Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Volumetric analysis of maxillary sinuses of Zulu and European crania by helical, multislice computed tomography

Introduction: The volumes of the maxillary sinuses are of interest to surgeons operating endoscopically as variation in maxillary sinus volume may mean variation in anatomical landmarks. Other surgical disciplines, such as dentistry, maxillo-facial surgery and plastic surgery, may benefit from this information. Objectives: To compare the maxillary sinus volumes of dried crania from cadavers of European and Zulu descent, with respect to ethnic group and gender. Methodology: Helical, multislice computed tomography (CT) was performed using 1-mm coronal slices. The area for each slice was obtained by tracing the outline of each slice. The CT machine calculated a volume by totalling the slices for each sinus. Results: Ethnic and gender variations were found in the different groups. It was found that European crania had significantly larger antral volumes than Zulu crania and men had larger volumes than women. Race and gender interaction was also assessed, as was maxillary sinus side. Conclusion: A variation in maxillary sinus volume between different ethnic groups and genders exists, and surgeons operating in this region should be aware of this.
Inflation Expectations and Nonlinearities in the Phillips Curve

This paper shows that a simple form of nonlinearity in the Phillips curve can explain why, following the Great Recession, inflation did not decrease as much as predicted by linear Phillips curves, a phenomenon known as the missing disinflation. We estimate a piecewise-linear specification and document that the data favor a model with two regions, with the response of inflation to an increase in unemployment slower in the region where unemployment is already high. Nonlinearities remain important, even when we account for other factors proposed in the literature, such as consumer expectations of inflation or financial frictions. However, studying a range of specifications with different measures of inflation and economic activity, we conclude that, in most cases, consumer expectations are more robust than nonlinearities. We find that the role of consumer expectations was especially important in the 1970s and ? 80s, during a turbulent rise in inflation followed by the Volcker disinflation; the nonlinearities make disinflation more problematic and require the inflation expectations process to be more forward-looking during this period, thereby putting a larger weight on survey expectations. We conclude that a nonlinear Phillips curve with forward-looking survey expectations can be a useful tool to understand inflation dynamics during episodes of rapid disinflation and persistent inflation.
Toward a Better Understanding of the Link Between Parent and Child Physical Activity Levels: The Moderating Role of Parental Encouragement.

BACKGROUND Research on adolescent physical activity is mixed regarding the role of parent activity. This study tested parent encouragement, direct modeling, and perceived influence as moderators of objectively-measured (accelerometer) parent and child moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) associations. METHODS Parent-child dyads (n = 423; mean child age = 11.33 yrs.) wore accelerometers for 7 days; parents completed surveys. Hierarchical linear regression models tested moderation using a product of constituent terms interaction. RESULTS Parent-reported encouragement moderated the association between parent and child MVPA (β = -.15, P = .01, ΔR2 = .02, P < .01). Among parents with lower MVPA, child MVPA was higher for children receiving high encouragement (mean = 3.06, SE = .17) vs. low (mean = 3.03, SE = .15, P = .02) and moderate encouragement (mean = 3.40, SE = .09) vs. low (P = .04). CONCLUSIONS Physical activity promotion programs may use parent encouragement as a tool to boost child activity, but must consider other child and parent characteristics that could attenuate effects.
Cost-Effective Organization of an Institutional Human Cancer Biobank in a Clinical Setting: CRO-Biobank Experience Toward Harmonization

This report describes the organization of the Biobank of the CRO Aviano National Cancer Institute, Aviano (CRO- Biobank), Italy, implemented as a structured facility dedicated to collecting human biological samples. It describes a particular disease-specific biobank and the integration of a research biobank in a clinical setting. The CRO-Biobank's mission is rooted in supporting and implementing cancer research, with its main focus on optimizing technical and quality processes, while also investigating ethical, legal and IT topics. The CRO-Biobank has implemented processes aimed at guaranteeing the safety of the providers, protecting patient privacy and ensuring both the traceability and quality of its samples. Our 8 years of experience allow us to offer insights and useful suggestions that may solve theoretical and practical issues that can arise when starting up new biobanks or developing existing biobanks further.
Comparison of different methods to define regions of interest for evaluation of regional lung ventilation by EIT

The measurement of regional lung ventilation by electrical impedance tomography (EIT) has been evaluated in many experimental studies. However, EIT is not routinely used in a clinical setting, which is attributable to the fact that a convenient concept for how to quantify the EIT data is missing. The definition of region of interest (ROI) is an essential point in the data analysis. To date, there are only limited data available on the different approaches to ROI definition to evaluate regional lung ventilation by EIT. For this survey we examined ten patients (mean age ± SD: 60 ± 10 years) under controlled ventilation. Regional tidal volumes were quantified as pixel values of inspiratory-to-expiratory impedance differences and four types of ROIs were subsequently applied. The definition of ROI contours was based on the calculation of the pixel values of (1) standard deviation from each pixel set of impedance data and (2) the regression coefficient from linear regression equations between the individual local (pixel) and average (whole scan) impedance signals. Additionally, arbitrary ROIs (four quadrants and four anteroposterior segments of equal height) were used. Our results indicate that both approaches to ROI definition using statistical parameters are suitable when impedance signals with high sensitivity to ventilation-related phenomena are to be analyzed. The definition of the ROI contour as 20–35% of the maximum standard deviation or regression coefficient is recommended. Simple segmental ROIs are less convenient because of the low ventilation-related signal component in the dorsal region.
Gender discrimination in China revisited: a perspective from family welfare

Abstract The strong son preference tradition in China has been weakened by the rapid development in the cultural, economic, political, and social environment, which leads to a rather ambiguous picture regarding the situation of women and girls. This article revisits this issue by comparing two approaches inspired from Engel’s method to identify equivalence scales, and directly measures and tests gender bias using household expenditure and food consumption data. Using both parametric and semiparametric estimates, we find that households need a higher compensation for the arrival of a boy than the arrival of a girl, implying that gender inequality still exists in China, particularly in rural China. We find no evidence that education reduces gender inequality in China, and the results are quite robust to using different methods. Our study indicates that gender inequality does not only extend to sex-selective abortions but still affects living children. To reduce this inequality, more attention and efforts are needed to reduce son preference. More generally, the method developed in this study can also be used to proxy welfare changes in household.
Recent trends in preclinical drug–drug interaction studies of flavonoids — Review of case studies, issues and perspectives

Because of health benefits that are manifested across various disease areas, the consumption of herbal products and/or health supplements containing different kinds of flavonoids has been on the rise. While the drug–drug interaction potential between flavonoids and co‐ingested drugs still remain an issue, opportunities exist for the combination of flavonoids with suitable anti‐cancer drugs to enhance the bioavailability of anti‐cancer drugs and thereby reduce the dose size of the anti‐cancer drugs and improve its therapeutic index. In recent years, scores of flavonoids have undergone preclinical investigation with variety of drugs encompassing therapeutic areas such as oncology (etoposide, doxorubicin, paclitaxel, tamoxifen etc.), immunosuppression (cyclosporine) and hypertension (losartan, felodipine, nitrendipine etc.). The review provides examples of the recent trends in the preclinical investigation of 14 flavonoids (morin, quercetin, silibinin, kaempferol etc.) with various co‐administered drugs. The relevance of combination of flavonoids with anti‐cancer drugs and a framework to help design the in vitro and in vivo preclinical studies to gain better mechanistic insights are discussed. Also, concise discussions on the various physiological factors that contribute for the reduced bioavailability of flavonoids along with the significant challenges in the data interpretation are provided. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Appetitive to aversive counter‐conditioning as intervention to reduce reinstatement of reward‐seeking behavior: the role of the serotonin transporter

Counter‐conditioning can be a valid strategy to reduce reinstatement of reward‐seeking behavior. However, this has not been tested in laboratory animals with extended cocaine‐taking backgrounds nor is it well understood, which individual differences may contribute to its effects. Here, we set out to investigate the influence of serotonin transporter (5‐HTT) genotype on the effectiveness of counter‐conditioning after extended access to cocaine self‐administration. To this end, 5‐HTT+/+ and 5‐HTT−/− rats underwent a touch screen‐based approach to test if reward‐induced reinstatement of responding to a previously counter‐conditioned cue is reduced, compared with a non‐counter‐conditioned cue, in a within‐subject manner. We observed an overall extinction deficit of cocaine‐seeking behavior in 5‐HTT−/− rats and a resistance to punishment during the counter‐conditioning session. Furthermore, we observed a significant decrease in reinstatement to cocaine and sucrose associated cues after counter‐conditioning but only in 5‐HTT+/+ rats. In short, we conclude that the paradigm we used was able to produce effects of counter‐conditioning of sucrose seeking behavior in line with what is described in literature, and we demonstrate that it can be effective even after long‐term exposure to cocaine, in a genotype‐dependent manner.
Dementia with Lewy bodies can be well‐differentiated from Alzheimer's disease by measurement of brain acetylcholinesterase activity—a [11C]MP4A PET study

To investigate the diagnostic performance of brain acetylcholinesterase (AChE) activity measurement using N‐[11C]‐methyl‐4‐piperidyl acetate (MP4A) and PET in patients with dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) and Alzheimer's disease (AD).
Interstitial Fluorescence Spectroscopy in the Human Prostate During Motexafin Lutetium–Mediated Photodynamic Therapy

Abstract The in vivo fluorescence emission from human prostates was measured before and after motexafin lutetium (MLu)-mediated photodynamic therapy (PDT). A single side-firing optical fiber was used for both the delivery of 465 nm light-emitting diode excitation light and the collection of emitted fluorescence. It was placed interstitially within the prostate via a closed transparent plastic catheter. Fitting of the collected fluorescence emission spectra using the known fluorescence spectrum of 1 mg/kg MLu in an intralipid phantom yields a quantitative measure of the local MLu concentration. We found that an additional correction factor is needed to account for the reduction of the MLu fluorescence intensity measured in vivo due to strong optical absorption in the prostate. We have adopted an empirical correction formula given by C = (3.1 cm−1/μ′s) exp (μeff·0.97 cm), which ranges from approximately 3 to 16, with a mean of 9.3 ± 4.8. Using a computer-controlled step motor to move the probe incrementally along parallel tracks within the prostate we can determine one-dimensional profiles of the MLu concentration. The absolute MLu concentration and the shape of its distribution are confirmed by ex vivo assay and by diffuse absorption measurements, respectively. We find significant heterogeneity in photosensitizer concentration within and among five patients. These variations occur over large enough spatial scales compared with the sampling volume of the fluorescence emission that mapping the distribution in three dimensions is possible.
Establishment of Smad2 conditional gene targeting mice based on the Cre-LoxP system

Smads is a new gene family in transforming growth factor-β (TGF- β) signaling pathway. Smad2 mutated in multiple human tumors and may be a candidate tumor suppressor gene. Targeted disruption of murine Smad2 gene resulted in embryonic lethality at E6.5. To study the function of Smad2 in vertebrate organgenesis and tumorigenesis, we constructed the Smad2 conditional targeting vector in which two LoxP sequences were placed to flank the sequences encoding the C terminal functional domain of Smad2. The validity of the LoxP sites in the targeting construct was tested in E. coli that express the Cre recombinase constitutively. The vector was electroporated into ES cells and 3 targeted ES cell clones were obtained by Southern blot screening. Targeted ES cells were introduced into C57BL/6J blastocysts by microinjection to generate germ-line chimeras. Genotyping analysis showed that 2 progeny among these chimeras carried the Smad2 conditional targeted allele. The establishment of Smad2 conditional gene targeting mouse has laid a solid foundation for producing the tissue specific Smad2 gene knockout mice.
Proteomic parsimony through bipartite graph analysis improves accuracy and transparency.

Assembling peptides identified from LC-MS/MS spectra into a list of proteins is a critical step in analyzing shotgun proteomics data. As one peptide sequence can be mapped to multiple proteins in a database, naïve protein assembly can substantially overstate the number of proteins found in samples. We model the peptide-protein relationships in a bipartite graph and use efficient graph algorithms to identify protein clusters with shared peptides and to derive the minimal list of proteins. We test the effects of this parsimony analysis approach using MS/MS data sets generated from a defined human protein mixture, a yeast whole cell extract, and a human serum proteome after MARS column depletion. The results demonstrate that the bipartite parsimony technique not only simplifies protein lists but also improves the accuracy of protein identification. We use bipartite graphs for the visualization of the protein assembly results to render the parsimony analysis process transparent to users. Our approach also groups functionally related proteins together and improves the comprehensibility of the results. We have implemented the tool in the IDPicker package. The source code and binaries for this protein assembly pipeline are available under Mozilla Public License at the following URL: http://www.mc. vanderbilt.edu/msrc/bioinformatics/.
Land, development and contract farming on the Guatemalan oil palm frontier

Integration of smallholder agriculture into oil palm production schemes has been advocated as a strategy for rural poverty reduction in the global South, including Guatemala, where the crop had been promoted through a contentious government programme. This study, set in Guatemala’s northern lowlands, challenges the official narrative that smallholder oil palm cultivation catalyses rural development and deters peasant land sales. Results indicate that oil palm expansion is accelerating land sales and provides minimal benefits, namely non-inclusive and precarious jobs. The host community is becoming increasingly susceptible to global market volatility, as oil palm puts pressure on subsistence farming and eliminates other livelihood options.
Clinicopathological and molecular characteristics of Epstein–Barr virus‐associated gastric carcinoma: A meta‐analysis

There is conflicting data regarding the clinicopathological significance of the risk factors associated with Epstein–Barr virus (EBV)‐associated gastric carcinoma (EBVaGC). To address this controversy, we performed a meta‐analysis for the clinicopathological and molecular characteristics of EBVaGC. The relevant published studies were reviewed according to the defined selection criteria. The effect sizes of the outcome parameters were estimated by an odds ratio or a weighted mean difference. This meta‐analysis included 48 studies that encompassed a total of 9738 patients. The frequency of EBVaGC was 8.8%, and EBVaGC was significantly associated with ethnicity. It was more predominant in men and in younger individuals. Interestingly, EBVaGC was more prevalent in Caucasian and Hispanic patients than in Asian ones. EBVaGC developed most often in the cardia and body, and it generally showed the diffuse histological type. EBV was highly prevalent in the patients with lymphoepithelial carcinoma. EBVaGC was closely associated with remnant cancer and a CpG island methylator‐high status, but not with Helicobacter pylori infection, a TP53 expression, and p53 mutation. In addition, EBVaGC was not significantly associated with the depth of invasion, lymph node metastasis, or the clinical stage. The clinicopathological and molecular characteristics of EBVaGC are quite different from those of conventional gastric adenocarcinoma. However, further study is needed to determine the effect of EBV on the survival of EBVaGC patients.
Effects of brain‐derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) on glial cells and serotonergic neurones during development

Serotonergic neurones are among the first to develop in the central nervous system. Their survival and maturation is promoted by a variety of factors, including serotonin itself, brain‐derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and S100β, an astrocyte‐specific Ca2+ binding protein. Here, we used BDNF‐deficient mice and cell cultures of embryonic raphe neurones to determine whether or not BDNF effects on developing serotonergic raphe neurones are influenced by its action on glial cells. In BDNF–/– mice, the number of serotonin‐immunoreactive neuronal somata, the amount of the serotonin transporter, the serotonin content in the striatum and the hippocampus, and the content of 5‐hydroxyindoleacetic acid in all brain regions analysed were increased. By contrast, reduced immunoreactivity was found for myelin basic protein (MBP) in all brain areas including the raphe and its target region, the hippocampus. Exogenously applied BDNF increased the number of MBP‐immunopositive cells in the respective culture systems. The raphe area displayed selectively reduced immunoreactivity for S100β. Accordingly, S100β was increased in primary cultures of pure astrocytes by exogenous BDNF. In glia‐free neuronal cultures prepared from the embryonic mouse raphe, addition of BDNF supported the survival of serotonergic neurones and increased the number of axon collaterals and primary dendrites. The latter effect was inhibited by the simultaneous addition of S100β. These results suggest that the presence of BDNF is not a requirement for the survival and maturation of serotonergic neurones in vivo. BDNF is, however, required for the local expression of S100β and production of MBP. Therefore BDNF might indirectly influence the development of the serotonergic system by stimulating the expression of S100β in astrocytes and the production MBP in oligodendrocytes.
Algorithm evaluation support tools for Intelligent Space

Intelligent Space is an environment in which a variety of sensors are distributed and installed. In this paper, the three tools to simulate Intelligent Space system, Environment Designer, Sensor Arranger and Simulation Runner are explained. They operate to make our simulator a powerful simulation platform for research and many other aims in Intelligent Space. In addition to simulation of the operation of Intelligent Space including information processing and mobile robot control, sensor arrangement is one of the main objectives of our platform. Beside of manual operation, amateur users are looking forward to more automatic functions. Because the arrangement of laser range finder is an important theme for Intelligent Space research, automatic laser range finder arrangement mode is proposed.
Structural and Virological Studies of the Stages of Virus Replication That Are Affected by Antirhinovirus Compounds

ABSTRACT Pleconaril is a broad-spectrum antirhinovirus and antienterovirus compound that binds into a hydrophobic pocket within viral protein 1, stabilizing the capsid and resulting in the inhibition of cell attachment and RNA uncoating. When crystals of human rhinovirus 16 (HRV16) and HRV14 are incubated with pleconaril, drug occupancy in the binding pocket is lower than when pleconaril is introduced during assembly prior to crystallization. This effect is far more marked in HRV16 than in HRV14 and is more marked with pleconaril than with other compounds. These observations are consistent with virus yield inhibition studies and radiolabeled drug binding studies showing that the antiviral effect of pleconaril against HRV16 is greater on the infectivity of progeny virions than the parent input viruses. These data suggest that drug integration into the binding pocket during assembly, or at some other late stage in virus replication, may contribute to the antiviral activity of capsid binding compounds.
An Epidemiological Survey of Post-Coital Psychological Symptoms in a UK Population Sample of Female Twins

Postcoital psychological symptoms (PPS) is a virtually unexplored phenomenon in the female population even though women frequently complain about irritability and motiveless crying after intercourse and/or orgasm. The aim of this study was to explore the epidemiology and genetic influences of PPS in a UK population sample of women. 1,489 unselected female twins aged 18–85 completed questions on recent and persistent PPS and potential risk factors. Standard methods of quantitative genetic analysis were used to model latent genetic and environmental factors influencing variation in PPS. For identification of potential risk factors, regression analyses were conducted. Phenotypic variation in PPS was explored using a genetic variance component analysis (VCA) approach. We found 3.7% of women reported suffering from recent PPS and 7.7% from persistent PPS. Relationship satisfaction and experience of abuse were found to be independently associated with recent (OR 4.5, 95% CI 4.13–4.87 and OR 1.3, 95% CI 1.02–1.34, respectively) and persistent PPS (OR 2.53, 95% CI 2.17–2.81 and OR 1.16, 95% CI 1.09–1.26, respectively). VCA revealed that phenotypic variance was best explained by an additive genetic (AE) model, ascribing 28% (for recent PPS) and 26% (for persistent PPS) of phenotypic variance to additive genetic effects, with the rest being a result of individual experiences and random measurement error. To our knowledge, this is the first and largest study investigating the epidemiology of PPS. It seems that the most important targets for intervention and prevention occur outside of the family, such as relationship quality and satisfaction, and history of abuse.