Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Evidence of a U‐shaped association between factor XII activity and overall survival

Summary. Introduction: The clinical relevance of decreased coagulation factor XII (FXII) plasma activity as a risk factor for both venous and arterial thrombosis is still discussed controversially. The current study evaluated the predictive value of FXII levels for all‐cause mortality in a large Viennese patient cohort. Patients and methods: Individuals, whose FXII activity levels were determined for suspected coagulation disorders or thrombophilia screening between 1991–2003 were included in this study (n = 8936, 51% male, 49% female, median age 43 years). Death/survival was determined by record linkage with the Austrian Death Registry. The median observation period was 5 years covering a total of 46 400 person years; the death rate was 17.1%. For Cox regression analysis, FXII plasma activity was divided into 11 categories of 10% steps with the category of > 100% FXII serving as a reference category. Results: With decreasing FXII plasma activity, hazard ratios for all‐cause mortality gradually increased linearly from 1.0 in the > 100% category to 1.5 (95% CI: 1.2–1.9) in the 80–90% category to 4.7 (95% CI: 3.4–6.5) in the 10–20% category. Similar results were obtained, when only vascular mortality or death as a result of ischemic heart disease was considered. No significant increase in all‐cause mortality (HR: 1.4, 95%CI 0.7–2.8) was observed in the small group of FXII‐deficient subjects [0–10% category (n = 58)]. Conclusions: This study first demonstrates a strong and almost linear association of FXII plasma activity between 90% and 10% with all‐cause mortality in a large Viennese patient cohort. Interestingly, mortality rates are not increased when FXII activity is below 10%, resulting in a U‐shaped survival curve.
Mesenchymal Stem Cells in the Wharton's Jelly of the Human Umbilical Cord

The Wharton's jelly of the umbilical cord contains mucoid connective tissue and fibroblast‐like cells. Using flow cytometric analysis, we found that mesenchymal cells isolated from the umbilical cord express matrix receptors (CD44, CD105) and integrin markers (CD29, CD51) but not hematopoietic lineage markers (CD34, CD45). Interestingly, these cells also express significant amounts of mesenchymal stem cell markers (SH2, SH3). We therefore investigated the potential of these cells to differentiate into cardiomyocytes by treating them with 5‐azacytidine or by culturing them in cardiomyocyte‐conditioned medium and found that both sets of conditions resulted in the expression of cardiomyocyte markers, namely N‐cadherin and cardiac troponin I. We also showed that these cells have multilineage potential and that, under suitable culture conditions, are able to differentiate into cells of the adipogenic and osteogenic lineages. These findings may have a significant impact on studies of early human cardiac differentiation, functional genomics, pharmacological testing, cell therapy, and tissue engineering by helping to eliminate worrying ethical and technical issues.
Breast conservation therapy in the United States following the 1990 National Institutes of Health Consensus Development Conference on the treatment of patients with early stage invasive breast carcinoma

A National Institutes of Health (NIH) Consensus Development Conference on the treatment of patients with early stage invasive breast carcinoma, held in June 1990, recommended breast conservation therapy for the majority of women with Stage I or II breast carcinoma. The authors evaluated the national use of breast conservation therapy before and after the conference to determine whether the conference had had an impact on utilization.
How does the sensitivity of multileaving methods compare to that of interleaving methods ?

Evaluation methods for information retrieval systems come in three types: offline evaluation, using static data sets annotated for relevance by human judges; user studies, usually conducted in a labbased setting; and online evaluation, using implicit signals such as clicks from actual users. For the latter, preferences between rankers are typically inferred from implicit signals via interleaved comparison methods, which combine a pair of rankings and display the result to the user. We propose a new approach to online evaluation called multileaved comparisons that is useful in the prevalent case where designers are interested in the relative performance of more than two rankers. Rather than combining only a pair of rankings, multileaved comparisons combine an arbitrary number of rankings. The resulting user clicks then give feedback about how all these rankings compare to each other. We propose two specific multileaved comparison methods. The first, called team draft multileave, is an extension of team draft interleave. The second, called optimized multileave, is an extension of optimized interleave and is designed to handle cases where a large number of rankers must be multileaved. We present experimental results that demonstrate that both team draft multileave and optimized multileave can accurately determine all pairwise preferences among a set of rankers using far less data than the interleaving methods that they extend.
Regulation of Intracellular Heme Levels by HMX1, a Homologue of Heme Oxygenase, in Saccharomyces cerevisiae*

Saccharomyces cerevisiae responds to iron deprivation by increasing the transcription of genes involved in the uptake of environmental iron and in the mobilization of vacuolar iron stores. HMX1 is also transcribed under conditions of iron deprivation and is under the control of the major iron-dependent transcription factor, Aft1p. Although Hmx1p exhibits limited homology to heme oxygenases, it has not been shown to be enzymatically active. We find that Hmx1p is a resident protein of the endoplasmic reticulum and that isolated yeast membranes contain a heme degradation activity that is dependent on HMX1. Hmx1p facilitates the capacity of cells to use heme as a nutritional iron source. Deletion of HMX1 leads to defects in iron accumulation and to expansion of intracellular heme pools. These alterations in the regulatory pools of iron lead to activation of Aft1p and inappropriate activation of heme-dependent transcription factors. Expression of HmuO, the heme oxygenase from Corynebacterium diphtheriae, restores iron and heme levels, as well as Aft1p- and heme-dependent transcriptional activities, to those of wild type cells, indicating that the heme degradation activity associated with Hmx1p is important in mediating iron and heme homeostasis. Hmx1p promotes both the reutilization of heme iron and the regulation of heme-dependent transcription during periods of iron scarcity.
The day precipitate of Pharaoh's dreams.

Analyse du phenomene du reve «premonitoire» comme etant une formation de l'inconscient precedant et annoncant certaines formes de passage a l'acte: le reve ici est la mise en forme inconsciente d'un programme de «choses a faire» pour le lendemain; bref: condensation dans l'inconscient d'un projet, d'une perpetration qui «precipitera» le lendemain, telle une «solution» chimique
Age of first exposure to football and later-life cognitive impairment in former NFL players

Editors’ Note: The study “Age of first exposure to football and later-life cognitive impairment in former NFL players” raised several concerns among Neurology® readers. Maroon et al. pointed out methodologic limitations, Andrikopoulos raised questions about inaccuracies in definitions and references cited, and Larrabee et al. suggested that premorbid impairments may have been misinterpreted as brain injury effects. The authors of the study answer those inquiries in detail, acknowledging some of the limitations while rebutting others. They also point out that this is a preliminary study and encourage future research on this important issue. —Chafic Karam, MD, and Robert C. Griggs, MD
T‐cell receptor repertoire in IgA nephropathy renal biopsies

SUMMARY: Renal biopsies from patients with IgA nephropathy (IgAN) were studied to determine whether the presence of αβ and γδ T cells is correlated with disease progression in IgAN. The αβ and γδ T‐cell receptor (TCR) repertoire was further analysed in these renal biopsies. Immunohistochemical staining using mAb (TCRβ and TCRδ) and molecular studies using reverse transcription–polymerase chain reaction (RT‐PCR) with primers specific for TCR families were undertaken. CDR3 length spectratyping and sequencing of TCR chains were used to analyse the diversity of the CDR3 region of these receptors. It was demonstrated that the presence of γδ T cells is associated with progressive IgAN while αβ T cells are found in both stable and progressive disease. Analysis of the TCR variable (V)β repertoire showed the preferential use of Vβ8 with marked similarities in the CDR3 region by some renal infiltrating T cells in the kidney of some IgAN patients, although T cells infiltrating the renal interstitium of patients with IgAN express heterogeneous T cell receptors. The data from analysis of γδ T‐cell repertoire showed that γδ T cells infiltrating the kidneys of IgAN patients use a restricted subset of γδ T cells with a feature of recurrent junctional amino acid motifs in Vδ1 T cells. The results suggest that both αβ and γδ T cells are involved in the progression of IgAN to renal failure and also that there is clonal expansion of individual αβ or γδ T cells in the kidneys of some IgAN patients. The conserved amino acid in the TCR CDR3 region of Vβ8 and the feature of recurrent junctional amino acid motifs in Vδ1 T cells may indicate antigen‐driven selection.
Ischemic Penumbra: Evidence From Functional Imaging in Man

The ischemic penumbra is defined as tissue with flow within the thresholds for maintenance of function and of morphologic integrity. Penumbra tissue has the potential for recovery and therefore is the target for interventional therapy in acute ischemic stroke. The identification of the penumbra necessitates measuring flow reduced less than the functional threshold and differentiating between morphologic integrity and damage. This can be achieved by multitracer positron emission tomography (PET) and perfusion-weighted (PW) and diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (DW-MRI) in experimental models, in which the recovery of critically perfused tissue or its conversion to infarction was documented in repeat studies. Neuroimaging modalities applied in patients with acute ischemic stroke—multitracer PET, PW-and DW-MRI, single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), perfusion, and Xe-enhanced computed tomography (CT)—often cannot reliably identify penumbra tissue: multitracer studies for the assessment of flow and irreversible metabolic damage usually cannot be performed in the clinical setting; CT and MRI do not reliably detect irreversible damage in the first hours after stroke, and even DW-MRI may be misleading in some cases; determinations of perfusion alone yield a poor estimate of the state of the tissue as long as the time course of changes is not known in individual cases. Therefore, the range of flow values in ischemic tissue found later, either within or outside the infarct, was rather broad. New tracers—for example, receptor ligands or hypoxia markers—might improve the identification of penumbra tissue in the future. Despite these methodologic limitations, the validity of the concept of the penumbra was proven in several therapeutic studies in which thrombolytic treatment reversed critical ischemia and decreased the volume of final infarcts. Such neuroimaging findings might serve as surrogate targets in the selection of other therapeutic strategies for large clinical trials.
Crystal structure of a dynamin GTPase domain in both nucleotide‐free and GDP‐bound forms

Dynamins form a family of multidomain GTPases involved in endocytosis, vesicle trafficking and maintenance of mitochondrial morphology. In contrast to the classical switch GTPases, a force‐generating function has been suggested for dynamins. Here we report the 2.3 Å crystal structure of the nucleotide‐free and GDP‐bound GTPase domain of Dictyostelium discoideum dynamin A. The GTPase domain is the most highly conserved region among dynamins. The globular structure contains the G‐protein core fold, which is extended from a six‐stranded β‐sheet to an eight‐stranded one by a 55 amino acid insertion. This topologically unique insertion distinguishes dynamins from other subfamilies of GTP‐binding proteins. An additional N‐terminal helix interacts with the C‐terminal helix of the GTPase domain, forming a hydrophobic groove, which could be occupied by C‐terminal parts of dynamin not present in our construct. The lack of major conformational changes between the nucleotide‐free and the GDP‐bound state suggests that mechanochemical rearrangements in dynamin occur during GTP binding, GTP hydrolysis or phosphate release and are not linked to loss of GDP.
Legislative Productivity and Divided Government in the US and France

Comparing rates of legislative productivity in periods of unified and divided control of the executive and legislative branches in the US and France, we show first that the concept of ―divided government‖ is more complicated than scholars have allowed. In the US, truly unified government, where the president enjoys a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate as well as a majority in the House, is rare. Therefore the normal state of affairs it at least some degree of shared governance. In France, truly unified government has been more common (but only for parties of the right, as the Senate has never had a left majority in the 5th Republic), but divided government has also been common. Strongly unified government in the US appears to be statistically related with slightly greater legislative productivity. However the effect is modest and other levels of divided control have no statistical impact. Similarly in France, there is almost no impact on the number of laws, important laws, or laws in the field of domestic or foreign affairs. Of course, divided government may shape the content of laws as competing actors must compromise. But as regards productivity, there is little effect. Democratic governance requires that parties address important issues and they do so regardless of partisan majorities.
Indoor localization system using passive UHF RFID tag and multi-antennas

This paper presents a study on the indoor localization system using the passive UHF RFID technology. Positions of multi-antennas are designed according to the Triangular model to narrow the location area of object tags. Major parts as Path Loss models, calibration method, localization algorithm and proposed methodology will be discussed in detail. The orientation between antennas and calibrated Path Loss models are used in improving the localization quality. Besides, the accuracy is increased by combining indoor Path Loss models with Triangular technique.
The Healing Forest Metaphor Revisited: The Seen and “Unseen World” of Drug Use

There is one world we live in. Its geographical and spatial boundaries tell us this. We see it on maps, we see it on television, and we see it when we walk out of the door. Children, adults, and people of all races and creeds live in this one world. The world we live in is viewed differently by these many individuals. Some see it as hostile, some see it as peaceful, and some go about their daily business and do not see it at all. This is the seen world. The one we can see with our eyes. The seen world is not the only one that exists, however, because there is also another world behind our eyes. When we close our eyes, it is in there. We have an imagination to tell us what it could be like, we have thoughts to tell us what we want it to be like, and we have dreams to tell us what we want it to be. Where is this unseen world? We carry it around with us every nanosecond of every day that we are alive. While we live in the seen world, the unseen world is alive in us. What could the unseen world be like for substance users? This is the topic of the current article.
A biphasic pattern of 45Ca2+ uptake by mouse spermatozoa in vitro correlates with changing functional potential.

Mouse sperm capacitation in vitro, leading to hyperactivated motility, acrosomal exocytosis and rapid fertilization, takes approximately 120 min in a medium containing sufficient Ca2+. During that period, spermatozoa incubated in 45Ca2+ exhibited a biphasic pattern of Ca2+ uptake, with the first and lower peak occurring from 10 to 50 min and the second and higher peak from 60 to 90 min. When the exogenously supplied glucose was reduced from 5.56 mmol l-1 to 5.56 mumol l-1, the latter supporting capacitation but not fertilization, only the first peak of 45Ca2+ uptake was observed. Increasing the glucose to a millimolar concentration produced a second peak of uptake. We therefore propose that the first phase of 45Ca2+ uptake is associated with capacitation and the second phase with acrosomal exocytosis, which are both necessary prerequisites for fertilization. In micromolar glucose the rate of 45Ca2+ uptake during the first 30 min was 47% higher than in millimolar glucose, suggesting that the former conditions might promote a precocious rise in the intracellular Ca2+ concentration ([Ca2+]i) and hence accelerate capacitation. This hypothesis was confirmed by demonstrating both significantly accelerated transition from the uncapacitated F pattern of chlortetracycline (CTC) fluorescence to the capacitated B and AR patterns and significantly higher fertility in vitro in suspensions preincubated for 30 min in micromolar glucose, compared with those maintained continuously in millimolar glucose. These results suggest that an ATP-dependent mechanism, for example a Ca(2+)-ATPase, may be involved in maintaining a low [Ca2+]i. In micromolar glucose, available ATP would be limited and hence the ATPase activity would decline, allowing [Ca2+]i to rise. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Respiratory Pathogens in Respiratory Tract Illnesses During the First Year of Life: A Birth Cohort Study

Background: Respiratory virus infections are the most important trigger of respiratory illnesses in childhood. Data on the occurrence and the clinical impact of respiratory pathogens in the general population of infants are scarce. Therefore, we described the occurrence and clinical impact of respiratory pathogens in infants with respiratory tract infections during the first year of life. Methods: In a prospective birth cohort study, infants were followed from birth through the first year of life with daily questionnaires about respiratory symptoms. Nose and throat swabs were collected during episodes with respiratory symptoms. Polymerase chain reaction was used to detect an extensive panel of respiratory pathogens. Results: The parents reported a median of 5 respiratory episodes per infant per year. A total of 668 respiratory samples were collected in 305 infants. One or more respiratory pathogens were detected in 85% of the samples. The most common respiratory pathogens were human rhinovirus (HRV) (73% of the samples), respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) (11%), and coronavirus (8%). HRV infections were associated with a prolonged period of symptoms compared with RSV (P = 0.03). Infections with RSV were associated with more physician visits than HRV infections (P = 0.06). Conclusion: We found a high prevalence of respiratory pathogens among infants with parent-reported respiratory illnesses in the first year of life, with HRV being the most prevalent. Although RSV infections seemed to be responsible for the most severe symptoms compared with HRV, the overall burden of disease was highest for HRV infections.
Multidimensional nonlinear systems and structure theorems

Nonlinear maps that are shift invariant and have approximately finite memory in a certain very reasonable sense are considered. These maps, which are assumed to satisfy a mild continuity condition, take a subset S of R into R, where R is the set of real-valued maps defined on Z/sup n/ (as usual, Z is the set of integers and n is an arbitrary positive integer). Results show that all such maps can be approximated arbitrarily well, in the sense of uniform approximation, by the maps of certain special nonlinear structures. This is of interest in connection with nonlinear filtering, system identification, and the general theory of nonlinear systems. <<ETX>>
Interferometer-based Phase-contrast X-ray Computed Tomography of Colon Cancer Specimens: Comparative Study With 4.74-T Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Optical Microscopy

Objective: Phase-contrast X-ray computed tomography (PCCT) with an interferometer can reveal the inner soft tissue structures of biological objects without contrast agent, and the image quality is thought to resemble that of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Comparative study among PCCT, MRI, and optical microscopy was undertaken. Methods: Three formalin-fixed colon cancer specimens from nude mice were imaged both by PCCT with a reconstructed volumetric resolution of (0.018)3 mm3 and 4.74-T MRI with that of (0.075)3 mm3. Results: Phase-contrast X-ray computed tomography with an interferometer clearly demonstrated the inner structures of colon cancer masses, such as cancer, necrosis, surrounding tumor vessels, and skin, in a similar way to low-magnified optical microscopic images and had approximately 4.0-fold higher signal-to-noise ratio than MRI. Conclusions: With formalin-fixed biological samples, PCCT exhibited higher image quality than MRI and was thought to be suitable for detailed imaging of soft tissue with high volumetric resolution.
Reversible Steganography for BTC-compressed Images

Reversible steganography becomes a popular hiding problem in recent years. A reversible steganographicmethod can reconstruct an original image without loss from the stego-image after extracting the embedded data. Unlike traditional reversible methods in which data is hidden in uncompressed images, we propose a reversible scheme for BTC (block truncation coding)-compressed images. The secret data embedded in the compressed image are more difficult to detect than in the uncompressed image. To achieve reversibility, the properties of side matching and BTC-compressed code are applied. The experimental results show that the proposed method is feasible for BTC-compressed images and can embed one more bit in each BTC-encoded block.
Cigarette smoking and hearing loss: the epidemiology of hearing loss study.

CONTEXT Clinical studies have suggested that cigarette smoking may be associated with hearing loss, a common condition affecting older adults. OBJECTIVE To evaluate the association between smoking and hearing loss. DESIGN Population-based, cross-sectional study. SETTING Community of Beaver Dam, Wis. PARTICIPANTS Adults aged 48 to 92 years. Of 4541 eligible subjects, 3753 (83%) participated in the hearing study. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES The examination included otoscopy, screening tympanometry, and pure-tone air-conduction and bone-conduction audiometry. Smoking history was ascertained by self-report. Hearing loss was defined as a pure-tone average (0.5, 1, 2, and 4 kHz) greater than 25-dB hearing level in the worse ear. RESULTS After adjusting for other factors, current smokers were 1.69 times as likely to have a hearing loss as nonsmokers (95% confidence interval, 1.31-2.17). This relationship remained for those without a history of occupational noise exposure and in analyses excluding those with non-age-related hearing loss. There was weak evidence of a dose-response effect. Nonsmoking participants who lived with a smoker were more likely to have a hearing loss than those who were not exposed to a household member who smoked (odds ratio, 1.94; 95% confidence interval, 1.01-3.74). CONCLUSIONS These data suggest that environmental exposures may play a role in age-related hearing loss. If longitudinal studies confirm these findings, modification of smoking habits may prevent or delay age-related declines in hearing sensitivity.