Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Endogenous catalase protects human blood phagocytes against oxidative damage by extracellularly generated hydrogen peroxide.

Human blood monocytes and neutrophils were incubated with an H202-generating system (glucose plus glucose oxidase) in the presence and absence of 2 mM sodium azide. to assess the importance of catalase in the protection of these cells against heavy external oxidative stress (50 nmole H202/mI/min). Before and after these incubations. the cell integrity was determined. as well as the following cell functions: chemotactic response towards casein. and oxygen consumption and release of lysosomal enzymes during zymosan ingestion. The levels of reduced and oxidized glutathione were also measured. as were the activities of superoxide dismutase. catalase. glutathione peroxidase. and glutathione reductase. Incubation with the H202-generating system in the absence of azide decreased the amount of reduced glutathione in the monocytes by about 25% within 30 mm, with a concomitant proportional increase in oxidized glutathione. but had no appreciable effect on the extent of reduction of glutathione in the neutrophils. The cell integrity. cell functions. and enzymic activities were barely affected by this treatment in either type of cell. Incubation with the H202-generating system in the presence of azide (to inhibit endogenous catalase) resulted in a strong decrease in the level of reduced glutathione and an increase in oxidized glutathione. especially in the monocytes. The cell integrity and functional responses decreased concomitantly. but the enzymic activities remained normal. Only the glutathione reductase activity in the monocytes decreased significantly. These effects were not seen when the glucose oxidase in the H202-generating system was boiled or when azide-treated cells were washed and incubated with the H202-generating system plus catalase. Incubation with azide alone had no effect on any of the parameters tested. These results indicate that catalase is needed for adequate protection of monocytes and neutrophils against heavy external oxidative stress. Presumably. the glutathione redox cycle is mainly involved in repair of oxidized cell components. whereas catalase directly decomposes hydrogen peroxide.
A Systematic Review of Barriers to Breast Cancer Care in Developing Countries Resulting in Delayed Patient Presentation

Background. Within the developing world, many personal, sociocultural, and economic factors cause delayed patient presentation, a prolonged interval from initial symptom discovery to provider presentation. Understanding these barriers to care is crucial to optimizing interventions that pre-empt patient delay. Methods. A systematic review was conducted querying: PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, CINAHL, Cochrane Library, J East, CAB, African Index Medicus, and LiLACS. Of 763 unique abstracts, 122 were extracted for full review and 13 included in final analysis. Results. Studies posed variable risks of bias and produced mixed results. There is strong evidence that lower education level and lesser income status contribute to patient delay. There is weaker and, sometimes, contradictory evidence that other factors may also contribute. Discussion. Poverty emerges as the underlying common denominator preventing earlier presentation in these settings. The evidence for sociocultural variables is less strong, but may reflect current paucity of high-quality research. Conflicting results may be due to heterogeneity of the developing world itself. Conclusion. Future research is required that includes patients with and without delay, utilizes a validated questionnaire, and controls for potential confounders. Current evidence suggests that interventions should primarily increase proximal and affordable healthcare access and secondarily enhance breast cancer awareness, to productively reduce patient delay.
The Cytoplasmic Loops between Domains II and III and Domains III and IV in the Skeletal Muscle Dihydropyridine Receptor Bind to a Contiguous Site in the Skeletal Muscle Ryanodine Receptor*

Excitation-contraction coupling in skeletal muscle is a result of the interaction between the Ca2+ release channel of skeletal muscle sarcoplasmic reticulum (ryanodine receptor or RyR1) and the skeletal muscle L-type Ca2+ channel (dihydropyridine receptor or DHPR). Interactions between RyR1 and DHPR are critical for the depolarization-induced activation of Ca2+ release from the sarcoplasmic reticulum, enhancement of DHPR Ca2+ channel activity, and repolarization-induced inactivation of RyR1. The DHPR III–IV loop was fused to glutathione S-transferase (GST) or His-peptide and used as a protein affinity column for35S-labeled, in vitro translated fragments from the N-terminal three-fourths of RyR1. RyR1 residues Leu922–Asp1112 bound specifically to the DHPR III–IV loop column, but the corresponding fragment from the cardiac ryanodine receptor (RyR2) did not. Construction of chimeras between RyR1 and RyR2 showed that amino acids Lys954–Asp1112 retained full binding activity, whereas Leu922–Phe1075 had no binding activity. The RyR1 sequence Arg1076–Asp1112, previously shown to interact with the DHPR II–III loop (Leong, P., and MacLennan, D., H. (1998) J. Biol. Chem. 273, 7791–7794), bound to DHPR III–IV loop columns, but with only half the efficiency of binding of the longer RyR1 sequence, Lys954–Asp1112. These data suggest that the site of DHPR III–IV loop interaction contains elements from both the Lys954–Phe1075 and Arg1076–Asp1112 fragments. The presence of 4 ± 0.4 μm GST-DHPR II–III or 5 ± 0.1 μm His-peptide-DHPR III–IV was required for half-maximal co-purification of 35S-labeled RyR1 Leu922–Asp1112 on glutathione-Sepharose or Ni2+-nitrilotriacetic acid. Dose-dependent inhibition of 35S-labeled RyR1 Leu922–Asp1112 binding to GST-DHPR II–III and GST-DHPR III–IV by His10-DHPR II–III and His-peptide-DHPR III–IV was observed. These studies indicate that the DHPR II–III and III–IV loops bind to contiguous and possibly overlapping sites on RyR1 between Lys 954 and Asp1112.
Hodges-Lehmann Scale Estimator for Cauchy Distribution

We draw here on the relation between the Cauchy and hyperbolic secant distributions to prove that the MLE of the scale parameter of the Cauchy distribution is log-normally distributed and to study the properties of a Hodges-Lehmann type estimator for the scale parameter. This scale estimator is slightly biased but performs well even on small samples regardless of the location parameter. The asymptotic efficiency of the estimator is 98%.
Distributed model shaping for scaling to decentralized POMDPs with hundreds of agents

The use of distributed POMDPs for cooperative teams has been severely limited by the incredibly large joint policyspace that results from combining the policy-spaces of the individual agents. However, much of the computational cost of exploring the entire joint policy space can be avoided by observing that in many domains important interactions between agents occur in a relatively small set of scenarios, previously defined as coordination locales (CLs) [11]. Moreover, even when numerous interactions might occur, given a set of individual policies there are relatively few actual interactions. Exploiting this observation and building on an existing model shaping algorithm, this paper presents D-TREMOR, an algorithm in which cooperative agents iteratively generate individual policies, identify and communicate possible interactions between their policies, shape their models based on this information and generate new policies. D-TREMOR has three properties that jointly distinguish it from previous DEC-POMDP work: (1) it is completely distributed; (2) it is scalable (allowing 100 agents to compute a "good" joint policy in under 6 hours) and (3) it has low communication overhead. D-TREMOR complements these traits with the following key contributions, which ensure improved scalability and solution quality: (a) techniques to ensure convergence; (b) faster approaches to detect and evaluate CLs; (c) heuristics to capture dependencies between CLs; and (d) novel shaping heuristics to aggregate effects of CLs. While the resulting policies are not globally optimal, empirical results show that agents have policies that effectively manage uncertainty and the joint policy is better than policies generated by independent solvers.
Effects of lesion variables and emotion type on the perception of facial emotion.

The purpose of this study was to consider the effects of valence, motoric direction (i.e., approach/withdrawal), and arousal on the perception of facial emotion in patients with unilateral cortical lesions. We also examined the influence of lesion side, site, and size on emotional perception. Subjects were 30 right-hemisphere-damaged (RHD) and 30 left-hemisphere-damaged (LHD) male patients with focal lesions restricted primarily to the frontal, temporal, or parietal lobe. Patient groups were comparable on demographic and clinical neurological variables. Subjects were tested for their ability to match photographs of four facial emotional expressions: happiness, sadness, fear, and anger. Overall, RHD patients were significantly more impaired than LHD patients in perceiving facial emotion. Lesion side, but not site, was associated with motoric direction and valence dimensions. RHD patients had specific deficits relative to LHD patients in processing negative and withdrawal emotions; there were no group differences for positive/approach emotions. Lesion size was not significantly correlated with accuracy of emotional perception.
Predictive Factors for Metachronous Gastric Cancer in High-Risk Patients after Successful Helicobacter pylori Eradication

Background:Helicobacter pylori eradication following endoscopic mucosal resection of early gastric cancer reduces the risk of metachronous gastric cancer. Aim: To identify subgroups of differing cancer risk after endoscopic mucosal resection of early gastric cancer. Methods: Histological assessment of antral and corpus tissue was done by the updated Sydney Classification and serum pepsinogen I and II levels were measured using ELISA kits. Infected patients were treated with a 7-day regimen consisting of amoxicillin, clarithromycin and a proton pump inhibitor. Results: 100 patients were enrolled; in 80 patients H. pylori was successfully eradicated and they were followed up for more than 2 years (median observation period 33 months). Metachronous gastric cancers developed in 9 patients after successful eradication. All cases were men. The frequency of severe atrophy assessed by histology (100 vs. 53.2%, p = 0.03) was higher and pepsinogen I/II ratio before eradication was significantly lower in the group that developed cancer compared to the group that did not. Pepsinogen I <25 ng/ml was significantly associated with development of a new lesion. Conclusions: The cancer risk after eradication correlated with the severity of corpus atrophy. It should be possible to identify subgroups requiring intensive and less intensive surveillance after eradication.
Clinical efficacy of lumbar interbody fusion using a channel system combined with ozone therapy for the treatment of central-type L3-L4 lumbar disc herniation

The clinical efficacy of minimally invasive lumbar interbody fusion via the intervertebral foramen combined with ozone (O3) therapy for the treatment of L3-L4 central-type lumbar disc herniation was explored. We recruited patients with sciatica who attended our hospital between July 2013 and October 2015 and underwent lumbar X-ray (anteroposterior and lateral view), lumbar flexion-extension radiographs, computed tomography, and magnetic resonance imaging after admission. Seventy-four patients with central-type lumbar disc herniation but no other complications were randomly selected and divided into the observation and control groups. The observation group comprised 37 patients treated with lumbar fusion using a channel system combined with O3 therapy, whereas the control group comprised 37 patients treated with lumbar fusion alone. The effects of the two therapies were evaluated using visual analog scale, Japanese Orthopaedic Association, and MacNab scores. There was no significant difference in scores between the two groups before surgery (P>0.05). The scores of the observation group after treatment were significantly lower than those before surgery and those of the control group (P<0.05). One patient in the observation group experienced no obvious improvement in symptoms after surgery, and two patients in the control group experienced postoperative recurrence; these three patients subsequently underwent laminectomy combined with planted bone fusion and internal fixation. There was no significant difference in total efficacy rates between the two groups (P>0.05). Lumbar fusion using a channel system combined with O3 therapy for the treatment of L3-L4 central-type lumbar disc herniation is safe and effective. It has the advantages of reduced trauma, fewer complications, and rapid pain relief, and it promotes the recovery of lumbar function. Strict mastery of the surgical indications is key to the success of the procedure; however, it is worth expanding its use in the clinical setting.
Entities and Identities in Research Information Systems

Where science is increasingly becoming a global business and furthermore with open data and access initia- tives, means to identify and thus to connect system-internal with non-internal entities are urgently needed. The need for identifiers beyond systems is thus a global requirement but also relevant within organization boundaries spanning multiple systems. Various identifier initiatives and systems have started in the scientific domain and beyond. However, they have not yet achieved the required interoperability. With this paper we aim to collect additional essential ingredients towards designing a sustainable CERIF identifier sub model, contributing to ongoing discussions and supporting design decisions. Here, we first present common issues with identifiers in the wider academic domain, before we analyze available systems, technologies and current initiatives solving the global identity gap.
Special Issue -selected Papers from Dicta 2007 Local 3d Structure Recognition in Range Images

A feature detector and a feature descriptor are presented, which are applicable to 3D range data. The feature detector is used to identify locations in the range data at which the feature descriptor is applied. The feature descriptor, or feature transform, calculates a signature for each identified location on the basis of local shape information. The approach used in both the feature detector and the descriptor is motivated by the success of the scale invariant feature transform and speeded up robust features approaches in the 2D case. Using synthetic data, the authors evaluate the repeatability of the detector and robustness of the descriptor to global transformations and image noise. The complete system is then applied to the problem of automatic detection of repeated structure in real range images.
Bayesian Approach to Modelling of Quasi-Periodic Intermittent Demand

Abstract The paper focuses on the stochastic modelling of the quasi-periodic intermittent demand patterns, which arise in the inventory management of the “slow moving items” such as service parts or high-priced capital goods. It is proposed a new stochastic model, which describes the demand patterns with essentially non-exponential distribution of the inter-arrival times. The model is based on generalized beta-binomial distribution and the Bayesian inference using the historical data array describing the demand repeatability within the time periods. For this model, there were derived explicit expressions for the forecast distributions, its moments and relevant Bayesian risk. The efficiency of the proposed approach is confirmed by computer simulation and an application example.
Considerations for Globigerinoides ruber (White and Pink) Paleoceanography: Comprehensive Insights From a Long‐Running Sediment Trap

We present a detailed analysis of the seasonal distribution, size, morphological variability, and geochemistry of co‐occurring pink and white chromotypes of Globigerinoides ruber from a high‐resolution (1–2 weeks) and long‐running sediment trap time series in the northern Gulf of Mexico. We find no difference in the seasonal flux of the two chromotypes. Although flux of G. ruber is consistently lowest in winter, the flux‐weighted signal exported to marine sediments represents mean annual conditions in the surface mixed layer. We observe the same morphological diversity among pink specimens of G. ruber as white. Comparison of the oxygen and carbon isotopic composition (δ18O and δ13C) of two morphotypes (sensu stricto and sensu lato) of pink G. ruber reveals the isotopes to be indistinguishable. The test size distribution within the population varies seasonally, with the abundance of large individuals increasing (decreasing) with increasing (decreasing) sea surface temperature. We find no systematic offsets in the Mg/Ca and δ18O of co‐occurring pink and white G. ruber. The sediment trap data set shows that the Mg/Ca‐temperature sensitivity for both chromotypes is much lower than the canonical 9%/°C, which can likely be attributed to the secondary influence of both salinity and pH on foraminiferal Mg/Ca. Using paired Mg/Ca and δ18O, we evaluate the performance of a suite of published equations for calculating sea surface temperature, sea surface salinity, and isotopic composition of seawater (δ18Osw), including a new salinity‐δ18Osw relationship for the northern Gulf of Mexico from water column observations.
The effect of neighbourhood unemployment on health-risk behaviours in elderly differs between Slovak and Dutch cities.

BACKGROUND Health-risk behaviours (HRB) increase the risk of disability and chronic diseases at an older age. This study aimed to compare Slovakia and the Netherlands regarding differences in the prevalence of HRB by neighbourhood and individual deprivation and to determine whether area differences could be explained by the socio-economic position (SEP) of the residents. METHODS We obtained data on non-institutionalized residents aged ≥ 65 years from the EU-FP7: EURO-URHIS 2 project from Slovak (N = 665, response rate 44.0%) and Dutch cities (N = 795, response rate 50.2%). HRB concerned daily smoking, binge drinking, physical activity, consumption of fruits and vegetables and body mass index. Area deprivation was measured by the neighbourhood unemployment rate. Individual SEP was measured by education and household income with financial strain. We used multilevel logistic regression. RESULTS In Slovakia, no HRB was associated with either neighbourhood unemployment or individual SEP. The elderly in the Netherlands from the least favourable neighbourhoods were more likely to be daily smokers [odds ratio (OR) 2.32; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.25, 4.30] and overweight (OR 1.84; 95% CI 1.24, 2.75) than residents from the most favourable ones. For the Dutch elderly the gradients varied per HRB and per individual-level SEP indicator. Individual SEP explained country differences in the association of area unemployment with smoking and lack of physical activity but not that with overweight. CONCLUSION Countries differed in the associations with HRB of both neighbourhood unemployment and individual SEP among the elderly urban residents. The local importance of socio-economic factors on both levels should be considered when developing health-promotion activities for the elderly.
Brain microvessel endothelial cells in tissue culture: A model for study of blood‐brain barrier permeability

Endothelial cells were prepared from bovine brain microvessels and grown in tissue culture. They contained factor VIII/von Willebrand antigen, the most specific marker available for determination of the endothelial origin of cells in culture. The cultured cells formed complex tight junctions and contained few pinocytotic vessels. These properties are responsible for formation of the blood‐brain barrier in vivo. When monolayers of the endothelial cells were exposed briefly to a calcium‐free solution or treated with 1.6 M arabinose, distinctive morphological changes occurred in the intercellular contacts. In either case, a normal structure was reestablished following return to control medium. To assess the effect of these treatments on transcellular permeability, we measured the movement of sucrose labeled with carbon 14 across a monolayer of endothelial cells cultured on a collagen‐coated nylon mesh. Removal of external calcium increased the rate of sucrose movement by 120%; the arabinose treatment increased transcellular flux by 40%.
Calculating MIPS 2.0

The Wuppertal Institute developed, in the early 1990s, an input-oriented lifecycle-wide resource accounting method, the “Material Input per Service-Unit” concept (MIPS), today also referred to as “Material Footprint”. The official handbook applicable to products, services, and processes describes a MS Excel-based sequential approach for calculating MIPS. Today’s computing power, available to every researcher, and access to software and databases dedicated to lifecycle analysis make calculating MIPS using matrix inversion possible. This also opens up possibilities for enhancing MIPS-models programmatically: parameterizing the foreground and background systems, batch modeling for producing time series, and computational algorithms enhancing interpretation. The article provides (1) an overview of the methods and tools used for calculating MIPS from its origins to today, and (2) demonstrates some of the programmatically enhanced capabilities offered to MIPS-practitioners.
Privacy through Uncertainty in Location-Based Services

Location-Based Services (LBS) are becoming more prevalent. While there are many benefits, there are also real privacy risks. People are unwilling to give up the benefits - but can we reduce privacy risks without giving up on LBS entirely? This paper explores the possibility of introducing uncertainty into location information when using an LBS, so as to reduce privacy risk while maintaining good quality of service. This paper also explores the current uses of uncertainty information in a selection of mobile applications.
Bounds on the Friction-Dominated Motion of a Pushed Object

We consider the friction-dominated, or quasistatic, motion of a rigid body being pushed over a horizontal plane in situations where the precise frictional interaction cannot be determined. Consequently, the complete set of motions corresponding to all possible friction distributions must be found. We demonstrate that if the contact region between the body and the support ing plane has one or two components, the set of all possible motions coincides with the set of motions arising for friction distributions restricted to two-point contact in the boundary of the contact region. These two-point problems are solved analytically. In previous formulations of the problem, general friction support had only been reduced to the case of tripods, which does not have an analytic solution. Various examples are presented, and an effective numerical scheme based on a dissipation function is implemented.
Mutual Exclusion Verification of Peterson's Solution in Isabelle/HOL

Peterson's solution is a classical algorithm for mutual exclusion problem. But rigorous works on analyzing its properties of safety or liveness are rare so far. In theorem prover Isabelle/HOL, we formally modelled Peterson's solution for two processes, and proved that it satisfies mutual exclusion property. With Paulson's inductive approach, the algorithm is inductively defined as a set of all possible event lists of two concurrent processes, in which event is defined as atomic action of concurrent processe. All of the reasoning codes have been checked by Isabelle/HOL. Comparing with those works based on model checking, our work can be easily generalized to the analysis of Peterson's solution for n (n>2) processes. And the model we defined for Peterson's solution could be extended to analyze liveness property of Peterson's solution. The process of proving also produces some good advices on how to programming Peterson's solution.