Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Women's fertility and mortality in late mid life: A comparison of three contemporary populations

Evolutionary theory suggests a trade‐off between reproduction and somatic maintenance implying a negative relationship between parity and longevity, at least in natural fertility populations. In populations in which fertility control is usual, there are also a number of mechanisms that may link reproductive careers and later mortality, but evidence of associations between women's fertility patterns and their later life health has been judged inconclusive due to varying controls for socio‐economic characteristics and marital status. Here, we build on three recent studies that followed a common framework to investigate associations between women's parity and timing of first and last birth with mortality in late middle age in three contemporary developed counties, Norway, England and Wales, and the USA. Data were drawn from whole population registers (Norway); a large census‐based record linkage study (England and Wales), and a nationally representative survey linked to death records (USA). Results show that teenage childbirth was associated with higher mortality risks in late middle age in all three countries. Risks of death were significantly raised among nulliparous women in Norway and England and Wales, and also raised (although not significantly so) for childless US women. However, although higher parity was associated with a slight mortality disadvantage in England and Wales and the USA, the reverse seemed the case in Norway. These finding suggest that in populations in which fertility control is usual, contextual factors influencing the relative costs and benefits of childbearing may influence associations between fertility histories and later mortality. Am. J. Hum. Biol., 2009. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Identification of Components of the Murine Histone Deacetylase 6 Complex: Link between Acetylation and Ubiquitination Signaling Pathways

ABSTRACT The immunopurification of the endogenous cytoplasmic murine histone deacetylase 6 (mHDAC6), a member of the class II HDACs, from mouse testis cytosolic extracts allowed the identification of two associated proteins. Both were mammalian homologues of yeast proteins known to interact with each other and involved in the ubiquitin signaling pathway: p97/VCP/Cdc48p, a homologue of yeast Cdc48p, and phospholipase A2-activating protein, a homologue of yeast UFD3 (ubiquitin fusion degradation protein 3). Moreover, in the C-terminal region of mHDAC6, a conserved zinc finger-containing domain named ZnF-UBP, also present in several ubiquitin-specific proteases, was discovered and was shown to mediate the specific binding of ubiquitin by mHDAC6. By using a ubiquitin pull-down approach, nine major ubiquitin-binding proteins were identified in mouse testis cytosolic extracts, and mHDAC6 was found to be one of them. All of these findings strongly suggest that mHDAC6 could be involved in the control of protein ubiquitination. The investigation of biochemical properties of the mHDAC6 complex in vitro further supported this hypothesis and clearly established a link between protein acetylation and protein ubiquitination.
On the Role of Canonicity in Knowledge Compilation

Knowledge compilation is a powerful reasoning paradigm with many applications across AI and computer science more broadly. We consider the problem of bottom-up compilation of knowledge bases, which is usually predicated on the existence of a polytime function for combining compilations using Boolean operators (usually called an Apply function). While such a polytime Apply function is known to exist for certain languages (e.g., OBDDs) and not exist for others (e.g., DNNFs), its existence for certain languages remains unknown. Among the latter is the recently introduced language of Sentential Decision Diagrams (SDDs): while a polytime Apply function exists for SDDs, it was unknown whether such a function exists for the important subset of compressed SDDs which are canonical. We resolve this open question in this paper and consider some of its theoretical and practical implications. Some of the findings we report question the common wisdom on the relationship between bottom-up compilation, language canonicity and the complexity of the Apply function.
Physio@Home: design explorations to support movement guidance

Patients typically undergo physiotherapy with the help of a physiotherapist who teaches, guides, and corrects the patients as they perform exercises. It would be nice if people could repeat these exercises at home, potentially improving their recovery rate. However, without guidance and/or corrective feedback from a physiotherapist, the patient will not know whether they are doing their exercises correctly. To address this problem, we implemented a prototype that guides patients through pre-recorded exercise movements using visual guides overlaid atop a mirror-view of the patient on a wall-mounted display. We conducted informal evaluations and pilot studies to assess our prototype and identified some working designs and design characteristics. Collected data will assist us in developing future iterations of the system and designing improved guides for physiotherapy sessions at home.
P-selectin glycoprotein ligand-1 mediates rolling of human neutrophils on P-selectin

Neutrophils roll on P-selectin expressed by activated platelets or endothelial cells under the shear stresses in the microcirculation. P- selectin glycoprotein ligand-1 (PSGL-1) is a high affinity ligand for P- selectin on myeloid cells. However, it has not been demonstrated that PSGL-1 contributes to the rolling of neutrophils on P-selectin. We developed two IgG mAbs, PL1 and PL2, that appear to recognize protein- dependent epitopes on human PSGL-1. The mAbs bound to PSGL-1 on all leukocytes as well as on heterologous cells transfected with PSGL-1 cDNA. PL1, but not PL2, blocked binding of 125-I-PSGL-1 to immobilized P-selectin, binding of fluid-phase P-selectin to myeloid and lymphoid leukocytes, adhesion of neutrophils to immobilized P-selectin under static conditions, and rolling of neutrophils on P-selectin-expressing CHO cells under a range of shear stresses. PSGL-1 was localized to microvilli on neutrophils, a topography that may facilitate its adhesive function. These data indicate that (a) PSGL-1 accounts for the high affinity binding sites for P-selectin on leukocytes, and (b) PSGL- 1 must interact with P-selectin in order for neutrophils to roll on P- selectin at physiological shear stresses.
The Effect of Convolvulus arvensis Dried Extract as a Potential Antioxidant in Food Models

In this study, the antioxidant activity of the Convolvulus arvensis Linn (CA) ethanol extract has been evaluated by different ways. The antioxidant activity of the extract assessed by 2,2′-azino-bis-3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulphonic acid (ABTS) radical cation, the oxygen radical absorbance capacity (ORAC) and the ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) was 1.62 mmol Trolox equivalents (TE)/g DW, 1.71 mmol TE/g DW and 2.11 mmol TE/g DW, respectively. CA ethanol extract exhibited scavenging activity against the methoxy radical initiated by the Fenton reaction and measured by Electron Paramagnetic Resonance (EPR). The antioxidant effects of lyophilised CA measured in beef patties containing 0.1% and 0.3% (w/w) CA stored in modified atmosphere packaging (MAP) (80% O2 and 20% CO2) was determined. A preliminary study of gelatine based film containing CA showed a strong antioxidant effect in preventing the degradation of lipid in muscle food. Thus, the present results indicate that CA extract can be used as a natural food antioxidant.
Regeneration potential of pulp-dentin complex: Systematic review

Aim: The aim is to review and discuss the strategies available for the regeneration of tooth tissues based on principles of tissue engineering. Background: Tissue engineering is a multidisciplinary approach that aims to regenerate functional tooth-tissue structure based on the interplay of three basic key elements: Stem cells, morphogens and scaffolds. A number of recent clinical case reports have revealed the possibilities that many teeth that traditionally would be treated byapexification may be treated by apexogenesis. Materials and Methods: Electronic and hand search of scientific papers were carried out on the Entrez Pubmed, and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials databases using specific keywords. Specific inclusion and exclusion criteria were predetermined. The search yielded 1619 papers; out of which 65 were identified as conforming to the predetermined inclusion criteria and the remaining 1554 were excluded. Out of 65 papers, 34 papers were excluded again as different key words led to the same publications. Only 31 papers were selected, out of which 27 full-text papers were found and 4 papers were included based on only the abstracts. These 31 papers formed the basis of this review. The data were extracted from the selected studies. The data were synthesized by pooling the extracted data. Conclusion: The field of tissue engineering has recently shown promising results and is a good prospect in dentistry for the development of the ideal restorations to replace the lost tooth structure.
A benchmark comparison of deterministic and probabilistic methods for defining manual review datasets in duplicate records reconciliation

INTRODUCTION Clinical databases require accurate entity resolution (ER). One approach is to use algorithms that assign questionable cases to manual review. Few studies have compared the performance of common algorithms for such a task. Furthermore, previous work has been limited by a lack of objective methods for setting algorithm parameters. We compared the performance of common ER algorithms: using algorithmic optimization, rather than manual parameter tuning, and on two-threshold classification (match/manual review/non-match) as well as single-threshold (match/non-match). METHODS We manually reviewed 20,000 randomly selected, potential duplicate record-pairs to identify matches (10,000 training set, 10,000 test set). We evaluated the probabilistic expectation maximization, simple deterministic and fuzzy inference engine (FIE) algorithms. We used particle swarm to optimize algorithm parameters for a single and for two thresholds. We ran 10 iterations of optimization using the training set and report averaged performance against the test set. RESULTS The overall estimated duplicate rate was 6%. FIE and simple deterministic algorithms allowed a lower manual review set compared to the probabilistic method (FIE 1.9%, simple deterministic 2.5%, probabilistic 3.6%; p<0.001). For a single threshold, the simple deterministic algorithm performed better than the probabilistic method (positive predictive value 0.956 vs 0.887, sensitivity 0.985 vs 0.887, p<0.001). ER with FIE classifies 98.1% of record-pairs correctly (1/10,000 error rate), assigning the remainder to manual review. CONCLUSIONS Optimized deterministic algorithms outperform the probabilistic method. There is a strong case for considering optimized deterministic methods for ER.
Shear Wave Dispersion in Lean Versus Steatotic Rat Livers

The precise measurement of fat accumulation in the liver, or steatosis, is an important clinical goal. Our previous studies in phantoms and mouse livers support the hypothesis that, starting with a normal liver, increasing accumulations of microsteatosis and macrosteatosis will increase the lossy viscoelastic properties of shear waves in a medium. This increase results in an increased dispersion (or slope) of the shear wave speed in the steatotic livers.
δ-Tocopherol Reduces Lipid Accumulation in Niemann-Pick Type C1 and Wolman Cholesterol Storage Disorders*

Background: Niemann-Pick disease type C and Wolman diseases are caused by mutations in genes responsible for intracellular cholesterol processing and trafficking. Results: δ-Tocopherol reduces lysosomal accumulation of cholesterol and other lipids potentially through enhancement of lysosomal exocytosis. Conclusion: δ-Tocopherol is a novel lead compound for drug development to treat lysosomal storage diseases. Significance: Lysosomal exocytosis may represent a new drug target broadly applicable to lysosomal storage diseases. Niemann-Pick disease type C (NPC) and Wolman disease are two members of a family of storage disorders caused by mutations of genes encoding lysosomal proteins. Deficiency in function of either the NPC1 or NPC2 protein in NPC disease or lysosomal acid lipase in Wolman disease results in defective cellular cholesterol trafficking. Lysosomal accumulation of cholesterol and enlarged lysosomes are shared phenotypic characteristics of both NPC and Wolman cells. Utilizing a phenotypic screen of an approved drug collection, we found that δ-tocopherol effectively reduced lysosomal cholesterol accumulation, decreased lysosomal volume, increased cholesterol efflux, and alleviated pathological phenotypes in both NPC1 and Wolman fibroblasts. Reduction of these abnormalities may be mediated by a δ-tocopherol-induced intracellular Ca2+ response and subsequent enhancement of lysosomal exocytosis. Consistent with a general mechanism for reduction of lysosomal lipid accumulation, we also found that δ-tocopherol reduces pathological phenotypes in patient fibroblasts from other lysosomal storage diseases, including NPC2, Batten (ceroid lipofuscinosis, neuronal 2, CLN2), Fabry, Farber, Niemann-Pick disease type A, Sanfilippo type B (mucopolysaccharidosis type IIIB, MPSIIIB), and Tay-Sachs. Our data suggest that regulated exocytosis may represent a potential therapeutic target for reduction of lysosomal storage in this class of diseases.
Economic demand predicts addiction-like behavior and therapeutic efficacy of oxytocin in the rat

Significance Cocaine addiction is a major public health problem with no current pharmacotherapy approved by the US Food and Drug Administration. To accelerate discovery of treatments, we developed an animal model based on economics. Economics allows mathematical alignment of animal and human behavior, permitting more confident predictions of efficacy in addicts. Although economic models are strongly associated with addiction severity in humans, they have not yet been shown to be a marker of addiction in rats. In this report, we confirm that economic demand is strongly associated with addiction-like behavior in rats, and can predict the efficacy of a promising addiction therapy. Our findings indicate that this economic approach can be used to accelerate the development of novel addiction therapies. Development of new treatments for drug addiction will depend on high-throughput screening in animal models. However, an addiction biomarker fit for rapid testing, and useful in both humans and animals, is not currently available. Economic models are promising candidates. They offer a structured quantitative approach to modeling behavior that is mathematically identical across species, and accruing evidence indicates economic-based descriptors of human behavior may be particularly useful biomarkers of addiction severity. However, economic demand has not yet been established as a biomarker of addiction-like behavior in animals, an essential final step in linking animal and human studies of addiction through economic models. We recently developed a mathematical approach for rapidly modeling economic demand in rats trained to self-administer cocaine. We show here that economic demand, as both a spontaneous trait and induced state, predicts addiction-like behavior, including relapse propensity, drug seeking in abstinence, and compulsive (punished) drug taking. These findings confirm economic demand as a biomarker of addiction-like behavior in rats. They also support the view that excessive motivation plays an important role in addiction while extending the idea that drug dependence represents a shift from initially recreational to compulsive drug use. Finally, we found that economic demand for cocaine predicted the efficacy of a promising pharmacotherapy (oxytocin) in attenuating cocaine-seeking behaviors across individuals, demonstrating that economic measures may be used to rapidly identify the clinical utility of prospective addiction treatments.
Channel- and buffer-aware scheduling and resource allocation algorithm for LTE-A uplink

In this paper, we propose an uplink channel- and buffer-aware scheduling and resource allocation algorithm for a multi-cell LTE-A network that exploits the number of bits waiting for transmission in each user's buffer, referred to as buffer length, in addition to the wireless channel state information. The algorithm also takes into account the constraints imposed by the 3GPP standards on how the radio Resource Blocks (RBs) are allocated to the users in an LTE-A uplink deploying the Single Carrier Frequency Division Multiple Access (SCFDMA) scheme. These constraints state that a RB can only be assigned to one user and that all RBs assigned to the same user should be adjacent and have the same Modulation and Coding Scheme (MCS). Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm outperforms the existing schemes by at least 35% in terms of the system throughput.
Characterization and localization of a flagellar-specific membrane glycoprotein in Euglena

Purified flagella from Euglena yield a unique high molecular weight glycoprotein when treated with low concentrations of nonionic detergents. This glycoprotein termed "xyloglycorien" cannot be extracted from other regions of the cell, although a minor component that coextracts with xyloglycorien does have a counterpart in deflagellated cell bodies. Xyloglycorien is tentatively identified with a flagellar surface fuzzy layer that appears in negatively stained membrane vesicles of untreated flagella but not in similar vesicles after Nonidet P-40 extraction. The localization of xyloglycorien is further confirmed to be membrane associated by reciprocal extraction experiments using 12.5 mM lithium diiodosalicylate (LIS), which does not appreciably extract xyloglycorien, visibly solubilize membranes, or remove the fuzzy layer. Rabbit antibodies directed against the two major flagellar glycoproteins (xyloglycorien and mastigonemes) to some extent cross react, which may in part be caused by the large percentage of xylose found by thin-layer chromatography (TLC) analysis to be characteristic of both antigens. However, adsorption of anti- xyloglycorien sera with intact mastigonemes produced antibodies responding only to xyloglycorien, and vice versa, indicating the nonidentity of the two antigens. Antibodies or fragments of these antibodies used in immunofluorescence assays demonstrated that xyloglycorien is confined to the flagellum and possibly the adjacent reservoir and gullet. Binding could not be detected on the cell surface. The sum of these experiments suggests that, in addition to mastigonemes, at least one major membrane glycoprotein in Euglena is restricted to the flagellar domain and is not inserted into the contiguous cell surface region.
The use of methylprednisolone versus diclofenac in the treatment of inflammation and trismus after surgical removal of lower third molars.

OBJECTIVE To compare the efficacy of methylprednisolone (corticoid) versus diclofenac (nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory--NSAID) in the treatment of inflammation and trismus after the surgical removal of lower third molars. STUDY DESIGN Prospective study on 73 patients for the surgical removal of their lower third molars. These patients were separated in two groups at random: the diclofenac group and the methylprednisolone group. A record card was filled in with preoperative and postoperative epidemiological and clinic data about inflammation and trismus (three facial measures and mouth opening). In order to make a broad study of data, BMDP program was used for statistics. RESULTS 24 hours after surgery, patients in the diclofenac group showed a more severe inflammation in one of the facial measurements (<0.05). Trismus was very similar in both groups. CONCLUSIONS There were no differences in trismus depending on the antiinflammatory used. Patients in the corticoid group showed less inflammation but the difference was not as important as to justify their use.
Haptic Interaction Within a Planar Environment

A haptic simulation environment to simulate planar three-degree-of-freedom motion has been developed by the authors. The system consists of a novel parallel manipulandum and associated control, collision detection and dynamic simulation software running on a QNX PC. This paper describes haptic interface control and outlines the control systems that have been designed for the haptic rendering of virtual environments. Virtual environment design and implementation are also discussed. Using the haptic simulation environment that has been developed, a four-channel teleoperation architecture is shown to be an effective means to display a variety of simulated environments and is compared with a popular impedance-based approach.
Association of SNPs in genes involved in folate metabolism with the risk of congenital heart disease

Abstract Objective: To investigate the association of 12 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in folate metabolic genes with congenital heart disease (CHD). Methods: A total of 160 children with CHD and 188 control children were enrolled. Twelve SNPs related to folate metabolism, including CBS-C699T, DHFR-c594 + 59del19, FOLH1-T1561C, CBS-C699T, DHFR-c594 + 59del19, GSTO1-C428T, MTHFD-G878A and -G1958A, MTHFR-C677T and -A1298C, MTR-A2756G, MTRR-A66G, NFE2L2-ins1 + C11108T, RFC1-G80A, TCN2-C776T and TYMS-1494del6, were genotyped by SNaPShot genotyping technology and confirmed by Sanger sequencing. Results: There were two SNPs including NFE2L2-ins1 + C11108T and GST01-C428T and two compound mutants for (MTHFD-G1958A, MTHFR-C677T and MTR-A2756G) and (MTHFD-G1958A, RFC1-G80A and MTR-A2756G), which might increase the risk of CHD, and DHFR-c594 + 59del19 might decrease the risk of CHD. The CT genotype of NFE2L2-ins1 + C11108T, OR = 2.15 (95% CI = [1.07, 4.32], p < 0.05). The CT + TT genotype of NFE2L2-ins1 + C11108T, OR = 1.98 (95% CI = [1.00, 3.93], p < 0.05). The TT genotype of GST01-C428T, OR = 3.49, (95CI% = [1.06, 11.5], p < 0.05). The GG genotype of DHFR-c594 + 59del19, OR = 0.46 (CI% = [0.24, 0.87], p < 0.05). The AG + GG genotype of DHFR-c594 + 59del19, OR = 0.53 (CI% = [0.29, 0.96], p < 0.05). The ratios of the two compound mutants for (MTHFD-G1958A, MTHFR-C677T and MTR-A2756G) and (MTHFD-G1958A, RFC1-G80A and MTR-A2756G) in CHD are higher than that in control, p < 0.05 (OR = 2.968, 95% CI = [1.022, 8.613]). Conclusions: The CT genotype of NFE2L2-ins1 + C11108T and the TT genotype of GST01-C428T are susceptible factors for CHD. The AG, GG and (AG + GG) genotypes of DHFR-c594 + 59del19 are protective genotypes for CHD. Compound mutants for (MTHFD-G1958A, MTHFR-C677T and MTR-A2756G) and (MTHFD-G1958A, RFC1-G80A and MTR-A2756G) may increase the risk of CHD.
Robust face super-resolution via position-patch neighborhood preserving

By incorporating the priors that human face is a class of highly structured object, position-patch based face hallucination methods represent the test image patch through the same position patches of training faces by employing least square estimation or sparse coding. Due to they cannot provide unbiased approximations or ignore the influence of spatial distances between the test image patch and training basis image patches, the obtained representation is not satisfactory. In this paper, we propose a simpler yet more effective scheme called Position-patch Neighborhood Preserving (PNP). We improve existing SR methods by exploiting locality constraint and shrinkage measures to maintain locality and stability simultaneously. Moreover, our method use less similar patches, face hallucination is fast and robust. Various experimental results on standard face database show that our proposed method outperforms state-of-the-art methods in terms of both objective metrics and visual quality.