Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
MALIGNANT MESOTHELIOMA: A REVIEW OF 35 CASES WITH DIAGNOSIS AND PROGNOSIS

&NA; Twenty‐five men and 10 women with malignant mesothelioma seen at the Austin Hospital between 1965 and 1978 were reviewed. The patients ranged in age from 34 to 79 yr. Prognosis was poor but was somewhat better for patients with epithelioid tumours than for patients with fibrous mesotheliomas and biphasic tumours. A history of occupational exposure to asbestos was obtained in the majority of patients, the latent period being from 18 to 52 yr. Ten patients had no history of asbestos exposure. The pathological diagnosis was established on tissue obtained at open biopsy in 22 cases and at post mortem in 11. Needle biopsy provided a diagnosis in only 2 cases. Cytology suggested a diagnosis of mesothelioma in 1 case. Gross pathology in general conformed with a diffuse confluent‐nodular serosal tumour. A right sided preponderance was found in pleural tumours, and metastases were found rather more frequently than is usually reported. Histological features were distinctive in the majority of cases provided that sufficient material was examined. Recognition of coexisting patterns was often more helpful in making the diagnosis than anyonesingle feature. Histochemical reactions are useful in distinguishing mesothelioma from mucin‐secreting adenocarcinoma. In a minority of cases the histology and histochemistry were not characteristic and the diagnosis depended on the clinical features and the absence of another primary source of tumour.
Question Answering Passage Retrieval and Re-ranking Using N-grams and SVM

Over the last few decades, with the meteoric rise of Information Technology, Question Answering (QA) has attracted more attention and has been extremely explored. Indeed, several QA systems are based on a passage retrieval engine which aims to deliver a set of passages that are most likely to contain a relevant response to a question stated in natural language. In an attempt to enhance the performance of existing QASs by increasing the number of generated correct answers and ensure their relevance, we propose a novel approach for retrieving and re-ranking passages based on n-grams and SVM models. The core principle is to first rely on the dependency degree of n-gram words of the query in the passage to retrieve correct passages. Then, an SVM based model is used to improve passage ranking incorporating various lexical, syntactic and semantic similarity measures. Emperical evaluation performed with the CLEF dataset demonstrates the merits of our approach: the results obtained by our implemented system transcend that of other previously proposed ones.
Review of Nonisolated High-Step-Up DC/DC Converters in Photovoltaic Grid-Connected Applications

The photovoltaic (PV) grid-connected power system in the residential applications is becoming a fast growing segment in the PV market due to the shortage of the fossil fuel energy and the great environmental pollution. A new research trend in the residential generation system is to employ the PV parallel-connected configuration rather than the series-connected configuration to satisfy the safety requirements and to make full use of the PV generated power. How to achieve high-step-up, low-cost, and high-efficiency dc/dc conversion is the major consideration due to the low PV output voltage with the parallel-connected structure. The limitations of the conventional boost converters in these applications are analyzed. Then, most of the topologies with high-step-up, low-cost, and high-efficiency performance are covered and classified into several categories. The advantages and disadvantages of these converters are discussed. Furthermore, a general conceptual circuit for high-step-up, low-cost, and high-efficiency dc/dc conversion is proposed to derive the next-generation topologies for the PV grid-connected power system. Finally, the major challenges of high-step-up, low-cost, and high-efficiency dc/dc converters are summarized. This paper would like to make a clear picture on the general law and framework for the next-generation nonisolated high-step-up dc/dc converters.
Effects of Dietary Fat Modifications on Serum Lipids and Blood Pressure in Children

ABSTRACT. Some recent studies have shown an extremely high level of serum cholesterol level among Finnish children. The aim of the present study was to test the effect of a “cholesterol lowering diet” on serum lipids and blood pressure among 36 children aged 8‐18 years residing in two semirural communities in North Karelia, Finland. After a baseline period of two weeks on conventional diets, the proportion of energy derived from fat in the diet was reduced from the baseline level of 35% to 24%, and the ratio of polyunsaturated/saturated fats was increased from the baseline level of 0.18 to 0.61, during a 12‐week intervention period. The children then changed back to their normal diet during a five‐week switch‐back period. The mean serum total cholesterol decreased 15% during the intervention, and then increased to nearly the initial level during the switch‐back period. Similar changes were observed in HDL‐cholesterol and also to some extent in apoproteins Al, All and B. Blood pressure was not affected, although systolic blood pressure decreased during intervention. We conclude that the high level of serum cholesterol in Finnish children is to a great extent caused by the local dietary pattern and can be decreased by dietary modification.
SIMPLE FUZZY GRID PARTITION FOR MINING MULTIPLE-LEVEL FUZZY SEQUENTIAL PATTERNS

Fuzzy sequential patterns are discovered by finding intertransaction fuzzy patterns among data items at a single level. In this paper, a fuzzy data mining method for finding fuzzy sequential patterns at multiple levels of abstraction is developed. Actually, a new method is proposed to mine multiple level fuzzy sequential patterns, using fuzzy partition by a simple fuzzy grid, among data items at a concept hierarchy. The proposed method is composed of two phases: one to find frequent level crossing fuzzy 1-sequences, and the other to generate multiple level fuzzy sequential patterns by analyzing the temporal relation between those frequent fuzzy 1-sequences. A numerical example along with a mining process is used to illustrate the usefulness of the proposed method.
Timely and energy-efficient communications in rural infostation systems

The infostation communication paradigm represents a good trade-off between the size of investments in infrastructure and the connectivity needs in rural areas. In fact, exploiting the emerging mesh networking technologies, infostations can be deployed with low cost. In infostation systems, mobile nodes achieve network connectivity when they are in the radio coverage of the infostation. Nevertheless, preliminary to the communication, there is a phase in which discovery must be achieved between mobile nodes and the infostation. This is an energy consuming phase that has significant impact on the performance experienced by mobile nodes. In this article the trade-off between energy efficiency and performance experienced by mobile users is discussed. This is an important problem in rural areas since infostations will often be supplied by photovoltaic or eolic generators, which have a cost that increases as the need for energy increases. To carry the study, analytical results previously obtained for general mobile wireless networks are tailored to infostation systems deployed in rural areas. Such derivations have been utilized to gain insight into the design of energy-efficient protocols for the above application scenario.
Patients Are Unable To Recall ─ or Don ’ t Understand ─ Content of

Introduction In health care, informed consent refers to the process whereby the patient and the health care practitioner engage in a dialogue about a proposed medical treatment’s nature, consequences, harms, benefits, risks, and alternatives. Informed consent is a fundamental principle of health care. The process of informed consent can be considered a patient safety issue from several perspectives. At the extreme, performing a procedure on a patient without his or her consent has been considered by the courts to be a form of battery. Informed consent may also be indirectly related to patient safety in that, when done well, it opens a dialogue between the patient and provider so that the patient can ask questions, knows what to expect during and after procedure, and can at least theoretically help to avert medical errors. In general, studies have shown improved patient outcomes with effective physician-patient communication and increased patient empowerment. Patient education has also been associated with preventing medical errors. A review on this topic conducted in 2001 found few studies linking informed consent with health outcomes and few studies on the impact of procedures used to obtain informed consent on the quality of consent obtained; studies suggested that the value of informed consent might be modestly enhanced by augmenting standard patient provider discussions with additional learning and retention aids and that the process of consent can be modestly enhanced by using structured interviews and asking patients to recall and restate the key elements of the discussion. This update review focuses on what we have learned about the informed consent process and the effectiveness of interventions that have been implemented to try to improve it. We conducted a search of the health care and health services literature for the time interval 2001 to present and reviewed all studies relevant to informed consent in the clinical setting.
Estimation of perturbations in robotic behavior using dynamic mode decomposition

Physical human–robot interaction tasks require robots that can detect and react to external perturbations caused by the human partner. In this contribution, we present a machine learning approach for detecting, estimating, and compensating for such external perturbations using only input from standard sensors. This machine learning approach makes use of Dynamic Mode Decomposition (DMD), a data processing technique developed in the field of fluid dynamics, which is applied to robotics for the first time. DMD is able to isolate the dynamics of a nonlinear system and is therefore well suited for separating noise from regular oscillations in sensor readings during cyclic robot movements. In a training phase, a DMD model for behavior-specific parameter configurations is learned. During task execution, the robot must estimate the external forces exerted by a human interaction partner. We compare the DMD-based approach to other interpolation schemes. A variant, sparsity promoting DMD, is particularly well suited for high-noise sensors. Results of a user study show that our DMD-based machine learning approach can be used to design physical human–robot interaction techniques that not only result in robust robot behavior but also enjoy a high usability. Graphical Abstract
A trajetória de internacionalização da Petrobras na indústria de petróleo e derivados.

A Petrobras e a maior empresa estatal brasileira e tem uma solida trajetoria de internacionalizacao. A luz das teorias de internacionalizacao da firma, busca-se aqui entender como a empresa cresceu no mercado interno e se enveredou nos mercados internacionais. Para localizar a discussao, resgatamos primeiro o inicio e o desenvolvimento da firma no mercado interno. Na sequencia, verificamos como se deu sua ramificacao internacional para tres grandes areas geograficas (America, Eurasia e Africa), num contexto de disputa global pelo petroleo, via concessoes de exploracao e atividades de refino e distribuicao. Nota-se que a principal fonte de receita da empresa continua sendo o mercado brasileiro, mas sua insercao nos mercados internacionais tem crescido em termos absolutos e tambem se sofisticado, passando de uma busca por insumos para a expansao das vendas de produtos finais e de tecnologia.
Pseudotumor cerebri syndrome: venous sinus obstruction and its treatment with stent placement.

OBJECT Pseudotumor cerebri, or benign intracranial hypertension, is a condition of raised intracranial pressure in the absence of a mass lesion or cerebral edema. It is characterized by headache and visual deterioration that may culminate in blindness. Pseudotumor cerebri is caused by venous sinus obstruction in an unknown percentage of cases. The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of cerebral venous sinus disease in pseudotumor cerebri and the potential of endoluminal venous sinus stent placement as a new treatment. METHODS Nine consecutive patients in whom diagnoses of pseudotumor cerebri had been made underwent examination with direct retrograde cerebral venography (DRCV) and manometry to characterize the morphological features and venous pressures in their cerebral venous sinuses. The cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) pressure was measured simultaneously in two patients. If patients had an amenable lesion they were treated using an endoluminal venous sinus stent. Five patients demonstrated morphological obstruction of the venous transverse sinuses (TSs). All lesions were associated with a distinct pressure gradient and raised proximal venous sinus pressures. Four patients underwent stent insertion in the venous sinuses and reported that their headaches improved immediately after the procedure and remained so at 6 months. Vision was improved in three patients, whereas it remained poor in one despite normalized CSF pressures. CONCLUSIONS Patients with pseudotumor cerebri should be evaluated with DRCV and manometry because venous TS obstruction is probably more common than is currently appreciated. In patients with a lesion of the venous sinuses, treatment with an endoluminal venous sinus stent is a viable alternative for amenable lesions.
Conditions for activity of glutaminase in kidney mitochondria.

1. Rat kidney mitochondria oxidize glutamate very slowly. Addition of glutamine stimulates this respiration two- to three-fold. Addition of glutamate also stimulates respiration in the presence of glutamine. 2. By measuring mitochondrial swelling in iso-osmotic solutions of glutamine or of ammonium glutamate it was shown that glutamine penetrates the mitochondrial membrane rapidly whereas ammonium glutamate penetrates very slowly. 3. Experiments in which reduction of NAD(P)(+) was measured in preparations of intact and broken mitochondria indicated that glutamate dehydrogenase shows the phenomenon of ;latency'. On the addition of glutamine rapid reduction of nicotinamide nucleotides in intact mitochondria was obtained. 4. During the action of glutaminase there is an accumulation of glutamate inside the mitochondria. 5. When the mitochondria were suspended in a medium containing glutamine, P(i) and rotenone the rate of production of ammonia was stimulated by the addition of a substrate, e.g. succinate. Addition of an uncoupler or antimycin A abolished this stimulation. 6. The effects of succinate and uncoupler were especially pronounced in the presence of glutamate, which is an inhibitor of glutaminase activity by competition with P(i). 7. Determination of the enzyme activity in media at different pH values showed that the optimum pH for glutaminase activity in the preparation of broken mitochondria was 8, whereas for intact mitochondria it was dependent on the energy state. In the presence of succinate as an energy source it was pH 8.5, but in the presence of uncoupler or antimycin A it was 9. This displacement of the pH optimum to a higher value was especially pronounced in the presence of both glutamate and uncoupler. 8. If nigericin was present in potassium chloride medium the pH optimum for enzyme activity in intact non-respiring mitochondria was nearly the same as in the preparation of broken mitochondria; however, its presence in K(+)-free medium displaced the pH optimum for glutaminase activity to a very high value. 9. It is postulated that because of low permeability of the kidney mitochondrial membrane to glutamate the latter accumulates inside the mitochondria, and that this leads to the inhibition of the enzyme by competition with P(i) and also by lowering the pH of the intramitochondrial space. With succinate as substrate for respiration there is an outward translocation of H(+) ions, which together with accumulation of P(i) increases glutaminase activity. Translocation of K(+) ions inward increases the enzyme activity, perhaps by increasing the pH of the internal spaces and causing an accumulation of P(i). 10. The importance of the location of the enzyme in the mitochondria in relation to its biological function and conditions for activity is discussed.
Assessment of Risk Factors Related to Suicide Attempts in Patients With Bipolar Disorder

Abstract We compared the characteristics of patients with bipolar disorder with and without a history of suicide attempts to identify the risk factors of suicide in this disorder. Among 212 patients with bipolar disorder, 44 (21.2%) patients had histories of suicide attempts. Suicide attempters were younger and more likely to be diagnosed with bipolar II. The variables that differentiated those who did from those who did not attempt suicide included age at first contact, lifetime history of antidepressant use, major depressive episode, mixed episode, auditory hallucinations, rapid cycling, the number of previous mood episodes, age of first depressive episode, and age of first psychotic symptoms. Strong predictors of suicide attempts were younger age at onset, lifetime history of auditory hallucinations, and history of antidepressant use. Antecedent depressive episodes and psychotic symptoms predicted the first suicide attempt in patients with bipolar disorder. This study could help clinicians to understand the major risk factors of suicidal behavior in bipolar disorder.
Pharmacokinetics of Irinotecan With and Without Panitumumab Coadministration in Patients With Metastatic Colorectal Cancer

This study examined the effects of panitumumab, a human monoclonal antibody against epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), on irinotecan pharmacokinetics. This phase I, open‐label, multicenter, single‐arm study enrolled patients with metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) without prior exposure to an EGFR inhibitor. In cycle 1, patients received irinotecan (180 mg/m2 intravenously [IV]) on day 1 and panitumumab (6 mg/kg IV) on Day 4. In cycle 2 (2 weeks after cycle 1 panitumumab administration) and subsequent every‐2‐week cycles, patients received panitumumab followed immediately by irinotecan until disease progression or intolerability. Primary and secondary endpoints included Cmax and AUC of irinotecan after irinotecan infusion in cycles 1 and 2, and adverse events, respectively. Nineteen of 27 treated patients were eligible for pharmacokinetic analysis. Pharmacokinetic profiles of irinotecan with or without panitumumab coadministration were nearly identical. The 90% confidence intervals for ratios of geometric means for irinotecan Cmax and AUC with or without panitumumab were within the 80–125% interval, indicating that panitumumab had no apparent effects on irinotecan pharmacokinetics. Adverse events were as expected for irinotecan plus panitumumab combination therapy.
Relation Between Sources of Particulate Air Pollution and Biological Effect Parameters in Samples from Four European Cities: An Exploratory Study

Given that there are widely different prevalence rates of respiratory allergies and asthma between the countries of Europe and that exposure to ambient particulate matter (PM) is substantial in urban environments throughout Europe, an EU project entitled “Respiratory Allergy and Inflammation Due to Ambient Particles” (RAIAP) was set up. The project focused on the role of physical and chemical composition of PM on release of cytokines of cells in vitro, on respiratory inflammation in vivo, and on adjuvant potency in allergy animal models. Coarse (2.5–10 μm) and fine (0.15–2.5 μm) particles were collected during the spring, summer and winter in Rome (I), Oslo (N), Lodz (PL), and Amsterdam (NL). Markers within the same model were often well correlated. Markers of inflammation in the in vitro and in vivo models also showed a high degree of correlation. In contrast, correlation between parameters in the different allergy models and between allergy and inflammation markers was generally poor. This suggests that various bioassays are needed to assess the potential hazard of PM. The present study also showed that by clustering chemical constituents of PM based on the overall response pattern in the bioassays, five distinct groups could be identified. The clusters of traffic, industrial combustion and/or incinerators (TICI), and combustion of black and brown coal/wood smoke (BBCW) were associated primarily with adjuvant activity for respiratory allergy, whereas clusters of crustal of material (CM) and sea spray (SS) are predominantly associated with measures for inflammation and acute toxicity. The cluster of secondary inorganic aerosol and long-range transport aerosol (SIALT) was exclusive associated with systemic allergy. The present study has shown that biological effect of PM can be linked to one or more PM emission sources and that this linkage requires a wide range of bioassays.
Extracellular Matrix Assembly in Diatoms (Bacillariophyceae) (I. A Model of Adhesives Based on Chemical Characterization and Localization of Polysaccharides from the Marine Diatom Achnanthes longipes and Other Diatoms)

Extracellular adhesives from the diatoms Achnanthes longipes, Amphora coffeaeformis, Cymbella cistula, and Cymbella mexicana were characterized by monosaccharide and methylation analysis, lectin-fluorescein isothiocyanate localization, and cytochemical staining. Polysaccharide was the major component of adhesives formed during cell motility, synthesis of a basal pad, and/or production of a highly organized shaft. Hot water-insoluble/hot 0.5 M NaHCO3-soluble anionic polysaccharides from A. longipes and A. coffeaeformis adhesives were primarily composed of galactosyl (64–70%) and fucosyl (32–42%) residues. In A. longipes polymers, 2,3-, t-, 3-, and 4-linked/substituted galactosyl, t-, 3-, 4-, and 2-linked fucosyl, and t- and 2-linked glucuronic acid residues predominated. Adhesive polysaccharides from C. cistula were EDTA-soluble, sulfated, consisted of 83% galactosyl (4-, 4,6-, and 3,4-linked/substituted) and 13% xylosyl (t-, 4f/5p-, and 3p-linked/substituted) residues, and contained no uronosyl residues. Ulex europaeus agglutinin uniformly localized [alpha](1,2)-L-fucose units in C. cistula and Achnanthes adhesives formed during motility and in the pads of A. longipes. D-Galactose residues were localized throughout the shafts of C. cistula and capsules of A. coffeaeformis. D-Mannose and/or D-glucose, D-galactose, and [alpha](t)-L-fucose residues were uniformly localized in the outer layers of A. longipes shafts by Cancavalia ensiformis, Abrus precatorius, and Lotus tetragonolobus agglutinin, respectively. A model for diatom cell adhesive structure was developed from chemical characterization, localization, and microscopic observation of extracellular adhesive components formed during the diatom cell-attachment process.
Mitochondrial Autophagy Is an HIF-1-dependent Adaptive Metabolic Response to Hypoxia*

Autophagy is a process by which cytoplasmic organelles can be catabolized either to remove defective structures or as a means of providing macromolecules for energy generation under conditions of nutrient starvation. In this study we demonstrate that mitochondrial autophagy is induced by hypoxia, that this process requires the hypoxia-dependent factor-1-dependent expression of BNIP3 and the constitutive expression of Beclin-1 and Atg5, and that in cells subjected to prolonged hypoxia, mitochondrial autophagy is an adaptive metabolic response which is necessary to prevent increased levels of reactive oxygen species and cell death.