Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Prevalence of spina bifida and anencephaly during the transition to mandatory folic acid fortification in the United States.

BACKGROUND In 1992, the United States Public Health Service recommended that all women of childbearing age consume 400 microg of folic acid daily. The Food and Drug Administration authorized the addition of synthetic folic acid to grain products in March 1996 with mandatory compliance by January 1998. The impact of these public health policies on the prevalence of neural tube defects needs to be evaluated. We sought to determine the prevalences of spina bifida and anencephaly during the transition to mandatory folic acid fortification. METHODS Twenty-four population-based surveillance systems were used to identify 5,630 cases of spina bifida and anencephaly from 1995-99. Cases were divided into three temporal categories depending on whether neural tube development occurred before folic acid fortification (January 1995 to December 1996), during optional fortification (January 1997 to September 1998), or during mandatory fortification (October 1998 to December 1999). Prevalences for each defect were calculated for each time period. Data were also stratified by programs that did and did not ascertain prenatally diagnosed cases. RESULTS The prevalence of spina bifida decreased 31% (prevalence ratio [PR] = 0.69, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.63-0.74) from the pre- to the mandatory fortification period and the prevalence of anencephaly decreased 16% (PR = 0.84, 95% CI = 0.75-0.95). Stratification by prenatal ascertainment did not alter results for spina bifida but did impact anencephaly trends. CONCLUSIONS The decline in the prevalence of spina bifida was temporally associated with folic acid fortification of US grain supplies. The temporal association between fortification and the prevalence of anencephaly is unclear.
Pollinator identity and spatial isolation influence multiple paternity in an annual plant

The occurrence and extent of multiple paternity is an important component of variation in plant mating dynamics. However, links between pollinator activity and multiple paternity are generally lacking, especially for plant species that attract functionally diverse floral visitors. In this study, we separated the influence of two functionally distinct floral visitors (hawkmoths and solitary bees) and characterized their impacts on multiple paternity in a self‐incompatible, annual forb, Oenothera harringtonii (Onagraceae). We also situated pollinator‐mediated effects in a spatial context by linking variation in multiple paternity to variation in plant spatial isolation. We documented pronounced differences in the number of paternal sires as function of pollinator identity: on average, the primary pollinator (hawkmoths) facilitated mating with nearly twice as many pollen donors relative to the secondary pollinator (solitary bees). This effect was consistent for both isolated and nonisolated individuals, but spatial isolation imposed pronounced reductions on multiple paternity regardless of pollinator identity. Considering that pollinator abundance and pollen dispersal distance did not vary significantly with pollinator identity, we attribute variation in realized mating dynamics primarily to differences in pollinator morphology and behaviour as opposed to pollinator abundance or mating incompatibility arising from underlying spatial genetic structure. Our findings demonstrate that functionally distinct pollinators can have strongly divergent effects on polyandry in plants and further suggest that both pollinator identity and spatial heterogeneity have important roles in plant mating dynamics.
How Regulations Became the Crux of Trade Politics

Whereas tariffs were once the main barrier to international trade, cross-national differences in regulation now constitute the most significant impediment to trade and are therefore the centrepiece issues in contemporary trade negotiations. That change has profound implications for the global economy and for international political economy scholarship. This article explains how that change occurred in order to explore how the incorporation of regulation affects trade and illuminate the politics that surround the negotiation over these regulatory trade barriers. As tariffs and other non-regulatory measures were reduced, the extent to which cross-national differences in regulation impeded trade became more apparent, especially to multinational firms which pushed for attenuations of these regulatory trade barriers. Once regulations became the subject of trade negotiations in the 1980s, civil society groups with a vested interested in those regulations became involved in trade politics to a greater degree than ever before. These developments have shaped the major trade negotiations underway today and are likely to remain at the centre of trade politics for the foreseeable future.
Validity of methods used to assess vitamin and mineral supplement use.

Assessing vitamin and mineral supplement use is important because supplement use per se is an exposure of interest for the risk of several chronic diseases and because supplements contribute a large proportion of total (diet plus supplement) micronutrient intake, another important exposure in epidemiologic research. Unfortunately, little is known about methods for obtaining valid information about supplement use. The authors conducted a validation study in 1996 comparing supplement data collected in a telephone interview and from a self-administered questionnaire with data derived from a detailed, in-person interview and transcription of the labels of supplement bottles (i.e., a gold standard) among adult supplement users in Washington State (n = 104). Spearman correlation coefficients comparing average daily supplemental vitamin and mineral intake from the interview or questionnaire with the gold standard ranged from 0.76 (95% confidence interval 0.66-0.83) for vitamin C to 0.08 (95% confidence interval -0.14 to 0.29) for iron, with a mean of about 0.5. The principal sources of error were inaccurate assumptions about the micronutrient composition of multiple vitamins and respondent confusion regarding the distinction between multiple vitamins and single supplements. These results suggest that commonly used epidemiologic methods of assessing supplement use may incorporate significant amounts of error in estimates of some nutrients.
Maximum-Likelihood Detection in Few-Mode Fiber Transmission With Mode-Dependent Loss

In this letter, the performance of maximum-likelihood (ML) detection is evaluated and compared with the zero-forcing (ZF) and minimum mean square error (MMSE) equalizers for a 3 × 158-Gb/s mode-division multiplexed dual-polarization quadrature phase shift keying orthogonal frequency division multiplexing transmission impaired by mode-dependent loss. The receiver schemes are compared in terms of performance and complexity. The simulations show that the ML approach outperforms both ZF and MMSE equalization for strongly coupled modes. However, the complexity of the ML detection is significantly higher and increases faster with the number of modes used for transmission and the modulation format order.
Reducing CO2 emissions from residential energy use

To achieve European Union (EU) greenhouse gas emissions of 80–95% below 1990 levels by 2050, CO2 emissions from residential energy consumption must be substantially reduced. Recognition of this has led to the introduction of a range of policy instruments at both EU and member state level. These policies are examined for the EU and the UK, first by grouping them into three ‘pillars of policy’ – standards and engagement, markets and pricing, and strategic investment (each of which focus on different ‘domains of change’ embodying different economic processes) – and then by assessing the strengths and weaknesses of each pillar in terms of instrument coverage and effectiveness. Strengths and weaknesses common to both UK and EU policy landscapes are found, including a comprehensive but broadly ineffective standards and engagement pillar of policy, and an ineffective markets and pricing landscape (including effective subsidization of energy consumption in the UK, permitted by the EU), with poor coverage. The strategic investment landscape is found (until recently) to be substantially stronger in the UK compared with EU instruments and requirements. Priority reform actions are also proposed to address the weaknesses identified. The paper also offers discussion of recent policy developments in the UK.
Construction of a stable shuttle vector for high-frequency transformation in Pseudomonas syringae pv. syringae

A cryptic 80.3-kilobase plasmid, pOSU900, in Pseudomonas syringae pv. syringae strain J900 could be cured by treatment with mitomycin without affecting the pathogenicity of J900 on the host, Phaseolus vulgaris L. The replication region of pOSU900 was identified, subcloned, and modified for construction of a high-copy cloning vector. This vector could be transformed into Pseudomonas strains with high efficiency (ca. 10(6) transformants per microgram of DNA) and was very stable during growth of the host bacteria in planta.
Trenbolone causes mortality and altered sexual differentiation in Xenopus tropicalis during larval development

Trenbolone is an androgen agonist used in cattle production and has been measured in aquatic systems associated with concentrated animal‐feeding operations. In this study, the authors characterized the effects of aqueous exposure to 17β‐trenbolone during larval Xenopus tropicalis development. Trenbolone exposure resulted in increased mortality of post‐Nieuwkoop–Faber stage 58 tadpoles at concentrations ≥100 ng/L. Morphological observations and the timing of this mortality are consistent with hypertrophy of the larynx. Development of nuptial pads, a male secondary sex characteristic, was induced in tadpoles of both sexes at 100 ng/L. Effects on time to complete metamorphosis or body sizes were not observed; however, grow‐outs placed in clean media for six weeks were significantly smaller in body size at 78 ng/L. Effects on sex ratios were equivocal, with the first experiment showing a significant shift in sex ratio toward males at 78 ng/L. In the second experiment, no significant effects were observed up to 100 ng/L, although overall sex ratios were similar. Histological assessment of gonads at metamorphosis showed half with normal male phenotypes and half that possessed a mixed‐sex phenotype at 100 ng/L. Hypertrophy of the Wolffian ducts was also observed at this concentration. These results indicate that larval 17β‐trenbolone exposure results in effects down to 78 ng/L, illustrating potential effects from exposure to androgenic compounds in anurans. Environ. Toxicol. Chem. 2012; 31: 2391–2398. © 2012 SETAC
Classifiers evaluation: Comparison of performance classifiers based on tuples amount

The aim of this study is to compare some classifiers' performance related to the tuples amount. The different metrics of performance has been considered, such as: Accuracy, Mean Absolute Error (MAE), and Kappa Statistic. In this research, the different numbers of tuples are considered as well. The readmission process dataset of Diabetic patients, which has been experimented, consists of 47 features and 49.736 tuples. The methodology of this research starts from preprocessing phase. After that, the clean dataset is divided into 5 subsets which represent every multiple of 10.000 tuples randomly. Each particular subset will be validated by three traditional classifiers i.e. Naive Bayes, K-Nearest Neighbor (k-NN), and Decision Tree. We also implement some setting parameters of each classifier except Naïve Bayes. Validation method used in this research is 10-Fold Cross-Validation. As the final conclusion, we compare the performance of classifiers based on the number of tuples. Our study indicates that the more the number of tuples, the lower and weaker the MAE and Accuracy performances whereas the kappa statistic performance tend to be fluctuated. Our study also found that Naïve Bayes outperforms k-NN and Decision Tree in overall. The top classifiers performances were reached in a 20.000-tuple evaluation.
Hysterectomy versus hysterectomy plus oophorectomy for premenopausal women.

Background Prophylactic oophorectomy alongside hysterectomy in premenopausal women is a common procedure. The decision to remove or conserve the ovaries is often based on the perceived risk for ovarian cancer and the need for additional gynaecological surgical interventions,and is weighed against the perceived risk of negative health effects caused by surgically induced menopause. The evidence needed to recommend either prophylactic bilateral oophorectomy or conservation of ovaries at the time of hysterectomy in premenopausal women is limited. This is an update of the original version of this systematic review published in 2008.Objectives To compare hysterectomy alone versus hysterectomy plus bilateral oophorectomy in women with benign gynaecological conditions,with respect to rates of mortality or subsequent gynaecological surgical interventions.Search methods We searched the Cochrane Menstrual Disorders and Subfertility Group Trials Register (December 2005 to January 2014) and the following electronic databases: CENTRAL (The Cochrane Library 2013, Issue 12), MEDLINE (January 1966 to January 2014),EMBASE (January 1985 to January 2014), and PsycINFO (1806 to January 2014). Selection criteria Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) of hysterectomy alone versus hysterectomy with bilateral oophorectomy in premenopausal women with benign gynaecological conditions were eligible. Any surgical approach could be used.Data collection and analysis Three review authors independently assessed trials for inclusion. Study authors were contacted if information was unclear.Main results Only one RCT comparing the benefits and risks of hysterectomy with or without oophorectomy was identified. The results of this pilot RCT have not been published and we have not been able to obtain the results. Therefore, no data could be included in this review. Authors' conclusions The conclusions of this review are limited by a lack of RCTs. Although no evidence is available from RCTs, there is growing evidence from observational studies that surgical menopause may impact negatively on cardiovascular health and all cause mortality.
SUMO-1/Ubc9 Promotes Nuclear Accumulation and Metabolic Stability of Tumor Suppressor Smad4*

Tumor suppressor Smad4/DPC4 is a central intracellular signal transducer for transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β) signaling. We recently reported that transcriptional potential of Smad4 was regulated by SUMOylation in transfected HeLa cells (1), but the precise mechanism and function of Smad4 SUMOylation in TGF-β signaling remain to be elucidated. Here, we describe the regulation of TGF-β signaling by SUMOylation through the control of Smad4 metabolic stability and subcellular localization. We found that SUMO-1 overexpression strongly increases Smad4 levels, while inhibition of SUMOylation by small interfering RNA (siRNA)-mediated knockdown of the E2 enzyme Ubc9 reduces endogenous Smad4 levels. Concomitantly, SUMO-1 overexpression enhances and Ubc9 knockdown reduces levels of intranuclear Smad4, growth inhibitory response, as well as transcriptional responses to TGF-β. Comparison of wild type and mutant forms of Smad4 for SUMOylation, ubiquitination, and half-life allows the conclusion that SUMO-1 modification serves to protect Smad4 from ubiquitin-dependent degradation and consequently enhances the growth inhibitory and transcriptional responses of Smad4.
EDI via the Internet

Only about 5 per cent of the companies that could be doing EDI are doing EDI. Can the Internet change the mathematics with its lower costs and easy accessibility? The Internet is attractive, not only because it is free and can handle EDI, but because it affords even small retail concerns a new marketplace for linking with suppliers. The Internet has its own vulnerabilities. Unreliable Internet performance could result in message loss – totally unacceptable to trading partners. The Internet is perceived as an unsafe medium for the valuable and sensitive information in business transactions. Mass adoption of Internet/EDI will come when Web browser technology is married to forms‐based EDI. While Internet/EDI may be dark and dangerous, several firms are now conducting pilots or implementing production systems.
The emerging ability to comprehend language: an experimental approach.

A new methodology was introduced to study the emergence of language comprehension. 30 infants 9--17 months of age received naturalistic training on the name of a salient object in experiment 1 (e.g., live rabbit) and on the name of a simple action inexperiment 2 (e.g; pressing to activate a toy). In both experiments, infants were subsequently probed for recognition of the previously unfamiliar trained name, and responses were videotaped and scored for gaze, gesture, and vocalization. Comprehension was estimated for each individual on the basis of the infant's distribution of target, baseline, and false positive responses to target and control probes. Developmental change in the ability to comprehend trained names was analyzed across 3 age groups: 9--11 months, 12--14 months, and 15--17 months. Cross-sectional and longitudinal results from experiments 1 and 2 all demonstrate dramatic improvement in receptive language capacity over the age range studied. Discrepancies between the comprehension and production of trained names are discussed.
Assesment effectiveness of treatment Eustachian tube dysfunction using pneumatic inhaler AMSA.

INTRODUCTION Upper respiratory tract infections are common childhood diseases. Children are more susceptible to middle ear infections because their Eustachian tube is short, straight and wide. As a consequence of these inflammatory changes while impaired patency of the Eustachian tube often arises conductive hearing. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to Assessment effectiveness of treatment Eustachian tube dysfunction using inhaler AMSA. MATERIAL AND METHODS The study group comprised 30 patients. Same was in the control group. All patients reported conductive hearing loss. Test group was treated as an inhaler AMSA. The control group was treated pharmacologically. Patients were examined with the use of pure-tone audiometry, and impedance at baseline, after one week and four weeks. RESULTS Statistical analysis showed improvement in the studied parameters in patients treated with inhaler AMSA in a much shorter time than patients treated with pharmacotherapy.
Motivations and attitudes to (not) take action for climate change adaptation in protected areas

Purpose Implementing climate change adaptation measures immediately is considered both to minimize considerably negative impacts on biodiversity as well as on outdoor recreation in protected area management. This study aims to give answers, why, however, climate change issues receive very limited implementation by practitioners in day-to-day-management. Design/methodology/approach Using a motivation model by Rheinberg (2006), a more differentiated understanding was gained why stakeholders took almost no action regarding climate change adaptation. A participatory spatial scenario method including a map exercise was used to motivate stakeholders to develop, discuss, exchange and negotiate strategies under different possible future developments and their implementation in protected area management. Findings According to the motivation model, taking action is dependent on a number of factors and will only happen when all correlations are positive. It can be shown that for adaptation to climate change, concerning almost all of the various factors, no stimuli existed or actors expected a positive outcome when taking action. More motivation was generated for halting the loss of biodiversity and visitor management. In the participatory spatial scenario planning work, stakeholders from different sectors and decision-makers found consensus to implement integrated strategies, considering adaptation to climate change, reduction of greenhouse gases, better protection of biodiversity and different future developments in outdoor recreation activities. Originality/value The paper demonstrates the importance of single motivation factors such as perceived competence, abilities to act and perceived positive outcomes including rewards for taking action. Using participatory spatial scenario planning methods can be powerful tools to stimulate joint action, though implementing organizations must be willing to make real use of the outcome of such work.
Anatomic correlates of painful tonic spasms in multiple sclerosis

Painful tonic spasms (PTS) are now regarded as a typical symptom of multiple sclerosis but pathologic or radiologic findings rarely have been described. We report clinical and magnetic resonance imaging records of five original cases. In all of them, lesions likely responsible for unilateral PTS involved the motor pathway at the level of the posterior limb of the internal capsule or the cerebral peduncle on the opposite side. Closeness of motor fibers seems to be the most important underlying anatomic factor because it enables involvement of a higher proportion of axons by a single demyelinating lesion and radial spread of ephaptic activation. In turn, preservation of the underlying pyramidal‐spinal tract could make it easier for the pathologic discharge to reach the peripheral effectors and generate PTS.
Heat tolerance of Salmonella typhimurium DT104 isolates attached to muscle tissue

Eight separate experiments were performed with three isolates of Salmonella typhimurium DT104 to examine the impact that attachment to pork muscle tissue has on heat tolerance. Infive experiments, attachment to muscle increased heat tolerance. For example, in one experimentthe D (58°C) value increased from approximately 2 min for free cells, to >10 min forattached cells. In three other experiments, differences between free and attached cells were not sopronounced, although attached cells were still more tolerant. This suggests that muscleattachment, which may occur naturally during the preparation of comminuted meat products,could permit greater survival during subsequent cooking and thus may be a possible explanationfor the involvement of cooked foods in outbreaks/cases of infection with Salm. typhimurium DT104.