Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Determinants of Atrazine Contamination in the Homes of Commercial Pesticide Applicators Across Time

Twenty-nine commercial pesticide applicator households in eastern Iowa were enrolled to investigate in-home contamination of atrazine, the most commonly used corn herbicide in the Unites States. From each home, four vacuum dust samples were collected during atrazine application season (Visit 1) and again 6 months later during winter months (Visit 2). Samples were taken from the following locations: primary entryway for pesticide applicator, living room, master bedroom, and kitchen. The applicator completed an atrazine handling log and household questionnaire with spouse. Of the 230 dust samples, only 2 were below the level of detection, 2 ng of atrazine per gram (ng/g) of fine dust (dust particle size 5–150 μm). Dust levels were standardized to chemical loading. During application season the entryway (2.68 ng/cm2) and kitchen (0.47 ng/cm2) had the highest geometric mean atrazine chemical loading. The entryway chemical loading during Visit 2 was the second highest aggregate (0.55 ng/cm2). Aggregate concentrations were significantly higher at Visit 1 compared with Visit 2 when paired by location (p≤0.02). Analysis showed that job (application, mixing/loading, or both) was not associated with in-home atrazine contamination. Linear regression showed a strong positive association between atrazine handling (number of acres applied with atrazine, number of days atrazine handled, and pounds of atrazine handled) and aggregate dust chemical loading from both visits (p = 0.06, 0.03, and 0.10, respectively). Frequency of vacuuming was inversely associated with Visit 2 concentrations (p = 0.10) and showed a weaker association with Visit 1 (p = 0.30). Removing shoes outside the home was associated with lower atrazine chemical loading (p = 0.03), and applicators changing work clothes in the master bedroom had significantly increased atrazine chemical loading in master bedrooms (p = 0.01). Changes in hygiene practices for commercial pesticide applicators could significantly reduce atrazine and, likely, other pesticide contaminations in the home.
Isoniazid Induces Apoptosis Of Activated CD4+ T Cells

Background: DOTS-treated patients exhibit vulnerability to reactivation and reinfection with TB, suggesting therapy-related immune impairment. Results: Isoniazid (INH) dramatically reduces Mycobacterium tuberculosis antigen-specific immune responses by inducing apoptosis in activated CD4+ T cells. Conclusion: Animals treated with INH exhibit post-treatment vulnerability to TB reinfection and reactivation. Significance: The immune-impairing effects of antibiotics need to be considered in TB treatment. Tuberculosis (TB) remains the second highest killer from a single infectious disease worldwide. Current therapy of TB is lengthy and consists of multiple expensive antibiotics, in a strategy referred to as Directly Observed Treatment, Short Course (DOTS). Although this therapy is effective, it has serious disadvantages. These therapeutic agents are toxic and are associated with the development of a variety of drug-resistant TB strains. Furthermore, patients treated with DOTS exhibit enhanced post-treatment susceptibility to TB reactivation and reinfection, suggesting therapy-related immune impairment. Here we show that Isoniazid (INH) treatment dramatically reduces Mycobacterium tuberculosis antigen-specific immune responses, induces apoptosis in activated CD4+ T cells, and renders treated animals vulnerable to TB reactivation and reinfection. Consequently, our findings suggest that TB treatment is associated with immune impairment.
Detection of unknown applications in smartphones: A signal processing perspective

Different applications in smartphones result in different power consumption patterns. The fact that every application has been coded to perform certain tasks leads to the claim that every action on-board (whether software or hardware) will consequently have a trace in the power consumption of the smartphone. However, similar power consumption patterns are observed for the same application irrespective of the types of operating system they are executed on. Therefore, it is safe to further claim that no two applications can have similar power consumption patterns as it is highly unlikely that they have exactly the same source code. The idea behind this work is that by analyzing only the power consumption signals of a smartphone, valuable information regarding its operation can be revealed. In view of this, the authors propose a systematic and generic methodology that involves performing some signal processing techniques on the power consumption signals of different applications in smartphones to detect and separate unknown activities/applications from known ones. In this work, we present a proof of concept supported with some test cases to validate the approach. The preliminary results hold promise in detecting malware in smartphones.
miR-146a Is Critical for Endotoxin-induced Tolerance

The human toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) pathway is activated in response to lipopolysaccharide (LPS), and subsequent signal transductions lead to the production of cytokines such as tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) by innate immune cells. Defects in innate immune response may contribute to the overproduction of TNF-α leading to systemic inflammation and diseases. Thus, the innate immune response needs to be tightly regulated by elaborate mechanisms to control its onset and termination. LPS tolerance is a state of hyporesponsiveness to subsequent LPS challenge and is achieved by monocytic cells after prolonged exposure to LPS. In this report, kinetics of endotoxin-responsive microRNAs expression analysis revealed a unique pattern of gradual increase for miR-146a starting 4 h after LPS stimulation in THP-1 cells and continued up to 35-fold over 24 h. Conversely, TNF-α increased up to 4 h and then decreased gradually implicating a negative correlation with miR-146a progression. The characteristic up-regulation of miR-146a toward subsequent LPS challenge in THP-1 cells was studied. Strikingly, microRNA expression analysis during the tolerized state of THP-1 cells showed only miR-146a overexpression suggesting its important role in LPS tolerance. In addition, LPS tolerance was dependent on a LPS-priming dose and associated miR-146a up-regulation. LPS-tolerized cells were observed to regain responsiveness in TNF-α production 22 h after LPS removal correlating with a decrease in miR-146a level. Transfection of miR-146a into THP-1 cells mimicked LPS priming, whereas transfection of miR-146a inhibitor largely abolished LPS tolerance. Thus our studies demonstrated that miR-146a is critical for the in vitro monocytic cell-based endotoxin tolerance.
La Gouvernance du Développement durable dans l'espace caraïbe

Le present rapport est l’aboutissement d’une recherche « Environnement et developpement durable dans l’espace caraibe » finance dans le cadre des programmes operationnels europeens 2007-2013 . Il propose d’apprehender la question du developpement durable dans l’espace caraibe en mettant principalement l’accent sur sa dimension environnementale. Il se divise en deux parties : une premiere partie porte sur la gouvernance du developpement durable dans les territoires de la Caraibe : enjeux et defis du 3eme pilier ; une deuxieme partie concerne plus particulierement les Antilles et la Guyane francaises apprehendees cependant a partir d’une approche plus generale applicable aux outre-mer francais
Gap junction coupling confers isopotentiality on astrocyte syncytium

Astrocytes are extensively coupled through gap junctions into a syncytium. However, the basic role of this major brain network remains largely unknown. Using electrophysiological and computational modeling methods, we demonstrate that the membrane potential (VM) of an individual astrocyte in a hippocampal syncytium, but not in a single, freshly isolated cell preparation, can be well‐maintained at quasi‐physiological levels when recorded with reduced or K+ free pipette solutions that alter the K+ equilibrium potential to non‐physiological voltages. We show that an astrocyte's associated syncytium provides powerful electrical coupling, together with ionic coupling at a lesser extent, that equalizes the astrocyte's VM to levels comparable to its neighbors. Functionally, this minimizes VM depolarization attributable to elevated levels of local extracellular K+ and thereby maintains a sustained driving force for highly efficient K+ uptake. Thus, gap junction coupling functions to achieve isopotentiality in astrocytic networks, whereby a constant extracellular environment can be powerfully maintained for crucial functions of neural circuits. GLIA 2016;64:214–226
Migrate, Differentiate, Proliferate, or Die: Pleiotropic Functions of an Apical "Apoptotic Caspase"

Caspases, the cysteine proteases that cleave their substrates following an aspartate residue, primarily carry out two distinct functions: (i) activation of proinflammatory cytokines and (ii) execution of apoptosis. These two functions are considered to be unique to individual caspases; thus, some caspases act in apoptosis, whereas others have a role in inflammation. However, this dogma is now being challenged as nonapoptotic functions are ascribed to caspases that, until recently, were only known to function in cell death pathways. Recent work suggests that DRONC, the only initiator cell death caspase in Drosophila, may play a direct or indirect role in cell migration, sperm differentiation, and cell proliferation in addition to its function in cell death.
The regulation of appetite

The worsening global obesity epidemic, particularly the increase in childhood obesity, has prompted research into the mechanisms of appetite regulation. Complex pathways modulate energy balance, involving appetite centres in the hypothalamus and brain stem, and hormonal signals of energy status released by the gut and by the periphery. Better understanding of appetite regulation improves understanding of the aetiology of obesity. Manipulation of this homoeostatic system offers potentially useful treatments for obesity.
User Satisfaction-Aware Sub-Channel Assignment in Ultra-Dense Networks with Max-Min Fairness

In ultra dense networks, interference management remains an essentially topic to alleviate the severe interference brought in by the densely deployed small cell access points. Despite the traditional spectrum resource allocation scheme to optimize network throughput under interference threshold, users' QoS satisfaction has emerged as another practical metric, which brings in new challenges for the interference management. In this paper, we model the optimization problem as a max-min fairness problem with respect to the user's QoS satisfaction rate and propose a fair interference management scheme by jointly considering the interference condition, spectral efficiency and fairness in resource allocation. Specifically, our proposed scheme decomposes the optimization problem into QoS- aware user clustering generation subproblem to find the user cluster set with maximal spectral efficiency and weighted multi-cluster resource allocation subproblem to achieve flexible and fair resource allocation among user clusters. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme can flexibly adapt to the conditions with various interference levels, number of sub-channel resources and number of serving users, and achieve considerable performance in minimum user QoS satisfaction and throughput while maintaining a high level fairness among users.
[Variability in the in-hospital management of acute myocardial infarction in Spain. IBERICA Study (Investigación, Búsqueda Específica y Registro de Isquemia Coronaria Aguda)].

Introduction and objective. Although some in-hospital studies have described the management of acute myocardial infarction (MI) patients in Spain, none has been able to guarantee the exhaustiveness of patient registry. This study sought to determine the clinical characteristics and in-hospital management of patients with MI in eight Spanish population registries.Methods. The IBERICA study is a population-based MI registry carried out in the 25 to 74 year-old population, in eight Spanish regions in 1997. A standardized methodology was used to register and investigate all MI arriving alive to a hospital. Clinical characteristics, cardiovascular risk factors prevalence, pharmacological treatment, invasive and non-invasive procedures performed and complications at 28 days of evolution were recorded. A descriptive analysis was performed and the variation coefficient (VC) was calculated.Results. In 1997, 4,041 MI patients were registered, 79.9% were men with a mean age of 61.1 years. Although 10.9% (95% CI: 9.9-11.9%) were not admitted to the coronary care unit, a large variability existed among different areas (VC = 53%). There was a high variability in the utilization and performance of non-invasive and invasive procedures among regions, as well as in the use of pharmacological treatment. Only the use of antiaggregants (91.5%) and thrombolytic therapy (41.8%) showed a low variability (VC < 10%). Twenty-eight day mortality was 16.2% (95% CI: 15.1-17.4%) with a high variability being observed among the different regions (VC = 20.6%). Conclusion. Patient characteristics vary among the different Spanish regions. The differences in management and prognosis suggest a lack of equality in the health care provided to MI patients in the different regions in Spain.
Extrahepatic Synthesis of FVII in Human Atheroma and Smooth Muscle Cells in Vitro

Abstract: The present series of experiments provide evidence that FVII is synthesized outside of the liver and is found in a variety of cells in normal and atherosclerotic vessels. In normal vessels FVII was localized to the endothelial cell layer and in adventitial fibroblasts at sites where tissue factor (TF) is also found. In early and advanced atherosclerotic lesions, FVII was mostly found in macrophage‐ rich regions colocalized with TF. Foam cells and macrophages in the necrotic core adjacent to the cholesterol clefts and foamy macrophages in early intimal thickenings all showed strong cytoplasmic staining with FVII antibodies. Although it is possible that FVII protein staining found in normal and atherosclerotic vessels originated from the blood, the finding of FVII mRNA by both in situ hybridization and RT‐PCR suggests that these tissues are sites of FVII synthesis. Additional work demonstrated synthesis of FVII in a variety of tissues and smooth muscle cells and fibroblasts in vitro. The distribution of FVII synthesis in extrahepatic tissues and more recent data regarding thrombin‐independent signaling as a consequence of FVII/TF binding may suggest the possibility of other cellular functions for this coagulation factor.
Flight Results from Tracking Ground Targets Using SeaScan UAVs with Gimballing Cameras

Flight test results using a SeaScan UAV with a gimballing camera to track both stationary and moving ground targets are presented. We experimentally studied the effect of UAV altitude above the target, camera field of view, and orbit center offsets within the geolocation tracking performance for both stationary and moving targets. In addition, all of the tests were performed using two different aircraft navigation systems, showing important sensitivities within the system. Sensor biases are shown to directly cause slowly varying errors in the geolocation estimates which can dominate tracking performance. These errors, which typically oscillate with the UAV orbit, are adequately bounded with a geolocation estimator which captures both the target tracking uncertainty, as well as unobservable sensor biases.
Characterization of disease-associated single amino acid polymorphisms in terms of sequence and structure properties.

In the present work, we use structural information to characterize a set of disease-associated single amino acid polymorphisms exhaustively. The analysis of different properties, such as substitution matrix elements, secondary structure, accessibility, free energies of transfer from water to octanol, amino acid volume, etc., suggests that many disease-causing mutations are associated with extreme changes in the value of parameters relating to protein stability. Overall, our results indicate that, while knowledge of protein structure clearly helps in understanding these mutations, a finer understanding can come only from a quantitative knowledge of protein stability and of the protein environment in the cell. Interestingly, use of evolutionary information from multiple sequence alignments can be used to increase our knowledge of disease-associated mutations.
Cancer Screening in the United States, 2010: A Review of Current American Cancer Society Guidelines and Issues in Cancer Screening

Each year the American Cancer Society (ACS) publishes a summary of its recommendations for early cancer detection, a report on data and trends in cancer screening rates, and select issues related to cancer screening. In 2010, the ACS updated its guidelines for testing for early prostate cancer detection, and during 2009 there were several newsworthy updates in the cancer screening guidelines from other organizations. In this article, the current ACS guidelines and recent issues are summarized, updates of guidelines for testing for early breast cancer detection by the US Preventive Services Task Force and for prevention and early detection of cervical cancer from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists are addressed, and the most recent data from the National Health Interview Survey pertaining to participation rates in cancer screening are described. CA Cancer J Clin 2010;60:99–119. © 2010 American Cancer Society, Inc.
A method for involving children with autism in design

COSPATIAL is a 3-year collaborative, technology-focused project exploring the use of collaborative virtual environments (CVE) and shared active surfaces (SAS) for supporting social competence for children with autism spectrum conditions (ASC). The UK team are developing CVE technology through a user centered design approach to inform design decisions and review prototype development. Teachers are involved throughout the design process to ensure that the technology developed is useful and effective. Involving children with ASC is also an important aspect of our design process. However, there are few published methods and guidance to support this involvement. This paper presents a method for involving children with ASC in the design of CVE.
HIGH YIELDS IN ADVANCED LINES OF PIMA COTTON ARE ASSOCIATED WITH HIGHER STOMATAL CONDUCTANCE, REDUCED LEAF AREA AND LOWER LEAF TEMPERATURE

Advanced lines of Pima cotton (Gossypium barbadense L.) bred for higher yield potential and heat resistance have higher stomata conductance and smaller leaf areas than those of obsolete lines. In controlled experiments, five commercial lines of Pima cotton having increasing lint yield and heat resistance showed a gradient of increasing stomatal conductance and decreasing leaf size. In field experiments, heat-sensitive, low yield Pima lines showed a lower stomatal conductance than high yielding, advanced lines. This indicates that selection for high yield potential and heat resistance has imposed a selection pressure for higher stomatal conductance and smaller leaf areas. The higher stomatal conductance and smaller leaf area in the advanced lines resulted in a lower leaf temperature in both controlled environments and in the field. The largest leaf temperature differences between obsolete and advanced lines were observed in the afternoon. These differences coincided with the largest differences in stomatal conductance and the highest air temperatures. Measurements of stomatal conductance and leaf temperature in field-grown progeny from a cross between the advanced line, Pima S-6. and the obsolete line, Pima 32, showed that genetically determined differences in stomatal conductance resulted in corresponding differences in leaf temperature. None of the altered physiological traits were selected for in the breeding program, indicating that selection for the desired agronomic traits imposed selection pressures on the altered physiological traits. The increases in stomatal conductance and decreases in leaf area could represent an integrated response to selection pressures on enhanced evaporative cooling, ensuing from selection for heat resistance.
Osteoporosis in lung transplant candidates compared to matched healthy controls

Lakey WC, Spratt S, Vinson EN, Gesty‐Palmer D, Weber T, Palmer S. Osteoporosis in lung transplant candidates compared to matched healthy controls. Clin Transplant 2011: 25: 426–435. © 2010 John Wiley & Sons A/S.
Plasmid-determined resistance to serum bactericidal activity: a major outer membrane protein, the traT gene product, is responsible for plasmid-specified serum resistance in Escherichia coli

Resistance to the bactericidal activity of serum appears to be an important virulence property of invasive bacteria. The conjugative multiple-antibiotic-resistance plasmid R6-5 was found to confer upon Escherichia coli host bacteria increased resistance against rabbit serum. Gene-cloning techniques were used to localize the serum resistance determinant of R6-5 to a segment of the plasmid that encodes conjugal transfer functions, and a pACYC184 hybrid plasmid, designated pKT107, that contains this segment was constructed. The generation and analysis of deletion and insertion mutant derivatives of the pKT107 plasmid that no longer specify serum resistance permitted precise localization of the serum-resistance cistron on the R6-5 map and demonstrated that this locus is coincident with that of traT, one of the two surface exclusion genes of R6-5. Examination of the proteins synthesized in E. coli minicells of pKT107 and its serum-sensitive mutant derivative plasmids confirmed that the serum-resistance gene product of R6-5 is the traT protein and showed that this protein is a major structural component (about 21,000 copies per cell) of the bacterial outer membrane.
Spinal-epidural anesthesia versus general anesthesia in the management of percutaneous nephrolithotripsy.

OBJECTIVE To compare the efficacy between combined spinal-epidural block and general anesthesia in patients undergoing percutaneous nephrolithotripsy (PNL). METHODS A total of 180 patients undergoing PNL were randomly allocated to receive spinal-epidural anesthesia plus intravenous patient-controlled anesthesia with tramadol or general anesthesia (propofol induction, maintenance with sevoflurane) plus intravenous patient-controlled anesthesia with tramadol (G group). Hemodynamic changes, postanesthesia care unit (PACU) discharge times, times to home readiness, side effects, patient and endoscopist satisfaction, postoperative pain (scored from 0 to 10 on a visual analog scale), and analgesic medication were recorded. RESULTS Rates of hypotension (p = 0.06) and bradycardia (p = 0.14) did not differ between the groups. Compared with the G group, duration of PACU and the time to home readiness (p = 0.001 for each) were shorter in the spinal-epidural group. The incidence of nausea was higher in the G group (p = 0.001); vomiting and pruritus rates were similar between groups. No patient had respiratory depression. The spinal-epidural group had better patient satisfaction (p = 0.001) and lower pain scores (p = 0.001). The G group required more diclofenac during the first 48 h (p = 0.001). CONCLUSIONS In patients undergoing PNL, spinal-epidural anesthesia and analgesia gave greater patient satisfaction, shorter times for PACU and home readiness, and less postoperative pain. Spinal-epidural anesthesia is an attractive alternative to general anesthesia in these patients.