. CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS Programs that use social support offer the potential to draw on the strengths of a population--the ties between individuals, the importance of the family, and traditional cultural values--to improve screening for breast and cervical cancers in minority groups. In developing a social support intervention, healthcare providers should consider the similarities and differences among populations; collaborate with representatives of the target community; incorporate social support within hospitals and clinics; and include social support as an essential component of the clinical encounter.
Raman spectroscopy for mineral identification and quantification for in situ planetary surface analysis: A point count method

Quantification of mineral proportions in rocks and soils by Raman spectroscopy on a planetary surface is best done by taking many narrow-beam spectra from different locations on the rock or soil, with each spectrum yielding peaks from only one or two minerals. The proportion of each mineral in the rock or soil can then be determined from the fraction of the spectra that contain its peaks, in analogy with the standard petrographic technique of point counting. The method can also be used for nondestructive laboratory characterization of rock samples. Although Raman peaks for different minerals seldom overlap each other, it is impractical to obtain proportions of constituent minerals by Raman spectroscopy through analysis of peak intensities in a spectrum obtained by broad-beam sensing of a representative area of the target material. That is because the Raman signal strength produced by a mineral in a rock or soil is not related in a simple way through the Raman scattering cross section of that mineral to its proportion in the rock, and the signal-to-noise ratio of a Raman spectrum is poor when a sample is stimulated by a low-power laser beam of broad diameter. Results obtained by the Raman point-count method are demonstrated for a lunar thin section (14161,7062) and a rock fragment (15273,7039). Major minerals (plagioclase and pyroxene), minor minerals (cristobalite and K-feldspar), and accessory minerals (whitlockite, apatite, and baddeleyite) were easily identified. Identification of the rock types, KREEP basalt or melt rock, from the 100-location spectra was straightforward.
Experiences of Working with the Tobacco Issue in the Context of Health Promoting Hospitals and Health Services: A Qualitative Study

The worldwide Health Promoting Hospital and Health Services (HPH) network was initiated by the World Health Organizations in the late 1980s. The goal of the network is to change the focus of health services from curing patients to also embrace disease prevention and health promotion. In Sweden the network started in 1996, and involves mainly hospitals and primary care. The network members collaborate in task forces, one of which is working on the tobacco issue. There is limited evidence on the value of working within an HPH organization. The aim of this study was to investigate the experiences of members of the Swedish HPH network tobacco task force. Focus group interviews with task force members were analyzed using implementation theory. Three themes, overall experiences of working with tobacco issues, experiences of working with “free from tobacco in connection with surgery”, and experiences of work in the HPH tobacco task force, emerged from the interviews. The results show that working with the tobacco issue in the context of health-promoting hospitals and health services met with difficulties involving the following important factors: evidence, context, facilitation and adopter characteristics. Leadership, one contextual factor, at national and local level, seems to be crucial if the work is going to succeed. The tobacco task force of the HPH network is an important facilitator supporting the task.
Emerging roles of Notch signaling in liver disease

This review critically discusses the most recent advances in the role of Notch signaling in liver development, homeostasis, and disease. It is now clear that the significance of Notch in determining mammalian cell fates and functions extends beyond development, and Notch is a major regular of organ homeostasis. Moreover, Notch signaling is reactivated upon injury and regulates the complex interactions between the distinct liver cell types involved in the repair process. Notch is also involved in the regulation of liver metabolism, inflammation, and cancer. The net effects of Notch signaling are highly variable and finely regulated at multiple levels, but also depend on the specific cellular context in which Notch is activated. Persistent activation of Notch signaling is associated with liver malignancies, such as hepatocellular carcinoma with stem cell features and intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma. The complexity of the pathway provides several possible targets for agents able to inhibit Notch. However, further cell‐ and context‐specific in‐depth understanding of Notch signaling in liver homeostasis and disease will be essential to translate these concepts into clinical practice and be able to predict benefits and risks of evolving therapies. (Hepatology 2015;61:382–392)