Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Age and the treatment of lung cancer.

BACKGROUND: The average age of patients with lung cancer is increasing and there are large numbers of elderly symptomatic patients with this common disease. However, there are few data on how the treatment of this group differs from that of younger patients. METHODS: From 1 January 1990 information was collected for the Southend Lung Cancer Registry on all patients with a diagnosis of lung cancer in a geographically well defined health district of the UK with a population of 325,000. Every effort was made to find new cases from all departments of the hospital, including all clinical diagnoses, histopathological and cytological reports, and necropsies. All death certificates in the district were examined, irrespective of age, for any diagnosis of lung cancer. This therefore included any patient not seen by the hospital services. The differences in initial treatment have been analysed for three age groups: under 65, 65-74 years, and over 75. RESULTS: The 563 cases of lung cancer diagnosed during a 30 month period were included in the study, of whom 240 (43%) were aged over 75 years. The overall mean age was 71 years (range 31-95). The incidence of lung cancer in the general population was 69 per 100,000, but in men over 75 years of age it rose to 751 per 100,000. For all patients the active treatment rate (chemotherapy, surgery, or radiotherapy) was 49%, but for patients not reviewed by a chest physician (n = 86) it was only 21%. There were large differences in initial treatment between age groups. For patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) reviewed by a chest physician, surgery was undertaken in 18% of those under 65, 12% of the 65-74 age group, and 2.1% of those over 75. For patients with small cell lung cancer (SCLC) reviewed by a chest physician, 79% of those aged under 65, 64% of the 65-74 age group, and 41% of patients aged over 75 received chemotherapy. In patients with NSCLC reviewed by a chest physician, chemotherapy was given to 21% under 65, 6.4% in the 65-74 age group, and none over 75. If no histological diagnosis was made 37% of patients aged under 75 and only 5.4% of those over 75 received either surgery, radiotherapy, or chemotherapy. Patients not reviewed by a chest physician were less likely to have had a histological diagnosis. Differences in treatment rates with age persisted even after allowing for performance score status at presentation. CONCLUSIONS: Lung cancer is a common disease in the elderly and, in our district, 43% of patients were aged 75 or over at presentation. Age alone appeared to be a major factor in influencing treatment choices, and treatment was more likely if histological confirmation was obtained. Further detailed analysis of the reasons for the differences is needed. Patients referred to chest physicians were more likely to have both histological confirmation and active treatment. This study supports the contention that all patients with a diagnosis of lung cancer, irrespective of age or condition, should be assessed by an accredited chest physician.
Genetic Polymorphisms of the E-Cadherin Promoter and Risk of Sporadic Gastric Carcinoma in Chinese Populations

Frequent mutations and loss of expression of E-cadherin have been reported in a number of cancers. E-cadherin germ line mutations lead to a high risk of familial diffused gastric carcinoma. In the present study, to evaluate the effect of genetic polymorphisms in the E-cadherin promoter on the risk of sporadic gastric carcinoma (SGC), a comprehensive study was conducted in two populations with high and low risk of SGC in China, respectively. Five hundred seventy-two SGC cases and 625 controls from low-risk area and 589 individuals enrolled in a long-term follow-up survey in high-risk area were studied. Polymorphisms of E-cadherin around transcription start site (−437 to +314) were analyzed by sequencing. Five variations of −347del>A, −160C>A, −73A>C, +178T>C, and +234 13N ins>del were linked tightly. The −347del/del and its strongly linked +178T/T, +234 13N ins/ins genotypes increased male SGC risk in the high-risk area significantly [odds ratio (OR), 2.22; 95% confidence intervals (95% CI), 1.10-4.46] and correlated with the severity of gastric lesions. A synergetic effect was also observed between −347del/del genotype and Helicobacter pylori infection (OR, 4.93; 95% CI, 1.65-14.71). Compared with −347del-containing haplotypes, the −347A-containing haplotype [A(−347)-C(−160)-A(−73)-C(+178)-13N del(+234)] decreased the risk of SGC among male subjects (OR, 0.61; 95% CI, 0.37-1.01). Such correlation could not be observed among subjects from the low-risk area. The present data suggest that the −347del allele of E-cadherin strongly links with the +178T and +234 13N ins alleles. The −347del/del genotype may increase the susceptibility of SGC among males in the high-risk area of China. (Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2008;17(9):2402–8)
Prolonged Impact of Antibiotics on Intestinal Microbial Ecology and Susceptibility to Enteric Salmonella Infection

ABSTRACT The impact of antibiotics on the host's protective microbiota and the resulting increased susceptibility to mucosal infection are poorly understood. In this study, antibiotic regimens commonly applied to murine enteritis models are used to examine the impact of antibiotics on the intestinal microbiota, the time course of recovery of the biota, and the resulting susceptibility to enteric Salmonella infection. Molecular analysis of the microbiota showed that antibiotic treatment has an impact on the colonization of the murine gut that is site and antibiotic dependent. While combinations of antibiotics were able to eliminate culturable bacteria, none of the antibiotic treatments were effective at sterilizing the intestinal tract. Recovery of total bacterial numbers occurs within 1 week after antibiotic withdrawal, but alterations in specific bacterial groups persist for several weeks. Increased Salmonella translocation associated with antibiotic pretreatment corrects rapidly in association with the recovery of the most dominant bacterial group, which parallels the recovery of total bacterial numbers. However, susceptibility to intestinal colonization and mucosal inflammation persists when mice are infected several weeks after withdrawal of antibiotics, correlating with subtle alterations in the intestinal microbiome involving alterations of specific bacterial groups. These results show that the colonizing microbiotas are integral to mucosal host protection, that specific features of the microbiome impact different aspects of enteric Salmonella pathogenesis, and that antibiotics can have prolonged deleterious effects on intestinal colonization resistance.
Coloured Speech Perception: Is Synaesthesia what Happens when Modularity Breaks Down?

Evidence was reported earlier from a single case that chromatic–lexical (CL) synaesthesia was a genuine phenomenon. A study is presented in which nine subjects were tested who also reported having coloured hearing. The following questions were addressed: (a) were these cases also genuine (ie consistent over time), (b) were they truly lexical, or rather variants of this condition, such as chromatic–graphemic (CG) or chromatic–phonemic (CP) synaesthesia, (c) did the experimental subjects show any commonalities between them, and (d) were they able to give information on a standard questionnaire about the phenomenology and ontogenesis of the condition? Subjects were asked to describe the colour sensation experienced on hearing items from a list of 130 words, phrases, and letters. The experimental group were not informed of any retest, but were retested more than one year later. A control group (n = 9), matched for IQ, memory, age, and gender, were read the same list and asked to associate a colour with each list item. They were informed at the time of testing that they would be retested on a sample of items from the list a week later. 92.3% of the responses of the experimental group when retested one year later were identical to those given in the original test, compared with only 37.6% of the control subjects' responses (retested one week later). This confirmed the genuineness of these nine cases. All nine experimental subjects showed CG synaesthesia, none showing either CL or CP synaesthesia. Among the experimental group, some consistency was found in the colours evoked by hearing specific letters, suggesting the condition has a neurological basis. There was also evidence of a genetic sex-linked familial pattern underlying the condition. The importance of these distinct forms of synaesthesia for our understanding of the modularity of speech perception and colour vision is discussed.
The image enhancement of forward vehicle video based on catenary semantics

In view of the complexity of existing image enhancement methods, which can not highlight the detection target, this paper proposes a forward vehicle image enhancement method based on the semantics. This method includes two parts: semantic-based catenary contour extraction and visual enhancement. To extract the catenary semantics contour, the classification model of the catenary and the background patches is trained by the catenary edge detection network. The classification model of the railway image is extracted and classified by the trained classification model, and the confidence level graph of the catenary is obtained by template matching. To achieve visual enhancement of catenary semantics, according to the AlphaBend hybrid method, the catenary confidence level graph is merged with the original image to realize the visual enhancement of the catenary semantics. In this paper, the contour extraction and visual enhancement of the catenary in the railway image are realized, and the gray histogram distribution is more evenly distributed. The number of pixels in each gray level is more average. The average difference and the standard deviation difference between the enhanced catenary area and the background area is greater, and the peak noise ratio and the structural similarity are improved. Comparing with other methods shows that the method in this paper is effective. What's more, it can be more intuitive for the railway staff to show the abnormal situation of the catenary and has very strong practical significance.
Transport mechanisms for iron and other transition metals in rat and rabbit erythroid cells

1 Earlier studies have shown that Fe2+ transport into erythroid cells is inhibited by several transition metals (Mn2+, Zn2+, Co2+, Ni2+) and that Fe2+ transport can occur by two saturable mechanisms, one of high affinity and the other of low affinity. Also, the transport of Zn2+ and Cd2+ into erythroid cells is stimulated by NaHCO3 and NaSCN. The aim of the present investigation was to determine whether all of these transition metals can be transported by the processes described for Fe2+, Zn2+ and Cd2+ and to determine the properties of the transport processes. 2 Rabbit reticulocytes and mature erythrocytes and reticulocytes from homozygous and heterozygous Belgrade rats were incubated with radiolabelled samples of the metals under conditions known to be optimal for high‐ and low‐affinity Fe2+ transport and for the processes mediated by NaHCO3 and NaSCN. 3 All of the metals were transported by the high‐ and low‐affinity Fe2+ transport processes and could compete with each other for transport. The Km and Vmax values and the effects of incubation temperature and metabolic inhibitors were similar for all the metals. NaHCO3 and NaSCN increased the uptake of Zn2+ and Cd2+ but not the other metals. 4 The uptake of all of the metals by the high‐affinity process was much lower in reticulocytes from homozygous Belgrade rats than in those from heterozygous animals, but there was no difference with respect to low‐affinity transport. 5 It is concluded that the high‐ and low‐affinity ‘iron’ transport mechanisms can also transport several other transition metals and should therefore be considered as general transition metal carriers.
Conditional Benchmarks and Predictors of Mutual Fund Performance

Recent studies link mutual fund performance to measures of active management, and this evidence often takes the form of large spreads in unconditional alphas for characteristic-sorted portfolios. Unconditional benchmarks can, however, produce misleading inferences on managerial skill for strategies that exhibit substantial turnover and unstable factor exposures. We propose an approach to performance attribution that accounts for predictable changes in portfolio style. Compared to existing methods, our benchmarks yield superior tracking performance and a more powerful statistical assessment of abnormal returns. We reevaluate six proxies for active management using our method and conclude that these measures are largely unrelated to managerial ability.
[Vitamin B12 and transcobalamin in chronic myeloproliferative disorders].

Although vitamin B12 is an essential coenzyme for DNA synthesis, humans, like other mammals, are incapable of synthesizing it. The role of intrinsic factor (IF) in B12 absorption is widely known, but, in fact there exists a much more intricate and complex mechanism for the effective assimilation of this important trace element in humans. B12 binding proteins play important roles in all stages of vitamin B12 metabolism. They are involved not only in its absorption, but also in its transport in serum, uptake to cells, storage in organs, enterohepatic circulation, and elimination of its analogues. Besides IF, well-known as a vitamin B12 binding protein found in gastric juice, there are other kinds of binding proteins found in human serum which are composed to transcobalamin (TC) I, II and III. Elevation of the vitamin B12 level in chronic myelogenous leukemia was first reported in the 1950s. Since then, B12 elevation has been found to occur in other kinds of chronic myeloproliferative disorders (CMPDs) as well and to be caused by an increase of serum TC. In CMPDs, either TCI or TCIII increases, but, the degree of elevation and the type of TC involved differs for each disorder. This article describes the changes in TC of CMPD patients. With the induction of the developed radioimmunoassay for R-type B12 binding protein, many cases have been examined. In addition, detailed qualitative analysis using DEAE cellulose column chromatography has been included for conditions not previously reported. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Incidence of Systemic Lupus Erythematosus and Lupus Nephritis in Denmark: A Nationwide Cohort Study

Objective. To determine the incidence of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and SLE with concomitant or subsequent lupus nephritis (LN) in Denmark during 1995–2011, using data from the Danish National Patient Registry (NPR). Methods. To assess the incidence of SLE, we identified all persons aged ≥ 18 years in the NPR with at least 1 International Classification of Diseases, 10th ed (ICD-10) code of SLE and at least 365 days of followup under this diagnosis. Identification of LN cases was based on fulfillment of these criteria and ≥ 1 registration under an ICD-10 code of nephritis concomitantly with or after first SLE registration. Results. The overall annual incidence rate per 100,000 for SLE was 2.35 (95% CI 2.24–2.49); 0.69 (95% CI 0.60–0.78) for men and 3.96 (95% CI 3.75–4.17) for women. For LN, the mean annual incidence rate per 100,000 was estimated to be 0.45 (95% CI 0.38–0.53); 0.20 (95% CI 0.13–0.28) for men and 0.69 (95% CI 0.57–0.83) for women. The differences in SLE incidence rates between sexes decreased by age, and the incidence did not differ between men and women after the age of 60 years for LN. The estimated incidences showed no trends by calendar time. Estimated overall point prevalence (December 31, 2011) per 100,000 was 45.2 (95% CI 43.3–47.4) and 6.4 (95% CI 5.7–7.2) for SLE and LN, respectively. Conclusion. Our Danish population-based data showed a stable incidence of SLE and LN. As expected, we found higher incidence rates among women than among men, particularly in younger persons.
Synthèse des Pêcheries de Guadeloupe 2010

Le present document est une restitution globale des donnees disponibles au sein du SIH sur les navires de peche francais, et en particulier : • le fichier « Flotte de Peche Communautaire » (FPC), qui reference l'ensemble des navires de peche professionnelle de la flotte francaise et leurs caracteristiques techniques (source : DPMA) ; • les donnees du flux declaratif, c'est-a-dire les declarations de captures et d'effort de peche des pecheurs professionnels, issues des journaux de bord pour les navires de 10 metres et plus et des fiches de peche pour les navires de moins de 10 metres (source : DPMA) ; • les donnees de ventes (essentiellement des ventes en criee) des navires de peche professionnelle (source : DPMA) ; • les donnees d'enquetes « Activite » realisees chaque annee par le reseau des observateurs du SIH pour l'ensemble des navires inscrits au fichier Flotte de Peche Communautaire : ces enquetes visent a reconstituer le calendrier d'activite des navires, sur une base mensuelle, a partir du flux declaratif (journaux de bord, fiches de peche et donnees de vente en criee) quand il existe, et au moyen d'enquetes directes aupres des armateurs de ces navires et de leurs representants professionnels. Chaque mois, le calendrier d'activite precise si le navire a ete actif a la peche, et si oui, les differents metiers pratiques. Par «metier», on entend la mise en oeuvre dun engin de peche afin de capturer une ou plusieurs especes cibles dans une zone de peche donnee (source : Ifremer - DPMA) ; • Les donnees d'observation des marees au debarquement permettent sur la base d'un plan d'echantillonnage de connaitre les metiers pratiques et reconstituer le deroulement de la maree (metiers, effort de peche, captures et couts associes) et de mesurer tout ou partie des captures de certaines especes commerciales. Les donnees collectees ont beneficie d'un cofinancement de l'Union Europeenne et de la DPMA et de la region Guadeloupe.
Cellular responses of oysters infected with Haplosporidium nelsoni: changes in circulating and tissue-infiltrating hemocytes.

The protozoan parasite Haplosporidium nelsoni (MSX) elicits an inflammatory-type response in oysters, Crassostrea virginica. We assayed circulating hemocytes of oysters exposed to H. nelsoni to quantify the effects of parasitism, selection for resistance, and season on total and differential counts. All factors had a significant (P < 0.02) effect on total counts, but explained relatively little of the overall variance [season (12%) > selection (4%) > infection (2%)]. Circulating hemocyte densities increased with infection intensity in resistant animals, but were depressed in susceptible oysters with light infections. Counts in both groups were lowest in August and highest in May, at which times densities in susceptible oysters were reduced (P < 0.02) compared to those in resistant animals. No differences existed in November. Susceptible oysters may be more debilitated by infections than resistant animals, resulting in impaired circulation and depressed cell counts. The number of tissue-infiltrating hemocytes increased with infection intensity (P < 0.0001), but showed no statistically significant (P > 0.05) association with numbers of circulating hemocytes in individual oysters. Size-frequency analysis with a Coulter counter indicated that the proportion of large cells (presumed to be granular hemocytes) was lower (P < 0.0001) in susceptible oysters, which were also heavily infected, compared to resistant oysters, which had very few infections. The loss of granular hemocytes may stem from degranulation associated with tissue damage and inflammation. Present evidence suggests that the principal role of the hemocyte response in MSX disease is to plug lesions, remove debris, and repair tissues and that these functions may help oysters survive infection. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Relationship of maximum strength to weightlifting performance.

PURPOSE The primary objective was to assess the relationship of maximum strength to weightlifting ability using established scaling methods. The secondary objective was to compare men and women weightlifters on strength and weightlifting ability. METHODS Two correlational observations were carried out using Pearson's r. In the first observation (N = 65) the relationship of dynamic maximum strength (one-repetition maximum (1RM) squat) was compared with weightlifting ability; in the second observation (N = 16), isometric maximum strength (midthigh pull) was studied. Scaling methods for equating maximum strength and weightlifting results were used (load x (Ht), load x kg, load x lbm(-1), allometric, and Sinclair formula) to assess the association between measures of maximum strength and weightlifting performance. RESULTS Using scaled values; correlations between maximum strength and weightlifting results were generally strong in both observations (e.g., using allometric scaling for the 1RM squat vs the 1RM snatch: r = 0.84, N = 65). Men were stronger than women (e.g., 1RM squat, N = 65: men = 188.1 +/- 48.6 kg; women = 126.7 +/- 28.3 kg); differences generally held when scaling was applied (e.g., 1RM squat scaled with the Sinclair formula: men = 224.7 +/- 36.5 kg; women = 144.2 +/- 25.4 kg). CONCLUSIONS When collectively considering scaling methods, maximum strength is strongly related to weightlifting performance independent of body mass and height differences. Furthermore, men are stronger than women even when body mass and height are obviated by scaling methods.
A benchmark environment motivated by industrial control problems

In the research area of reinforcement learning (RL), frequently novel and promising methods are developed and introduced to the RL community. However, although many researchers are keen to apply their methods on real-world problems, implementing such methods in real industry environments often is a frustrating and tedious process. Generally, academic research groups have only limited access to real industrial data and applications. For this reason, new methods are usually developed, evaluated and compared by using artificial software benchmarks. On one hand, these benchmarks are designed to provide interpretable RL training scenarios and detailed insight into the learning process of the method on hand. On the other hand, they usually do not share much similarity with industrial real-world applications. For this reason we used our industry experience to design a benchmark which bridges the gap between freely available, documented, and motivated artificial benchmarks and properties of real industrial problems. The resulting industrial benchmark (IB) has been made publicly available to the RL community by publishing its Java and Python code, including an OpenAI Gym wrapper, on Github. In this paper we motivate and describe in detail the IB's dynamics and identify prototypic experimental settings that capture common situations in real-world industry control problems.
Hop-by-Hop Congestion Control Design with Utility Maximization in Wireless Ad Hoc Networks

Wireless ad hoc network design with cross layer approach has been recently studied considering different layer information. Especially, the design of the optimal transport control protocol has been one of intensive research topics, but the issue is not fully addressed yet. Although researches on end-to-end semantics are prevailed in transport layer issue, relatively smaller scalability than wired networks and unreliable channel state give strong advantages on hop-by-hop approach. We consider the hop-by-hop congestion control algorithm with network utility optimization. We formulate and solve a new transport layer problem based on the hop-by-hop algorithm, which reaches the optimal rate point stably by jointly considering MAC layer and transport layer information. Simulation results show that the hop-by-hop congestion control has better performance on the aspect of the schedulability, stability, convergence speed and optimality.