Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Diagnostic and prognostic value of the new tumour marker CYFRA 21-1 in patients with squamous cell lung cancer.

We wanted to investigate the diagnostic and prognostic significance of serum CYFRA 21-1, especially in predicting the risk of recurrence in patients with operable squamous cell lung cancer. Serum levels of CYFRA 21-1 were measured using an immunoradiometric assay (CIS bio) in 76 patients with squamous cell lung cancer (64 operable and 12 with unresectable tumours), 22 with other non-small-cell type (12 with adenocarcinoma and 10 with large-cell type) and 45 with nonmalignant lung diseases. Elevated preoperative CYFRA 21-1 levels were identified in 63% of patients with squamous cell type (SqCC), 33% with adenocarcinoma, and 30% with large-cell carcinoma type. The diagnostic specificity of the assay was 96%. Positive CYFRA 21-1 levels were observed in 33% of stage I, 52% of stage II, 76% of stage IIIa and 83% of stage IIIb patients with SqCC type. Statistically significant differences were obtained between stages I and II and between II and IIIa, but not between stages IIIa and IIIb. Recurrence-free survival probability for patients with elevated serum CYFRA 21-1 levels before surgery was 63% (24/38) versus 92% (24/26) for patients with normal serum CYFRA 21-1 levels. However, the difference was not statistically significant when adjusted for the TNM stage (primary tumour, regional lymph node involvement, occurrence of distant metastasis). In 9 of the 10 patients with increased trend for CYFRA 21-1 during follow-up, elevated serum CYFRA 21-1 levels preceded (7) or coincided (2) with the clinical detection of tumour recurrence, providing a predictive value of an increased trend of 90%. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Ionic Control of the Reversal Response of Cilia in Paramecium caudatum

The duration of ciliary reversal of Paramecium caudatum in response to changes in external ionic factors was determined with various ionic compositions of both equilibration and stimulation media. The reversal response was found to occur when calcium ions bound by an inferred cellular cation exchange system were liberated in exchange for externally applied cations other than calcium. Factors which affect the duration of the response were (a) initial amount of calcium bound by the cation exchange system, (b) final amount of calcium bound by the system after equilibration with the stimulation medium, and (c) concentration of calcium ions in the stimulation medium. An empirical equation is presented which relates the duration of the response to these three factors. On the basis of these and previously published data, the following hypothesis is proposed for the mechanism underlying ciliary reversal in response to cationic stimulation: Ca++ liberated from the cellular cation exchange system activates a contractile system which is energized by ATP. Contraction of this component results in the reversal of effective beat direction of cilia by a mechanism not yet understood. The duration of reversal in live paramecia is related to the time course of bound calcium release.
Bisphosphonates, specific inhibitors of osteoclast function and a class of drugs for osteoporosis therapy

Osteoporosis is a result of the disruption of bone homeostasis that is carried out by bone‐forming osteoblasts and bone‐degrading osteoclasts. The most common treatment of osteoporosis is N‐containing bisphosphonates, a class of non‐hydrolyzable pyrophosphate analogs. They have strong affinity to Ca2+ of hydroxyapatite with high specificity and can only be liberated from the bone in an acidic environment. These properties bestow them unique pharmacokinetic features including specific and strong retention at bone resorption surface, uptaken specifically by osteoclasts, quick excretion of non‐retained free bisphosphonates, long half‐life, and recyclability. Such properties underlie the drugs' high efficacy, minor side effects, and intermittent dosing regimens. Further studies show that bisphosphonates inhibit farnesyl pyrophosphate synthase, a critical enzyme required for synthesis of isoprenyl and geranylgeranyl, and inhibit prenylation and geranylgeranylation of small G‐proteins such as Rac and Rho. This leads to defective actin ring formation at the sealed zone, a subcellular structure essential for bone resorption, and a decrease in bone resorption. Bisphosphonates are also used to treat Paget's disease of bone, osteolytic bone metastases, and hypercalcemia. Moreover, these properties also make N‐BPs a good candidate as a bone‐seeking agent. Here we update our understanding of this remarkable class of anti‐resorption drugs. J. Cell. Biochem. 112: 1229–1242, 2011. © 2011 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Behaviour change counselling for tobacco use cessation and promotion of healthy lifestyles: a systematic review.

AIM To systematically assess the efficacy of oral health behaviour change counselling for tobacco use cessation (TUC) and the promotion of healthy lifestyles. MATERIALS AND METHODS Systematic Reviews, Randomized (RCTs), and Controlled Clinical Trials (CCTs) were identified through an electronic search of four databases complemented by manual search. Identification, screening, eligibility and inclusion of studies were performed independently by two reviewers. Quality assessment of the included publications was performed according to the AMSTAR tool for the assessment of the methodological quality of systematic reviews. RESULTS A total of seven systematic reviews were included. With the exception of inadequate oral hygiene, the following unhealthy lifestyles related with periodontal diseases were investigated: tobacco use, unhealthy diets, harmful use of alcohol, physical inactivity, and stress. Brief interventions for TUC were shown to be effective when applied in the dental practice setting while evidence for dietary counselling and the promotion of other healthy lifestyles was limited or non-existent. CONCLUSIONS While aiming to improve periodontal treatment outcomes and the maintenance of periodontal health current evidence suggests that tobacco use brief interventions conducted in the dental practice setting were effective thus underlining the rational for behavioural support.
[Local relapse in young (< or = 40 years) women with breast cancer after mastectomy or breast conserving surgery: 15-year results].

PURPOSE Data from various sources indicate that after breast conserving surgery (BCS), younger patients have a high risk of local relapse, but there is insufficient evidence about the risk of post-mastectomy local recurrence. This study investigates the risk of local recurrence for young (< or = 40 years) patients treated with either conservative or radical surgery, with or without radiotherapy (RT). METHODS 148 young (< or = 40 years) women with early invasive breast cancer underwent axillary dissection and mastectomy (n = 92) or BCS (n = 56) between January 1983 and December 1997. When adjuvant RT was given, the median dose was 50 Gy. The risk factors of local recurrence were estimated by uni- and multivariate analysis. RESULTS At a median follow-up time of 199 months 60 (40.5%) women died of breast cancer. The type of surgery (mastectomy vs. wide tumour excision) had no significant impact on breast cancer-specific survival. The crude rate of local relapse for nonirradiated mastectomy and BCS patients was 24% and 75% (p = 0.0041), and for irradiated patients 4% and 23%, respectively (p = 0.0091). After mastectomy in univariate analysis nodal status (negative vs. positive) and RT (no vs. yes) were significant predictors of local control, but tumour size (T1 vs. T2) and histological grade (1-2 vs. 3) were not. In multivariate analysis both nodal involvement and omission of RT remained independent significant negative predictors of local control. After BCS in univariate analysis extensive intraductal component (EIC, negative vs. positive) and RT (no vs. yes) were significant predictors of local control, but tumour size (T1 vs. T2), nodal status (N0 vs. N1) and histological grade (1-2 vs. 3) were not. In multivariate analysis omission of RT and presence of EIC remained independent significant negative predictors of local control. The 15-year actuarial rate of local relapse was 29% for irradiated, and 75% for nonirradiated BCS patients (RR, 0.21; 95% CI, 0.07-0.55; p = 0.0052). The 15-year actuarial rate of local recurrence was 6% for irradiated, and 46% for nonirradiated node-positive mastectomy patients (RR, 0.12; 95% CI, 0.06-0.96; p = 0.0095). CONCLUSION The incidence of local recurrence is high for young patients treated either with BCS or mastectomy, and RT significantly reduces the risk. The use of postmastectomy RT in node-positive patients gives a good local control. The efficacy of BCS and RT as a treatment modality for young patients needs further investigations.
Voice Activity Detection in Non-stationary Noise

Existing voice activity detection algorithms degraded severely in low SNR or in non-stationary noise environment. This paper proposes a new fusion method in such environment. The method is based on the fusion of the SNR for selected sub-bands of the input speech and this fusion is implemented through a specific function called SAF (sum of activation function). The results show that the algorithm could give reliable voice activity detection result in low SNR and even in the presence of non-stationary noise
Combining ESOP minimization with BDD-based decomposition for improved FPGA synthesis

This paper proposes a novel method to improve the utilization efficiency and performance of field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). The proposed method, ExorBDD, uses a stage of exclusive-sum-of-product (ESOP) minimization, followed by a stage of decomposition using binary decision diagrams (BDDs). For exclusive OR (XOR)-intensive circuits, experiments were conducted on 19 MCNC benchmark parity circuits (ranging from 5 to 25 inputs), as they are the most representative case of XOR-intensive circuits. The results using the proposed approach show significant improvements over Exorcism4, BDS, and commercial tools. On average, the new approach uses only 30.3% as many look-up tables as are used by Xilinx tools (and only 16.4% in comparison to Altera). On average, the new approach has a maximum combinational path delay of 89.2% compared to the delay with Xilinx tools (80.3% compared to Altera). Experiments were also conducted on non-XOR-intensive circuits. These results show that ExorBDD also performs well for arbitrary circuits.
A Commentary on Ward and Stewart's Model of Human Needs

Tony Ward and Claire Stewart (Ward and Stewart, 2003) set out to persuade the reader that our risk /need model has some serious shortcomings that can be corrected by giving universal needs a central role in the understanding of criminal behaviour. We welcome such a debate on the relevance of various models to explain criminal behaviour. However, that debate should be structured by respect for evidence. In 1986, Frederick Crews was alarmed by the attacks against logical positivism by ‘‘structuralists, post-empiricists, deconstructionists and other invading hordes’’ (Crews, 1986, p. 36). The idea that the validity of knowledge is rooted in its testability was under assault and the primary weapon was theoreticism. Theoreticism is the acceptance or rejection of knowledge in accordance with one’s personal views and not in accordance with evidence. Ward and Stewart’s arguments may not be pure theoreticism but it comes close to it. Theoreticists use two techniques to further their points of view (Andrews and Bonta, 1998). First, they ignore or discount evidence that supports the model that they oppose. Second, theoreticists present only the evidence that supports their own views or, if they have no evidence to prop up their views, theoreticists can resort to arguments that are difficult to test and even challenge. These two techniques are apparent in Ward and Stewart’s analysis of the risk /need model and the presentation of their own model of human needs.
Types, Locations, and Scales from Cluttered Natural Video and Actions

We model the autonomous development of brain-inspired circuits through two modalities-video stream and action stream that are synchronized in time. We assume that such multimodal streams are available to a baby through inborn reflexes, self-supervision, and caretaker's supervision, when the baby interacts with the real world. By autonomous development, we mean that not only that the internal (inside the “skull”) self-organization is fully autonomous, but the developmental program (DP) that regulates the computation of the network is also task nonspecific. In this work, the task-nonspecificity is reflected by the fact that the actions associated with an attended object in a cluttered, natural, and dynamic scene is taught after the DP is finished and the “life” has begun. The actions correspond to neuronal firing patterns representing object type, object location and object scale, but learning is directly from unsegmented cluttered scenes. Along the line of where-what networks (WWN), this is the first one that explicitly models multiple “brain” areas-each for a different range of object scales. Among experiments, large natural video experiments were conducted. To show the power of automatic attention in unknown cluttered backgrounds, the last experimental group demonstrated disjoint tests in the presence of large within-class variations (object 3-D-rotations in very different unknown backgrounds), but small between-class variations (small object patches in large similar and different unknown backgrounds), in contrast with global classification tests such as ImageNet and Atari Games.
Lessons from viruses: Small non‐coding RNA meets transcription factors (comment on DOI 10.1002/bies.201500060)

Our knowledge of how transcription factors (TFs) recognize their DNA binding sites has expanded considerably in recent years. However, only a few of the often numerous binding sites for most TFs are actually bound. How TFs precisely identify functionally relevant DNA sites in the context of the cell nucleus therefore remains only partly understood [1]. In this issue, Lee and Steitz highlight the fascinating idea that non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) assist in recruiting TFs to a chromatin site through base-pairing interactions with newly synthesized transcripts originating from the targeted region [2]. The Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is implicated in infectious mononucleosis and cancers, particularly B-cell lymphomas. The EBV genome produces two highly abundant Pol-III transcribed ncRNAs – namely EBR1 and EBR2 – which accumulate in the nucleoplasm. Although EBRs were identified more than three decades ago, their functions remain elusive. By developing a genome-wide approach to identify potential EBR2 binding sites on chromatin, Lee et al. recently found that EBR2 localizes exclusively to the latent EBV genome [3]. Strikingly, the sites of EBR2 enrichment on theviralgenomeoverlapDNAbinding sites forPAX5,ahostTFthatplayspivotal roles in B lymphocyte development. A model hence emerged in which EBR2 promotes the targeting of PAX5 to its chromatin target site, which in turn mediates the silencing of some EBV genes. Two remarkable aspects of this
The Tourist Narrative

This paper concerns tourist narratives, a type of autobiographical narrative condensed by the temporal and spatial constraints of tourism experience, as a place-making tool. While much attention has been paid to the importance of metanarratives both in the construction of tourism sites and in the self-identity process, the role of personal narratives for bridging this divide has been underexplored. As episodes of personal narratives, tourist moments are both socially and semiotically constructed. These narratives are at the nexus of spatial and temporal experience as tourists use multisensory experience, material objects, and landscape cues to connect memories with contemporary events and metanarratives to personal history. Narratives, however, are a construction; as they are (re)interpreted and (re)told events change in terms of their significance. As tourism experiences are incorporated into one’s autobiographical narrative, the tourism space takes on new meanings and through this incorporation it becomes place. This process is examined via tourist narratives of Spring Mill Pioneer Village. Collected during survey work at the site, these narratives illuminate the deeper significance of place more than survey data alone could have revealed. By teaming these two data sets, the importance of the social, semiotic, and sensory to the tourist experience, as well as their creation of place, is brought to the fore.
Evaluation Research and Decision Guidance: For Correctional, Addiction Treatment, Mental Health, and Other People-Changing Agencies

Evaluation Research and Decision Guidance is designed to help people make better judgments and decisions when trying to reform, cure, or instruct anyone whose behavior or ignorance is a problem to themselves or to others. It will help those who work with delinquents, criminals, drug addicts, mentally ill persons, or the educationally deficient, to help them become more capable, self-controlled, and law-abiding individuals. It is a "how to" book, a guide for anyone concerned with evaluating the effectiveness of programs, predicting case outcomes, or allocating resources. Glaser analyzes all types of evaluations. He shows how to define goals, measure the extent of their attainment, and assess costs in relation to benefits. He distinguishes routine from non-routine decision, tells how to predict outcomes more accurately in routine case prognoses, and how to estimate the probable consequences of alternative choices in unusual situations that occur infrequently. A chapter by Edna Erez discusses ethical and legal issues in program evaluation. Glaser's concluding chapter deals with how to institutionalize more rational policymaking. The author offers numerous examples of evaluations and decision analyses in criminal justice, addiction treatment, mental health, and educational agencies to show how scientific evaluation methods have been successfully employed. Written without technical jargon, this guidebook will be essential to the policymaker and the practitioner, the student and the teacher.
Altered Myocardial Force‐Frequency Relation in Human Heart Failure

BackgroundIn congestive heart failure (idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy), exercise is accompanied by a smaller-than-normal decrease in end-diastolic left ventricular volume, depressed peak rates of left ventricular pressure rise and fall, and depressed heart-rate-dependent potentiation of contractility (bowditch treppe). We studied contractile function of isolated left ventricular myocardium from New York Heart Association class IV-failing and nonfailing hearts at physiological temperature and heart rates in order to identify and quantitate abnormalities in myocardial function that underlie abnormal ventricular function. Methods and ResultsThe isometric tension-generating ability of isolated left ventricular strips from nonfailing and failing human hearts was investigated at 37°C and contraction frequencies ranging from 12 to 240 per minute (min−1). Strips were dissected using a new method of protection against cutting injury with 2,3-butanedione monoxime (BDM) as a cardioplegic agent. In nonfailing myocardium the twitch tension-frequency relation is bell-shaped developing 25±2 mN/mm2 at a contraction frequency of 72 min−1 and peaking at 44±3.7 mN/mm2 at a contraction frequency of 174±4 min−1. In failing myocardium the peak of the curve occurs at lower frequencies between 6 and 120 min−1 averaging 81±22 min−1, and it develops 48% (p < 0.001) and 80% (p < 0.001) less tension than in nonfailing myocardium at 72 and 174 min−1, respectively. Between 60 and 150 min−1 tension increases by 107% in nonfailing myocardium, but it does not change significantly in failing myocardium. Peak rates of rise and fall of isometric twitch tension vary in parallel with twitch tension as stimulation frequency rises in nonfailing myocardium but not in failing myocardium. ConclusionsThe quantitative agreement between these results from isolated myocardium and those from catheterization laboratory measurements on intact humans suggest that alterations of myocardial origin, independent of systemic factors, may contribute to the above mentioned abnormalities in left ventricular function seen in dilated cardiomyopathy.
Language Planning in Côte d'Ivoire

This monograph presents the language situation in Côte d'Ivoire. It examines the historical and socio-political processes and the language policies and language-in-education practices of the country. It shows that the debate on language policy over the last two decades has failed to lead to the adoption of a language plan that takes into account the current language situation in the country. It also argues that, given the socio-political and economic difficulties faced by Côte d'Ivoire over the last decade, this situation is likely to remain unchanged for the foreseeable future.
Skin Conductance as an In Situ Marker for Emotional Arousal in Children with Neurodevelopmental Communication Impairments

Even though electrodermal activity has been widely used in the study of psychological states and processes for over 130 years, the use of such technology in situ, within the context of daily activities, remains a major challenge. Recent technological advancements have led to the development of wearable biosensors that noninvasively measure electrical conductance across the skin. These biosensors represent a new approach for skin conductance assessment, as a proxy for emotional arousal, in children with neurodevelopmental communication impairments who are often described as having difficulties with emotional regulation, expressing thoughts and feelings, and present a higher prevalence of challenging behaviors. Here we provide an overview of skin conductance and explore the benefits of recent technological advancements for applied research and clinical practice. We draw on user experience from two experimental interventions involving eight children with neurodevelopmental impairments. In both cases investigators monitored phasic and tonic EDA measures in situ using wearable biosensors. We share the behavioral and technical challenges experienced across these two experimental contexts, and propose associated considerations for future use. Specifically, sensor functioning, synchronization, and data preprocessing/analysis difficulties, as well as behavioral findings related to developmental differences, sensor tolerance over time, and sensor placement are discussed.