Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Interactions of apolipoprotein E genotype, total cholesterol level, age, and sex in prediction of Alzheimer's disease

Objective The joint effects of total cholesterol (TC) levels and the APOE genotype in Alzheimer's disease (AD) were evaluated because of previous reports that the APOE locus ϵ4 allele was associated with both late-onset AD and elevated TC. Design Logistic regression was used to determine the effects of the APOE genotype, TC, age, and sex on prediction of AD in a community-based study of 206 cases and 276 controls. Results The relationship of the APOE genotype and AD was dependent on TC, age, and sex. However, current TC level does not fully explain the ϵ4-Alzheimer's disease association. Affected men with higher TC and age under 80 years had the highest ϵ4 allele frequencies. The ϵ4 frequency declined significantly with age. Significance A pathologic role of higher TC or cholesterol-based differential survival of ϵ4-carrying individuals may be involved in the relationship of the ϵ4 allele with AD. The observed association of the APOE genotype and AD is expected to depend on the age, sex, and TC distributions of a given sample.
Capturing the objected-oriented database model in relational form

In a heterogeneous database environment, accessing data across different types of data models requires an integration of conceptual schemas. This conceptual schema can exist in various forms such as relational, object-oriented, hierarchical, or network. This paper provides a mechanism, a mapping function - for the transformation of an object- oriented schema to a relational schema and a query translation to access an object-oriented database for the relational database user. <<ETX>>
Prescriber Monitoring for Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia Within a Family Medicine Clinic

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to compare prescriber monitoring for safety and efficacy of medication classes used to treat benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH). Methods: This was a retrospective chart review of patients diagnosed with BPH who were prescribed medications within a family medicine clinic between January 2008 and August 2010. Patients were divided into those receiving nonselective and uroselective alpha-blockers, 5-alpha reductase inhibitors (5-ARIs), and combination therapy. A chart review was performed with regard to predetermined criteria to monitor how efficacy and adverse effects were assessed by providers in the clinic. Results: A general genitourinary assessment was documented most frequently for patients receiving 5-ARIs and least frequently in patients receiving nonselective alpha-blockers. A digital rectal examination was documented in 11% of patients. Prostate-specific antigen concentrations were assessed evenly across all medication classes and documented in 47% of eligible patients. However, the American Urological Association Symptom Index and quality-of-life questions were not performed on any patients, and assessments of adverse effects were not documented. Conclusion: Although prescribers in a family medicine clinic recorded a general genitourinary assessment for patients receiving BPH medications, a more standardized approach is needed.
Transcription factors as tools to engineer enhanced drought stress tolerance in plants

Plant growth and productivity are greatly affected by abiotic stresses such as drought, salinity, and temperature. Drought stress is one of the major limitations to crop productivity worldwide due to its multigene nature, making the production of transgenic crops a challenging prospect. To develop crop plant with enhanced tolerance of drought stress, a basic understanding of physiological, biochemical, and gene regulatory networks is essential. In the signal transduction network that leads from the perception of stress signals to the expression of stress‐responsive genes, transcription factors (TFs) play an essential role. Because TFs, as opposed to most structural genes, tend to control multiple pathways steps, they have emerged as powerful tools for the manipulation of complex metabolic pathways in plants. One such class of TFs is DREB/CBF that binds to drought responsive cis‐acting elements. Transgenic plants have been developed with enhanced stress tolerance by manipulating the expression of DREB/CBF. Recently the functions of an increasing number of plant TFs are being elucidated and increased understanding of these factors in controlling drought stress response has lead to practical approaches for engineering stress tolerance in plants. The utility of the various TFs in plant stress research we review is illustrated by several published examples. The manipulation of native plant regularity networks therefore represents a new era for genetically modified crops. This review focuses on the recent understanding, latest advancements related to TFs and present status of their deployment in developing stress tolerant transgenic plants. © 2011 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Biotechnol. Prog. , 2011
Biomechanical Measures during Landing and Postural Stability Predict Second Anterior Cruciate Ligament Injury after Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction and Return to Sport

Background Athletes who return to sport participation after anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction (ACLR) have a higher risk of a second anterior cruciate ligament injury (either reinjury or contralateral injury) compared with non—anterior cruciate ligament— injured athletes. Hypotheses Prospective measures of neuromuscular control and postural stability after ACLR will predict relative increased risk for a second anterior cruciate ligament injury. Study Design Cohort study (prognosis); Level of evidence, 2. Methods Fifty-six athletes underwent a prospective biomechanical screening after ACLR using 3-dimensional motion analysis during a drop vertical jump maneuver and postural stability assessment before return to pivoting and cutting sports. After the initial test session, each subject was followed for 12 months for occurrence of a second anterior cruciate ligament injury. Lower extremity joint kinematics, kinetics, and postural stability were assessed and analyzed. Analysis of variance and logistic regression were used to identify predictors of a second anterior cruciate ligament injury. Results Thirteen athletes suffered a subsequent second anterior cruciate ligament injury. Transverse plane hip kinetics and frontal plane knee kinematics during landing, sagittal plane knee moments at landing, and deficits in postural stability predicted a second injury in this population (C statistic = 0.94) with excellent sensitivity (0.92) and specificity (0.88). Specific predictive parameters included an increase in total frontal plane (valgus) movement, greater asymmetry in internal knee extensor moment at initial contact, and a deficit in single-leg postural stability of the involved limb, as measured by the Biodex stability system. Hip rotation moment independently predicted second anterior cruciate ligament injury (C = 0.81) with high sensitivity (0.77) and specificity (0.81). Conclusion Altered neuromuscular control of the hip and knee during a dynamic landing task and postural stability deficits after ACLR are predictors of a second anterior cruciate ligament injury after an athlete is released to return to sport.
Hippocampal neurotrophins after stimulation of the basolateral amygdala, and memory improvement in lesioned rats.

PURPOSE To investigate a possible role of neurotrophins in the memory improving effect of stimulating the basolateral amygdala. METHODS The BDNF and NGF levels were measured in the hippocampus of fimbria-fornix lesioned male rats after four days of training in the water maze and stimulation of the basolateral amygdala. RESULTS The behavioral results confirm that daily post-training stimulation of the amygdala improves the learning abilities of the lesioned animals. BDNF increased in lesioned and trained animals, but stimulating the basolateral amygdala induces a significantly greater increase. NGF showed a slight (but significant) increase in fimbria-fornix lesioned and trained animals, but stimulating the amygdala does not produce a further increase. In separate groups of animals we measured the levels of both neurotrophins in acute experiments, after 2 and 24 hours of stimulating the amygdala. BDNF was significantly increased at both times, while NGF showed again only slight increases (significant at 24 h). CONCLUSIONS These results suggest that the BDNF response to amygdala stimulation might be of functional importance in the observed learning improvement. The changes in NGF are most likely due to the accumulation of this protein after removal of the septal axons.
Investigating the Time Course of Spoken Word Recognition: Electrophysiological Evidence for the Influences of Phonological Similarity

Behavioral and modeling evidence suggests that words compete for recognition during auditory word identification, and that phonological similarity is a driving factor in this competition. The present study used event-related potentials (ERPs) to examine the temporal dynamics of different types of phonological competition (i.e., cohort and rhyme). ERPs were recorded during a novel picture–word matching task, where a target picture was followed by an auditory word that either matched the target (CONE–cone), or mismatched in one of three ways: rhyme (CONE–bone), cohort (CONE–comb), and unrelated (CONE–fox). Rhymes and cohorts differentially modulated two distinct ERP components, the phonological mismatch negativity and the N400, revealing the influences of prelexical and lexical processing components in speech recognition. Cohort mismatches resulted in late increased negativity in the N400, reflecting disambiguation of the later point of miscue and the combined influences of top–down expectations and misleading bottom–up phonological information on processing. In contrast, we observed a reduction in the N400 for rhyme mismatches, reflecting lexical activation of rhyme competitors. Moreover, the observed rhyme effects suggest that there is an interaction between phoneme-level and lexical-level information in the recognition of spoken words. The results support the theory that both levels of information are engaged in parallel during auditory word recognition in a way that permits both bottom–up and top–down competition effects.
Molecular mechanisms underlying mood stabilization in manic-depressive illness: the phenotype challenge.

OBJECTIVE The authors critically examine the evidence supporting the hypothesis that lithium's therapeutic effects in bipolar affective disorder are mediated by alterations in the expression of specific genes in critical neuronal circuits. METHOD Using the heuristic "initiation and adaptation paradigm," the authors appraise the biological effects and underlying molecular and cellular mechanisms of lithium's action. The evidence is critically reviewed, with special attention to the reductive and integrative approaches necessary for identifying lithium's clinically relevant cellular and molecular targets. RESULTS Lithium's acute effects are mediated through inhibition of specific enzymes involved in two distinct but interacting signaling pathways--the protein kinase C and glycogen synthase kinase 3 beta signaling cascades--that converge at the level of gene transcriptional regulation. The expression of different genes, including transcription factors, is markedly altered by chronic lithium administration. Chronic lithium treatment also robustly increases the expression of the neuroprotective protein Bcl-2, raising the intriguing possibility that some of lithium's effects are mediated through underappreciated neurotrophic/neuroprotective effects. The importance of lithium's effect on circadian rhythms and the related methodological problems in validating the role of specific genes in lithium's therapeutic effects are discussed. CONCLUSIONS Despite the plethora of lithium effects at the genomic level, direct evidence that the genes identified thus far are responsible for phenotypic changes associated with chronic lithium treatment is still lacking. The combination of sensitive molecular technologies, appropriately designed paradigms, better behavioral analysis, and a chronobiologic approach seems necessary for the future identification of one or more clinically relevant lithium-target genes.
Spatial frequency response of a human eye apodized with the stiles crawford effect of the first kind in coherent illumination

A beam of light passing near the centre of the pupil of a human eye stimulates the retina more than an identical beam making an entry from the edges of the pupil. This is Stiles-Crawford effect of the first kind (SCE I). This diminution in the effective brightness of a beam is retinal in origin. But in the computation of how the human eye responds to different spatial frequencies in the object, often the SCE I is incorporated as a pupil apodization. We have shown here that in the absence of aberrations and defocus this response is predominantly governed by the coherence of the incident beam rather than the beam’s pupil entry point, a characteristic of the traditional Stiles Crawford effect.
Menstruation and menstrual change: women in midlife.

Research on the menstrual cycle has paid scant attention to the experience of menstrual change among women during the years immediately prior to menopause. Using data taken from a cross‐sectional survey of Manitoba women in the 40–59 age group, this paper discusses the impact of changes in menstrual pattern on women's propensity to seek medical care and on their perception of their menopausal status. The difference between “subjective”; and “objective”; definitions of menopausal status is discussed in terms of the implications for the assignment of women to one category or another and in terms of conflict between methodological priorities and the new norms of feminist research.
When should one adjust for measurement error in baseline variables in observational studies?

Previously, we showed that in randomised experiments, correction for measurement error in a baseline variable induces bias in the estimated treatment effect, and conversely that ignoring measurement error avoids bias. In observational studies, non‐zero baseline covariate differences between treatment groups may be anticipated. Using a graphical approach, we argue intuitively that if baseline differences are large, failing to correct for measurement error leads to a biased estimate of the treatment effect. In contrast, correction eliminates bias if the true and observed baseline differences are equal. If this equality is not satisfied, the corrected estimator is also biased, but typically less so than the uncorrected estimator. Contrasting these findings, we conclude that there must be a threshold for the true baseline difference, above which correction is worthwhile. We derive expressions for the bias of the corrected and uncorrected estimators, as functions of the correlation of the baseline variable with the study outcome, its reliability, the true baseline difference, and the sample sizes. Comparison of these expressions defines a theoretical decision threshold about whether to correct for measurement error. The results show that correction is usually preferred in large studies, and also in small studies with moderate baseline differences. If the group sample sizes are very disparate, correction is less advantageous. If the equivalent balanced sample size is less than about 25 per group, one should correct for measurement error if the true baseline difference is expected to exceed 0.2–0.3 standard deviation units. These results are illustrated with data from a cohort study of atherosclerosis.
Association study of the PLXNA4 gene with the risk of Alzheimer's disease.

BACKGROUND The Plexin-A 4 (PLXNA4) gene has recently been recognized as a functional candidate gene of late-onset Alzheimer's disease (LOAD). The single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs13232207 of PLXNA4 gene has been reported to be associated with Alzheimer's disease (AD) in Japanese cohorts. We sought to clarify whether this novel locus gains the same effect in northern Han Chinese. METHODS To investigate the relationship between SNP rs13232207 and AD sufferers, a case-control study of unrelated individuals was conducted with a total sample size of 2,318 subjects (978 cases and 1,340 age and gender matched healthy controls) in a Northern Han Chinese population. SPSS 22.0 was applied for the statistical process. RESULTS No significant difference in polymorphic distribution of rs13232207 was observed on LOAD risk independently under dominant (P=0.057), additive (P=0.233) or recessive model (P=0.392). In terms of interaction with apolipoprotein E (APOE), there is also no positive interaction in dominant (P=0.438), additive (P=0.055) or recessive model (P=0.095). CONCLUSIONS Replication of association between the PLXNA4 rs13232207 and AD in a Han ethnic group indicates that this link is not the result of chance.
Muscle protein turnover: methodological issues and the effect of aging.

Investigation of sarcopenia should include the measurement of muscle protein synthesis and breakdown because reduced muscle mass occurs only when muscle protein content is reduced. Protein content of a tissue is determined by the balance between synthesis and breakdown. Whole body measurements are inappropriate for determining the small changes in muscle protein synthesis and breakdown, since muscle contributes less than 30 percent to the whole body protein turnover. The measurement of mixed muscle protein synthesis in humans supports the animal data, which demonstrates that there is a decline in muscle protein synthesis with age. Resistance exercise stimulates mixed muscle protein synthesis rate in both the young and the old, although this is not demonstrated when myofibrillar protein synthesis is measured. Muscle is composed of several types of proteins, and their turnover may be differentially regulated. It is important, therefore, to measure the turnover of specific proteins such as myosin and actin, which are important contractile proteins. Recently, techniques have been developed to measure the synthesis rate of myosin heavy chain (MHC) in humans. In addition, the application of quantitative polymerase chain reaction (PCR) allows measurement of the steady state mRNA levels of various isoforms of MHC. These measurements, in combination with measurement of the synthesis rate of MHC, will allow us to understand the molecular regulation of specific proteins such as myosin. The important question is to determine whether the decline in muscle protein synthesis is genetically determined or secondary to inactivity, nutritional, hormonal, or other age-related alterations in body functions, and whether muscle wasting is reversible. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Factors contributing to the delay in the perception of the oculogravic illusion.

Abstract : Five normal and eight labyrinthine defective men were studied in a slow rotation room to observe the effects of factors which contribute to delay in change in perception of the horizontal following a change in direction of resultant force acting on a subject. Results showed very small effects of pre-exposure conditions prior to change in direction of resultant force. Delays in presentation of a luminous target following a change in resultant force and before settings to the visual horizontal occurred, however, produced major, systematic effects on the perception of the visual horizontal. Results are discussed in terms of the interaction of visual and gravitational cues in producing the lag effect. (Author)
Preliminary Study on Auxiliary Value of Serum Basic Fetoprotein in Diagnosing Lung Cancer

To characterize basic fetoprotein (BFP) as a new tumor marker, we measured serum levels of BFP and 5 other tumor markers (CA19-9, CEA, NSE, SCC, and TPA) concomitantly in 65 patients with lung cancer, 57 patients with benign pulmonary disease, and 40 healthy volunteers. The sensitivity of BFP was 43%, the specificity 82% and the accuracy 61%. The positivity increased in relation to stage of the disease. There was no correlation between positivity of BFP and histologic type. On the whole, BFP appeared to be analogous to TPA in terms of broad spectrum and to have an auxiliary value in diagnosing lung cancer.
Hearing loss and cognitive effort.

O ne of the most important contributions that psychologists have made to audiology is the concept that, in any behavioral task, successful completion of the task requires the allocation of cognitive resources, and that these resources must be drawn from a limited pool. In the case of listening tasks involving linguistic stimuli, either isolated words or sentences, the processes of phonological, semantic, and syntactic analyses require relevant cognitive resources of memory, attention, and speed of mental processing. We have tended to assume, in clinical tests of speech understanding for words and sentences, that these necessary cognitive resources can be readily invoked by the listener. But there is mounting evidence that both aging and hearing loss strain the allocation of these essential cognitive resources in subtle but significant ways. In this issue of JAAA, investigators Raj Stewart and article ''Hearing Loss and Cognitive Effort in Older Adults' Report Accuracy for Verbal Materials,'' present an elegant demonstration of the interactions among aging, hearing loss, and linguistic complexity. They tested 48 participants in three groups: young adults, older adults with good hearing, and older adults with mild-to-moderate hearing loss. In each group they measured performance versus intensity functions for words in isolation and for words in sentences in which the syntactic complexity was manipulated by changing from subject-relative to object-relative clause structure. Results showed that the advantage of sentences over isolated words was greater in both elderly groups than in the young adult group. In addition, the advantage of the syntactically simpler subject-relative clause structure over the syntactically more complex object-relative clause structure was greater in the elderly group with hearing loss. The authors interpret these results to indicate that syntactic complexity imposes a processing challenge to older listeners with relatively normal hearing and that this cognitive challenge is further compounded by the presence of even mild hearing loss. If we are willing to concede that listening in the real world is more like listening to sentences than listening to isolated words, and that the syntactic complexity of heard sentences may vary, we can begin to understand why performance scores based on lists of isolated words are not always helpful in understanding the listening problems of our elderly clients. Audibility is certainly an important dimension of speech understanding in any individual with hearing loss, but we need to consider as well the additional drain that hearing loss imposes on the already limited cognitive …
In depth analysis of channel length, fin width (down to 10 nm) impacts on Fowler-Nordheim program/erase characteristics of Si-NC SOI FinFlash memories

Tri-gate FinFlash devices are one of the most promising solutions to solve scaling problems of Flash memories. The use of Silicon Nanocrystal storage nodes in novel 3D FinFET architecture offers the possibility of scaled gate dielectrics (implying scaled operating voltages), along with short channel effect immunity and higher sensing current drivability. In this paper, we investigate the channel length and fin width impacts (with dimensions down to 30 nm and 10 nm, respectively) on Si-NC SOI FinFlash operating in the NAND scheme. Devices with narrow fin widths show a Fowler-Nordheim (FN) write boost, while the channel length scaling strongly reduces the programming window. The obtained results are deeply explained through fully three dimensional TCAD simulations.