Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Lifetime history of depression and carotid atherosclerosis in middle-aged women.

BACKGROUND Depression is associated with clinical coronary events, but the association between history of major depression and subclinical cardiovascular disease in women is not yet known. We determined the association between lifetime history of major depression and subclinical carotid atherosclerosis in middle-aged women. METHODS Participants included 336 healthy middle-aged women (one third African American) from 1 of the 7 sites of the Study of Women's Health Around the Nation, a prospective study of the perimenopausal transition. Psychiatric diagnoses were assessed using the Structured Clinical Interview for the DSM-IV Axis I Disorders-Non-Patient Edition. Two measures of subclinical carotid atherosclerosis were assessed using B-mode ultrasonography: plaque and intima-media thickness. RESULTS Lifetime history of major depression was associated with plaque, and substance abuse was related to intima-media thickness. Lifetime history of an anxiety disorder was not associated with either measure. After controlling for standard cardiovascular risk factors, only the association between major depression and plaque was maintained. The risk of plaque was 2-fold in women with a lifetime history of recurrent major depressive episodes relative to women with no history of depression (odds ratio = 2.30; 95% confidence interval, 1.10-4.82). Lifetime history of a single major depressive episode was not associated with plaque. CONCLUSIONS Recurrent major depressive episodes may be a risk factor for subclinical atherosclerosis. Prevention of recurrent episodes may also prevent further progression of atherosclerosis.
Complicated Pain Management in a CYP450 2D6 Poor Metabolizer

▪ Abstract: We describe the case of a patient with significant adverse effects from posttraumatic analgesic therapy with opioid analgesics who was found by microarray analysis to have a CYP2D6 genotype predictive of a poor metabolizer phenotype. In addition to her poor tolerance and limited response to opioid analgesics, she developed further discomfort when the antiemetic promethazine was administered to treat her gastrointestinal adverse effects. In our discussion we review the literature about the clinical impact of CYP450 2D6 polymorphisms in treatment with the commonly used opioid analgesics codeine, oxycodone, hydrocodone, hydromorphone, and morphine, as well as the antiemetic promethazine. The case we present, as well as the literature we review, demonstrates the clinical utility of CYP2D6 genotyping in patients with adverse effects from analgesia therapy. ▪
The influence of the large bandwidth-delay product on TCP Reno, NewReno, and SACK

We compare the performance of TCP Reno, NewReno, and Selective Acknowledgement (SACK) on the large bandwidth-delay product (LED) network using the bandwidth-delay product and the bottleneck buffer size as control parameters via ns-2 simulations. The following results are obtained from the simulations. First, increasing the bandwidth-delay product leads to performance degradation regardless of TCP versions and the bottleneck buffer size. Second, NewReno outperforms Reno and SACK when no packet losses occur during the slow-start phase. Finally, increasing the bottleneck buffer size can lead to improvement of the link utilization, especially as the bandwidth-delay product grows.
Requirement of Monooxygenase-Mediated Steps for Sterigmatocystin Biosynthesis by Aspergillus nidulans

ABSTRACT Sterigmatocystin (ST) and aflatoxin B1(AFB1) are two polyketide-derived Aspergillusmycotoxins synthesized by functionally identical sets of enzymes. ST, the compound produced by Aspergillus nidulans, is a late intermediate in the AFB1 pathway of A. parasiticus and A. flavus. Previous biochemical studies predicted that five oxygenase steps are required for the formation of ST. A 60-kb ST gene cluster in A. nidulanscontains five genes, stcB, stcF,stcL, stcS, and stcW, encoding putative monooxygenase activities. Prior research showed thatstcL and stcS mutants accumulated versicolorins B and A, respectively. We now show that strains disrupted atstcF, encoding a P-450 monooxygenase similar to A. parasiticus avnA, accumulate averantin. Disruption of either StcB (a putative P-450 monooxygenase) or StcW (a putative flavin-requiring monooxygenase) led to the accumulation of averufin as determined by radiolabeled feeding and extraction studies.
Salivary immunoglobulin classes in Nigerian smokers with periodontitis.

AIM To determine the levels of salivary immunoglobulin classes in Nigerian smokers and non-smokers with periodontitis. METHODS Sixty-nine individuals were recruited into this study after obtaining informed consent. They were subdivided into three groups that consisted of 20 (aged 46 ± 11 years) cigarette smokers with periodontitis (S+P); 24 (40 ± 12 years) smokers without periodontitis (S-P); and 25 (53 ± 11 years) non-smokers with periodontitis (NS+P). An oral and maxillofacial surgeon used radiographs for periodontal probing for the diagnosis of periodontitis. The smokers included subjects who smoked at least six cigarettes per day and all the periodontitis patients were newly diagnosed. About 5 mL of unstimulated saliva was expectorated by each subject into plain sample bottles. Salivary immunoglobulin levels were estimated using enzyme linked immunosorbent assay. Student's t test was used to determine significant differences between the means. Values of P < 0.05 were regarded as significant. RESULTS No significant differences were observed in the mean salivary levels of the immunoglobulin classes (IgG, IgA, IgM and IgE) when S+P was compared with S-P. Mean salivary levels of IgA (520.0 ± 155.1 ng/mL vs 670.0 ± 110 ng/mL, P = 0.000) and IgM (644.5 ± 160.0 ng/mL vs 791.4 ± 43.7 ng/mL, P = 0.000) were significantly lower in the S+P compared with NS+P group. Salivary IgA (570.4 ± 145.6 ng/mL vs 670.0 ± 110 ng/mL, P = 0.008) and IgM (703.1 ± 169.3 ng/mL vs 791.4 ± 43.7 ng/mL, P = 0.012) levels were significantly lower in the S-P compared with NS+P group. Only one (5%) periodontal patient had detectable levels of salivary IgE (0.20 IU/mL). Similarly, only one smoker (4.17%) had detectable levels of salivary IgE (0.04 IU/mL) and two non-smokers (9.52%) had detectable levels of IgE (0.24 IU/mL). CONCLUSION Our study suggests that reduced salivary IgA and IgM levels in smokers with periodontitis could enhance increased susceptibility to periodontitis.
Volume changes in frog muscle during contraction

The variation in volume when a muscle contracts was the subject of much discussion towards the end of the 17th century, and more recently by Fulton (1926) and by Ernst (1958). Many scholars expected an increase in volume as the vital spirits moved from the nerve into the muscle and induced activation: but Swammerdam (ca. 1660) experimented with an isolated muscle contained in a jar with a fine-bore tube attached and in fact observed a slight decrease in volume. Ernst (1925) first demonstrated the decrease with certainty and set the stage for many investigations of volume change in frog striated muscle. Meyerhof & Hartmann (1934) showed that the volume decrease during tetanic contraction parallelled the development of tension, and that a further decrease accompanied maintenance of the tension. They also made precise studies of the slow changes in volume which occur following mechanical activity. These were related quantitatively to the formation of lactic acid under anaerobic conditions and to the break-down of creatine phosphate in an iodoacetate-poisoned muscle. Fischer (1941), on the other hand, reported the occurrence of a volume increase as well as a decrease during contraction, but this was not confirmed by Ernst. All the authors found a volume decrease of about 0-002 % of the muscle volume during a short tetanus, but the response of the apparatus was too slow to record the precise time relationships of the change during contraction. A tetanus was necessary in order to obtain a change large enough to record; the muscles used were almost always large gastrocnemii and usually several muscles were necessary. Hill (1948) has criticized this choice: the fibres in the gastrocnemius muscle do not run parallel through the length of the muscle but instead are arranged at an angle to the axis of the muscle, so that during contraction a portion of the muscle tension would be directed at right angles to the axis of the muscle, thus producing an internal pressure. This was demonstrated by Hill and can also be substantiated by the observation in mammals that during
Factors that influence lexical and semantic fast mapping of young children with specific language impairment.

PURPOSE This purpose of this study was to investigate the lexical and semantic fast mapping ability of young children with specific language impairment (SLI) and normal language (NL), with a specific emphasis on the influence of phonological factors. METHOD The study included 46 children (mean age 58 months), half with SLI and half with NL. Children were asked to fast map visual information only, visual-plus-nonlinguistic-auditory information, and visual-plus-linguistic-auditory information. A mixed design was used to compare children across and within groups. RESULTS Children with SLI performed worse than children with NL overall. The SLI group showed specific deficits in semantic fast mapping when they saw visual information only. This condition may have disrupted encoding because it varied from the expected auditory and visual pattern. The children with SLI also performed poorly when they were asked to map phonotactically infrequent linguistic information and when the difficulty of the task increased. A nonword repetition task was correlated with both semantic and lexical fast mapping. CONCLUSIONS The findings are discussed in the light of their support for a limited capacity model of processing, as well as the impact of phonology on word learning.
Genetic differentiation between Zhe oyster Crassostrea plicatula and pacific oyster Crassostrea gigas populations in China assessed by microsatellite analysis

Genetic differentiation and relationships between Crassostrea plicatula and Crassostrea gigas populations from China were studied by means of the microsatellite technique. Seven loci were used to screen five populations each collected from C. plicatula and C. gigas. All loci showed high polymorphism for all populations, as observed in average number of alleles per locus (19.1–28.1), and average expected heterozygosity (0.891–0.954). Significant departures from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium due to heterozygote deficiency were observed over most populations at each locus and were best explained by null alleles. FST values showed significant genetic differentiation between C. plicatula and C. gigas populations. According to the neighbor-joining tree constructed on the basis of the genetic distance (DA), the ten populations fell into two distinct groups (C. plicatula and C. gigas groups), and the results of principal coordinate analysis and assignment tests also supported the neighbor-joining clustering. The outcomes presented here suggested that the microsatellite markers have great potential for differentiating C. plicatula from C. gigas populations. The information obtained in this study has important implications for the suitable management and conservation of these genetic resources in China.
High thoracic epidural anesthesia does not inhibit sympathetic nerve activity in the lower extremities.

BACKGROUND Sympathetic nerve activity was recorded in the leg during high thoracic epidural anesthesia with a segmental sensory blockade of the upper thoracic dermatomes to test the hypothesis that the sympathetic blockade accompanying thoracic epidural anesthesia includes caudal parts of the sympathetic nervous system. METHODS Experiments were performed on 10 patients scheduled for thoracotomy. An epidural catheter was inserted at the T3-T4 or T4-T5 interspace. In the main protocol (seven patients), blood pressure, heart rate, and skin temperature (big toe, thumb) were continuously monitored, and multiunit postganglionic sympathetic nerve activity was recorded with a tungsten microelectrode in a muscle-innervating fascicle of the peroneal nerve. After baseline data collection, muscle sympathetic nerve activity was recorded for an additional 45-min period after epidural injection of 4-6 ml bupivacaine, 5 mg/ml. In an additional three patients, the effects of thoracic epidural anesthesia on skin-innervating sympathetic nerve activity were qualitatively assessed. RESULTS Activation of thoracic epidural anesthesia caused no significant changes in peroneal muscle sympathetic nerve activity (n = 7), blood pressure, or heart rate. Skin temperature increased significantly in the hand 15 min after activation of the blockade, from 32.7 +/- 2.4 degrees C to 34.4 +/- 1.5 degrees C (mean +/- SD), whereas no changes were observed in foot temperature. The sensory blockade extended from T1 (C4-T2) to T8 (T6-T11). CONCLUSIONS A high thoracic epidural anesthesia with adequate sensory blockade of upper thoracic dermatomes may be achieved without blockade of caudal parts of the sympathetic nervous system. This finding differs from that of earlier studies that used indirect methods to evaluate changes in sympathetic nerve activity.
Management of bone disease in women after breast cancer

ABSTRACT Breast cancer and osteoporosis are common conditions affecting women, particularly following menopause. With increasing breast cancer incidence, effects of therapies and decreasing mortality, issues relating to the preservation of bone health with breast cancer therapy have become a priority. Contributing factors to bone loss and fractures in women with breast cancer include tumor effects, estrogen deprivation secondary to breast cancer therapies (chemotherapy, ovarian ablation or aromatase inhibitors), natural menopause and secondary causes of bone loss, typically from concurrently prescribed medications. Management of osteoporosis and other survivorship care is complex, and a multi-disciplinary approach is recommended with assessment of risk factors for bone loss, optimization of bone health through lifestyle approaches and pharmacological interventions based on evidence-based algorithms. This review examines the pathophysiology of bone loss and gives guidelines for the management of bone disease in women with breast cancer.
Exploring Docker Containers for Time-sensitive Applications in Networked Control Systems

The automation pyramid is shifting and will most likely not have a stock in rigid form. The shift is towards Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) and Cyber-Physical Production Systems (CPPS). Some components in CPPS have to meet real-time requirements. One trend coming along with the change in automation architectures is the virtualization of applications. This enables platform independent development and deployment of secure and isolated applications. Yet, virtualization of applications comes with additional software components and therefore, additional processing effort. For web-services, virtualization is widespread, for embedded systems virtualization development and deployment is not common due time constraints of applications. The use of virtualized applications in embedded systems would have significant benefits like less effort in cross-platform development and cross compiling to state two examples. The method of virtualization in CPPS have to be evaluated concerning time-sensitive applications. In this approach, the time delays occurring through the additional virtualization layer with Docker containers are explored.
Performance evaluation of the new algorithm of the TCP protocol for a long distance wireless link in the Galapagos Islands

In this paper we evaluate the performance of the new algorithm of the TCP protocol for a long distance wireless link in the Galapagos Islands. In order to achieve this goal, it has been started from a study of different standards and tools for this project, besides of the amendments to the TCP protocol for wireless environments. Finally, the network was implemented and preceded to inject traffic to evaluate the performance of the TCP protocol. The results showed that the modified TCP protocol with a window of 15 is more appropriate, however, it was noted the need to optimize the sensing mechanism of the error type to improve wireless TCP performance by using cross layer design. With the intention of optimizing the TCP performance, we have mathematically modeled the RTT value that should be used to calculate the appropriate RTO.
Effect of Mutual Coupling on the Channel Capacity of MIMO Systems

The reciprocity theorem is applied to derive an exact expression that is used to remove the coupling effects embedded in the receiving voltages of an antenna array. The correlation coefficients of the multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) channel established with the antenna array is also modified to incorporate the direction-dependent coupling effects more accurately. The effects of mutual coupling on the channel capacity of MIMO systems in a line-of-sight (LOS), as well as a multipath environments, under different coupling assumptions, are simulated and compared.
A fast new algorithm for training feedforward neural networks

A fast new algorithm is presented for training multilayer perceptrons as an alternative to the back-propagation algorithm. This new algorithm reduces the required training time considerably and overcomes many of the shortcomings presented by the conventional back-propagation algorithm. The new algorithm shortens the training time by several orders of magnitude for the pattern recognition type considered. In some cases improvement ratios of the new algorithm over the back-propagation algorithm run higher than 10,000, and it is not unlikely that this number may be further increased by considering patterns with higher resolution (more pixels per pattern). The new algorithm can also be implemented in a parallel architecture. One processor handles the network processing and the calculation of the modified back-propagation error signals, while the other processor handles the Kalman filter calculations. Aside from the speed advantage, the new algorithm is also more predictable in its training. The algorithm makes steady progress toward improving the mean squared error. In contrast, the back-propagation algorithm tends to reach a certain mean squared error and remain there for many iterations making little or no progress. At some point, it either rapidly converges, or jumps to a new level where it would again make little or no progress for many iterations. The convergence of the back-propagation algorithm depends heavily on the magnitude of the initial weights. If chosen incorrectly, the algorithm takes a long time to converge. The new algorithm on the other hand is much less sensitive to the initial weight setting. Furthermore, the adaptive nature of the Kalman gain makes the new algorithm much less likely to get caught in a state other than the global minimum. The new algorithm is much faster and more reliable than the back-propagation algorithm. It is very consistent in its training and is much less sensitive to the initial weight settings than the back-propagation algorithm. In every aspect the new algorithm outperforms the back-propagation algorithm for training multilayer perceptrons. (Abstract shortened with permission of author.)
Multiple tic syndrome (Giles de la Tourette's syndrome).

Biological and psychosocial features influence the outcome of haloperidol treatment of multiple tic syndrome. Responders to haloperidol who have a family history of tics may suffer from a genetic and metabolic disorder, whereas nonresponders, who are inclined to perinatal abnormalities and have a later onset of tics, have an acquired disorder. Behavioral disturbances and psychosocial adaptation may influence or be influenced by drug usage. The hypothesis of uric acid metabolic abnormality was not supported but dopaminergic and/or γ-hydroxybutyrate neural systems may be implicated.
Assessing Cancer Stage and Screening Disparities among Native American Cancer Patients

Objective. Disparities in cancer-related health outcomes exist among Native Americans. This article assesses barriers to timely and effective cancer care among Native American cancer patients. Methods. We conducted a community-based participatory survey of newly diagnosed cancer patients to assess their basic knowledge of cancer screening and their beliefs about cancer management. Sociodemographic and cancer-related information was obtained from medical records. Mean scores for correct answers to the screening knowledge battery were tabulated and analyzed by race/ethnicity and sociodemographic characteristics. Multivariable regression models were used to adjust for sociodemographic characteristics in evaluating the association between screening knowledge and race/ethnicity. Results. The survey response rate was 62%. Of 165 patients, 52 were Native American and 113 were white. Native Americans with cancers for which a screening test is available presented with significantly higher rates of advanced-stage cancer (p=0.04). Native Americans scored lower on the cancer screening knowledge battery (p=0.0001). In multivariable analyses adjusting for age, gender, income, education level, employment status, and geographic distance from the cancer center, Native American race/ethnicity was the only factor significantly predictive of lower screening knowledge. Native Americans expressed more negative attitudes toward cancer treatment in some of the items regarding impacts and burden of cancer treatment. Conclusions. Native American cancer patients presented with higher rates of advanced-stage disease for screening-detectable cancers, lower levels of basic cancer screening knowledge, and more negative attitudes about cancer treatment than white patients. Public health interventions regarding screening and cancer education are needed.
Beyond nature vs. nurture in expertise research – comment on Baker & Wattie

The field of expertise is mired in a nature vs. nurture debate. Despite what we now know from behavioral genetics research about the underpinnings of human behavior, some expertise theorists continue to deny or downplay the importance of genetic factors (“innate talent”) in expert performance. In this commentary, we argue that this viewpoint is neither defensible nor productive. Our argument is based on two observations. First, there are always limits on human performance, even among individuals who have engaged in long periods of intensive training. Second, grounded in a neurobiological system that has evolved through natural selection, variation across people in phenotypes reflecting these limits will have a genetic component. We comment on directions for future research to advance the field of expertise.