Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Risk of Oral Clefts in Twins

Background: Small studies have indicated that twinning increases the risk of oral cleft. Methods: We used data from a Danish national population-based cohort study to investigate whether twinning was associated with isolated oral cleft, and to estimate the twin probandwise concordance rate and heritability. Twins (207 affected/130,710) and singletons (7766 affected/4,798,526) born from 1936 through 2004 in Denmark were ascertained by linkage among the Danish Facial Cleft Database, the Danish Twin Registry, and the Civil Registration System. We computed oral cleft prevalence and prevalence proportion ratio for twins versus singletons, stratified for 3 subphenotypes. Probandwise concordance rates and heritability for twins were estimated for 2 phenotypes—cleft lip with or without cleft palate (CL/P) and cleft palate (CP). Results: The prevalence of oral cleft was 15.8 per 10,000 twins and 16.6 per 10,000 singletons (prevalence proportion ratio = 0.95; 95% confidence interval = 0.83–1.1). This prevalence was similar for monozygotic and dizygotic twins. The probandwise concordance rate was higher for CL/P for monozygotic twins than for dizygotic twins (50% vs. 8%, respectively). A similar contrast was present for CP. Recurrence risk for both types of clefts was greater in dizygotic twins than in non-twin siblings. Heritability estimates were above 90% for both CL/P and CP. Conclusions: No excess risk of oral cleft could be demonstrated for twins compared with singletons. The concordance rates and heritability estimates for both types of clefts show a strong genetic component.
CHASSIS — Une Plate-forme pour la Construction de Systèmes d'Information Ouverts *

Les systemes d'information d'aujourd'hui ont de plus en plus la necessite d'etre ouverts. Ceci implique qu'ils doivent repondre aux besoins de reseaux ouverts, de logiciel et de materiel heterogenes et “interoperables,” et, surtout, a des besoins evolutifs et changeants. Le projet CHASSIS vise le developpement d'un cadre informatique et methodologique pour la conception et la construction de systemes d'information heterogenes, surs et fiables a partir de composants de logiciel et bases de donnees soit deja existants soit developpes pour l'occasion, et leur integration sure et fiable. Dans CHASSIS, l'orientation-objet est la technologie cle pour la construction d'un tel systeme, car son interface uniforme est realisee par un modele de donnees oriente-objet, et la couche d'integration est realisee par du logiciel oriente-objet. CHASSIS consiste en des modeles objets pour l'integration de base de donnees et langages de programmation, du logiciel oriente-objet pour l'integration des systemes, des methodes de specification pour soutenir le processus de conception, et des mecanismes de securite avances qui permettent d'assurer un haut degre de securite pour le systeme d'information resultant. CHASSIS est un projet de collaboration Suisse entre l'Universite de Zurich, l'Universite de Geneve, et le centre de recherche d'Asea Brown Boveri (Baden).
Falsely Localizing Ictal Onsets with Depth EEG Telemetry During Anticonvulsant Withdrawal

Summary: A patient with partial complex seizures evaluated for surgery with chronic depth electrode recordings demonstrated falsely localizing ictal onsets during anticonvulsant drug withdrawal. When phenytoin was being reduced, more seizures appeared to originate from the left temporal lobe than from the right. Right anterior temporal lobectomy, performed on the basis of other findings, revealed a small unsuspected tumor in the resected specimen, and the patient has remained seizure free for 3 years. The seizures that originated from the left temporal lobe were different from the patient's habitual attacks and appeared to be the result of anticonvulsant withdrawal and, perhaps, electrode irritation. Four other patients who received anterior temporal lobectomies at UCLA between 1977 and 1980 had at least one stereotaxic EEG (SEEG)‐recorded contralateral seizure onset, and all have benefited from surgery. Although multifocal SEEG‐recorded ictal onsets should be considered a poor prognostic sign, distant sites that give rise to atypical seizures during drug withdrawal may not generate spontaneous seizures postoperatively. Consequently, this finding should not be used as a sole criterion against the recommendation of surgical therapy.
Separating Ontological and Informational Concerns: Towards a Two-Level Model-Driven Approach

Many authors have discussed the importance of ontological concerns in the development of information systems, emphasizing the benefits of ontology-based approaches to conceptual modeling tasks. A principled ontology-driven approach typically relies on the definition of a domain ontology and its use in subsequent phases of information system design and integration. Many of the challenges in the application of such an approach are related to addressing ontological concerns (defining the nature of phenomena of interest) and addressing information modeling concerns (defining the information demand about the phenomena of interest). In this paper we argue that ontological concerns should be clearly separated from information modeling concerns. We have observed that ontology-based approaches and information modeling approaches have been treated mostly in isolation, with the consequence that the relation between a domain ontology and an information model is still in need of clarification, despite the efforts of the formal ontology and information modeling communities. We strive to provide the initial steps for a principled two-level approach in which a domain ontology addressing ontological concerns is used as a starting point for the definition of an information model, according to a certain information demand. We identify some important decisions that should guide the construction of information models.
Indirect closing of the elytra in a cockchafer, Melolontha hippocastani F. (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae)

SUMMARY Actuation of the closing of the elytra was previously ascribed to intrinsic muscles in the mesothorax. We investigated closing (1) by loading or arrest of some thoracic segments in a tethered flying beetle, (2) by animation, i.e. passive motion of preparations of the thorax simulating the action of some muscle, and (3) by excision of some parts of sclerites or cuts across certain muscles. We found out that depression of the prothorax, necessary to unlock the elytra, precedes their opening but elevation of the prothorax is synchronous with the closing. The closing is retarded if the elevation is retarded by loading; if the elevating prothorax is clamped, then the closing is also arrested or hindered; animation of the elevation of the prothorax in the dead animal is enough for the closing of the previously spread elytra; the closing is prevented if a piece at the hind edge of the pronotum, positioned in front of the root of an elytron, is excised. This excision also prevents closing in the in vivo experiments. Mechanical interaction between the elytron and the prothorax is limited to the contact point between the posterior edge of the pronotum and the lateral apophysis of the root. Thus, the elevation of the prothorax is the indirect and main mechanism of the closing in Melolontha.
Prolonged acute mechanical ventilation, hospital resource utilization, and mortality in the United States

Objective:Adjusted costs of mechanical ventilation (MV) are $1,500 per patient-day. We compared the prevalence, characteristics, and outcomes of MV <96 hrs (MV<96) and prolonged acute MV (PAMV) of ≥96 hrs’ duration in a representative sample of U.S. hospital discharges. Design:A multicenter cross-sectional study. Setting:Nationally representative sample of U.S. hospital discharges. Patients:Adult hospital discharges were identified from the 2003 Nationwide Inpatient Sample, Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). PAMV was based on the presence of ICD-9 code 96.72, and MV <96 hrs based on ICD-9 codes 96.70 and 96.71. Interventions:None. Measurements and Main Results:Of 31,340,578 discharges for adults (≥18 yrs), 2.4% had any MV, of which 469,168 (61%) had MV<96, and 294,333 (39%) had PAMV. Patient demographics were similar for MV<96 and PAMV. With the exception of acute myocardial infarction and chronic and end-stage renal disease without dialysis, the prevalence of coexisting conditions was higher in the PAMV group. Median length of stay (17 vs. 6 days) and hospital costs ($40,903 vs. $13,434) also were higher with PAMV vs. MV<96. Although Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality disease severity and mortality probability were higher in the PAMV than MV<96 group, actual mortality was similar between the two groups (34% vs. 35%). Conclusions:There were nearly 300,000 PAMV discharges in the United States in 2003 at an annual aggregated hospital cost of >$16 billion, or nearly two thirds of the cost for all of the MV discharges. Despite a higher predicted mortality, patients requiring PAMV had the same likelihood of being discharged alive as those on shorter-term MV. These analyses will help inform health care decision-making and resource planning in the face of an aging population.
Intelligent feature selection using hybrid based feature selection method

Feature selection and reduction has assumed the position of a leading approach for many preprocessing step in machine learning. It is widely used as preprocessing in classification due to an exponential growth in data set as well as in feature set. The aim of this paper is to contribute in the domain of feature selection, which directly reduces the complexity and speed up the learning algorithm by improving the predictive accuracy. In machine learning as the dimensionality increases, the classifiers performance increases until the optimal number of features is reached. Further increasing the dimensionality without increasing the number of training samples results in a decrease in performance, and increase in the complexity and computational time of the classifier. This degrades the overall performance of the classifiers. In this work, a new model is proposed, hybrid based feature selection (HBFS) that identifies relevant features with respect to labels as well as eliminate the redundancy between relevant features. Features selection under the proposed method is compared with the widely used techniques such as correlation based feature selection, mutual information based feature selection, Kullback Leibler based feature selection and improves the accuracy by 5.75%. The proposed model is evaluated using 10 fold cross validation technique. The results show that the proposed method not only reduces the number of features but also achieves accuracy up to 87.01%.
Molecular analysis of the effect of short-chain fatty acids on intestinal cell proliferation

Short-chain fatty acids (SCFA), particularly butyrate, were shown to regulate cell proliferation in vitro and in vivo. Indeed, butyrate is the major fuel for colonic epithelial cells, and it can influence cell proliferation through the release of growth factors or gastrointestinal peptides such as gastrin, or through modulation of mucosal blood flow. Lastly, SCFA can act directly on genes regulating cell proliferation, and butyrate is the main SCFA to display such an effect. Butyrate inhibits histone deacetylase, which will allow histone hyperacetylation. Such hyperacetylation leads to transcription of several genes, including p21/Cipl. Moreover, it will allow cyclin D3 hyper-expression by inhibiting its degradation. The induction of the cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitory protein p21/Cipl accounts for cell arrest in the Gl phase of the cell cycle. However, in the absence of p21 other mechanisms are initiated, leading to inhibition of cell proliferation.
ON THE HOLISTIC COGNITIVE THEORY FOR INFORMATION RETRIEVAL Drifting Outside the Border of the Laboratory Framework

The paper demonstrates how the Laboratory Research Framework fits into the holistic Cognitive Framework for IR. It first discusses the Laboratory Framework with emphasis on its underlying assumptions and known limitations. This is followed by a view of interaction and relevance phenomena associated with IR evaluation and central to the understan ding of IR. The ensuing section outlines how interactive IR is viewed from a Cognitive Framework, and ' light' interactive IR experiments are suggested performed by drawing on the latter framework' s contextual possibilities. These include independent variables drawn from a c ollection, m atching p rinciples i n a r etrieval s ystem, a nd t he s earcher' s s ituation a nd t ask c ontext. T he paper ends with concluding points of summarization for of issues encountered.
Combination leflunomide and methotrexate (MTX) therapy for patients with active rheumatoid arthritis failing MTX monotherapy: open-label extension of a randomized, double-blind, placebo controlled trial.

OBJECTIVE To obtain additional safety and efficacy data on leflunomide (LEF) treatment in combination with methotrexate (MTX) therapy in an open-label extension study in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). METHODS Following a 24 week, randomized, double-blind trial of adding placebo (PLA) or LEF to stable MTX therapy, patients could enter a 24 week extension. Subjects randomized to LEF and MTX continued treatment [(LEF/LEF) + MTX]. Subjects randomized to PLA and MTX switched to LEF (10 mg/day, no loading dose) and MTX [(PLA/LEF) + MTX]. The double-blind regarding initial randomization was maintained. RESULTS For subjects in the extension phase, American College of Rheumatology 20% (ACR20) responder rates for the (LEF/LEF) + MTX group were maintained from Week 24 (57/96, 59.4%) to Week 48 (53/96, 55.2%). ACR20 responder rates improved in patients switched to LEF from PLA at Week 24 [(PLA/LEF) + MTX] from 25.0% (24/96) at Week 24 to 57.3% (55/96) at Week 48. Patients in the extension who switched from PLA to LEF without a loading dose exhibited a lower incidence of elevated transaminases compared to patients initially randomized to LEF. Diarrhea and nausea were less frequent during the open-label extension in patients who did not receive a LEF loading dose. CONCLUSION Response to therapy was maintained to 48 weeks of treatment in patients who continued to receive LEF and MTX during the extension. Importantly, ACR20 response rates after 24 weeks of LEF therapy were similar between patients switched from PLA to LEF without loading dose, and those who received a loading does of LEF (100 mg/day x 2 days) at randomization. Fewer adverse events were reported in patients switched to LEF without a loading dose.
Novel routing protocol for Mobile Ad Hoc Networks with selfish and altruistic nodes

Selfish behavior may be observed in a Mobile Ad hoc Network (MANET) due to restricted resources. Unlike the past research which aimed to suppress that kind of behavior and isolate selfish nodes, we propose a scheme which exploits selfish behavior to improve the routing protocol's performance. We introduce an altruism coefficient which represents each node's overall satisfaction from the network services and while increased, it decreases selfish behavior. We then apply our scheme to an existing routing protocol and evaluate its performance. We show by simulation, that when selfish nodes exist in the network, our scheme improves the performance of the routing protocol.
Design of stereo heads

The introduction of definite and simple action goals into machine vision at an early stage promises to address the defects which have become apparent in the data-driven reconstructionist paradigm, with its relentless emphasis on accurate geometric recovery of the whole 3D scene — a reconstruction which is often unnecessary and usually too difficult. Simple goals allow a more precise definition of what is salient in the scene for the particular task in hand, in turn indicating what image data are relevant, and allowing the sensors to be directed to view the important parts of the scene. One benefit of having control over where and how the scene is observed over time is that tasks which are ill-posed in the static case may become well-posed [1]. A second is that finite computational resources can be allocated where they are needed, and yet a third is that passive vision becomes an active pointing device. Such purposive and active vision promises to open up exciting new avenues of experiment, in which the researcher has to relinquish precise control over scene conditions and the behaviour of the vision system. But to reach this experimental Elysium, the vision researcher needs apparatus; not only an accurate mechanical device to steer the cameras, but also a high bandwidth closed-loop vision sensor and controller. He immediately encounters other significant problems more familiar to control engineers: What is an appropriate mechanism? How can the time/speed requirements of the task be met? What is the control state, and observer and control law? And so on. In this paper we outline the design considerations behind our construction of a steerable stereo head/eye platform, the mechanical design and that of the gaze controller and vision systems. We show how the kinematics of the platform can be used to relate image measurements with the scene motion in a static frame.
Dietary cholesterol supplementation to a plant-based diet suppresses the complete pathway of cholesterol synthesis and induces bile acid production in Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar L.)

Plants now supply more than 50 % of protein in Norwegian salmon aquafeeds. The inclusion of plant protein in aquafeeds may be associated with decreased lipid digestibility and cholesterol and bile salt levels, indicating that the replacement of fishmeal with plant protein could result in inadequate supplies of cholesterol in fish. A reduction in feed efficiency, fish growth and pathogen resistance is often observed in parallel to alterations in sterol metabolism. Previous studies have indicated that the negative effects induced by plant components can be attenuated when diets are supplemented with cholesterol. The present study evaluated the effects of dietary cholesterol supplementation (1·5 %) in Atlantic salmon fed a plant-based diet for 77 d. The weights of body, intestines and liver were recorded and blood, tissues, faeces, chyme and bile were sampled for the evaluation of effects on growth, nutrient utilisation and metabolism, and transcriptome and metabolite levels, with particular emphasis on sterol metabolism and organ structure and function. Cholesterol supplementation did not affect the growth or organ weights of Atlantic salmon, but seemed to promote the induction of cholesterol and plant sterol efflux in the intestine while suppressing sterol uptake. Cholesterol biosynthesis decreased correspondingly and conversion into bile acids increased. The marked effect of cholesterol supplementation on bile acid synthesis suggests that dietary cholesterol can be used to increase bile acid synthesis in fish. The present study clearly demonstrated how Atlantic salmon adjusted their metabolic functions in response to the dietary load of cholesterol. It has also expanded our understanding of sterol metabolism and turnover, adding to the existing, rather sparse, knowledge of these processes in fish.
Multiple focal lesions in liver and spleen in acute leukaemia

Answers on p 664. An 18 year old girl presented with a two month history of fever and bleeding tendency. On examination, she had multiple petechial haemorrhages all over her body. There was no organomegaly or peripheral lymphadenopathy. Systemic examination was unremarkable. …
The Effect of Status on Charitable Giving

Fundraisers often start their campaigns by soliciting the wealthier, more recognized, and respected individuals in a community. We examine whether the success of this solicitation ordering in part can be attributed to the fact that it enables individuals to select organizations that have a high-status donor base. Assuming that individuals prefer to associate with individuals of higher social ranking we use a simple linear model to show that both aggregate donations and earnings are larger when high-status donors are solicited first. We investigate the predicted comparative statics using the experimental laboratory. Inducing a status differential we reverse the contribution ordering between participants of high and low status. Consistent with current fundraising practice, we find that low-status followers are likely to mimic donations by high-status leaders and this encourages high-status leaders to give. Donations are therefore larger when individuals of high status give before rather than after those of low status. Copyright © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Bayesian re-evaluation of Lapita settlement in Fiji: radiocarbon analysis of the Lapita occupation at Bourewa and nearby sites on the Rove Peninsula, Viti Levu Island

80 radiocarbon dates are presented for Lapita-era sites on the Rove Peninsula, southwest Viti Levu Island, Fiji. Of these, 67 are from the Bourewa site which is the largest and probably the earliest in the area. Of these, 10 are rejected as not being demonstrably associated with its Lapita occupation. Constraints on date interpretation arising from sample materials are highlighted. In particular, charcoals that have not been identified to short-lived tree species, twigs or seeds are evaluated according to observed contextual associations and established understanding of inbuilt age offsets using Bayesian outlier analysis. It is concluded that many of the dates on charcoal are imprecise indicators of settlement age and have an average offset of 150 years. Shell radiocarbon results are similarly evaluated and it is concluded that the majority have 14 C values that are in equilibrium with the marine radiocarbon reservoir and therefore yield ages that are accurate indicators of Lapita occupation of Bourewa. Results suggest that initial occupation at Bourewa occurred 2814±25 calBP (2837-2786 calBP [68.2% prob.]; 2865-2770 [95.4% prob.]) and ended 2657±20 calBP (2677-2641 calBP [68.2% prob.]; 2690-2614 calBP [95.4% prob.]). Similar analyses applied to other dated Lapita sites in Fiji shows that, while Bourewa is among the earliest, the Matanamuani (VL 21/5) site on Naigani Island remains the earliest to be securely dated.
A Primary Role for K+ and Na+ Efflux in the Activation of Apoptosis*

Cell shrinkage is a major characteristic of apoptosis, but the mechanism and role of this process in cell death are poorly understood. The primary factor that controls volume regulation in all cells is ions, and thus we have examined the movement of ions at the single cell level in lymphocytes during apoptosis. Activation of the death program with several stimuli that act through independent pathways to stimulate apoptosis results in a synchronous shift of cells from a normal cell size to a shrunken cell size. Only the shrunken cells exhibit DNA fragmentation and an approximate 4-fold elevation of caspase-3-like activity. Analysis of K+ and Na+ ion content of individual cells by flow cytometry revealed that the intracellular ionic strength of apoptotic cells decreased substantially from their non-shrunken counterparts. Additionally, we show apoptosis is enhanced under conditions where the intracellular K+ concentration is diminished and that apoptosis is inhibited when K+ efflux is prevented. These data show that the efflux of ions, primarily potassium, plays a necessary and perhaps a pivotal role in the cell death program.