Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Deficiency of vitamin D and elevated aldosterone in prostate hyperplasia.

BACKGROUND Epidemiological studies have confirmed the association between vitamin D deficiency and benign prostate hyperplasia (BPH). Lately, serum calcium and parathyroid hormones were shown to stimulate prostate growth, assuming an interplay between elements of the calcium metabolism rather than a sole role of any. Finally, aldosterone actions were found to be affected by vitamin D. OBJECTIVES We have sufficient reason to believe that human disease, BPH in this case, is a dysfunction of a fine network rather than a failure of a particular substance. Unfortunately, previous studies include results of studies that fall short in combining the overall structure. This study aimed to investigate these four parameters in BPH patients. MATERIAL AND METHODS Twenty five patients with BPH (median age 62 years) and 30 volunteer healthy controls (median age 63.5 years) were enrolled. Serum total prostate specific antigen (PSA), intact parathormone (PTH), calcium, 25-hydroxy vitamin D (25-(OH) 2D), aldosterone and lipids were measured. RESULTS We found serum aldosterone levels significantly higher in BPH patients (p = 0.04). BPH patients had significantly higher serum PSA levels (p < 0.0001). 25-(OH) 2D levels were lower in the BPH group (p = 0.05). Median serum 25-(OH) 2D levels in both groups were lower than the threshold reference limit (20 ng/mL). CONCLUSIONS The co-existence of vitamin D deficiency and elevated levels of aldosterone in BPH, presented for the first time in literature, strongly favors a link between the renin-angiotensin system (RAS), vitamin D and BPH pathogenesis. Our findings may influence studies with larger groups of subjects.
A Case for Direct Questioning in Traditional Fieldwork

N DIALECT GEOGRAPHY of the atlas kind, there are, at the primary level, only two kinds of questions that can be put to informants: direct and indirect. Direct questions specifically name the sound or word or construction being investigated; an outrageous example might be, "As a general rule, do you drop your g's or not? " An indirect question would not specify the linguistic point of interest, and might even disguise it, asking, for example, "What is this? " and showing a picture of a frying pan. For most of the twentieth century, it has been felt fairly generally that direct questions are highly suspect. ' Even at their best, it is argued, they are LEADING questions; they do not produce objective data. Should they-by chance or desperate necessity-be used after all, the results are not to be compared with other results. Thus there are strongly worded strictures concerning direct questions in the written instructions to fieldworkers from such investigators as Hans Kurath, Raven McDavid, and Murray Kinloch. The "Instructions for Field Work" reproduced in Kurath (1939, p. 48) include this warning:
Swarm-based optimizations in hexapod robot walking

During previous research [1-7] and development several hexapod walking robots and its simulation model were built by the authors. The latest model called Szabad(ka)-II is a complex, servo motor driven, multiprocessor device. In parallel with the building of this hexapod robot, a simulation model was also built in order to help optimize the robot's structure, walking and driving [5]. The results of modeling and parameter optimizations can be used as a guideline during the design of a new and improved robot. The Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) method was chosen because its simplicity and effectiveness [1, 2]. It has produced better and faster results compared to previously used Genetic Algorithm (GA) [3]. However, neither selected method is able to provide the global optimum in the case of one-time run. Using an optimization benchmark disclose the differences and help to get the best parameterized optimization method for a given problem.
Designing electronic information systems for the future: Social workers and the challenge of New Public Management

There is a well-established critique of current forms of electronic information systems (IS) in social work organisations and attention is now turning to their redesign for the future. In this article we go beyond critiques that have established how this occurred to explore one of the reasons why current forms of IS have been observed to undermine frontline practice. In the same way that technological artefacts are observed to mediate human action by ‘configuring the user’, IS have also been developed, or configured, according to ideas about how things should be done, known as ‘embodied structures’. In this article, examples of IS functionality are drawn upon to demonstrate how the logics of New Public Management (NPM) have been embodied in current forms of IS. It is argued that the logics of NPM must be challenged if new forms of IS are to be developed that amplify the ability of practitioners.
Three peptides from the ANF prohormone NH(2)-terminus are natriuretic and/or kaliuretic.

The present investigation was designed to determine whether peptides derived from the NH(2)-terminal portion of the 126-amino acid prohormone (pro) of atrial natriuretic factor (ANF) have natriuretic and diuretic properties similar to ANF. Three peptides consisting of amino acids 1-30 [(proANF-(1-30)], 31-67 [proANF-(31-67)], and 79-98 (proANF-(79-98)] of the ANF prohormone were tested and compared with the COOH-terminus peptide (ANF) with respect to their ability to increase urine volume, urine sodium and potassium excretion, and glomerular filtration rate (GFR) in anesthetized Munich-Wistar rats. Each of these peptides except proANF-(79-98) caused a significant diuresis (P less than 0.05) when infused at their respective 100 ng.kg body wt-1.min-1 concentrations for 120 min. ProANFs-(1-30), (31-67), (79-98), and (99-126) (ANF) increased sodium excretion by 231, 973, 167, and 1,405%, respectively. The fractional excretion of sodium compared with control was significant at P less than 0.05, P less than 0.01, and P less than 0.05 for proANFs (1-30), (31-67), and (99-126), respectively. ProANF-(79-98) did not significantly increase the fractional excretion of sodium, but it was the only peptide from the NH(2)-terminus of the prohormone that significantly increased the fractional excretion of potassium's ProANF-(31-67) did not increase urinary potassium excretion. ProANF-(1-30), (79-98), and ANF significantly (P less than 0.05) increased urinary potassium excretion. None of these peptides significantly enhanced GFR. In conclusion, three peptides from the NH(2)-terminus of the ANF prohormone as well as ANF (the COOH-terminus) have either natriuretic, kaliuretic, and/or diuretic properties, but the respective ability of each of these peptides to produce these effects varies considerably.
Minimal Change and Maximal Coherence: A Basis for Belief Revision and Reasoning about Actions

The study of belief revision and reasoning about actions have been two of the most active areas of research in AI. Both these areas involve reasoning about change. However very little work has been done in analyzing the principles common to both these areas. This paper presents a formal characterization of belief revision, based on the principles of minimal change and maximal coherence. This formal theory is then used to reason about actions. The resulting theory provides an elegant solution to the conceptual frame and ramification problems. It also facilitates reasoning in dynamic situations where the world changes during the execution of an action. The principles of minimal change and maximal coherence seem to unify belief revision and reasoning about actions and may form a fundamental core for reasoning about other dynamic processes that involve change.
Granulocyte macrophage colony-stimulating factor

From the Mayo Comprehensive Cancer Center, Rochester, MN. Address reprint requests to Donna L. Betcher, RN, MS, PNP, Mayo Clinic, 200 First St SW, E-12, Rochester, MN 55905. © 1991 by Association of Pediatric Oncology Nurses. 1043-4542/90/0803-0005$03.00/0 SCIEHTISTS CONTINUE TO SEARCH deeper into the mystery of what makes the human body work. This neverending quest has identified specific growth factors. This line of research isolated cytokines, proteins that come from cells and interleukins that deliver mes-
Automatic Extraction of Japanese Grammar from a Bracketed Corpus

In recent years, numerous attempts have been devoted to derive Context Free Grammars (CFGs) by using a large corpus. In this paper, we describe a method to extract a Probabilistic Context Free Grammar (PCFG) of Japanese from a bracketed corpus, and propose two methods to improve it. The experiments show that the extracted PCFG has a 94 % accept rate, 85 % brackets recall and 75 % brackets precision.
Mortality Risk Stratification in Elderly Trauma Patients Based on Initial Arterial Lactate and Base Deficit Levels

Elderly trauma patients have worse outcomes than their younger counterparts. Early risk stratification remains difficult, particularly because traditional vital signs are less reliable. We hypothesized that arrival lactate and base deficit (BD) could be used to predict mortality in elderly trauma patients with a normal admission blood pressure. We retrospectively evaluated the prospectively collected trauma registry at our urban Level I trauma center between 2003 and 2009. Patients sustaining blunt trauma, age 55 years or older, with a systolic blood pressure 90 mmHg or higher, and who had arterial lactate and/or BD measured within 4 hours of arrival comprised the study group. Primary outcomes were in-hospital and 24-hour mortality. There were 364 patients with a lactate and 324 with a BD drawn. Patients with a lactate 2.5 mmol or greater were 3.7 times more likely to die than those with a lactate less than 2.5 mmol (95% CI, 1.6 to 8.2; P = 0.0018). The OR for mortality was 5.2 (95% CI, 2.5 to 11.2; P < 0.0001) in patients with a BD -4 or less. Elevated lactate and BD were even stronger predictors of early mortality (within first 24 hours). After increasing the hypotension threshold to a systolic blood pressure 110 mmHg or greater, lactate and BD remained highly predictive of in-hospital and 24-hour mortality.
ETHNOS-II: A programming environment for distributed multiple robotic systems

Most robot software architectures focus on the problem of imitating human intelligence and thus typically refer to a single robot perceiving, navigating and acting in the environment. However, the rapid progress of communication technology has modified this reference scenario, offering, the possibility of "distributing" the intelligent activity on a network of robots, computers and other general sensing and actuating devices. This allows the robot to merge with the environment it operates in and, moreover, different robots may co-operate as a single entity in order to carry out a specific task more efficiently. This paper tackles this "extended" problem, presenting ETHNOS-II, a programming environment for the design of a system composed of different robots integrated with the environment they operate in ETHNOS-II provides support from two main point of views: from the software engineering perspective it provides support for platform independence, software integration and re-use, computation distribution; from the runtime perspective it provides support for real-time execution and event handling, inter-robot communication, and intra-robot resource allocation.
Reflections on social values, offending and desistance among young adult recidivists

Within the human life-span, the decade of the 20s (age 20—29) is known to manifest the fastest deceleration of offending. This article reports findings concerning the social and moral values of a sample of recidivist offenders at the start of this age-range. Most reported surprisingly conformist values, for example with regard to future aspirations (employment, housing, etc.) and to the importance of staying within legal boundaries. Nevertheless, longitudinal data showed that these conformist values often did not prevent some continued offending (though within the sample, taking steps towards desistance was associated with more conformist values). This dissonance between values and behaviour was not explained by neutralizations, but rather (1) by complex processes of maturation, in which intentions to ‘go straight’ co-exist with lapses into learned (habitual) criminal responses; and (2) by the spontaneous character of much offending, with for example invitations to offend by criminal friends being common. Thus, those seriously wishing to desist (to bring their behaviour into line with their social values) face an obstacle-strewn process of lifestyle change, though one often supported by partners and relatives. To assist lifestyle change, many would-be desisters adopt tactics of ‘diachronic self-control’, attempting to avoid future situations of criminal temptation. If the criminal justice system wishes to assist desistance among this age-group, it is vital that these complex processes are understood and supported.
Access and collective memory in online dance archives

ABSTRACT Dance is often an inaccessible art form for lay people, and it has endured almost entirely through oral tradition and pedagogy. As a result, the community of practitioners and thinkers in dance is relatively small, and ideas about dance are inherited that cannot be substantiated through historical record. This article is an investigation into how online digital video archives can facilitate the study of dance. Arguing for the primacy of access and user participation over accuracy (as in user-generated content sites such as YouTube), this research explores the impact of widely accessible archives in order to develop a durable collective memory and cultural memory. Given the newness of digital archives and related research, this article draws on research from temporal theory, learning theory, new media studies, cultural archaeology, film/video, photography, digital media studies and dance and arts archiving practice. Case studies include Siobhan Davies RePlay and the Digital Dance Archives, and an interview with one of the creators of each, Sarah Whatley, was conducted. This investigation argues for the acceptance of digital simulacra in the absence of a live event, as an educational and choreographic tool. It may also be a basis from which dance-specific video archives may develop to meet the specific needs of live arts.
Long-term patient and retransplantation-free survival by selected recipient and donor characteristics: an update from the Pitt-UNOS Liver Transplant Registry.

CENTERS Between 1988 and 1996, the total number of liver transplantations performed in the United States more than doubled, and the number of centers performing liver transplantations increased from 58 to 106. The yearly net gain in number of centers has slowed substantially in recent years, and the reduced differences in volume per center reported previously has continued through 1996. SURVIVAL AMONG PEDIATRIC RECIPIENTS The estimated cumulative probability of a pediatric recipient surviving for 9 years following transplantation was . 71, and surviving for 9 years without retransplantation was . 58. In general, few deaths or retransplantations were observed more than 5 years following the initial transplantation. Factors independently associated with patient and retransplantation-free survival among children were year of transplantation, recipient age, location awaiting transplantation, primary liver disease, pre-LT serum creatinine, pre-LT bilirubin, and donor age. Recipient race and multiorgan transplantation were significantly associated with patient survival. Interestingly, of the 23 multi-organ recipients who survived at least 3 years, none died or required retransplantation. SURVIVAL AMONG ADULT RECIPIENTS The estimated cumulative probability of an adult recipient surviving for 9 years following transplantation was . 55, and surviving for 9 years without retransplantation was . 48. Though the one-year survival rate among adults was slightly better than among children, long-term survival was substantially worse. Factors independently associated with patient and retransplantation-free survival among adults were year of transplantation, recipient age, race, location awaiting transplantation, primary liver disease, pre-LT creatinine, pre-LT albumin, recipient HBsAg status, donor age, donor anti-CMV status, ABO match, and sex match. Pre-LT bilirubin was significantly associated with patient survival, and pre-LT prothrombin time was associated with retransplantation-free survival.
The influence of platform switching on the biomechanical aspects of the implant-abutment system. A three dimensional finite element study.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the biomechanical scenario of platform switching geometric implant-abutment configuration relative to standard configurations by means of finite element analysis. STUDY DESIGN A 3D Finite Element Analysis (FEA) was performed on 3 different implant-abutment configurations: a 3.8 mm implant with a matching diameter abutment (Standard Control Design, SCD), a 5.5 mm implant with matching diameter abutment (Wider Control Design, WCD), and a 5.5mm implant with a 3.8 mm abutment (Experimental Design, ED). All the different experimental groups were discretized to over 60000 elements and 100000 nodes, and 130N vertical (axial) and 90N horizontal loads were applied on the coronal portion of the abutment. Von Mises stresses were evaluated and maximum and minimum values were acquired for each implant-abutment configuration. RESULTS The load-induced Von Mises stress (maximum to minumum ranges) on the implant ranged from 150 MPa to 58 Pa (SCD); 45 MPa to 55 Pa (WCD); 190 MPa to 64 Pa (ED). The Von Mises stress on the abutment ranged from 150 MPa to 52 MPa (SCD); 70 MPa to 55 MPa (WCD), and 85 MPa to 42 MPa respectively (ED). The maximum stresses transmitted from the implant-abutment system to the cortical and trabecular bone were 67 Pa and 52 MPa (SCD); 54 Pa and 27 MPa (WCD); 64 Pa and 42 MPa (ED), respectively. When the implant body was evaluated for stresses, a substantial decrease in their levels were observed at the threaded implant region due to the diametral mismatch between implant and abutment for the ED configuration. CONCLUSION The platform switching configuration led to not only to a relative decrease in stress levels compared to narrow and wide standard configurations, but also to a notable stress field shift from bone towards the implant system, potentially resulting in lower crestal bone overloading.
Toward Latency-Aware Dynamic Middlebox Scheduling

Under the current Internet environment, middlebox management has become a significant challenge for network operators. Schemes in prior works tried to simplify it with Software-Defined Networking (SDN) technologies, and they provided reliable and flexible approaches to configure the middlebox-related flow entries. However, these schemes are inefficient in resource utilization with the dynamically changing traffic requirements, as they mainly focus on stationary hardware middleboxes. Further-more, latencies of packets lack controls under these schemes. In this paper, inspired by Network Function Virtualization (NFV), we employ software middleboxes, and build a processing delay model to formulate latency behaviours. And based on this model, we present a latency-aware NFV/SDN scheme called Quokka with portable software-based middleboxes that can be dynamically scheduled (placed) according to the changing traffic. Quokka controls the number of middleboxes by efficient and automatic scheduling of both traffic and middlebox positions, and thus reduces the transmission latencies of the network. Comprehensive experiments show: 1) compared with traditional configuration methods, Quokka reduces the transmission delay by about 20% on average; 2) Quokka requires 30% to 50% less middleboxes than traditional schemes to achieve the same performance.
The GTP binding protein Obg homolog ObgE is involved in ribosome maturation

Obg proteins belong to a subfamily of GTP binding proteins, which are highly conserved from bacteria to human. Mutations of obgE genes cause pleiotropic defects in various species but the function remained unclear. Here we examine the function of ObgE, the Obg homolog in Escherichia coli. The growth rate correlates with the amount of ObgE in cells. Co‐fractionation experiments further suggest that ObgE binds to 30S and 50S ribosomal subunits, but not to 70S ribosome. Pull‐down assays suggest that ObgE associates with several specific ribosomal proteins of 30S and 50S subunits, as well as RNA helicase CsdA. Purified ObgE cosediments with 16S and 23S ribosomal RNAs in vitro in the presence of GTP. Finally, mutation of ObgE affects pre‐16Sr‐RNA processing, ribosomal protein levels, and ribosomal protein modification, thereby significantly reducing 70S ribosome levels. This evidence implicates that ObgE functions in ribosomal biogenesis, presumably through the binding to rRNAs and/or rRNA‐ribosomal protein complexes, perhaps as an rRNA/ribosomal protein folding chaperone or scaffold protein.
Chaotic dynamics of ventilatory flow in humans

The present study provides further insights into the chaotic nature of the ventilatory behaviour in spontaneously breathing healthy humans by applying the noise titration method to ventilatory flow signals gathered in this setting. In five subjects with normal breathing pattern and end-tidal CO2, the noise titration method gave a positive noise limit ranged from 6 to 43%. Our study shows that the noise titration technique does find chaos in the ventilatory behaviour of healthy humans at rest, therefore opening the way to further investigations
Attitudes and practices regarding late preterm birth among American obstetrician-gynecologists.

BACKGROUND Late preterm birth (LPTB) accounts for most preterm births and has been increasing, associated with increases in cesarean sections and inductions at this gestational age. METHODS A self-administered survey, consisting of questions about opinions, knowledge, and practices regarding LPTB, was mailed to 1232 American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) Fellows and Junior Fellows in Practice in May-July 2010. RESULTS Surveys were returned by 520 practicing obstetricians.Two thirds of respondents defined LPTB as either 34–36 or 34–37 weeks gestation [corrected]. Most responding physicians (87%) were aware of the evidence regarding morbidity and mortality of infants born at 34-36 weeks; 81% considered such evidence sufficient to make a clinical judgment. Although 84% were concerned about long-term health problems in these infants, many disagreed that LPTB infants were at increased risk of long-term neurodevelopmental outcomes. Most agreed that the increase in LPTB in the United States is due to increasing rates and complications of multifetal pregnancies and maternal disorders. Almost all responding physicians agreed that certain clinical indications (e.g., severe preeclampsia, placental abruption, premature rupture of the membranes [PROM]) were appropriate reasons for early delivery, and most disagreed with delivering late preterm infants for logistical reasons or convenience. Half of responding physicians reported that concerns about malpractice risks contribute to their decision to induce labor or perform a cesarean section at 34-36 weeks. CONCLUSIONS Many obstetricians underestimate long-term neurodevelopmental outcomes among infants born late preterm and may have a lower threshold to deliver some infants late preterm for indications that are not evidence based. Additional educational efforts regarding LPTB are needed.