Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cancer Incidence in Suriname from 1980 through 2000 a Descriptive Study

Background and aims Current data on the epidemiology of cancer in the Republic of Suriname are scant and incomplete. In this study, incidence rates of the histopathologically confirmed malignancies in the country from 1980 through 2000 were inventoried. Patients and methods Numbers of diagnoses, as well as patient information, were acquired from the Pathology Laboratory. The General Bureau of Statistics of Suriname provided relevant demographic information. For each year, crude incidence and sex-specific rates were calculated for: cancer overall; the most frequent cancer sites; age strata 0-19, 20-49, and 50+ years; as well as for the presumably largest, second largest, and third largest ethnic group, viz. the Hindustani, Creole, and Javanese. From these data, average rates were calculated, which were expressed as mean ± SD per 100,000 population per year, or per 100,000 males or females per year. Results Average yearly crude and sex-specific incidence rates for cancer overall were 70 ± 12: 59 ± 9 for men and 83 ± 12 for women. The leading cancer sites were cervix uteri (sex-specific rate of 22.1 ± 5.1) as well as gastrointestinal tract, breast, hematological system, prostate, head and neck, lung, and liver (sex-specific rates ranging from 2 to 17). The relatively high rate of cervical cancer was for an important part responsible for the 1.4-fold female over male overall cancer excess. Incidence rates of most cancers increased from age group 20-49 years on, being highest after age 50+ years, but hematological malignancies occurred in all age groups with rates of 1-3 new cases per 100,000 males or females per year. Cancer was in general 2-6 times more common in Creole than in Hindustani and Javanese. However, cervical cancer was seen as often in Hindustani as in Creole. Most cases of primary liver cancer involved, besides Creole of both genders, Javanese males. Thyroid cancer occurred more frequently in Hindustani women. Conclusions The data from the study suggest that the incidence profile of cancer in Suriname may resemble that of most developing countries. It was relatively low for cancer overall as well as for most individual sites, but relatively high for cervical cancer, thus producing the characteristic female over male excess. More detailed studies on the peculiarities in the ethnic distribution of cancer may help to shed more light on the etiology of certain malignancies.
C‐terminal nucleophosmin mutations are uncommon in chronic myeloid disorders

C‐terminal somatic mutations in nucleophosmin (NPM), a nucleolar shuttling protein that binds p53 and p19Arf, were recently described in karyotypically normal acute myeloid leukaemia (AML). We analysed primary marrow samples from 150 patients with various chronic myeloid disorders for mutations in the NPM1 gene encoding NPM. NPM1 mutations (tetranucleotide duplication) were detected in three patients, all of whom had chronic myelomonocytic leukaemia (CMML) and a short (<1 year) survival, with rapid progression to overt AML. All other patients were NPM1‐wild type in the region analysed. In conclusion, C‐terminal NPM mutations are uncommon in chronic myeloid neoplasia, but if present may represent an evolving leukaemic clone.
Effects on students of working in industry

This study investigated the impact of two arrangements of work experiences; short term (over 12 weeks, STIE) and long- term (over 52 weeks, LTIE) on both final academic grades and capstone project grades. The results from this work will inform future approaches of determining the benefits to students of the usefulness of industry placed learning experiences (short or long term) as both an indicator of academic performance, and success in capstone project work. Outcomes have shown that engineering graduates without substantial industrial experience often find employment difficult to find in the short time after completing their studies.
Molecular diversity of visual pigments in Stomatopoda (Crustacea)

Abstract Stomatopod crustaceans possess apposition compound eyes that contain more photoreceptor types than any other animal described. While the anatomy and physiology of this complexity have been studied for more than two decades, few studies have investigated the molecular aspects underlying the stomatopod visual complexity. Based on previous studies of the structure and function of the different types of photoreceptors, stomatopod retinas are hypothesized to contain up to 16 different visual pigments, with 6 of these having sensitivity to middle or long wavelengths of light. We investigated stomatopod middle- and long-wavelength-sensitive opsin genes from five species with the hypothesis that each species investigated would express up to six different opsin genes. In order to understand the evolution of this class of stomatopod opsins, we examined the complement of expressed transcripts in the retinas of species representing a broad taxonomic range (four families and three superfamilies). A total of 54 unique retinal opsins were isolated, resulting in 6–15 different expressed transcripts in each species. Phylogenetically, these transcripts form six distinct clades, grouping with other crustacean opsins and sister to insect long-wavelength visual pigments. Within these stomatopod opsin groups, intra- and interspecific clusters of highly similar transcripts suggest that there has been rampant recent gene duplication. Some of the observed molecular diversity is also due to ancient gene duplication events within the stem crustacean lineage. Using evolutionary trace analysis, 10 amino acid sites were identified as functionally divergent among the six stomatopod opsin clades. These sites form tight clusters in two regions of the opsin protein known to be functionally important: six in the chromophore-binding pocket and four at the cytoplasmic surface in loops II and III. These two clusters of sites indicate that stomatopod opsins have diverged with respect to both spectral tuning and signal transduction.
Endemic Dengue Associated with the Co-Circulation of Multiple Viral Lineages and Localized Density-Dependent Transmission

Dengue is one of the most important infectious diseases of humans and has spread throughout much of the tropical and subtropical world. Despite this widespread dispersal, the determinants of dengue transmission in endemic populations are not well understood, although essential for virus control. To address this issue we performed a phylogeographic analysis of 751 complete genome sequences of dengue 1 virus (DENV-1) sampled from both rural (Dong Thap) and urban (Ho Chi Minh City) populations in southern Viet Nam during the period 2003–2008. We show that DENV-1 in Viet Nam exhibits strong spatial clustering, with likely importation from Cambodia on multiple occasions. Notably, multiple lineages of DENV-1 co-circulated in Ho Chi Minh City. That these lineages emerged at approximately the same time and dispersed over similar spatial regions suggests that they are of broadly equivalent fitness. We also observed an important relationship between the density of the human host population and the dispersion rate of dengue, such that DENV-1 tends to move from urban to rural populations, and that densely populated regions within Ho Chi Minh City act as major transmission foci. Despite these fluid dynamics, the dispersion rates of DENV-1 are relatively low, particularly in Ho Chi Minh City where the virus moves less than an average of 20 km/year. These low rates suggest a major role for mosquito-mediated dispersal, such that DENV-1 does not need to move great distances to infect a new host when there are abundant susceptibles, and imply that control measures should be directed toward the most densely populated urban environments.
Caracterização de tempos de ida-e-volta na Internet

Round-trip times (RTTs) are an important metric for the operation of many applications in the Internet. For instance, they are taken into account when choosing servers or peers in streaming systems, and they impact the operation of fault detectors and congestion control algorithms. Therefore, detailed knowledge about RTTs is important for application and protocol developers. In this work we present results on measuring RTTs between 81 PlanetLab nodes every ten seconds, for ten days. The resulting dataset has over 550 million measurements. Our analysis gives us a profile of delays in the network and identifies a Gamma distribution as the model that best fits our data. The average times observed are below 500 ms in more than 99% of the pairs, but there is significant variation, not only when we compare different pairs of hosts during the experiment, but also considering any given pair of hosts over time. By using a clustering technique, we observe that links can be divided in five distinct groups based on the distribution of RTTs over time and the losses observed, ranging from groups of near, well-connected pairs, to groups of distant hosts, with lower quality links between them.
Mismatch Responses to Pitch Changes in Early Infancy

We investigated the emergence of discriminative responses to pitch by recording 2-, 3-, and 4-month-old infants' electro-encephalogram responses to infrequent pitch changes in piano tones. In all age groups, infants' responses to deviant tones were significantly different from responses to standard tones. However, two types of mismatch responses were observed simultaneously in the difference waves. An increase in the left-lateralized positive slow wave was prominent in 2-month-olds, present in 3-month-olds, but insignificant in 4-month-olds. A faster adultlike mismatch negativity (MMN), lateralized to the right hemisphere, emerged at 2 months of age and became earlier and stronger as age increased. The coexistence and dissociation of two types of mismatch responses suggests different underlying neuromechanisms for the two responses. Furthermore, the earlier emergence of the MMN-like component to changes in pitch compared to other sound features implies that neural circuits involved in generating MMN-like responses have different maturational timetables for different sound features.
Comparative activity of amantadine and ribavirin against influenza virus in vitro: possible clinical relevance

The activities of amantadine and ribavirin against influenza A viruses were compared against low-multiplicity (plaque inhibition) and high-multiplicity (protein synthesis inhibition) infections. Our results suggest that the predictive value of in vitro data for the clinic may be improved by consideration of tests against a high-multiplicity infection.
Image Interpretations Based on Quantum Resonance Concept

The study integrates the resonance principle of quantum physics and random walks concept to analyze the image multi-understandings. The quantum model of the photo and bounded electron interaction is recruited to simulate the machine image understanding problems. The pixel or the unit cell of the image will be resonance when the pixel or the unit cell satisfied the given quantum condition. Besides, the random walk concept is introduced to choose which area of the image will be proceeded the resonance process. Basically, the different sampling patterns will introduce the multiple comprehensions. The properties of resonance map; e.g. spatial isotropic, spatial homogenous, geometric condition, gray level distribution; could be taken as the significant features to identify the resonance status. In simulation, the combined characters C, O, Chinese character "jade", and "king" are employed. The results reveal the different sampling patterns can lead multi resonance outputs.
Practice guidelines for the management of infectious diarrhea.

The widening array of recognized enteric pathogens and the increasing demand for cost-containment sharpen the need for careful clinical and public health guidelines based on the best evidence currently available. Adequate fluid and electrolyte replacement and maintenance are key to managing diarrheal illnesses. Thorough clinical and epidemiological evaluation must define the severity and type of illness (e.g., febrile, hemorrhagic, nosocomial, persistent, or inflammatory), exposures (e.g., travel, ingestion of raw or undercooked meat, seafood, or milk products, contacts who are ill, day care or institutional exposure, recent antibiotic use), and whether the patient is immunocompromised, in order to direct the performance of selective diagnostic cultures, toxin testing, parasite studies, and the administration of antimicrobial therapy (the latter as for traveler's diarrhea, shigellosis, and possibly Campylobacter jejuni enteritis). Increasing numbers of isolates resistant to antimicrobial agents and the risk of worsened illness (such as hemolytic uremic syndrome with Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli O157:H7) further complicate antimicrobial and antimotility drug use. Thus, prevention by avoidance of undercooked meat or seafood, avoidance of unpasteurized milk or soft cheese, and selected use of available typhoid vaccines for travelers to areas where typhoid is endemic are key to the control of infectious diarrhea.
Lost to follow-up: failure to engage children in care in the first three months of diagnosis

ABSTRACT Loss to follow-up (LTFU) is a critical factor in determining clinical outcomes in HIV treatment programs. Identifying modifiable factors of LTFU is fundamental for designing effective patient-retention interventions. We analyzed factors contributing to children LTFU from a treatment program to identify those that can be modified. A case-control study involving 313 children was used to compare the sociodemographic and clinical characteristics of children LTFU (cases) with those remaining in care (controls) at a large pediatric HIV care setting in Botswana. We traced children through caregiver contacts and those we found, we conducted structured interviews with patients’ caregivers. Children <5 years were nearly twice as likely as older children to be LTFU (57·8% versus 30·9%, p <0 .01). Approximately half (47·6%, n = 51) of LTFU patients failed to further engage in care after just one clinic visit, as compared to less than 1% (n = 2) in the control group (p < 0.01). Children LTFU were more likely than controls to have advanced disease, greater immunosuppression, and not to be receiving antiretroviral therapy. Among interviewed patient caregivers, psychosocial factors (e.g., stigma, religious beliefs, child rebellion, disclosure of HIV status) were characteristics of patients LTFU, but not of controls. Socioeconomic factors (e.g., lack of transportation, school-related activities, forgetting appointments) were cited predominantly by the controls. Pediatric patients and their caregivers need to be targeted and engaged at their initial clinic visit, with special attention to children <5 years. Possible interventions include providing psychosocial support for issues that deter patients from engaging with The Clinic. Collaboration with community-based organizations focused on reducing stigma may be useful in addressing these complex issues.
SegH and Hef: two novel homing endonucleases whose genes replace the mobC and mobE genes in several T4-related phages

T4 contains two groups of genes with similarity to homing endonucleases, the seg-genes (similarity to endonucleases encoded by group I introns) containing GIY-YIG motifs and the mob-genes (similarity to mobile endonucleases) containing H-N-H motifs. The four seg-genes characterized to date encode homing endonucleases with cleavage sites close to their respective gene loci while none of the mob-genes have been shown to cleave DNA. Of 18 phages screened, only T4 was found to have mobC while mobE genes were found in five additional phages. Interestingly, three phages encoded a seg-like gene (hereby called segH) with a GIY-YIG motif in place of mobC. An additional phage has an unrelated gene called hef (homing endonuclease-like function) in place of the mobE gene. The gene products of both novel genes displayed homing endonuclease activity with cleavage site specificity close to their respective genes. In contrast to intron encoded homing endonucleases, both SegH and Hef can cleave their own DNA as well as DNA from phages without the genes. Both segH and mobE (and most likely hef) can home between phages in mixed infections. We discuss why it might be a selective advantage for phage freestanding homing endonucleases to cleave both HEG-containing and HEG-less genomes.
Systematic review of current dental implant coating materials and novel coating techniques.

PURPOSE Titanium dental implants have a high success rate; however, there are instances when a modified surface may be desirable. The aim of this article was to systematically review the different types of implant coatings that have been studied clinically, in vivo and in vitro, and the coating techniques being implemented. MATERIALS AND METHODS The literature was searched electronically and manually through The Cochrane Library, Medline, and PubMed databases to identify articles studying dental implant surfaces and coating techniques. The database search strategy revealed 320 articles, of which 52 articles were considered eligible--40 in relation to implant coatings and 12 to the coating technique. An additional 30 articles were retrieved by hand search. RESULTS Several materials were identified as possible candidates for dental implant coatings; these include carbon, bisphosphonates, bone stimulating factors, bioactive glass and bioactive ceramics, fluoride, hydroxyapatite (HA) and calcium phosphate, and titanium/titanium nitride. HA coatings still remain the most biocompatible coatings even though the more innovative bioglass suggests promising results. The most common coating techniques are plasma spraying and hydrocoating. More recent techniques such as the nanoscale technology are also discussed. CONCLUSIONS Several implant coatings have been proposed, and some appear to give better clinical results and improved properties than others. Clinical trials are still required to provide compelling evidence-based results for their long-term successful outcomes.
Taxonomy Learning - Factoring the Structure of a Taxonomy into a Semantic Classification Decision

The paper examines different possibilities to take advantage of the taxonomic organization of a thesaurus to improve the accuracy of classifying new words into its classes. The results of the study demonstrate that taxonomic similarity between nearest neighbors, in addition to their distributional similarity to the new word, may be useful evidence on which classification decision can be based.
Pedestrian Interaction with Vehicles: Roles of Explicit and Implicit Communication

This paper presents a study that aimed to identify the importance of eye contact and gestures between pedestrians and drivers. A video-based observation and coding was undertaken to categorize the road-crossing and communication behavior of pedestrians and drivers in busy traffic situations where efficient negotiation is necessary. The evidence in the study suggests that eye contact does not play a major role in manual driving, that explicit communication is rare to non-existent, and that motion patterns and behaviors of vehicles play a more significant role for pedestrians in efficient traffic negotiations.
CD36 Mediates Both Cellular Uptake of Very Long Chain Fatty Acids and Their Intestinal Absorption in Mice*

The intestine has an extraordinary capacity for fatty acid (FA) absorption. Numerous candidates for a protein-mediated mechanism of dietary FA absorption have been proposed, but firm evidence for this process has remained elusive. Here we show that the scavenger receptor CD36 is required both for the uptake of very long chain FAs (VLCFAs) in cultured cells and the absorption of dietary VLCFAs in mice. We found that the fraction of CD36-dependent saturated fatty acid association/absorption in these model systems is proportional to the FA chain length and specific for fatty acids and fatty alcohols containing very long saturated acyl chains. Moreover, intestinal VLCFA absorption is completely abolished in CD36-null mice fed a high fat diet, illustrating that the predominant mechanism for VLCFA absorption is CD36-dependent. Together, these findings represent the first direct evidence for protein-facilitated FA absorption in the intestine and identify a novel therapeutic target for the treatment of diseases characterized by elevated VLCFA levels.
Unsupervised speaker adaptation for DNN-based TTS synthesis

Multi-speaker TTS trained with a general DNN has outperformed individually modelled baseline [1]. Multi-speaker DNN takes advantages of larger amount of training data from multiple speakers to find robust transformations in the hidden layers and covers more speaker variability in the output regression layer. In this paper, we propose a new approach to unsupervised speaker adaptation with multi-speaker DNN. It takes advantage of shared hidden transformation to search for the labels of unlabelled acoustic frames and the found labels are used for speaker adaption. Experimental results show that the new approach of unsupervised adaptation can achieve comparable performance with supervised adaptation both objectively and subjectively. We further extend it to cross-lingual adaptation. It can remove non-native accent and improve the naturalness while keep the same speaker's characteristics.
Mutations of the β- and γ-catenin genes are uncommon in human lung, breast, kidney, cervical and ovarian carcinomas

β-catenin forms complexes with Tcf and Lef-1 and functions as a transcriptional activator in the Wnt signalling pathway. Although recent investigations have been focused on the role of the adenomatous polyposis coli (APC)/ β-catenin/Tcf pathway in human tumorigenesis, there have been very few reports on mutations of the β-catenin gene in a variety of tumour types. Using PCR and single-strand conformational polymorphism analysis, we examined 93 lung, 9 breast, 6 kidney, 19 cervical and 7 ovarian carcinoma cell lines for mutations in exon 3 of the β-catenin gene. In addition, we tested these same samples for mutations in the NH2-terminal regulatory region of the γ-catenin gene. Mutational analysis for the entire coding region of β-catenin cDNA was also undertaken in 20 lung, 9 breast, 5 kidney and 6 cervical carcinoma cell lines. Deletion of most β-catenin coding exons was confirmed in line NCI-H28 (lung mesothelioma) and a silent mutation at codon 214 in exon 5 was found in HeLa (cervical adenocarcinoma). A missense mutation at codon 19 and a silent mutation at codon 28 in the NH2-terminal regulatory region of the γ-catenin gene were found in H1726 (squamous cell lung carcinoma) and H1048 (small cell lung carcinoma), respectively. Neither deletions nor mutations of these genes were detected in the other cell lines examined. These results suggest that β- and γ-catenins are infrequent mutational targets during development of human lung, breast, kidney, cervical and ovarian carcinomas. © 2001 Cancer Research Campaign http://www.bjcancer. com
EFFECT OF CHRONIC TREATMENT WITH ME3221 ON BLOOD PRESSURE AND MORTALITY IN AGED STROKE‐PRONE SPONTANEOUSLY HYPERTENSIVE RATS

1. The protective effect of ME3221, a surmountable AT1 antagonist, on the hypertension and its concomitant complications in aged (32 week old) stroke‐prone spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHRSP) was studied following long‐term (32 weeks) oral administration, and compared with those of losartan (metabolite EXP3174 is an insurmountable AT1 antagonist) and enalapril.