Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
From microscopy centre to culture laboratory: a viable ride for mycobacteria.

SETTINGS Culture and drug susceptibility testing of Mycobacterium tuberculosis is required for the treatment of drug-resistant tuberculosis. Cetylpyridinium chloride-sodium chloride (CPC-NaCl) solution is recommended for the preservation of sputum during transport. OBJECTIVE To study the possibility of sputum preservation and transport in CPC-NaCl and its effect on culture. DESIGN Sputum specimens preserved with CPC-NaCl were transported to the laboratory for culture from remote microscopy centres of Andhra Pradesh and Orissa states, India. RESULTS Of the 175 specimens, 140 (80%) yielded mycobacteria, 21 (12%) did not yield any growth, 11 (6.2%) grew contaminants and 3 (1.7%) were lost due to leakage. Culture positivity was greater in specimens stored for 1 week. Culture results from specimens stored for 2 weeks are encouraging. CONCLUSION The CPC-NaCl preservation technique can be used for effective preservation and transport of
Cigar smoking in men and risk of death from tobacco-related cancers.

BACKGROUND Cigar consumption in the United States has increased dramatically since 1993, yet there are limited prospective data on the risk of cancer associated with cigar smoking. We examined the association between cigar smoking and death from tobacco-related cancers in a large, prospective cohort of U. S. men. METHODS We used Cox proportional hazards models to analyze the relationship between cigar smoking at baseline in 1982 and mortality from cancers of the lung, oral cavity/pharynx, larynx, esophagus, bladder, and pancreas over 12 years of follow-up of the American Cancer Society's Cancer Prevention Study II cohort. A total of 137 243 men were included in the final analysis. Women were not included because we had no data on their cigar use. We excluded men who ever smoked cigarettes or pipes and adjusted all rate ratio (RR) estimates for age, alcohol use, and use of snuff or chewing tobacco. RESULTS Current cigar smoking at baseline, as compared with never smoking, was associated with an increased risk of death from cancers of the lung (RR = 5.1; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 4.0-6.6), oral cavity/pharynx (RR = 4.0 [95% CI = 1.5-10.3]), larynx (RR = 10.3 [95% CI = 2.6-41.0]), and esophagus (RR = 1.8; 95% CI = 0.9-3.7). Although current cigar smokers overall did not appear to be at an increased risk of death from cancer of the pancreas (RR = 1.3; 95% CI = 0.9-1.9) or bladder (RR = 1.0; 95% CI = 0.4-2.3), there was an increased risk for current cigar smokers who reported that they inhaled the smoke (for pancreas, RR = 2.7; 95% CI = 1.5-4.8; for bladder, RR = 3.6; 95% CI = 1.3-9.9). CONCLUSIONS Results from this large prospective study support a strong association between cigar smoking and mortality from several types of cancer.
Interpersonal Stressors, Interpersonal Stress Coping, and Depression Among Japanese Teachers

Background: Many studies have found that Japanese teachers experience various stressors such as difficulties of instruction, excessive workload, and interpersonal relations (Takagi & Tanaka, 2003). Among those stressors, interpersonal stressors has been getting a lot more attention lately (Akaoka & Taniguchi, 2009). This study examined the influences of interpersonal stressors and interpersonal stress coping on depression among Japanese teachers. Methods: Participants consisted of 424 Japanese teachers. They completed the Scale of Interpersonal Stressors (Hashimoto, 2005), the Interpersonal Stress-Coping Inventory (Kato, 2000), and the Japanese version of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression Scale (Shima et al., 1985). Findings: One-way ANOVA on the interpersonal stressors was significant. Interpersonal friction was significantly higher than interpersonal conflict or interpersonal blunders. One-way ANOVA on the interpersonal stress coping was also significant. Reassessing coping was significantly higher than distancing coping or constructive coping. Moreover, reassessing coping was negatively and significantly related to depression. Discussion: In order to reduce Japanese teachers’ stress responses, it seems effective to promote the use of reassessing coping in the stressful situations caused by interpersonal relations.
Expressions for Catalan Kronecker Products

We give some elementary manifestly positive formulae for the Kronecker products s_(d,d) * s_(d+k,d-k) and s_(d,d) * s_(2d-k,1^k). These formulae demonstrate some fundamental properties of the Kronecker coefficients, and we use them to deduce a number of enumerative and combinatorial results.
Pan’s (2001) puzzle revisited

The notion of logophoricity has long played a crucial role in understanding the co-referential relations between certain anaphoric expressions cross-linguistically, especially for longdistance anaphors violating a locality constraint and syntactic prominence conditions within the framework of pure syntactic accounts. However, Pan (2001) has shown that the long-distance binding of Chinese ziji should not be treated with the logophoric accounts in some aspects. This paper revisits Pan’s (2001) puzzle, which arises from the ability of ziji to serve as a logophor, in order to call attention to what the alternative to this view might be, and proposes a solution to it through the notion of empathy, in Kuno and Kaburaki’s (1977) sense of the term, so that long-distance anaphors, which are not fully covered in terms of logophoricity, can be reconciled with other East Asian languages, such as Japanese zibun and Korean caki, in terms of a unified treatment.
Promising Therapeutic Targets in Neuroblastoma

Neuroblastoma, the most common extracranial solid tumor in children, is derived from neural crest cells. Nearly half of patients present with metastatic disease and have a 5-year event-free survival of <50%. New approaches with targeted therapy may improve efficacy without increased toxicity. In this review we evaluate 3 promising targeted therapies: (i) 131I-metaiodobenzylguanidine (MIBG), a radiopharmaceutical that is taken up by human norepinephrine transporter (hNET), which is expressed in 90% of neuroblastomas; (ii) immunotherapy with monoclonal antibodies targeting the GD2 ganglioside, which is expressed on 98% of neuroblastoma cells; and (iii) inhibitors of anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK), a tyrosine kinase that is mutated or amplified in ∼10% of neuroblastomas and expressed on the surface of most neuroblastoma cells. Early-phase trials have confirmed the activity of 131I-MIBG in relapsed neuroblastoma, with response rates of ∼30%, but the technical aspects of administering large amounts of radioactivity in young children and limited access to this agent have hindered its incorporation into treatment of newly diagnosed patients. Anti-GD2 antibodies have also shown activity in relapsed disease, and a recent phase III randomized trial showed a significant improvement in event-free survival for patients receiving chimeric anti-GD2 (ch14.18) combined with cytokines and isotretinoin after myeloablative consolidation therapy. A recently approved small-molecule inhibitor of ALK has shown promising preclinical activity for neuroblastoma and is currently in phase I and II trials. This is the first agent directed to a specific mutation in neuroblastoma, and marks a new step toward personalized therapy for neuroblastoma. Further clinical development of targeted treatments offers new hope for children with neuroblastoma. Clin Cancer Res; 18(10); 2740–53. ©2012 AACR.
Consuming Citizenship: Children of Asian Immigrant Entrepreneurs

@fmct:Contents @toc4:List of Tables iii Acknowledgments iii @toc2:Chapter One Consumptive Citizenship 1 Chapter Two Minding the Family Store 000 Chapter Three Searching for a "Normal" Family 000 Chapter Four The Business in Children's Lives 000 Chapter Five The American Narrative of Asian Immigration 000 Chapter Six Consumption Fantasies of Upward Mobility 000 Chapter Seven Consumption, Democracy, and the Good Immigrant 000 @toc4:Appendices 000 Notes 000 References 000 Index 000
Successful isolation of equine mesenchymal stromal cells from cryopreserved umbilical cord blood-derived mononuclear cell fractions.

REASONS FOR PERFORMING STUDY The therapeutic potential of mesenchymal stromal cells for cellular therapy has generated increasing interest in human as well as veterinary medicine. Considerable research has been performed on the cryopreservation of expanded mesenchymal stromal cells, but little information is available on the cryopreservation of the original mononuclear cell fraction. OBJECTIVES The present study describes a protocol to expand equine mesenchymal stromal cells after cryopreserving the mononuclear cells of umbilical cord blood. METHODS To this end, mononuclear cells were isolated from 7 umbilical cord blood samples and cryopreserved at a concentration of 1-2 × 10(9) cells/l cold freezing solution. Cells were cryopreserved and kept frozen for at least 6 months before thawing. Frozen cryotubes were thawed in a 37°C water bath. Putative equine mesenchymal stromal cells were immunophenotyped using multicolour flow cytometry based on a selected 9 marker panel. RESULTS Average cell viability upon thawing was 98.7 ± 0.6%. In 6 out of 7 samples, adherent spindle-shaped cell colonies were observed within 9.0 ± 2.6 days and attained 80% confluency at 12.3 ± 3.9 days. After 3 passages, putative equine mesenchymal stromal cells were successfully immunophenotyped as CD29, CD44 and CD90 positive, and CD45, CD73, CD79α, CD105, MHC II and monocyte-marker negative. CONCLUSIONS AND POTENTIAL RELEVANCE Equine mesenchymal stromal cells can be cultured after cryopreservation of the isolated mononuclear cells, a time- as well as cost-efficient approach in equine regenerative medicine.
The Fittest Survives: An Adaptive Approach to Query Optimization

Traditionally, optimizers are “programmed” to optimize queries following a set of buildin procedures. However, optimizers should be robust to its changing environment to generate the fittest query execution plans. To realize adaptiveness, we propose and design an adaptive optimizer with two features. First, the search space and search strategy of the optimizer can be tuned by parameters to allow the optimizer to pick the one that fits best during the optimization process. Second, the optimizer features a “learning” capability for canned queries that allows existing plans to be incrementally replaced by “fitter” ones. An experimental study on large multijoin queries based on an analytical model is used to demonstrate the effectiveness of such an approach.
Examining mechanisms underlying the selective vulnerability of motor units in a mouse model of Spinal Muscular Atrophy

Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) is a childhood form of motor neuron disease that causes a progressive paralysis that, in its most severe form, results in death before two years of age. There is currently no cure or treatment for SMA. SMA is caused by a reduction in levels of Survival Motor Neuron (SMN) protein, which results in the degeneration of lower motor neurons. This degeneration is first observed at the neuromuscular junction (NMJ), where pre-synaptic nerve terminals belonging to the motor neuron become dysfunctional and degenerate during the early stages of disease. Several previous studies have shown that the some populations of motor neurons appear to have a resistance to SMA pathology, while other neighbouring populations are vulnerable. In this study, we attempted to elucidate the cause of this vulnerability spectrum. Initially, we characterised the relative vulnerability of ten different motor unit pools in an established mouse model of severe SMA and attempted to correlate these vulnerabilities with quantified aspects of motor unit morphology. From this study, no significant correlation could be found with any aspect of motor unit morphology examined, suggesting that morphological parameters of motor neurons do no influence their relative susceptibility. We then attempted to identify changes in basal gene expression between protected and vulnerable pools of motor units using microarray analysis. Motor unit pools were labelled using a retrograde tracer injected into muscles that had previously been identified as having highly vulnerable or resistant motor units. Labelled motor neuron cell bodies were then isolated from the spinal cord using laser capture micro-dissection and RNA was extracted for microarray analysis. From this study, we identified several molecular pathways and individual genes whose expression levels compared the gene expression profiles of vulnerable and resistant motor units. Thus, molecular differences between motor neuron pools likely underlie their relative vulnerability to degeneration in SMA. Lastly, we attempted to identify a novel peptide that could be used to label synapses, including neuromuscular junctions, in vivo. This would allow us to non-invasively visualise degenerating NMJs and other synapses in human patients without the need for a biopsy. Such a tool would be extremely valuable in assessing the effectiveness of drug trials, both in human patients and animal models, and may also contribute to earlier diagnosis of motor neuron disorders. To identify a potentially suitable peptide, we used a phage display library and panned for peptides that specifically bound to the outer surface of synapses using synaptosome preparations. From this panning we successfully enriched two peptides, the sequences of which were used to manufacture fluorescently tagged peptides.
Live goals for adaptive service compositions

Service compositions represent an important family of self-adaptive systems. Though many approaches for monitoring and adapting service compositions have already been proposed, a clear connection with the motivations for using such techniques is still missing. To this aim we address self-adaptation from requirements elicitation down to execution. In this paper, we propose to enrich existing goal models with adaptive goals, responsible for the actual evolution/adaptation of the goal model at runtime. We also translate the goal model with both conventional and adaptive goals, into the actual functionality provided by the system and the adaptation policies needed to make it self-adapt.
Local Information from Range-Speed Radar Sequences

Radar observes targets, but they remain difficult to interpret due to the difficulty in analysing the radar range-speed sequences. The need for accurate analyses tools increases in case of extended target behaviour or multiple channel radars which give additional observation angles. Extended targets are targets with multiple scatterer responses which disturb each other and give a blurred target response. We investigate here the approach of deconvoluting the range-speed response with a point spread function and interpolate the range-speed positions to get the inner structure of the extended target. The deconvolution gives the individual elements of the extended target. The range-speed interpolation gives accurate position information. The positions and additional observation angle information are tracked with a filter. We demonstrate the approach with real radar measurements.
Preliminary Comparison of Oral and Intestinal Human Microbiota in Patients with Colorectal Cancer: A Pilot Study

In this study Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) was used to analyze and compare human microbiota from three different compartments, i.e., saliva, feces, and cancer tissue (CT), of a selected cohort of 10 Italian patients with colorectal cancer (CRC) vs. 10 healthy controls (saliva and feces). Furthermore, the Fusobacterium nucleatum abundance in the same body site was investigated through real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) to assess the association with CRC. Differences in bacterial composition, F. nucleatum abundance in healthy controls vs. CRC patients, and the association of F. nucleatum with clinical parameters were observed. Taxonomic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene, revealed the presence of three main bacterial phyla, which includes about 80% of reads: Firmicutes (39.18%), Bacteroidetes (30.36%), and Proteobacteria (10.65%). The results highlighted the presence of different bacterial compositions; in particular, the fecal samples of CRC patients seemed to be enriched with Bacteroidetes, whereas in the fecal samples of healthy controls Firmicutes were one of the major phyla detected though these differences were not statistically significant. The CT samples showed the highest alpha diversity values. These results emphasize a different taxonomic composition of feces from CRC compared to healthy controls. Despite the low number of samples included in the study, these results suggest the importance of microbiota in the CRC progression and could pave the way to the development of therapeutic interventions and novel microbial-related diagnostic tools in CRC patients.
Convergent, Discriminant, and Incremental Validity of the Pictorial Attitude Implicit Association Test and the Picture Story Exercise as Measures of the Implicit Power Motive

The Pictorial Attitude Implicit Association Test (PA–IAT) has recently been proposed as new measure of implicit motives. We report a study that provides the first evidence for the convergent validity of the PA–IAT by showing that the PA–IAT correlates significantly with a standard measure of implicit motives [i.e. the Picture Story Exercise (PSE)]. Discriminant validity of the PA–IAT was verified in the sense that the PA–IAT shared virtually no common variance with explicit motive measures. Our analyses revealed that the PA–IAT and PSE can best be conceived as related but distinct measures. We further showed that the PA–IAT had incremental validity in predicting performance on a memory recall task over and above the PSE. In general, our results confirm that the PA–IAT is a valid measure of implicit motives and can serve as valid alternative to the PSE. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Optimal bistable switching in nonlinear photonic crystals.

We present an analytical model and numerical experiments to describe optimal bistable switching in a nonlinear photonic crystal system. It is proved that only three parameters are needed to characterize a bistable switch: the resonant frequency omega(res), the quality factor Q, and parameter kappa that measures nonlinear "feedback strength. " A photonic crystal enables the device to operate in single-mode fashion, as if it were effectively one dimensional. This provides optimal control over the input and output and facilitates further large-scale optical integration.
Two-stage path planning approach for designing multiple spacecraft reconfiguration maneuvers and application to SPHERES onboard ISS

The paper presents a two-stage approach for designing optimal reconfiguration maneuvers for multiple spacecraft. These maneuvers involve well-coordinated and highlycoupled motions of the entire fleet of spacecraft while satisfying an arbitrary number of constraints. This problem is particularly difficult because of the nonlinearity of the attitude dynamics, the non-convexity of some of the constraints, and the coupling between the positions and attitudes of all spacecraft. As a result, the trajectory design must be solved as a single 6N DOF problem instead of N separate 6 DOF problems. The first stage of the solution approach quickly provides a feasible initial solution by solving a simplified version without differential constraints using a bi-directional Rapidly-exploring Random Tree (RRT) planner. A transition algorithm then augments this guess with feasible dynamics that are propagated from the beginning to the end of the trajectory. The resulting output is a feasible initial guess to the complete optimal control problem that is discretized in the second stage using a Gauss pseudospectral method (GPM) and solved using an off-theshelf nonlinear solver. This paper also places emphasis on the importance of the initialization step in pseudospectral methods in order to decrease their computation times and enable the solution of a more complex class of problems. Several examples are presented and discussed.
Psychotherapy: An Eclectic-Integrative Approach

Orientations and Viewpoints in Psychotherapy. The Therapy Client-Patient. The Psychotherapist. Therapeutic Variables in Psychotherapy. Common and Specific Factors in Psychotherapy. The Beginning Phase of Psychotherapy. The Middle and Later Phases of Psychotherapy. Terminating Psychotherapy. Theoretical Emphases and Issues. Brief and Long-Term Psychotherapy. Research in Psychotherapy. Evaluating the Effectiveness of Psychotherapy. Psychotherapy: A Concluding Note. Indexes.
GluN1 splice variant control of GluN1/GluN2D NMDA receptors

• NMDA receptors are ionotropic glutamate receptors that mediate the slow component of excitatory synaptic transmission in the central nervous system. • GluN1‐1a/GluN2D receptors, in which the GluN1 subunit does not contain exon‐5 encoded residues in the amino‐terminal domain, previously have been shown to have a low open probability and an exceptionally slow deactivation time course. • In this study, we report that GluN1 splice variants containing residues encoded by exon 5 in their amino‐terminal domain influence agonist potencies, deactivation time course, and single channel properties of GluN2D‐containing NMDA receptors. • We also show a model of NMDA receptor gating that can describe the key characteristics of the single channel and macroscopic current responses of GluN1/GluN2D NMDA receptors. • These data demonstrate that the GluN1 amino‐terminal domain is an important determinant in the kinetic and pharmacological properties of GluN2D‐containing NMDA receptors.
Acetylsalicylic acid reduces perfusion deficit in ischemic injured brain in rats

Acetylsalicylic acid (ASA) is an antiplatelet agent which has been used in treatment and prevention of stroke in humans. In the present study, the effects of ASA on perfusion deficits in the brain have been studied in an embolic model of stroke. Data showed that perfusion deficits were observed in all rats sacrificed immediately after middle cerebral artery (MCA) occlusion. Treatment with ASA significantly reduced perfusion deficits 1 h but not 3 h after the MCA occlusion. These findings thus support that ASA is useful agent in treatment and prevention of stroke, and show that its mechanism of action is likely through the reopening of cerebral microvessels.
Fatigue and alcohol: interactive effects on human performance in driving-related tasks

This paper describes a study which investigated the impairment of human psychomotor skills related to driving induced by fatigue alone and by the combined effects of fatigue and alcohol. Age and experience was considered to be an important variable since young, inexperienced drivers are involved in a disproportionately high number of accidents. Ten young and inexperienced drinkers and drivers and ten older, experienced drinkers and drivers were subjected to the study. The fatigue session was a 180 minute three-way divided task carried out before and after an alcoholic drink or placebo was administered. Recordings were made of level of performance, reaction time and heart fate. Comparisons of young and old showed older drivers to be more prone to fatigue and that this was exacerbated by alcohol. For the covering abstract see IRRD 876074.
Automated Topographic Segmentation and Transit Time Estimation in Endoscopic Capsule Exams

Endoscopic capsule is a recent medical technology with important clinical benefits but suffering from a practical handicap: long exam annotation times. This paper proposes and compares two approaches (Bayesian and support vector machines) that can be used to segment the gastrointestinal tract into its four major topographic areas, allowing the automatic estimation of the clinically relevant gastric and intestinal sections and corresponding transit times. According to medical specialists, this can reduce exam annotation times by up to 12% (15 min). This automatic tool has been integrated into our CapView annotation software that is currently being used by three medical institutions.