Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Biological variation of non-SI traceable biological quantities: example of proteins

The kind-of-quantities corresponding to most biological quantities usually measured in clinical laboratories are substance concentration, mass concentration, catalytic concentration and arbitrary substance concentration (1, 2). When the components (analytes) of these biological quantities are completely defined molecules, the corresponding kind-of-quantities are substance concentration or mass concentration, which may be converted to substance concentration. Measurement results of such biological quantities may be traceable to SI units provided that they are obtained using appropriate measurement procedures and calibrators. However, when the component is a molecule – generally a protein – for which no defined molecular structure can be assigned, the corresponding kind-of-quantity is generally mass concentration or arbitrary substance concentration. In these cases, measurement results of the corresponding biological quantities are not traceable to SI units. A good example of a non-SI-traceable biological quantity is the arbitrary substance concentration (or mass concentration) of prolactin in plasma. When measuring this quantity, there are actually different quantities of three different components (isoforms) that are measured: prolactin A, prolactin B, and prolactin C; the proportion of each one in the mixture is unknown (3). In addition, non-SI-traceable biological quantities are usually measured using immunochemical procedures, in which different reagents may react to different extents to the various epitopes of the molecule and yield different but related quantities. Consequently, the results of measurement of non-SI-traceable biological quantities obtained with different immunochemical measurement procedures are by nature not comparable (not interchangeable). These facts have a dramatic consequence in biological variation studies: data on biological variation of non-SI-traceable biological quantities obtained with different immunochemical measurement procedures should not be pooled. Each quantity-measurement procedure pair requires a different biological variation study. In fact, until now, the information on biological variation of non-SI traceable quantities published as banks of data corresponds to the mean or median of biological variation data from different studies using different immunochemical measurement procedures (4, 5). Bearing in mind all the above, these means or medians are not reliable, and should be progressively replaced with separate biological variation data obtained with the different immunochemical measurement procedures on the market.
Platonic beasts: a new family of multilimbed robots

Describes class of spherically symmetric, high degree of freedom robots called "platonic beasts". A robot in this family is kinematically equivalent to a symmetric polyhedron, such as one of the platonic solids, with identical multi-purpose limbs attached to its vertices. The symmetry and regularity of the design have several advantages including robustness to toppling, novel gaits such as the rolling gait, and fault tolerance. The authors describe the design, simulation, and construction of a prototype platonic beast robot that the authors have built in their lab. The robot has four limbs, each with three degrees of freedom, and is controlled by a network of four embedded 32-bit microcontrollers. The authors also discuss the general features of these robots, including locomotion using the rolling gait and the implications of its novel features. <<ETX>>
Accuracy of ThinPrep Imaging System in detecting low-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions.

CONTEXT The ThinPrep Imaging System (Imager) for cervical cytology is used in many US laboratories, but the ability of the system to identify classic changes of low-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion (LSIL) has not been independently reported. OBJECTIVE To evaluate the accuracy of this system in detecting classic LSIL cells. DESIGN A total of 114 imaged ThinPrep LSIL cases from April to June 2005 were reviewed to determine whether the most diagnostically relevant cells were present in the 22 fields selected by Imager. Those LSIL specimens from January to June 2005 that were initially screened by the Imager and classified as "negative" in the 22 fields were also reviewed. The average number of classic koilocytes per slide was compared among cases that had koilocytes within 22 fields with cases upgraded during full review. RESULTS Twelve (10.5%) of 114 LSIL cases from April to June 2005 did not show diagnostic LSIL cells within the initial 22 fields. Full manual rescreening was performed on 1025 cases from January to June (20.4% of negative cases). Nine cases that were initially negative in the 22 fields were revised to LSIL (2.4% of all 381 LSIL cases reported from January to June 2005). An average of 10 to 11 koilocytes were present in these 2 groups, which was significantly lower than the average of 75 koilocytes in cases in which the 22 Imager-selected fields showed LSIL. CONCLUSIONS Although the ThinPrep Imager finds abnormal cells in most LSIL cases, the system may have limitations in detecting koilocytes in the 22 Imager-selected fields. When 10% quality control rescreening is performed as required by federal regulations, full manual rescreening will provide the most accurate results.
Cross-Sectional Survey of Women in Taiwan With First-Degree Relatives With Osteoporosis: Knowledge, Health Beliefs, and Preventive Behaviors

&NA; No previous investigation has explored preventive behaviors among women with First-Degree Relatives (FDRs) diagnosed with osteoporosis, particularly Asian women. This study investigates osteoporosis knowledge, health beliefs and preventive behaviors of women with a family history of osteoporosis, and the different knowledge and health beliefs regarding preventive behaviors of women with such a history. Women were recruited at a large public health center in northern Taiwan. A questionnaire was administered to women with FDRs with osteoporosis with a focus on osteoporosis knowledge, health beliefs and preventive behaviors. Descriptive analysis was initially conducted. Correlation and differences between demographics, knowledge, health beliefs and preventive behaviors were rated for continuous variables, and the &khgr;2 test was performed for categorical variables. A total of 251 who women satisfied the sampling criteria were invited to engage in the study. Two hundred and one women agreed to take part in the study, and the participation rate was around 80%. This work stresses the insufficiency of information on osteoporosis, constraining beliefs and ignorance of healthy preventive behaviors among women with FDRs with osteoporosis. Overall, the likelihood that women would take positive preventive behaviors is associated with their demographics and knowledge. The variables most strongly correlated with preventive behaviors for community-dwelling women are, in order, knowledge, number of children, educational level, knowledge of osteoporosis, experience of bone density examination, and whether or not women believed they had kyphosis. The results of this work can be applied to provide effective implementation guidelines for preventing osteoporosis, especially for women with a family history of the disease.
Microwave applications of photonic band-gap (PBG) structures

Photonic band-gap (PBG) structures are essentially periodic lattices which can provide effective and flexible control of the propagation of electromagnetic waves along specific or all directions. This paper gives an overview of a novel planar-oriented PBG structure developed recently at the authors group. This uniplanar compact PBG (UC-PBG) lattice is very simple to implement, and its usefulness has been demonstrated successfully by several application examples such as low and band pass filters, leakage suppression in CB-CPWs and striplines, as well as harmonic tuning for high efficiency microwave power amplifiers.
A universally conserved region of the largest subunit participates in the active site of RNA polymerase III.

The largest subunits of the three eukaryotic nuclear RNA polymerase present extensive sequence homology with the beta' subunit of the bacterial enzymes over five major co‐linear regions. Region d is the most highly conserved and contains a motif, (Y/F)NADFDGD(E/Q)M(N/A), which is invariant in all multimeric RNA polymerases. An extensive mutagenesis of that region in yeast RNA polymerase III led to a vast majority (16/22) of lethal single‐site substitutions. A few conditional mutations were also obtained. One of them, rpc160–112, corresponds to a double substitution (T506I, N509Y) and has a slow growth phenotype at 25 degrees C. RNA polymerase III from the mutant rpc160–112 was severely impaired in its ability to transcribe a tRNA gene in vitro. The transcription defect did not originate from a deficiency in transcription complex formation and RNA chain initiation, but was mainly due to a reduced elongation rate. Under conditions of substrate limitation, the mutant enzyme showed increased pausing at the intrinsic pause sites of the SUP4 tRNA gene and an increased rate of slippage of nascent RNA, as compared with the wild‐type enzyme. The enzyme defect was also detectable with poly[d(A‐T)] as template, in the presence of saturating DNA, ATP and UTP concentrations. The mutant enzyme behavior is best explained by a distortion of the active site near the growing point of the RNA product.
Urinary Growth Hormone in Growth‐Impaired Children with Chronic Inflammatory Bowel Disease

&NA; Growth impairment of undefined aetiology occurs in ˜30% of children with chronic inflammatory bowel disease. We measured urinary growth hormone concentrations in 36 children with chronic inflammatory bowel disease and 51 normal controls. The median urinary concentration of growth hormone in the stunted children with chronic inflammatory bowel disease was 15.8 ng/g creatinine (range 4.3‐32.6), compared with 11.7 ng/g creatinine (range 4.1‐35.9) in those with normal growth. The difference was statistically not significant (p = 0.15). Moreover, there was no significant difference between the patients and the control group. One stunted patient had a urinary growth hormone (UGH) concentration below the normal range, whereas four patients with normal height were also below the normal range. Four of these five patients (80%) were on corticosteroid treatment at the time of urinary collection, whereas only 26% of the patients with normal UGH were also on corticosteroid treatment. We conclude that growth retardation in children with chronic inflammatory bowel disease is probably not related to growth hormone deficiency but must involve other mechanisms.
Depression is associated with worse objectively and subjectively measured sleep, but not more frequent awakenings, in women with vasomotor symptoms

Objective:Depression occurs more commonly during the menopausal transition in women with vasomotor symptoms (VMS) than in those without, but most women with VMS do not develop depression. It has been hypothesized that VMS are associated with depression because VMS lead to repeated awakenings, which impair daytime well-being. We aimed to determine if objectively measured sleep and perceived sleep quality are worse in depressed women with VMS than in nondepressed women with VMS. Methods:Objectively and subjectively measured sleep parameters were compared between 52 depressed women with VMS and 51 nondepressed controls with VMS. Actigraphic measures of objective sleep conducted in the home environment and subjective measures of sleep quality (Pittsburgh Sleep Questionnaire Index) were compared using linear regression models. Results:On objective assessments, depressed women with VMS spent less time in bed (by 64.8 min; P < 0.001) and had shorter total sleep time (by 47.7 min; P = 0.008), longer sleep-onset latency (by 13.8 min; P = 0.03), and lower sleep efficiency (by 3.2 percentage points; P = 0.09), but did not awaken more or spend more time awake after sleep onset than nondepressed controls with VMS. Depressed women also reported worse sleep quality (mean Pittsburgh Sleep Questionnaire Index 12.0 vs 8.3; P < 0.001). Adjustment for VMS frequency and important demographic characteristics did not alter these associations. Conclusions:Sleep quality and selected parameters of objectively measured sleep, but not sleep interruption, are worse in depressed than in nondepressed women with VMS. The type of sleep disturbance seen in depressed participants was not consistent with the etiology of depression secondary to VMS-associated awakenings.
A DEUTERANOMALOUS ARTIST.

An artist, who claimed to be colour blind, according to a report in the local newspapers, kindly cooperated in efficient colour vision tests, two long discussions about his paintings with the writer, and allowed nine of his paintings to be photographed as colour transparencies. This paper presents notes made during these discussions, detailed results of the tests, and a short commentary on his paintings.
Histamine: A potential therapeutic agent for breast cancer treatment?

Commentary to: Histamine-Mediated Signaling Processes in Human Malignant Mammary Cells Vanina Medina, Graciela Cricco, Mariel Nuñez, Gabriela Martín, Nora Mohamad, Florencia Correa-Fiz, Francisca Sanchez-Jimenez, Rosa Bergoc and Elena Rivera
Impaired Systolic Thickening Associated with Halothane in the Presence of a Coronary Stenosis Is Mediated by Changes in Hemodynamics

Myocardial ischemia results when halothane is administered to animals with severe coronary stenosis. This study was done to separate the effect of halothane, per se, on myocardial ischemia from indirect cardiovascular effects, primarily hypotension, that might cause ischemia by altering the oxygen supply-demand balance. Eight dogs underwent sterile surgery for implantation of sonomicrometer crystals and atrioventricular (A-V) heart block. One week later, each dog was anesthetized with morphine and chloralose. Heart rate was controlled by ventricular pacing and altered in five steps from 50 to 150 beats/min. Arterial blood pressure was controlled by blood withdrawal or phenylephrine infusion at four levels of arterial pressure (60 to 120 mm Hg). Regional myocardial contraction was measured at each of the resulting 20 points as an indicator of myocardial ischemia. Twenty points were collected under each of four conditions in each animal: control, halothane (1% inspired), stenosis, halothane plus stenosis. Systolic thickening in the presence of stenosis was divided, on a point-by-point basis, by values obtained in the absence of stenosis to obviate the direct effects of blood pressure and heart rate on thickening. A separate normalization was done for data obtained in the presence of halothane. The normalized data demonstrate impaired systolic contraction at low arterial pressures and high heart rates. Multiple regression analysis failed to demonstrate a significant effect of halothane on systolic contraction once the effects of blood pressure, heart rate, and the negative inotropic effect of halothane were taken into account. Thus, the contraction failure that occurred during halothane and severe stenosis was mediated by changes in hemodynamics. Halothane, per se, did not cause myocardial ischemia in this nonfailing canine model of acute coronary artery stenosis.
A Revised Edge Detection Algorithm Based on Wavelet Transform for Coal Gangue Image

Based on wavelet transform theory, the digital image processing characteristics of coal gangues are studied to classify the coal gangues from coal bulk in the automation selecting system. Edge detection is a fundamental issue in the coal gangue image processing and pattern recognition. Through traditional methods of image processing are efficient as edge detectors, a lot of false edge information will be extracted from a coal gangue image, because the coal gangue images are always contaminated with speckles of coal dust. Therefore a revised algorithm based on wavelet transform is developed to suppress the speckles in the gangue images, to enhance edges. At last the gangues and coal are separated according to their characteristics. The experiment results show that the recognition rate of coal gangues is increased by the wavelet transform method.
Stabilization of High-Order Stochastic Gradient Adaptive Filtering Algorithms

The paper is concerned with stabilizing the family of adaptive filtering algorithms based on minimizing the <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$2Lth$</tex-math></inline-formula> moment of the estimation error, with <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$L$</tex-math></inline-formula> being an integer greater than 1. Stabilization is attained via a proposed normalization of the algorithm. Mean square stability of the normalized algorithm is proved for a Markov plant for all <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$L > 1$</tex-math> </inline-formula>. Transient and steady-state performances of the algorithm are analyzed for a time-invariant plant. Expressions are derived for the steady-state misadjustment and convergence time. Tradeoff between the transient and steady-state performances is evaluated. Dependence of this tradeoff on the value of <italic>L</italic> is studied. This tradeoff is compared with the tradeoff of the NLMS algorithm. The proposed algorithm is dramatically superior to the NLMS algorithm for sub-Gaussian noise. The superiority increases with <italic>L</italic>, initial mean-square deviation and signal-to-noise ratio. Analytical results are supported by simulations.
Dose-related effects of chronic resveratrol administration on neurogenesis, angiogenesis, and corticosterone secretion are associated with improved spatial memory retention following global cerebral ischemia

Objectives: The polyphenol resveratrol has shown regulatory effects on hippocampal neurogenesis, which according to the neurovascular niche hypothesis, is likely to involve stimulation of angiogenesis. In rodents, global cerebral ischemia leads to selective CA1 neuronal damage, spatial memory impairments, lasting changes in corticosterone (CORT) secretion, and increased neurogenesis. This study examined dose-related effects of 21-day RSV treatment on markers associated with neurogenesis (DCX, PSA-NCAM) and angiogenesis (CD31) in the hippocampus at short (7-day) and long-term (85-day) intervals following global ischemia. In parallel, post-ischemic and stress-induced CORT levels and spatial memory in the Morris water maze were determined. Methods: Five groups of male Wistar rats were included: sham/saline, ischemia/saline, ischemia/1 mg/kg RSV, ischemia/10 mg/kg RSV, and sham/10 mg/kg RSV. Changes in expression of plasticity markers were paralleled by assessment of basal- and stress-induced CORT secretions, and spatial memory performance. Results: Our findings revealed a significant attenuation of ischemia-induced DCX/PSA-NCAM expression in RSV-treated rats, whereas RSV treatment increased angiogenesis in the injured CA1 region. RSV attenuated CORT levels 3 days post-ischemia and a trend toward attenuating CORT secretion in response to 15 minutes restraint stress. Increased swimming latencies in the target quadrant during the MWM probe trial in RSV-treated ischemic rats support beneficial effects of RSV on spatial memory retention. Discussion: Our findings uncover time- and dose-related effects of RSV and global ischemia on the regulation of hippocampal plasticity. Changes in neuro- and angiogenesis are consistent with RSV neuroprotective effects, but appear independent of RSV regulatory effects on corticosterone secretion.
Search for Porphyrins in Lunar Dust

Evidence for porphyrins was obtained in the Apollo 11 bulk sample of lunar dust by fluorescence spectrometry and analytical demetallation. The indicated porphyrins showed major fluorescence excitation at 390 nanometers. Abundance was about 10-10 gram of porphyrin per gram of dust. Similar pigments were found in exhaust products from tests of a lunar descent engine. The similarity of results suggests that most if not all of the indicated porphyrin aggregate of the lunar sample probably was synthesized from rocket fuel during the landing of the lunar module. These compounds may be the product of a novel high-temperature synthesis of cosmochemical interest.
Discontinuing the Ketogenic Diet in Seizure‐Free Children: Recurrence and Risk Factors

Summary: About 10% of children become seizure‐free after initiation of the ketogenic diet, and typically stop the diet after 2 yr. A retrospective chart review was performed of all children who became seizure‐free on the ketogenic diet at our institution since 1993 and then discontinued the diet. Of 557 children started on the diet since 1993, 66 (12%) discontinued the diet after a median of 2.1 yr due to seizure freedom; 92% were also medication‐free. Thirteen (20%) had recurrence of their seizures at a median of 2.4 yr (range: 0–5.5 yr) after the diet was stopped. Seven (58%) became seizure‐free a second time, four with anticonvulsant therapy. Four patients (6%) continue to have daily seizures despite both medication and dietary therapies. The presence of recent EEG epileptiform activity, abnormal MRI, lower initial seizure frequency, and tuberous sclerosis complex all significantly increased the likelihood of recurrence.
Banks, Government Bonds, and Default: What Do the Data Say?

We analyze holdings of public bonds by over 20,000 banks in 191 countries, and the role of these bonds in 20 sovereign defaults over 1998-2012. Banks hold many public bonds (on average 9% of their assets), particularly in less financially-developed countries. During sovereign defaults, banks increase their exposure to public bonds, especially large banks and when expected bond returns are high. At the bank level, bondholdings correlate negatively with subsequent lending during sovereign defaults. This correlation is mostly due to bonds acquired in pre-default years. These findings shed light on alternative theories of the sovereign defaultbanking crisis nexus.
Atrial natriuretic peptide gene G664A polymorphism and the risk of ischemic cerebrovascular disease

The atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP) gene may underlie stroke susceptibility and sensitivity to cerebral ischemia in an animal model of stroke. The authors investigate its role in humans by genotyping a polymorphism (G664A) in 436 patients with ischemic cerebrovascular disease and 295 community control subjects. The frequency of this variant was similar in both groups and across the different stroke subtypes. The ANP gene G664A polymorphism is therefore unlikely to be an important risk factor for ischemic stroke in this population.
Are Oat Products Effective Cholesterol-Lowering Agents?

Oat products have become popular as a treatment for hypercholesterolemia. This article was designed to address the following question: Do existing data support the conclusion that oat products are effective cholesterol-lowering agents? A comprehensive search found 11 eligible reports. Each report was analyzed for baseline data, research methodology, and study results. A quality score was assigned to each report. Nine of the 11 eligible reports scored 4 points or less (maximum possible score was 10). Specific design concerns included lack of comparison control groups, failure to randomize and blind subjects to treatment assignment, failure to control for important confounding variables, such as impact of dietary changes known to affect serum cholesterol levels, and inadequate time allotment for cholesterol level stabilization. In most reports, a wide response to oat products was noted. Ninety-five percent confidence levels for cholesterol change ranged from –47.0 percent to +23.8 percent. Despite widespread approval, available reports do not provide evidence to support or reject the purported beneficial effect of oat products in the treatment of hypercholesterolemia.