Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Tartrate-Resistant Acid Phosphatase 5b Activity Is a Useful Bone Marker for Monitoring Bone Metastases in Breast Cancer Patients after Treatment

Metabolic markers of bone metabolism may be useful for the diagnosis and monitoring of bone metastasis in breast cancer patients. Serum tartrate-resistant acid phosphatase 5b (TRACP5b) activity is a novel bone resorption marker. The treatment response of serum TRACP5b activity, bone alkaline phosphatase (BAP) activity, and concentrations of NH2-terminal telopeptide of type 1 collagen (NTX) in 68 breast cancer patients with bone metastasis were determined. These patients were treated and followed up as clinically indicated. Fifty-four healthy women were recruited as control. Serum TRACP5b activity, BAP activity, and NTX level of breast cancer patients with bone metastasis were significantly higher than those of normal controls. In normal subjects, serum TRACP5b activity and NTX level are significantly correlated (P < 0.0001). Neither was correlated with BAP activity. In breast cancer patients with bone metastasis, all marker pairs correlated to each other significantly (P < 0.0001). Biomarkers were examined repeatedly in 38 patients who were evaluable for treatment response. Based on clinical criteria, 20 patients were responders and 18 were nonresponders. In the 20 responders, serum TRACP5b activity and NTX level decreased significantly (P < 0.0001 and 0.0107, respectively) after treatment. In the 18 nonresponders, only NTX level showed significant increase (P = 0.0342) after treatment; TRACP5b and BAP were unchanged. By means of multiple logistic regression with stepwise selection, we determined that TRACP5b activity has a higher probability than NTX level to indicate treatment response as a function of percent change after treatment (18 times versus 12 times). Our data support the use of either TRACP5b activity or NTX level to follow up breast cancer patients with bone metastasis after treatment instead of the prevailing BAP activity. (Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2006;15(3):424–8)
Management of atrial fibrillation in seven European countries after the publication of the 2010 ESC Guidelines on atrial fibrillation: primary results of the PREvention oF thromboemolic events—European Registry in Atrial Fibrillation (PREFER in AF)

Aims We sought to describe the management of patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) in Europe after the release of the 2010 AF Guidelines of the European Society of Cardiology. Methods and results The PREFER in AF registry enrolled consecutive patients with AF from January 2012 to January 2013 in 461 centres in seven European countries. Seven thousand two hundred and forty-three evaluable patients were enrolled, aged 71.5 ± 11 years, 60.1% male, CHA2DS2VASc score 3.4 ± 1.8 (mean ± standard deviation). Thirty per cent patients had paroxysmal, 24.0% had persistent, 7.2% had long-standing persistent, and 38.8% had permanent AF. Oral anticoagulation was used in the majority of patients: 4799 patients (66.3%) received a vitamin K antagonist (VKA) as mono-therapy, 720 patients a combination of VKA and antiplatelet agents (9.9%), 442 patients (6.1%) a new oral anticoagulant drugs (NOAC). Antiplatelet agents alone were given to 808 patients (11.2%), no antithrombotic therapy to 474 patients (6.5%). Of 7034 evaluable patients, 5530 (78.6%) patients were adequately rate controlled (mean heart rate 60–100 bpm). Half of the patients (50.7%) received rhythm control therapy by electrical cardioversion (18.1%), pharmacological cardioversion (19.5%), antiarrhythmic drugs (amiodarone 24.1%, flecainide or propafenone 13.5%, sotalol 5.5%, dronedarone 4.0%), and catheter ablation (5.0%). Conclusion The management of AF patients in 2012 has adapted to recent evidence and guideline recommendations. Oral anticoagulant therapy with VKA (majority) or NOACs is given to over 80% of eligible patients, including those at risk for bleeding. Rate is often adequately controlled, and rhythm control therapy is widely used.
Bursty Wideband Relay Networks

In wireless networks, the use of cooperation among nodes can significantly improve capacity and robustness to fading. However, many cooperation techniques have been developed for operation in narrowband systems for high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) applications. It is important to study how relay networks perform in a wideband regime, where the available degrees of freedom is large and the resulting SNR per degree of freedom is small. In this paper, taking into account wideband transmissions with fixed power (W → ∞), we investigate the achievable rates and scaling laws of bursty amplify-and-forward relay networks in the wideband regime. Specifically, our results allow us to understand the effect of different system parameters on the achievable rates and scaling laws in the wideband regime, and highlight the role of bursty transmissions in this regime. We identify four scaling regimes that depend on the growth of the number of relay nodes and the increase of burstiness relative to the SNR. These results can serve as design guidelines to indicate when bursty transmissions are most useful.
How Evidence-Based Are the Recommendations in Evidence-Based Guidelines?

Background Treatment recommendations for the same condition from different guideline bodies often disagree, even when the same randomized controlled trial (RCT) evidence is cited. Guideline appraisal tools focus on methodology and quality of reporting, but not on the nature of the supporting evidence. This study was done to evaluate the quality of the evidence (based on consideration of its internal validity, clinical relevance, and applicability) underlying therapy recommendations in evidence-based clinical practice guidelines. Methods and Findings A cross-sectional analysis of cardiovascular risk management recommendations was performed for three different conditions (diabetes mellitus, dyslipidemia, and hypertension) from three pan-national guideline panels (from the United States, Canada, and Europe). Of the 338 treatment recommendations in these nine guidelines, 231 (68%) cited RCT evidence but only 105 (45%) of these RCT-based recommendations were based on high-quality evidence. RCT-based evidence was downgraded most often because of reservations about the applicability of the RCT to the populations specified in the guideline recommendation (64/126 cases, 51%) or because the RCT reported surrogate outcomes (59/126 cases, 47%). Conclusions The results of internally valid RCTs may not be applicable to the populations, interventions, or outcomes specified in a guideline recommendation and therefore should not always be assumed to provide high-quality evidence for therapy recommendations.
Pollination Syndromes and Floral Specialization

▪ Abstract Floral evolution has often been associated with differences in pollination syndromes. Recently, this conceptual structure has been criticized on the grounds that flowers attract a broader spectrum of visitors than one might expect based on their syndromes and that flowers often diverge without excluding one type of pollinator in favor of another. Despite these criticisms, we show that pollination syndromes provide great utility in understanding the mechanisms of floral diversification. Our conclusions are based on the importance of organizing pollinators into functional groups according to presumed similarities in the selection pressures they exert. Furthermore, functional groups vary widely in their effectiveness as pollinators for particular plant species. Thus, although a plant may be visited by several functional groups, the relative selective pressures they exert will likely be very different. We discuss various methods of documenting selection on floral traits. Our review of the literatur.
Annotating omission in statement pairs

We focus on the identification of omission in statement pairs. We compare three annotation schemes, namely two different crowdsourcing schemes and manual expert annotation. We show that the simplest of the two crowdsourcing approaches yields a better annotation quality than the more complex one. We use a dedicated classifier to assess whether the annotators’ behavior can be explained by straightforward linguistic features. The classifier benefits from a modeling that uses lexical information beyond length and overlap measures. However, for our task, we argue that expert and not crowdsourcing-based annotation is the best compromise between annotation cost and quality.
AN EXOTIC T1S 4 WITH POSITIVE CURVATURE

We construct a metric with positive sectional curvature on a 7-manifold which supports an isometry group with orbits of codimension 1. It is a connection metric on the total space of an orbifold 3-sphere bundle over an orbifold 4-sphere. By a result of S. Goette, the manifold is homeomorphic but not diffeomorphic to the unit tangent bundle of the 4-sphere. Spaces of positive curvature play a special role in geometry. Although the class of manifolds with positive (sectional) curvature is expected to be relatively small, so far there are only a few known obstructions. Moreover, for closed simply connected manifolds these coincide with the known obstructions to non-negative curvature which are: (1) the Betti number theorem of Gromov which asserts that the homology of a compact manifold with non-negative sectional curvature has an a priori bound on the number of generators depending only on the dimension; and (2) a result of Lichnerowicz and Hitchin implying that a spin manifold with non-trivial ˆ A genus or generalized a genus cannot admit a metric with non-negative curvature. One way to gain further insight is to construct and analyze examples. This is quite difficult and has been achieved only a few times. Aside from the classical rank- one symmetric spaces, i.e. the spheres and the projective spaces with their canoni- cal metrics, and the recently proposed deformation of the so-called Gromoll-Meyer sphere (PW2), examples were only found in the '60s by Berger (Ber), in the '70s by Wallach (W) and by Aloff and Wallach (AlW), in the '80s by Eschenburg (E1,2), and in the '90s by Bazaikin (Ba). The examples by Berger, Wallach and Aloff-Wallach were shown, by Wallach in even dimensions (W) and by Berard Bergery (Be) in odd dimensions, to constitute a classification of simply connected homogeneous mani- folds of positive curvature, whereas the examples due to Eschenburg and Bazaikin typically are non-homogeneous, even up to homotopy. All of these examples can be obtained as quotients of compact Lie groups G with a bi-invariant metric by a free isometric "two sided" action of a subgroup H ⊂ G × G. Since a Lie group with a bi- invariant metric has non-negative curvature so do such quotients, and in rare cases
Impaired cognitive performance in drug free users of recreational ecstasy (MDMA)

OBJECTIVES Ecstasy (3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) and related congerers: MDA, MDEA) is the name given to a group of popular recreational drugs. Animal data raise concern about neurotoxic effects of high doses of ecstasy on central serotonergic systems. The threshold dose for neurotoxicity in humans is not clear and serotonin is involved in several functions including cognition. The purpose of this study was to investigate cognitive performance in a group of typical recreational ecstasy users. METHODS A comprehensive cognitive test battery was administered to 28 abstinent ecstasy users with concomitant use of cannabis only and to two equally sized matched groups of cannabis users and non-users. The sample consisted of ecstasy users with a typical recreational use pattern and did not include very heavy users. RESULTS Ecstasy users were unimpaired in simple tests of attention (alertness). However, they performed worse than one or both control groups in the more complex tests of attention, in memory and learning tasks, and in tasks reflecting aspects of general intelligence. Heavier ecstasy and heavier cannabis use were associated with poorer performance in the group of ecstasy users. By contrast, the cannabis users did not differ significantly in their performance from the non-users. CONCLUSIONS The present data raise concern that use of ecstasy possibly in conjunction with cannabis may lead to cognitive decline in otherwise healthy young people. Although the nature of the emerging cognitive disturbance is not yet clear, an impairment of working memory might be the common denominator underlying or contributing to declines of performance in various tasks. The cognitive disturbance is likely to be related to the well recognised neurotoxic potential of ecstasy. The data suggest that even typical recreational doses of ecstasy are sufficient to cause neurotoxicity in humans.
Links between DNA Replication, Stem Cells and Cancer

Cancers can be categorized into two groups: those whose frequency increases with age, and those resulting from errors during mammalian development. The first group is linked to DNA replication through the accumulation of genetic mutations that occur during proliferation of developmentally acquired stem cells that give rise to and maintain tissues and organs. These mutations, which result from DNA replication errors as well as environmental insults, fall into two categories; cancer driver mutations that initiate carcinogenesis and genome destabilizing mutations that promote aneuploidy through excess genome duplication and chromatid missegregation. Increased genome instability results in accelerated clonal evolution leading to the appearance of more aggressive clones with increased drug resistance. The second group of cancers, termed germ cell neoplasia, results from the mislocation of pluripotent stem cells during early development. During normal development, pluripotent stem cells that originate in early embryos give rise to all of the cell lineages in the embryo and adult, but when they mislocate to ectopic sites, they produce tumors. Remarkably, pluripotent stem cells, like many cancer cells, depend on the Geminin protein to prevent excess DNA replication from triggering DNA damage-dependent apoptosis. This link between the control of DNA replication during early development and germ cell neoplasia reveals Geminin as a potential chemotherapeutic target in the eradication of cancer progenitor cells.
The Genetic Component in Child Mortality

Analysis of the causes of death in 1041 children in all Newcastle hospitals admitting children in the period 1960 to 1966 shows that genetically determined disease makes a major contribution, 42% in this series, to the total of mortality in childhood. The findings are very similar to a previous survey made in London.
Challenges in Type 1 diabetes management in South East Asia: Descriptive situational assessment

Treatment of type 1 diabetes is a challenging issue in South East Asia. Unlike in the developed countries, patients have to procure insulin, glucometer strips and other treatment facilities from their own pockets. Coupled with poor resources are the difficulties with diagnosis, insulin initiation, insulin storage, marital and emotional challenges. Being a disease affecting only a minority of people, it is largely ignored by the governments and policy makers. Comprehensive diagnostic, treatment and team based educational facilities are available only in the speciality diabetes centers in the private sector whereas majority of the subjects with type 1 diabetes are from a poor socio-economic background. Unlike in the Western world, being known as a diabetes patient is a social sigma and poses huge emotional burden living with the disease and getting married. Even with best of the resources, long-term treatment of type 1 diabetes still remains a huge challenge across the globe. In this review, authors from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Bangladesh detail the country-specific challenges and discuss the possible solutions.
Agro‐wastes: Mechanical and physical properties of resin impregnated oil palm trunk core lumber

Agro-wastes, oil palm trunk core or sap was utilized for the production of new palm-wood material using phenol formaldehyde resin as a matrix. The kiln-dried (moisture content 10%) oil palm trunk was impregnated with phenol formaldehyde resin using a high power vacuum pump. The oil palm trunk core lumber (OPTCL) was loaded with different percentages of phenol formaldehyde (PF) resin. The mechanical properties (tensile, flexural, and impact) and physical properties (water absorption and density) were studied and compared with rubberwood. Testing of mechanical and physical properties was done according to the ASTM standard. The morphology of the resin loaded OPTCL was analyzed by using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). In general, the result showed that impregnated OPTCL exhibited good mechanical and physical properties when compared with untreated oil palm trunk core (OPTCL with 0% resin content) and rubberwood. Tensile and flexural strength of OPTCL increased with the increase in the resin content up to 15% and showed a decreasing trend with the increase in the loading percentage beyond 15%. The impact strength also increased with the increase in the resin content from 5% to 15%. However, impregnated OPTCL with 15% resin loading showed lower water absorption uptake as compared with the other composite materials and rubberwood. SEM micrograph confirmed that the resin was impregnated efficiently within the pores of OPTCL fibers. POLYM. COMPOS. , 31:638–644, 2010. a 2009 Society of Plastics Engineers
Learning polynomials with queries: The highly noisy case

Given a function f mappping n-variate inputs from a finite field F into F, we consider the task of reconstructing a list of all n-variate degree d polynomials which agree with f on a tiny but non-negligible fraction, /spl delta/, of the input space. We give a randomized algorithm for solving this task which accesses f as a black box and runs in time polynomial in 1//spl delta/, n and exponential in d, provided /spl delta/ is /spl Omega/(/spl radic/(d.
Comparison of the electronic structure of different perylene‐based dye‐aggregates

Aggregates of functionalized polycyclic aromatic molecules like perylene derivatives differ in important optoelectronic properties such as absorption and emission spectra or exciton diffusion lengths. Although those differences are well known, it is not fully understood if they are caused by variations in the geometrical orientation of the molecules within the aggregates, variations in the electronic structures of the dye aggregates or interplay of both. As this knowledge is of interest for the development of materials with optimized functionalities, we investigate this question by comparing the electronic structures of dimer systems of representative perylene‐based chromophores. The study comprises dimers of perylene, 3,4,9,10‐perylene tetracarboxylic acid bisimide (PBI), 3,4,9,10‐perylene tetracarboxylic acid dianhydride (PTCDA), and diindeno perylene (DIP). Potential energy curves (PECs) and characters of those electronic states are investigated which determine the optoelectronic properties. The computations use the spin‐component‐scaled approximate coupled‐cluster second‐order method (SCS‐CC2), which describes electronic states of predominately neutral excited (NE) and charge transfer (CT) character equally well. Our results show that the characters of the excited states change significantly with the intermolecular orientation and often represent significant mixtures of NE and CT characters. However, PECs and electronic structures of the investigated perylene derivatives are almost independent of the substitution patterns of the perylene core indicating that the observed differences in the optoelectronic properties mainly result from the geometrical structure of the dye aggregate. It also hints at the fact that optical properties can be computed from less‐substituted model compounds if a proper aggregate geometry is chosen. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Finding Low Error Clusterings

A common approach for solving clustering problems is to design algorithms to approximately optimize various objective functions (e.g., k-means or min-sum) defined in terms of some given pairwise distance or similarity information. However, in many learning motivated clustering applications (such as clustering proteins by function) there is some unknown target clustering; in such cases the pairwise information is merely based on heuristics and the real goal is to achieve low error on the data. In these settings, an arbitrary c-approximation algorithm for some objective would work well only if any c-approximation to that objective is close to the target clustering. In recent work, Balcan et. al [7] have shown how both for the k-means and k-median objectives this property allows one to produce clusterings of low error, even for values c such that getting a c-approximation to these objective functions is provably NP-hard. In this paper we analyze the min-sum objective from this perspective. While [7] also considered the min-sum problem, the results they derived for this objective were substantially weaker. In this work we derive new and more subtle structural properties for min-sum in this context and use these to design efficient algorithms for producing accurate clusterings, both in the transductive and in the inductive case. We also analyze the correlation clustering problem from this perspective, and point out interesting differences between this objective and k-median, k-means, or min-sum objectives.
Multi-scale iso-surface extraction for volume visualization

This paper describes a new multi-scale approach for the extraction of iso-surfaces from volume datasets. Using histogram analysis, iso-values are extracted from histograms of boundary voxels defined by gradient magnitude thresholding. Multi-scale smoothing of the histogram using Gaussian filters of various sizes allows the iso-surfaces to be defined hierarchically over a scale space map. It provides an interactive environment and volume navigation tools for the exploration of large volume data sets by visualizing the layers of the volume space in a multi-scale manner.
Antimutagenic Efficacy of Some Natural Compounds on Cyclophosphamide-Induced p53 Alterations

Abstract Mutations in the p53 tumour suppressor gene have been associated with chemical carcinogens. Natural antimutagens are promising modulators for reducing the cancer risk. The present study was carried out to assess the protective efficacy of some natural antimutagens against p53 alterations. We investigated the ability of curcumin (100 mg/kg BW) and chlorophyllin (3 mg/kg BW) pretreatment, for three times per week for three successive weeks, to inhibit mutations induced by intraperitoneal injection of a single dose of 40 mg/kg BW of cyclophosphamide (CP). Forty male albino rats were assigned into four groups: control nontreated group, CP-treated group, curcumin-CP-treated group, and chlorophyllin-CP-treated group. Liver samples were collected for DNA isolation two days after CP injection. The isolated DNA was used in single-strand conformational polymorphism (SSCP) analysis of polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-amplified products of four regions: two in exon 5, one in exon 6, and one in exon 7. The amplified products of p53 different regions were found to be in the expected molecular size of the designed primers. SSCP analysis of these amplified products showed that CP-induced mutation in the p53 gene was found only in exon 7 shifting its electrophoretic mobility. Chlorophyllin treatment prior to CP injection had a more potent protective efficacy (80%) than that with curcumin (33.3%).