Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Application of microscopy technique and high-performance liquid chromatography for quality assessment of the flower bud of Tussilago farfara L. (Kuandonghua)

Background: Quality control is one of the bottleneck problems limiting the application and development of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). In recent years, microscopy and high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) techniques have been frequently applied in the quality control of TCM. However, studies combining conventional microscopy and HPLC techniques for the quality control of the flower bud of Tussilago farfara L. (Kuandonghua) have not been reported. Objective: This study was undertaken to evaluate the quality of the flower bud of T. farfara L. and to establish the relationships between the quantity of pollen grains and four main bioactive constituents: tussilagone, chlorogenic acid, rutin and isoquercitrin. Materials and Methods: In this study, microscopic examination was used to quantify microscopic characteristics of the flower bud of T. farfara L. , and the chemical components were determined by HPLC. The data were analyzed by Statistical Package for the Social Sciences statistics software. Results: The results of the analysis showed that tussilagone, chlorogenic acid, rutin and isoquercitrin were significantly correlated with the quantity of pollen grains in the flower bud of T. farfara L. There is a positive correlation between them. From these results, it can be deduced that the flower bud of T. farfara L. with a greater quantity of pollen grains should be of better quality. Conclusion: The study showed that the established method can be helpful for evaluating the quality of the flower bud of T. farfara L. based on microscopic characteristic constants and chemical quantitation.
Food meanings in HIV and AIDS caregiving trajectories: Ritual, optimism and anguish among caregivers in Lesotho

The article describes the caregiving responsibility to provide food for chronically ill family members and the meanings attached to food and eating when ill created stress for family caregivers. The results come from a qualitative phenomenological study using in-depth interviews with 21 family caregivers of chronically ill HIV and AIDS patients in one district in Lesotho. Analysis of the interview data showed that the caregivers attached profound meanings to food and feeding care recipients. Their perceptions about food as part of family life and caring, the role of food and eating in curbing disease progression, the link between food and medical efficacy and the link between food and life led to ritualised behaviour around food, and moments of optimism and anguish in caregiving. Patients' behaviour in relation to food was in most instances inconsistent with the caregivers' goals, thus leading this aspect of caregiving to induce stress. Services intended to support home-based caregivers and patients could contribute to the reduction of stress associated with food through suitably tailored food assistance and professional support to caregivers to enhance their competences and understanding of the dynamics of food intake as AIDS progressed.
Learning Spatial Relationships: Some Approaches

We consider three approaches to learning natural resource models involving spatial relationships, based respectively on decision tree learning, genetic programming and inductive logic programming. In each case, the results of spatial learning on a natural resource problem are compared with the results of nonspatial learning from the same data, and improvements in predictivity or simplicity of the models are noted. We argue also that it is highly desirable that spatial learning systems for natural resource problems incorporate mechanisms for the user specification of learning biases.
Transforming the vowel/diphthong formants of one Assamese variety to another: A GMM based approach

This study attempts to transform the formant frequencies of the vowels/diphthongs of one variety of the Assamese language to another variety, using a statistical approach based on Gaussian Mixture Models(GMMs). Formants are the resonant frequencies of the vocal tract and are responsible for the differences in quality among different periodic sounds. They can therefore be used to represent regional variations in the vowel and diphthong sounds. A GMM based mapping function is developed to map the most informative formants, F1, F2 & F3 of vowels/diphthongs of one variety of Assamese to the other. Objective evaluation results show that the mapping function is successful in bringing the vowel/diphthong formants of the source variety closer to the target variety.
Occupational challenge stress, hindrance stress, and work outcomes among Chinese working employees

Existing studies showed that challenge stress and hindrance stress needed to be developed. And the relations between job stress and work outcomes were inconsistent. Using a questionnaire survey among state-owned bank employees, this study developed the scale of job challenge stress and hindrance stress, and examined the relations between job stress and work outcomes. Results proved the two-factor structure of job stress. Both challenge stress and hindrance stress were positively associated with emotional exhaustion. And challenge stress and hindrance stress were both related to relevant work outcomes, but in opposite directions, such as challenge stress was significantly positively related to job satisfaction and job performance, while hindrance stress was significantly negatively related to job satisfaction and positively related to turnover intention. However, challenge stress was negatively related to turnover intention but the relation was not significant, and hindrance stress had no significantly negative influence on job performance. Theoretical contributions were also discussed.
Molecular Target Modulation, Imaging, and Clinical Evaluation of Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumor Patients Treated with Sunitinib Malate after Imatinib Failure

Purpose: To evaluate sunitinib activity and potential cellular and molecular correlates in gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST) patients after imatinib failure, in addition to assessing the safety and pharmacokinetics (PK) of different dose schedules. Experimental Design: In this open-label, dose-ranging, phase I/II study, 97 patients with metastatic imatinib-resistant/intolerant GIST received sunitinib at doses of 25, 50, or 75 mg/d on one of three schedules. Serial tumor imaging was done using computed tomography and [18F]fluoro-2-deoxy-d-glucose positron emission tomography scanning. PK and cell proliferation and KIT phosphorylation status in tumor biopsies were also analyzed. Results: Clinical benefit was observed in 52 patients (54%: 7 objective partial responses, 45 stable disease ≥6 months). Decreased tumor glycolytic activity was shown in most patients within 7 days of starting sunitinib using [18F]fluoro-2-deoxy-d-glucose positron emission tomography. Sunitinib treatment was associated with reduced tumor cell proliferation by >25% in 52% of cases analyzed and reduced levels of phospho-KIT in tumor biopsies (indicating target modulation). The recommended dose schedule was 50 mg/d for 4 weeks followed by 2 weeks off treatment. On the 50-mg dose across all schedules, 79% of PK-evaluable patients achieved total drug trough concentrations above the target concentration (50 ng/mL) within 14 days of dosing. In addition, adverse events were generally mild to moderate in severity. Conclusion: Cellular and molecular analyses showed that sunitinib clinical activity is associated with inhibition of KIT in GIST following imatinib failure, illustrating the rational approach used to develop a therapy aimed at the underlying oncogenic signaling pathway aberrancy. (Clin Cancer Res 2009;15(18):5902–9)
Ceiling-Based Visual Positioning for an Indoor Mobile Robot With Monocular Vision

A regular ceiling is common in many offices. The plentiful parallels and corner points on the ceiling can serve as features for visual positioning for an indoor mobile robot. Based on the natural features on the ceiling, a new visual positioning method is proposed. A camera is mounted on the top of the mobile robot and pointed to the ceiling. At the beginning of visual positioning, the initial orientation and position of the mobile robot in the world frame is estimated with a specified block on the ceiling via perspective-n-point-based positioning method. With the motions of the mobile robot, its global orientation is calculated from the main and secondary lines feature when the ceiling has parallels. In other cases, its global orientation is estimated with point features on the ceiling. Then, its position is recursively computed with the point features. The error analysis and experiments verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Raising the Bars: Evaluating Treemaps vs. Wrapped Bars for Dense Visualization of Sorted Numeric Data

A standard (single-column) bar chart can effectively visualize a sorted list of numeric records. However, the chart height limits the number of visible records. To show more records, the bars could be made thinner (which could hinder identifying records individually), and scrolling requires interaction to see the overview. Treemaps have been used in practice in non-hierarchical settings for dense visualization of numeric data. Alternatively, we consider wrapped bars, a multi-column bar chart that uses length instead of area to encode numeric values. We compare treemaps and wrapped bars based on their design characteristics, and graphical perception performance for comparison, ranking, and overview tasks using crowdsourced experiments. Our analysis found that wrapped bars perceptually outperform treemaps in all three tasks for dense visualization of non-hierarchical, sorted numeric data.
Oscillation of cylinders of rectangular cross section immersed in fluid

The ability to calculate flows generated by oscillating cylinders immersed in fluid is a cornerstone in micro- and nanodevice development. In this article, we present a detailed theoretical analysis of the hydrodynamic load experienced by an oscillating rigid cylinder, of arbitrary rectangular cross section, that is immersed in an unbounded viscous fluid. We also consider the formal limit of inviscid flow for which exact analytical and asymptotic solutions are derived. Due to its practical importance in application to the atomic force microscope and nanoelectromechanical systems, we conduct a detailed assessment of the dependence of this load on the cylinder thickness-to-width ratio. We also assess the validity and accuracy of the widely used infinitely-thin blade approximation. For thin rectangular cylinders of finite thickness, this approximation is found to be excellent for out-of-plane motion, whereas for in-plane oscillations it can exhibit significant error. A database of accurate numerical results for the hydrodynamic load as a function of the thickness-to-width ratio and normalized frequency is also presented, which is expected to be of value in practical application and numerical benchmarking.
Elicitation of empathic emotions using film: development of a stimulus set

Empathy is a complex, multi-component construct broadly defined as the ability to understand and share another person’s emotional state (Davis, 1996). Empathy is intimately engrained in social interactions (Hoffman, 2008), and the understanding of empathic emotions is integral to the advancement of our conceptualization of human behavior. Furthermore, there is increasing interest in the elicitation and induction of empathic emotions, particularly in the context of specific psychopathologies that are characterized by dysfunction in both affective (e.g., psychopathy; Blair, 1995) and cognitive (e.g., autism; Hill & Frith, 2003) aspects of empathic responsivity. The use of emotional film clips provides several advantages compared to other methods of emotion elicitation, including ease of standardization and a high degree of ecological validity. Furthermore, given the complex nature of empathy, film clips allow for presentations of more emotional and complex stimuli in relatively short periods of time compared to other methods (e.g., static images). To date, research on the validation of film stimuli has primarily focused on the elicitation of discrete emotions (e.g., happiness, anger), and a standardized database available to all researchers is needed that considers the elicitation of more complex emotions, such as empathy. The primary goal of the current study was to validate a new set of short film clips for use in research attempting to elicit empathic emotions. Several components were considered in validation, including comparison of empathy film clips to both neutral film clips consisting of nature scenes and persons in conversation, as well as control negative, non-empathy emotional films consisting of both horror and people in distress. Additionally, we made comparisons across various participant ratings, including general
Violent Contexts and Vote Choice in Colombia: A Multilevel Approach

This paper develops a theoretical framework for understanding the relationship between violent contexts and vote choice by drawing on insights from literature on the contextual determinants of political behavior and civil wars. It tests the hypothesis that individuals living in a violent context tend to behave in line with the strategic objectives and ideological orientations proclaimed by the armed actor dominating the area. Using a national survey conducted in Colombia in 2005, and contextual level data, this paper employs hierarchical regression models to test this hypothesis. Results suggest a significant relationship between violent contexts and vote choices. On moving from areas dominated by left-wing insurgents to regions controlled by right-wing paramilitary groups, individuals were more likely to support a presidential candidate on the right of the ideological spectrum. However, this relationship appears to be conditioned by partisanship as minority party sympathizers’ vote choices are the most affected by changes in violent contexts.
Reliability and validity of heart rate variability threshold assessment during an incremental shuttle-walk test in middle-aged and older adults

Studies on the assessment of heart rate variability threshold (HRVT) during walking are scarce. We determined the reliability and validity of HRVT assessment during the incremental shuttle walk test (ISWT) in healthy subjects. Thirty-one participants aged 57 ± 9 years (17 females) performed 3 ISWTs. During the 1st and 2nd ISWTs, instantaneous heart rate variability was calculated every 30 s and HRVT was measured. Walking velocity at HRVT in these tests (WV-HRVT1 and WV-HRVT2) was registered. During the 3rd ISWT, physiological responses were assessed. The ventilatory equivalents were used to determine ventilatory threshold (VT) and the WV at VT (WV-VT) was recorded. The difference between WV-HRVT1 and WV-HRVT2 was not statistically significant (median and interquartile range = 4.8; 4.8 to 5.4 vs 4.8; 4.2 to 5.4 km/h); the correlation between WV-HRVT1 and WV-HRVT2 was significant (r = 0.84); the intraclass correlation coefficient was high (0.92; 0.82 to 0.96), and the agreement was acceptable (-0.08 km/h; -0.92 to 0.87). The difference between WV-VT and WV-HRVT2 was not statistically significant (4.8; 4.8 to 5.4 vs 4.8; 4.2 to 5.4 km/h) and the agreement was acceptable (0.04 km/h; -1.28 to 1.36). HRVT assessment during walking is a reliable measure and permits the estimation of VT in adults. We suggest the use of the ISWT for the assessment of exercise capacity in middle-aged and older adults.
A Correlation Study of DHA Dietary Intake and Plasma, Erythrocyte and Breast Milk DHA Concentrations in Lactating Women from Coastland, Lakeland, and Inland Areas of China

We aimed to assess the correlation between docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) dietary intake and the plasma, erythrocyte and breast milk DHA concentrations in lactating women residing in the coastland, lakeland and inland areas of China. A total of 408 healthy lactating women (42 ± 7 days postpartum) were recruited from four hospitals located in Weihai (coastland), Yueyang (lakeland) and Baotou (inland) city. The categories of food containing DHA, the average amount consumed per time and the frequency of consumption in the past month were assessed by a tailored DHA food frequency questionnaire, the DHA Intake Evaluation Tool (DIET). DHA dietary intake (mg/day) was calculated according to the Chinese Food Composition Table (Version 2009). In addition, fasting venous blood (5 mL) and breast milk (10 mL) were collected from lactating women. DHA concentrations in plasma, erythrocyte and breast milk were measured using capillary gas chromatography, and were reported as absolute concentration (μg/mL) and relative concentration (weight percent of total fatty acids, wt. %). Spearman correlation coefficients were used to assess the correlation between intakes of DHA and its concentrations in biological specimens. The study showed that the breast milk, plasma and erythrocyte DHA concentrations were positively correlated with DHA dietary intake; corresponding correlation coefficients were 0.36, 0.36 and 0.24 for relative concentration and 0.33, 0.32, and 0.18 for absolute concentration (p < 0.05). The median DHA dietary intake varied significantly across areas (p < 0.05), which was highest in the coastland (24.32 mg/day), followed by lakeland (13.69 mg/day), and lowest in the inland (8.84 mg/day). The overall relative and absolute DHA concentrations in breast milk were 0.36% ± 0.23% and 141.49 ± 107.41 μg/mL; the concentrations were significantly lower in inland women than those from coastland and lakeland. We conclude that DHA dietary intake is positively correlated with DHA concentrations in blood and breast milk in Chinese lactating women, suggesting that the tailored DHA food frequency questionnaire, DIET, is a valid tool for the assessment of DHA dietary intake.
Missouri Mothers and Their Children: A Family Study of the Effects of Genetics and the Prenatal Environment

The Missouri Mothers and Their Children Study (MO-MATCH) was specifically designed to critically investigate prenatal environmental influences on child attention problems and associated learning and cognitive deficits. The project began as a pilot study in 2004 and was formally launched in 2008. Participants in the study were initially identified via the Department of Vital Statistics birth record (BR) database. Interview and lab-based data were obtained from: (1) mothers of Missouri-born children (born 1998–2005), who smoked during one pregnancy but not during another pregnancy; (2) biological fathers when available; and (3) the children (i.e., full sibling pairs discordant for exposure to maternal smoking during pregnancy (SDP). This within-mother, between-pregnancy contrast provides the best possible methodological control for many stable maternal and familial confounding factors (e.g., heritable and socio-demographic characteristics of the mother that predict increased probability of SDP). It also controls for differences between mothers who do and do not smoke during pregnancy, and their partners, that might otherwise artifactually create, or alternatively mask, associations between SDP and child outcomes. Such a design will therefore provide opportunities to determine less biased effect sizes while also allowing us to investigate (on a preliminary basis) the possible contribution of paternal or other second-hand smoke exposure during the pre, peri, and postnatal periods to offspring outcome. This protocol has developed a cohort that can be followed longitudinally through periods typically associated with increased externalizing symptoms and substance used initiation.
Validation of a panel of cell-cycle progression genes for improved risk stratification in a contemporary radical prostatectomy cohort.

10 Background: Using clinical parameters, prostate cancers can be risk-stratified to aid treatment decisions. However, novel biomarkers are needed to predict tumor behavior more accurately. We aimed to validate the ability of a previously described 46-gene expression panel consisting of 31 cell-cycle progression (CCP) genes and 15 "housekeeping" genes to predict recurrence in a contemporary cohort of men undergoing radical prostatectomy (RP). METHODS Patients undergoing RP at UCSF since 1994 with ≥5 years of follow-up were included. RNA was extracted from archival RP tissue, and CCP score was calculated as average expression of the 31 CCP genes. Recurrence was defined as 2 PSAs ≥0.2 ng/ml or any salvage treatment at least 6 months after surgery. CCP score association with recurrence was assessed in univariate survival analysis and adjusted for PSA at diagnosis, pathologic Gleason score, margin status, extracapsular extension, seminal vesicle invasion, lymph node invasion. These variables were considered as separate covariates and as measured by the validated CAPRA-S score. RESULTS 413 men were included, 82 recurred. Most had low- to intermediate-risk pathology (mean CAPRA-S 2.1 ± 1.8). CCP scores ranged from -1.62 to 2.16; the mean was -0.28 ± 0.63. CCP score was associated with recurrence, HR 2.1 per CCP score unit (95% CI 1.6-2.9), p<0.0001. With adjustment for pathologic variables, patient age, and year of surgery, HR was 2.0 per CCP score unit (1.4-2.9), p<0.0001; and with adjustment for CAPRA-S score, the HR was 1.7 per CCP score unit (1.3-2.3), p<0.001. By likelihood ratio testing, adding the CCP score to the CAPRA-S improved accuracy significantly (LR χ2 11.4, p<0.0001). Based on Kaplan-Meier analysis, CCP score adds useful discrimination to both the overall cohort and for patients with clinically low-risk disease (CAPRA-S score 0-2). CONCLUSIONS In a contemporary post-RP cohort, the CCP score was validated to have significant prognostic accuracy even when controlling for clinical and pathologic data. The score has potential to substantially improve accuracy of risk-stratification, and lead to better decision-making with respect to timing and intensity of treatment.
Is CGRP a marker for chronic migraine?

Calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) research was initiated by Poyner et al.,1 who found that the calcitonin gene encodes the 37–amino acid neuropeptide CGRP in neuronal tissue. Within months, the Lund group produced antibodies toward α-CGRP and developed sensitive methods to study the role of this peptide in the cranial circulation. Intracranial vessels and the trigeminal ganglion harbor this potent vasodilator peptide.2 Functionally, CGRP has a substantial role in the trigeminovascular reflex.3 The calcitonin family is now well-characterized and contains 6 members: calcitonin, amylin, adenomedullin-2, adrenomedullin, and CGRP (2 isoforms: α-CGRP and β-CGRP). 4 The α- and β-isoforms of CGRP are similar in their biological activities but show different tissue distributions. β-CGRP is mainly found in enteric nerves and in the pituitary gland, while α-CGRP is found predominantly in sensory neurons and in the CNS.5 CGRP causes cranial vasodilatation and facilitates nociception. During a migraine attack, trigeminal activation results in the release of CGRP from presynaptic nerve terminals and induces vasodilatation and neurogenic inflammation in leptomeningeal and extracranial vessels, which gives rise to the typical throbbing pain of migraine. Goadsby and Edvinsson6 showed that plasma concentrations of CGRP are elevated in the external jugular venous blood during migraine headaches and that sumatriptan can abort the rise in CGRP and the headache.4 CGRP given IV causes headache only in migraine patients and CGRP antagonists are effective for the acute treatment of migraine.7 Until now, CGRP elevation in the plasma has not been reproduced in all studies.8 However, technical problems have sometimes hampered the proper measurements of CGRP.9