Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Identifying women with cervical neoplasia: using human papillomavirus DNA testing for equivocal Papanicolaou results.

CONTEXT A Papanicolaou (Pap) test result of atypical squamous cells of undetermined significance (ASCUS) presents a clinical challenge. Only 5% to 10% of women with ASCUS harbor serious cervical disease, but more than one third of the high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions (HSILs) in screening populations are identified from ASCUS Pap test results. OBJECTIVE To determine whether human papillomavirus (HPV) DNA testing of residual material from liquid-based Pap tests and referral of cases found to be HPV-positive directly to colposcopy could provide sensitive detection of underlying HSILs in women with ASCUS Pap results, compared with repeat Pap testing. DESIGN AND SETTING Natural history of women with ASCUS Pap smear results, all of whom had liquid-based cytology, HPV testing, and subsequent repeat Pap tests and colposcopy with histologic evaluation, conducted at 12 gynecology clinics in a large managed care organization between October 1995 and June 1996. PARTICIPANTS From a cohort of 46009 women who had routine cervical examinations, 995 women with Pap test results of ASCUS who consented to participate were identified. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Cervical histology, HPV test results, and repeat Pap smear results, and sensitivity of HPV testing to identify patients found to have HSIL+ histology. RESULTS Of 995 participants with ASCUS Pap test results, 973 had both a definitive histologic diagnosis and HPV result. Sixty-five (6.7%) had histologic HSIL or cancer. For women with histologic HSIL+, the HPV test was positive in 89.2% (95% confidence interval [CI], 78.4%-95.2%), and the specificity was 64.1 % (95% CI, 60.9%-67.2%). The repeat Pap smear result was abnormal in 76.2% (95% CI, 63.5%-85.7%). Triage based on HPV testing only or on repeat Pap testing only would refer similar proportions (approximately 39%) to colposcopy. The sensitivity of HPV DNA testing for HSIL was equivalent to, if not greater than, that of the repeat Pap test. We further estimated that an HPV-based algorithm including the immediate colposcopy of HPV-positive women, and then repeat Pap testing of all others, would provide an overall sensitivity of 96.9% (95% CI, 88.3%-99.5%). CONCLUSIONS For women with ASCUS Pap tests, HPV DNA testing of residual specimens collected for routine cervical cytology can help identify those who have underlying HSIL. By testing the specimen collected at initial screening, the majority of high-risk cases can be identified and referred for colposcopy based on a single screening.
Facial recognition using histogram of Gabor phase patterns and self organizing maps

Automatic person identification using face information is very challenging task in the field of computer vision. A simple and efficient face recognition approach based on Gabor phase pattern and Self Organizing Maps is presented here. Histogram of Gabor Phase Pattern is used in proposed approach for feature extraction and Self Organizing maps are used as a classifier to identify whether the given grayscale image belongs to a particular class or not. In contrast to other feature extraction techniques, faster results are obtained using Histogram of Gabor Phase Patterns as feature detection occurs automatically without the need of any training procedure. A series of extensive experiments performed on various databases on MATLAB shows that proposed approach achieved a recognition rate of 97.33%, 96.49% and 94.20% for 7 consecutive trials on ORL, YALE and JAFFE databases respectively. It is demonstrated through experimental results that the proposed approach yields significant gain in terms of computational simplicity and effective accuracy.
Participation in productive activities and depression among older Europeans: Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE)

Although engagement in productive activities is associated with favourable outcomes with respect to the health and well‐being of older individuals, the association between such activities and depression in older populations remains relatively unexplored. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the association among five productive activities (paid work, formal volunteering, caregiving, informal helping and caring for grandchildren) with depression in older adults in 14 European countries.
Layered video communication in ICN enabled cellular network with D2D communication

Modern day's User Equipments (UEs) are equipped with rich resources which encourage them to be used for more sophisticated applications. On the other hand, with these equipments in hand, users demand for high-quality video on the move is increasing day-by-day. Moreover, Information/Content Centric Networking (ICN/CCN) has changed the network dynamics by getting the desired contents regardless of the location. Unused memory in UEs can be used to cache the contents and provide it to the other nearby users on demand. In this paper, we propose to provide the requested video to users from other users cache, using D2D link, if it is present there. Our objective is to reduce the download delay for the users' requested video. We formulate the problem as a matching game in which the resources are assigned to the users in the uplink period. The UEs select the content node for D2D communication and the suitable channel. We have evaluated the proposed mechanism by implementing it in Matlab and have compared it with greedy approach and no D2D communication scheme. The experimental results show the effectiveness of our proposed mechanism.
Health care development: integrating transaction cost theory with social support theory

The emergence of Web 2.0 technologies has already been influential in many industries, and Web 2.0 applications are now beginning to have an impact on health care. These new technologies offer a promising approach for shaping the future of modern health care, with the potential for opening up new opportunities for the health care industry as it struggles to deal with challenges including the need to cut costs, the increasing demand for health services and the increasing cost of medical technology. Social media such as social networking sites are attracting more individuals to online health communities, contributing to an increase in the productivity of modern health care and reducing transaction costs. This study therefore examines the potential effect of social technologies, particularly social media, on health care development by adopting a social support/transaction cost perspective. Viewed through the lens of Information Systems, social support and transaction cost theories indicate that social media, particularly online health communities, positively support health care development. The results show that individuals join online health communities to share and receive social support, and these social interactions provide both informational and emotional support.
Predicting prognosis in patients with advanced cancer.

BACKGROUND Patients with advanced cancer and their carers frequently wish to know how long they can expect to live. Improved prognostication would enable patients and their carers to be better prepared for their impending death, and would allow clinicians to make better informed decisions about place of care. However, clinician estimates of survival are inaccurate and systematically overoptimistic. Recently, attempts have been made to improve upon clinician estimates of survival by devising prognostic scales incorporating clinical information with biochemical and haematological results. DESIGN A descriptive and critical review of palliative prognostic scales, on the basis of the recommendations of the European Association of Palliative Care prognosis working group (2005) supplemented by an Ovid Medline search 1966-March 2006 using the key words 'prognosis', 'neoplasms', 'palliative care' and 'terminal care'. RESULTS This paper reviews the advantages and limitations of the palliative prognostic score, the palliative prognostic index, the Chuang prognostic scale, the terminal cancer prognostic score and the poor prognostic indicator. CONCLUSIONS All the currently available prognostic scales have limitations, but nonetheless offer an improvement on unadjusted clinician estimates of survival. Further research is required to systematically develop a prognostic scale on the basis of all the known prognostic variables in patients with advanced cancer.
Institutional Variability in Transfusion Practice for Liver Transplantation

We prospectively evaluated the institutional variability in perioperative transfusion therapy in orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT). Adult OLTs completed during a 12-mo period were studied until the 48th postoperative hour at 8 centers. A multivariate analysis using mixed-effects logistic regression included variables predisposing to blood loss and a center random effect. In addition, the influence of the calculated perioperative hemoglobin (Hb) loss on the individual probability of receiving red blood cells (RBCs), fresh frozen plasma (FFP), and platelets in excess of the overall median were explored. The analysis was performed on 301 cases. The overall median numbers transfused were 5 RBC units, 6 FFP units, and the median platelet dose was 5.1011, with significant intercentric differences in the proportions of cases given more than the overall median. Intercentric differences remained significant after adjustment for factors independently associated with a large blood component use. Intercentric differences in RBCs, FFP, and platelet use decreased but persisted after adjustment for the perioperative Hb loss. Intercentric differences in RBC use disappeared after adjustment for the postoperative Hb concentration. The significant heterogeneity in transfusion therapy mandates reassessment of the rational use of blood products in OLT.
Understanding of Capping Effects on the Tip Shape Evolution and on the Atom Probe Data of Bulk LaAlO3 Using Transmission Electron Microscopy

Abstract Two challenges exist in laser-assisted atom probe tomography (APT). First, a drastic decline in mass-resolving power is caused, not only by laser-induced thermal effects on the APT tips of bulk oxide materials, but also the associated asymmetric evaporation behavior; second, the field evaporation mechanisms of bulk oxide tips under laser illumination are still unclear due to the complex relations between laser pulse and oxide materials. In this study, both phenomena were investigated by depositing Ni- and Co-capping layers onto the bulk LaAlO3 tips, and using stepwise APT analysis with transmission electron microscopy (TEM) observation of the tip shapes. By employing the metallic capping, the heating at the surface of the oxide tips during APT analysis became more symmetrical, thereby enabling a high mass-resolving power in the mass spectrum. In addition, the stepwise microscopy technique visualized tip shape evolution during APT analysis, thereby accounting for evaporation sequences at the tip surface. The combination of “capping” and “stepwise APT with TEM,” is applicable to any nonconductors; it provides a direct observation of tip shape evolution, allows determination of the field evaporation strength of oxides, and facilitates understanding of the effects of ultrafast laser illumination on an oxide tip.
Error resilient turbo compression of source codec parameters using inner irregular codes

In this paper, we present a novel near-lossless compression scheme for scalar quantized source codec parameters. The scheme is comparable to a Turbo source coding approach and can inherently incorporate protection against transmission errors. We show that using the concept of EXIT charts and inner irregular convolutional codes of rate ≫ 1, a linear programming optimization problem can be formulated resulting in the minimization of the transmitted number of bits given a certain channel quality. The solution of this problem leads to an irregular inner code offering the best possible compression. The advantage of this method in comparison to a previous proposal is the easy adaptability to varying source conditions.
In vivo mutation assay based on the endogenous Pig‐a locus

The product of the X‐chromosome's Pig‐a gene acts in the first step of glycosylphosphatidylinositol (GPI) anchor biosynthesis, and is thereby essential for attaching certain proteins to the cell surface. The experiments described herein were designed to evaluate whether lack of GPI‐anchored proteins could form the basis of an in vivo mutation assay. Specifically, we used a CD59‐negative cell surface phenotype to denote Pig‐a mutation. Besides anti‐CD59‐PE, two other fluorescent reagents were used: thiazole orange to differentiate mature erythrocytes, reticulocytes (RETs), and leukocytes; and anti‐CD61 to resolve platelets. These experiments were performed with Sprague Dawley rats, and focused on two cell populations, total erythrocytes and RETs. The ability of the analytical method to enumerate CD59‐negative erythrocytes was initially assessed with reconstruction experiments whereby mutant‐mimicking cells were added to control bloods. Subsequently, female rats were treated on three occasions with the model mutagens ENU (100 mg/kg/day) or DMBA (40 mg/kg/day). Blood specimens were harvested at various intervals, as late as 6 weeks post‐exposure. Considering all week 4–6 data, we found that CD59‐negative cells ranged from 239 to 855 × 10−6 and 82 to 405 × 10−6 for ENU and DMBA, respectively. These values were consistently greater than those observed for negative control rats (18 ± 19 × 10−6). The elevated frequencies observed for the genotoxicant‐exposed animals were usually higher for RETs compared to total erythrocytes. These data support the hypothesis that an efficient in vivo mutation assay can be developed around flow cytometric enumeration of erythrocytes and/or RETs that exhibit aberrant GPI‐anchored protein expression. Environ. Mol. Mutagen. , 2008. © 2008 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Ischemic insult to cerebellar Purkinje cells causes diminished GABAA receptor function and allopregnanolone neuroprotection is associated with GABAA receptor stabilization

Cerebellar Purkinje cells (PC) are particularly vulnerable to ischemic injury and excitotoxicity, although the molecular basis of this sensitivity remains unclear. We tested the hypothesis that ischemia causes rapid down‐regulation of GABAA receptors in cerebellar PC, thereby increasing susceptibility to excitotoxicity. Oxygen‐glucose deprivation (OGD) caused a decline in functional GABAA receptors, within the first hour of re‐oxygenation. Decreased amplitude of miniature inhibitory post‐synaptic potentials confirmed that OGD caused a significant decrease in functional synaptic GABAA receptors and quantitative Western blot analysis demonstrated the loss of GABAA receptor current was associated with a decline in total receptor protein. Interestingly, the potent neuroprotectant allopregnanolone (ALLO) prevented the decline in GABAA receptor current and protein. Consistent with our in vitro data, global ischemia in mice caused a significant decline in total cerebellar GABAA receptor protein and PC specific immunoreactivity. Moreover, ALLO provided strong protection of PC and prevented ischemia‐induced decline in GABAA receptor protein. Our findings indicate that ischemia causes a rapid and sustained loss of GABAA receptors in PC, whereas ALLO prevents the decline in GABAA receptors and protects against ischemia‐induced damage. Thus, interventions which prevent ischemia‐induced decline in GABAA receptors may represent a novel neuroprotective strategy.
Short-Term Operation Planning of Integrated Hydrothermal and Natural Gas Systems

This paper integrates the natural gas and hydrothermal systems in terms of power and gas optimal short- term operations planning and unit commitment. In this paper, the natural gas network model including storages and pipelines are integrated with hydrothermal systems to optimize short-term operation of both systems simultaneously. The proposed model considers the constraints at the hydrothermal system, natural gas extraction, natural gas storage operation and pipeline. The proposed model results in a large-scale mixed-integer nonlinear programming problem where the objective function is to minimize the integrated gas-electricity system operation costs. To solve the integrated electricity-gas optimal short-term planning problem an approach based on Dual Decomposition, Lagrangian Relaxation and Dynamic Programming is employed. A didactic integrated hydrothermal and gas system case study is presented. The proposed model shows the importance of the integration of the two systems in terms of operation, planning, security and reliability.
A unified approach to proportional navigation

In this paper, the two major classes of proportional navigation (PN), namely, true proportional navigation (TPN) and pure proportional navigation (PPN) are analyzed and solved by a unified approach. The analytical tools used in the line-of-sight (LOS) referenced systems such as TPN, realistic true proportional navigation (RTPN), generalized true proportional navigation (GTPN) and ideal proportional navigation (IPN), are extended here to handle the interceptor velocity referenced systems such as PPN and its variants. It is found that the above two branches of guidance systems belong to a more general PN scheme which defines the acceleration of the interceptor as being proportional to the LOS rate with direction normal to an arbitrarily assigned vector L/spl I.oarr/. For example, L/spl I.oarr/ of TPN is LOS, and L/spl I.oarr/ of PPN is the interceptor's velocity. Every PN scheme associates with a specific form of L/spl I.oarr/. The optimal PN (OPN) problem which concerns the determination of the optimal direction L/spl I.oarr/ is also addressed. Under the proposed general PN scheme, its six special cases, i.e., TPN, RTPN, GTPN, IPN, PPN, and OPN are solved in a unified way from which many new relations among them can be revealed, and their performances can be compared on a common basis.
MHC class I chain-related gene B (MICB) is associated with rheumatoid arthritis susceptibility.

OBJECTIVES Several recent studies have shown that the MHC class III region, located telomeric to HLA-DRB1, contains an additional genetic factor that predisposes to rheumatoid arthritis (RA). In this study, we investigate whether inhibitor of kappaB-like (IkappaBL), MICB or MICA located in the MHC class III region are the second susceptibility gene associated with RA. METHODS A total of 154 healthy controls and 140 RA patients were genotyped for HLA-DRB1, MICA, MICB and the polymorphism -62 of the IkappaBL gene. RESULTS A significant increase of HLA-DRB1 shared epitope (SE) alleles was detected in RA patients (61.4 vs 43.5%, P(c) = 0.01, OR = 2.1, 95% CI = 1.3-3.3). Among SE alleles, the HLA-DRB1*0401 (13.5 vs 5.1%, P(c) = 0.04, OR = 3.2, 95% CI = 1.3-8.1) and HLA-DRB1*0404 (6.4 vs 1.2%, P = 0.02, P(c) = NS) showed the most significantly association with RA. No increase of risk was associated with HLA-DRB1*01. Remarkably, the allele MICB*004 was also significantly associated with RA susceptibility (40.7 vs 23.3%, P(c) = 0.01, OR = 2.2, 95% CI = 1.3-3.7). MICB*004 was in linkage disequilibrium with HLA-DRB1*0404 (lambda(s) = 0.33) and HLA-DRB1*0405 (lambda(s) = 0.34). However, MICB*004 was also increased in HLA-DRB1 SE negative patients (37 vs 21.5%, P = 0.04). No significant association between IkappaBL and MICA with RA was found. CONCLUSIONS MICB*004 allele was associated with RA susceptibility. This allele was in linkage disequilibrium with HLA-DRB1*0404 and DRB1*0405. The association of MICB with RA susceptibility and the functional role of MIC genes in the pathogenesis of RA converts MICB into a candidate to be an additional MHC gene associated with RA susceptibility.
Interactions of Proteases, Protease Inhibitors, and the β1 Integrin/Laminin γ3 Protein Complex in the Regulation of Ectoplasmic Specialization Dynamics in the Rat Testis1

Abstract During spermatogenesis, developing germ cells migrate progressively across the seminiferous epithelium. This event requires extensive restructuring of cell-cell actin-based adherens junctions (AJs), such as the ectoplasmic specialization (ES, a testis-specific AJ type), between Sertoli cells and elongating/elongate spermatids. It was postulated that proteases and protease inhibitors worked in a yin-yang relationship to regulate these events. If this is true, then it is anticipated that both proteases and protease inhibitors are found at the ES. Indeed, matrix metalloprotease (MMP)-2, membrane-type 1 (MT1)-MMP and their inhibitor, tissue-inhibitor of metalloproteases (TIMP)-2, were shown to localize at the apical ES. In order to identify the putative MMP substrate as well as the unknown binding ligand for α6β1 integrin in the ES, immunofluorescent microscopy coupled with immunoprecipitation techniques were used to demonstrate that laminin γ3, largely a germ cell product, was present at the apical ES and could form a bona fide complex with β1-integrin. Furthermore, the structural interactions of MMP-2 and MT1-MMP with laminin γ3 and β1-integrin, but not with N-cadherin or nectin-3, have implicated the crucial role of MMP-2/MT1-MMP in the regulation of integrin/laminin-based ES dynamics. Using an in vivo model to study AJ dynamics where adult rats were treated with 1-(2,4-dichlorobenzyl)-indazole-3-carbohydrazide (AF-2364) to disrupt Sertoli-germ cell adhesive function, an induction of active MMP-2, active MT1-MMP and TIMP-2 but not active MMP-9 was detected between 0.5 and 8 h after AF-2364 treatment. This time frame coincided with the depletion of elongating/elongate spermatids from the epithelium, illustrating the synergistic relationships between MMP-2, MT1-MMP, and TIMP-2 in AJ disassembly. Perhaps the most important of all, the use of a specific MMP-2 and MMP-9 inhibitor, (2R)-2-[(4-biphenylylsulfonyl)amino]-3-phenylpropionic acid, could effectively delay the AF-2364-induced elongating/elongate spermatid loss from the epithelium, demonstrating the pivotal role of MMP-2 activation in ES disassembly. Collectively, these studies illustrate that the β1-integrin/laminin γ3 complex is a putative ES-structural protein complex, which is regulated, at least in part, by the activation of MMP-2 involving MT1-MMP and TIMP-2 at the apical ES. The net result of this interaction likely regulates germ cell movement in the seminiferous epithelium.
Hybrid feature detection and information accumulation using high-resolution LC-MS metabolomics data.

Feature detection is a critical step in the preprocessing of liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) metabolomics data. Currently, the predominant approach is to detect features using noise filters and peak shape models based on the data at hand alone. Databases of known metabolites and historical data contain information that could help boost the sensitivity of feature detection, especially for low-concentration metabolites. However, utilizing such information in targeted feature detection may cause large number of false positives because of the high levels of noise in LC-MS data. With high-resolution mass spectrometry such as liquid chromatograph-Fourier transform mass spectrometry (LC-FTMS), high-confidence matching of peaks to known features is feasible. Here we describe a computational approach that serves two purposes. First it boosts feature detection sensitivity by using a hybrid procedure of both untargeted and targeted peak detection. New algorithms are designed to reduce the chance of false-positives by nonparametric local peak detection and filtering. Second, it can accumulate information on the concentration variation of metabolites over large number of samples, which can help find rare features and/or features with uncommon concentration in future studies. Information can be accumulated on features that are consistently found in real data even before their identities are found. We demonstrate the value of the approach in a proof-of-concept study. The method is implemented as part of the R package apLCMS at http://www.sph. emory.edu/apLCMS/ .