Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Birth outcomes and early-life social characteristics predict unequal educational outcomes across the life course and across generations

Normal 0 false false false EN-GB X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:. 0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} We investigated the effects of adverse birth characteristics and social disadvantage upon educational outcomes over the lifecourse and across generations. Our subjects were 12,674 Swedish infants born 1915-1929 and 9,706 of their grandchildren born 1973-1980. Within both cohorts, better school achievement (schoolmarks in elementary school) was predicted by: heavier birthweight, lower birth order, older mother, married mother and higher family social class. These effects persisted after mutual-adjustment, and birth characteristics and family composition did not play a major role in explaining social class effects. There were no independent effects of pre-term or twin status, but weak evidence of a disadvantage to post-term infants. The predictors of education continuation (secondary school attendance and entrance to tertiary education) were very similar, with family composition and social class effects persisting even after adjusting for school achievement. In cross-generational analyses, better educational outcomes in the grandchildren were predicted by heavier birthweight, lower birth order and higher social class in the grandparents. These associations became non-significant and/or were substantially attenuated after adjusting for grandchild socio-economic position in childhood, suggesting that this was the major mechanism for this effect. We conclude that multiple early-life characteristics predict educational outcomes across the lifecourse and across generations. This includes birth characteristics and family composition effects which typically receive far less attention than socio-economic influences. Most effects were remarkably stable across the half-century separating our cohorts, suggesting their potential relevance for understanding educational inequalities in populations around the world.
V. Therapeutic potential of nitric oxide donors and inhibitors.

Nitric oxide is a crucial mediator of gastrointestinal mucosal defense, but, paradoxically, it also contributes to mucosal injury in several situations. Inhibitors of nitric oxide synthesis and compounds that release nitric oxide have been useful pharmacological tools for evaluating the role of nitric oxide in gastrointestinal physiology and pathophysiology. Newer inhibitors with selectivity for one of the isoforms of nitric oxide synthase are even more powerful tools and may have utility as therapeutic agents. Also, agents that can scavenge nitric oxide or peroxynitrite are promising as drugs to prevent nitric oxide-associated tissue injury. Compounds that release nitric oxide in small amounts over a prolonged period of time may also be very useful for prevention of gastrointestinal injury associated with shock and with the use of drugs that have ulcerogenic effects. Indeed, the coupling of a nitric oxide-releasing moiety to nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs has proven to be a valid means of substantially reducing the gastrointestinal toxicity of these drugs without decreasing their efficacy.
Sequence and Organization of the Neodiprion lecontei Nucleopolyhedrovirus Genome

ABSTRACT All fully sequenced baculovirus genomes, with the exception of the dipteran Culex nigripalpus nucleopolyhedrovirus (CuniNPV), have previously been from Lepidoptera. This study reports the sequencing and characterization of a hymenopteran baculovirus, Neodiprion lecontei nucleopolyhedrovirus (NeleNPV), from the redheaded pine sawfly. NeleNPV has the smallest genome so far published (81,755 bp) and has a GC content of only 33.3%. It contains 89 potential open reading frames, 43 with baculovirus homologues, 6 identified by conserved domains, and 1 with homology to a densovirus structural protein. Average amino acid identity of homologues ranged from 19.7% with CuniNPV to 24.9% with Spodoptera exigua nucleopolyhedrovirus. The conserved set of baculovirus genes has dropped to 29, since NeleNPV lacks an F protein homologue (ac23/ld130). NeleNPV contains 12 conserved lepidopteran baculovirus genes, including that for DNA binding protein, late expression factor 11 (lef-11), polyhedrin, occlusion derived virus envelope protein-18 (odv-e18), p40, and p45, but lacks 21 others, including lef-3, me53, immediate early gene-1, lef-6, pp31, odv-e66, few polyhedra 25k, odv-e25, protein kinase-1, fibroblast growth factor, and ubiquitin. The lack of identified baculovirus homologues may be due to difficulties in identification, differences in host-virus interactions, or other genes performing similar functions. Gene parity plots showed limited colinearity of NeleNPV with other baculoviruses, and phylogenetic analysis indicates that NeleNPV may have existed before the lepidopteran nucleopolyhedrovirus and granulovirus divergence. The creation of two new Baculoviridae genera to fit hymenopteran and dipteran baculoviruses may be necessary.
Normal breast identification in screening mammography: A study on 18 000 images

Through the years, several CAD systems have been developed to help radiologists in the hard task of detecting signs of cancer in the numerous screening mammograms. A more recent trend includes the development of pre-CAD systems aiming at identifying normal mammograms instead of detecting suspicious ones. Normal breasts are screened-out from the process, leaving radiologists more time to focus on more difficult cases. In this work, a new approach for the identification of normal breasts is presented. Considering that even breasts with malignant findings are mostly constituted by normal tissue, the breast area is divided into blocks which are then compared pairwise. If all blocks are very similar, the breast is labelled as normal, and as suspicious otherwise. Features characterizing the pairwise block similarity and characterizing the intra-block pixel distribution are used to design a predictive method based on machine learning techniques. The proposed solution was applied on a real world screening setting composed by nearly 18000 mammograms. Results are similar to the more complex state of the art approaches by correctly identifying more than 20% of the normal mammograms. These results suggest the usefulness of the relative comparison instead of the absolute classification. When properly used, simple statistics can suffice to distinguish the clearly normal breasts.
Exposed Loop Domains of Complexed 14-3-3 Proteins Contribute to Structural Diversity and Functional Specificity1

The 14-3-3 family of proteins functions through protein:phosphoprotein interactions, the nature of which has been elucidated using x-ray crystallography. However, some key structural features in nonconserved regions have yet to be fully resolved, leaving open questions regarding the functional selectivity of 14-3-3 family members for diverse clients. In an effort to study surface accessible structural features in 14-3-3 containing macromolecular complexes and to illuminate important structure/function variations among the 14-3-3 isoforms, we determined the epitopes for three unique monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) developed against the Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) G-box DNA:protein complex. The epitopes mapped to different loops in a phylogenetically important subset of the 13 14-3-3 family members. All three epitopes were on a common exposed face of complexed 14-3-3s. Two of the mAbs recognized linear sequences within loops 5 and 6, while the third mAb recognized 14-3-3 residues surrounding the pivotal medial Gly in the divalent cation-binding domain of loop 8, together with distal residue(s) in the putative dynamic 10th helix that has yet to be determined by crystallography. Gly at this loop 8 position is unique to nonepsilon 14-3-3 isoforms of the plant kingdom, suggesting that this region constitutes a plant-specific key functional 14-3-3 feature and highlighting that the loop 8 region is functionally significant. Mutagenesis of the medial amino acid in the loop 8 domain changed the flexibility of the C terminus and altered client peptide-binding selectivity, demonstrating the functional significance of the surface accessible, evolutionarily distinct loop 8 domain.
Housing environment and women's health in a Palestinian refugee camp

This study was carried out during January and February 2002 in Al- Ein Refugee Camp in Nablus city in Palestine. Interviews were held with 150 women of different age groups and different marital status. The results show a positive relationship between women's physical and mental health and housing conditions. There is a statistically significant relationship between the family size represented by the number of children in the household, the number of children that sleep in one room, and the number of children that sleep in one bed, the house size, and number of rooms and women's feeling of privacy (mental health and well-being). Most of the houses in the camp are unhealthy and overcrowded. The family income is very low and there is a general poor health status of women in the camp. Most of the women do not know the conditions of a healthy house. The study shows the importance of housing reforms on the health of the family in general and women's health in particular, mainly in refugee camps.
Suggestion set utility maximization using session logs

Assistance technology is undoubtedly one of the important elements in the commercial search engines, and routing the user towards the right direction throughout the search sessions is of great importance for providing a good search experience. Most search assistance methods in the literature that involve query generation, query expansion and other techniques consider each suggestion candidate individually, which implies an independence assumption. We challenge this independence assumption and give a method to maximize the utility of a given set of suggestions. For this, we will define a measure of conditional utility for query pairs using query-URL bipartite graphs based on the session logs (clicked and viewed URLs). Afterwards, we remove the redundant queries from the suggestion set using a greedy algorithm to be able to replace them with more useful ones. Both offline (based on user studies and session log analysis) and online (based on millions of user interactions) evaluations show that modeling the conditional utility and maximizing the utility of the set of queries (by eliminating redundant ones) significantly increases the effectiveness of the search assistance both for the presubmit and postsubmit modes.
Adsorbed and Grafted Polymers at Equilibrium

This chapter deals with various aspects related to the adsorption of long chain-like macromolecules (polymers) onto solid surfaces. Physical aspects of the adsorption mechanism are elaborated mainly at thermodynamical equilibrium. The basic features needed in modeling of this adsorption are discussed. We first discuss the adsorption of a single and long polymer chain to the surface. The surface interaction is modeled by a potential well with a long-ranged attractive tail. A simple mean-field theory description is presented and the concept of polymer "blobs" is used to describe the conformation of the chain at the surface. The thickness of the adsorbed layer depends on several polymer and surface parameters. Fluctuation corrections to mean-field theory are also discussed. We then review adsorption as well as depletion processes in the many-chain case. Profiles, changes in the surface tension and polymer surface excess are calculated within mean-field theory. Corrections due to fluctuations in good solvent are taken into account using scaling concepts. The proximal exponent is introduced in analogy to surface critical phenomena. The interaction between two surfaces with adsorbed polymer layers is discussed, and various cases leading to attractive and repulsive interactions are mentioned. Polyelectrolytes are of practical importance due to their water solubility; we give a short summary of recent progress in this rapidly evolving field. The behavior of grafted polymers, i.e., polymers which are anchored with one end to a solid substrate is also reviewed.
Can we Regulate 'Good' People in Subtle Conflicts of Interest Situations

The growing recognition of the notion of ‘good people’ suggests that many ethically relevant behaviors that were previously assumed to be choice-based, conscious, and deliberate decisions, are in many cases the product of automatic/intuitive processes that prevent people from recognizing the wrongfulness of their behaviour – an idea dubbed by several leading scholars as an ethical blind spot. With the rise of the focus on good people in psychology and management, the lack of discussion on the implications of this growing literature to law and regulation is quite puzzling. The main question, this study will attempt to explore is what are the implications of this literature to legal policy making. We examined, experimentally, using two m-Turk studies, the efficacy of deterrence- and morality-based interventions in preventing people who are in subtle conflict of interest from favoring their self-interest over their professional integrity and to behave objectively. Results demonstrate that while the manipulated conflict was likely to “corrupt” people under intuitive/automatic mind-set (Experiment 1), explicit/deliberative mechanisms (both deterrence- and morality-based) had a much larger constraining effect overall on participants’ judgment than did implicit measures, with no differences between deterrence and morality (Experiment 2). The findings demonstrate how little is needed to create a risk to the integrity of individuals, but they also suggest that a modest explicit/deliberative intervention can easily remedy much of the wrongdoing.
Alcian Blue and Pyronine Y Histochemical Stains Permit Assessment of Multiple Parameters in Pulmonary Disease Models

Utilization of a combined Alcian Blue and Pyronine Y histochemical method for the assessment of multiple parameters in the respiratory tract of various species is described. Acidic mucins were deep blue (sialylated mucins), red (sulfated mucins), or variably purple (mixture of sialylated/sulfated mucins), and differential mucus production was readily detected in a murine respiratory syncytial virus vaccine model of pulmonary inflammation. Elastic fibers stained red in the walls of pulmonary arteries, connecting airways, alveolar septa, and subpleural interstitium. Mast cells had red to red-purple granular cytoplasmic staining. Nuclei were ubiquitously counterstained pale blue. Representative staining was detected in tissues from multiple species, including inbred mice, rats, ferrets, cats, dogs, sheep, and pigs. The fluorescent property of the stained tissues offers additional modalities with which to analyze tissue sections. This histochemical technique detects multiple critical parameters in routine paraffin sections of lung tissue, reduces the need for repeated serial sectioning and staining, and is cost-effective and simple to perform.
Mapping lymph nodes in cancer management – role of 99mTc-tilmanocept injection

Two decades ago, lymphatic mapping of sentinel lymph nodes (SLN) was introduced into surgical cancer management and was termed sentinel node navigated surgery. Although this technique is now routinely performed in the management of breast cancer and malignant melanoma, it is still under investigation for use in other cancers. The radioisotope technetium (99mTc) and vital blue dyes are among the most widely used enhancers for SLN mapping, although near-infrared fluorescence imaging of indocyanine green is also becoming more commonly used. 99mTc-tilmanocept is a new synthetic radioisotope with a relatively small molecular size that was specifically developed for lymphatic mapping. Because of its small size, 99mTc-tilmanocept quickly migrates from its site of injection and rapidly accumulates in the SLN. The mannose moieties of 99mTc-tilmanosept facilitate its binding to mannose receptors (CD206) expressed in reticuloendothelial cells of the SLN. This binding prevents transit to second-echelon lymph nodes. In Phase III trials of breast cancer and malignant melanoma, and Phase II trials of other malignancies, 99mTc-tilmanocept had superior identification rates and sensitivity compared with blue dye. Trials comparing 99mTc-tilmanocept with other 99mTc-based agents are required before it can be routinely used in clinical settings.
Validation of the Pain Catastrophizing Scale in Spanish athletes.

Resumen: El objetivo del presente estudio consistió en validar la versión española de la Pain Catastrophizing Scale (PCS) de Sullivan, Bishop y Pivik (1995) en una muestra de 168 deportistas para la medida del catastrofismo ante el dolor. Se llevó a cabo la traducción de la escala y se estudiaron sus propiedades psicométricas. Los datos se sometieron a procedimientos de análisis factorial exploratorio. Los resultados indicaron que la escala presenta la misma estructura factorial de tres factores (rumiación, desesperación y magnificación) descritos en el estudio original, así como una adecuada consistencia interna (alfa de Cronbach = 0.818). Los tres factores explican un total del 54.40% de la varianza. Los valores de consistencia interna de los factores se situaron entre 0.61 y 0.73. Se concluye que la escala muestra propiedades psicométricas adecuadas por lo que su uso estaría indicado en la evaluación del catastrofismo, tanto para la práctica aplicada como para la investigación, en deportistas españoles. Palabras clave: Catastrofismo, dolor, deportistas, validación. Abstract: The goal of the present study was to validate the Spanish version of the Pain Catastrophizing Scale (PCS) by Sullivan, Bishop and Pivik (1995) in a sample of 168 athletes for measuring the amount of catastrophizing due to pain. The translation of the scale was done and the psychometric properties were studied. The data were subjected to procedures of exploratory factorial analysis. The results indicated that the scale presents the same three-factor factorial structure (rumination, helplessness, and magnification) described in the original study, as well as adequate internal consistency (Cronbach ś alpha = 0.818). The three factors explain 54.40% of the variance. The values of internal consistency for the factors were between 0.61 and 0.73. In conclusion, the scale demonstrates adequate psychometric properties so its use is indicated in the evaluation of catastrophizing, both for applied practice as well as research, in Spanish athletes.
An Implementation of Security Extensions for Data Integrity and Confidentiality in Soft-Core Processors

An increasing number of embedded system solutions in space, military, and consumer electronics applications rely on processor cores inside reconfigurable logic devices. Ensuring data integrity and confidentiality is of the utmost importance in many such applications. This paper describes a practical implementation of security extensions for embedded systems built around soft-core processors. These extensions guarantee the integrity and confidentiality of sensitive data residing in external memory and prevent various types of physical attacks on systems working in adverse conditions. We describe the programming model, security architecture, and give an initial analysis of performance and complexity overheads caused by the security extensions.
System-Level Studies of a $\hbox{MgB}_{2}$  Superconducting Fault-Current Limiter in an Active Distribution Network

Superconducting fault-current limiters are being considered as a potential technology for restricting fault current to acceptable levels without extensive and costly network asset replacement. Such an issue currently arises primarily from the connection of a distributed generation. This paper first investigates the fault studies of an active medium-voltage distribution network with several superconducting fault-current-limiter deployment strategies and then considers their impact on circuit-breaker transient recovery voltage. These circuit-breaker characteristics at various voltage levels have been studied, and it is demonstrated that the superconducting fault-current limiter is capable of reducing both the magnitude and the rate of rise of the transient recovery voltage.
Memory Deficits in Patients with DSM-IV Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

Neuropsychological testing provides increasing evidence that certain memory deficits might play an essential role in the emergence of doubts and, as a result, in perpetuating checkers’ rituals. Another account of doubting implicates metacognitive factors, such as confidence in memory. The present study examined mnestic functioning and self-perception of memory ability in a group of 27 nondepressed patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and 27 normal controls. All patients met DSM-IV and ICD-10 criteria for OCD, displayed prominent behavioral checking rituals and had to show a score on the Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS) of at least 16. Significant deficits in intermediate (Lern- und Gedächtnistest; LGT-3) and immediate (Corsi Block-Tapping Test) nonverbal memory were identified in the patients with OCD compared to normal controls. Contrary to predictions, OCD patients also showed a significant deficit in general memory and verbal memory (LGT-3). With respect to metacognition, OCD patients reported less confidence in their memories than controls. These findings suggest that obsessional doubt reflects a deficit in memory as well as a deficit in memory confidence. Depending on which dysfunction predominates, different therapeutic procedures seem to be required.
Translocation t(5;18)(q35;q21) as a Rare Nonrandom Abnormality in Acute Myeloid Leukemia

Cytogenetic abnormalities play an important role in diagnosis, classification and prognosis in acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Nevertheless, several chromosome abnormalities have not been completely determined, and their prognostic significance is currently unknown due to their low incidence and the sporadic limited data. We report a case of AML-M2 with a novel, nonrandom translocation t(5;18)(q35;q21) in order to clarify the clinical features and outcome of these patients which could be advisable for prognostic and therapeutic purposes. This translocation has been reported only once in AML. Our patient received intensive chemotherapy, but he achieved a complete remission only initially. Eighteen months post diagnosis, t(3;12)(p23;p13) was detected as a secondary abnormality to t(5;18)(q35;q21) in the progression of the disease. FISH studies confirmed the reciprocal t(5;18)(q35;q21) and demonstrated a rearrangement of ETV6 gene as a consequence of t(3;12)(p23;p13). The patient died a few days later. In conclusion, t(5;18)(q35;q21) is a rare but nonrandom abnormality in AML, found in FAB M2 subtype, possibly associated with a rather poor prognosis, while t(3;12)(p23;p13) seems to contribute to the progression of the disease. The publication of rare, nonrandom chromosome abnormalities such as t(5;18)(q35;q21) contribute to the identification of the whole spectrum of cytogenetic abnormalities in AML and their prognostic significance.