Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Investigations into the effect of carbon monoxide exposure on bloodstain color : Implications for the Shroud of Turin

Hemoglobin (Hb) is the major protein present in red blood cells whose function is to transport oxygen throughout the body. The oxygenated form of hemoglobin is responsible for the typical red color of fresh blood that is normally observed. Carbon monoxide (CO) binds to hemoglobin with an affinity 250-300 times greater than that of oxygen, making it a highly competitive, toxic substance which can be lethal at even relatively limited levels of exposure. Blood drawn from patients experiencing CO poisoning exhibits a “cherry red” appearance, which is often useful in the initial diagnosis. CO levels from such patients have been reported to persist in refrigerated sealed liquid blood samples stored in the presence of preservatives for at least three years; however, no data exists regarding the persistence of CO in aged, dried bloodstains. It has been noted that the bloodstains on the Shroud of Turin appear too red in color for blood that is reportedly some 600-2000 years old. Various explanations have been put forth for the blood color on the Shroud, including the suggestion that CO bound to hemoglobin via endogenous or exogenous mechanisms is responsible. In this report, the effect of CO exposure on bloodstain color is evaluated and its relevance to the appearance of the Shroud of Turin bloodstains is discussed. Introduction Fresh oxygenated blood is bright red in appearance, which upon drying changes into a dark brownish color within approximately 12-24 hours. The molecular basis for the color change in drying blood is well established. When hemoglobin molecules present in red blood cells contain bound oxygen (Hb-O2), the blood maintains its red color. During the drying process and exposure to air, hemoglobin becomes deoxygenated, and converts to methemoglobin (Hb-Met), giving bloodstains a brownish, black appearance (1-3). The methemoglobin form of hemoglobin is unable to bind oxygen, and is referred to as the oxidized form. Oxidation of hemoglobin is characterized by conversion of iron from the Fe2+ state to the Fe3+ form (1-3). Carbon monoxide (CO) is very efficient at binding to hemoglobin, having an affinity that is 250-300 times greater than that of oxygen (4-6). Formation of the hemoglobin-CO (Hb-CO) complex results in a conformation change, with a characteristic absorption spectra in the visible range (7-8). In fresh blood, as Hb-CO concentrations increase the blood takes on a cherry red appearance, a condition that is associated with CO poisoning. As noted by Simini, the term “cherry red” is somewhat subjective as there are numerous species of cherries, each with its own characteristic shade of red and coloration (9). CO levels in blood drawn from patients suffering from CO poisoning are relatively stable, and have been reported to stay constant for up to at least three years when stored in closed tubes containing anticoagulants (10-12). No information is available, however, regarding the persistence of CO in
Evaluation of Mathematical Models for the Apparent Mass of the Seated Human Body Exposed to Vertical Vibration Progress in Vibration and Acoustics ISSN : 2282 − 7668 Systematic Review

In this study, the Authors propose the discussion of nonlinearity of the human body’s dynamic response. The variables that affect nonlinearity of the human body’s dynamic response in the experimental measurements can be distinguished in two categories: intrinsic variables, relating to the individual subjects; and extrinsic variables, relating to the experimental conditions. International Standard 5982 : 2002 gives idealized values for the apparent mass and the seat–to–head transmissibility of seated people exposed to vertical vibration. The values are intended for the development of mechanical models to represent the body. Many mathematical models of the vertical apparent mass of the seated human body are developed. Single and two–degree–of–freedom models obtain a good agreement with experimental seat transmissibility by nonlinear least squares method and Trust–Region algorithm. The comparison between single and two–degree–of– freedom models by goodness-of-fit statistics suggests that two–degree–of–freedom model is recommended for best results. [DOI:10.12866/J.PIVAA. 2013.12. 002] 1
SEM Analysis on Primary Short Circuited Melted Beads of Copper Wire

The Primary short circuited melted beads were prepared by using copper wires with different cross sections, and then heat-treated under different annealing conditions in a muffle furnace by simulating the fire scene. The influence of interference factors, such as the temperature and time in fire environment, the cooling rate, and the cross section of the wires, on the microstructures of the preformed primary short circuited melted beads were investigated systematically by using scanning electron microscope (SEM). The results show that the microstructures of the primary short circuited melted beads are influenced remarkably by the annealing conditions: the holes were reduced by increasing the annealing temperature, and the amount of the pieces form crystals increased by prolonging the heating time, and more nubby crystals were formed in the beads cooled by air. Meanwhile, the size of the grains in the beads could be changed with the cross section of the copper wires.
Repair of oxidative DNA damage and cancer: recent progress in DNA base excision repair.

SIGNIFICANCE Reactive oxygen species (ROS) are generated by exogenous and environmental genotoxins, but also arise from mitochondria as byproducts of respiration in the body. ROS generate DNA damage of which pathological consequence, including cancer is well established. Research efforts are intense to understand the mechanism of DNA base excision repair, the primary mechanism to protect cells from genotoxicity caused by ROS. RECENT ADVANCES In addition to the notion that oxidative DNA damage causes transformation of cells, recent studies have revealed how the mitochondrial deficiencies and ROS generation alter cell growth during the cancer transformation. CRITICAL ISSUES The emphasis of this review is to highlight the importance of the cellular response to oxidative DNA damage during carcinogenesis. Oxidative DNA damage, including 7,8-dihydro-8-oxoguanine, play an important role during the cellular transformation. It is also becoming apparent that the unusual activity and subcellular distribution of apurinic/apyrimidinic endonuclease 1, an essential DNA repair factor/redox sensor, affect cancer malignancy by increasing cellular resistance to oxidative stress and by positively influencing cell proliferation. FUTURE DIRECTIONS Technological advancement in cancer cell biology and genetics has enabled us to monitor the detailed DNA repair activities in the microenvironment. Precise understanding of the intracellular activities of DNA repair proteins for oxidative DNA damage should provide help in understanding how mitochondria, ROS, DNA damage, and repair influence cancer transformation.
Optimizing Electric Vehicle Charging Through Determinization

We propose a determinization based approach to optimize the charging policies of an electric vehicle (EV) operating in a vehicle-to-grid (V2G) setting. By planning when to charge or discharge electricity from the vehicle, the long-term cost of operating the EV can be minimized, while being consistent with the owner’s preferences. For an EV operating under price uncertainty caused by the dynamic pricing of electricity, this problem needs to be solved on-the-fly. Therefore, we model this problem as a Stochastic Shortest Path (SSP) problem and employ a determinization technique to solve it. Since it is hard to predict a priori the performance of a determinization method on a given problem, we introduce the notion of Lossless Determinization (LLD) that produces optimal action selection via determinization and present an approach that achieves lossless determinization by adjusting the cost of actions to account for the ignored outcomes. We also present Approximate Lossless Determinization (ALLD)—an effective method for approximating the cost of actions based on state features. We evaluate the performance of ALLD and demonstrate its effectiveness on a range of settings for the electric vehicle charging problem.
Are Information, Motivation, and Behavioral Skills Linked with HIV-Related Sexual Risk Among Young Men Who Have Sex with Men?

Young men who have sex with men are disproportionately affected by HIV/AIDS, yet relatively little is known about the most effective theoretical frameworks for preventive interventions with this population. This study investigated the fit of the Information-Motivation-Behavioral Skills (IMB) model for predicting sexual risk among a sample of ethnically diverse young men who have sex with men aged 14 to 21. Path analysis results indicated that the IMB model predicted a moderate amount of variance in primary and secondary sexual risk for young men who have sex with men (r 2 = .26 and .21, respectively). Fit of this model was acceptable on most indicators of model fit for primary and secondary risk.
Non-bodies of knowledge: Anatomized remains from the Holden Chapel collection, Harvard University

In response to the violence of the Revolutionary War and affirming Enlightened philosophies, Harvard University founded its Medical School in 1783. Excavated materials from a trash feature at Holden Chapel, site of Harvard’s early medical lectures, include anatomized human remains. There, new regimes of medical authority were created through the manipulation of bodies via transgressive practices of dissection, display, and disposal. Existing studies of nineteenth-century cadavers strongly focus on their emotional and evidentiary qualities. Close attention should also be paid to instructional bodies. Instructional human remains, uncannily both subject and object, person and specimen, were distinct from other kinds of bodies – and distinctly troubling. The Holden collection historicizes concepts of the body, permits an archaeology of early medical authority, and destabilizes archaeologists’ usual approaches to human remains, corporeality, and the individual.
Clinical review 44: Medullary thyroid carcinoma: recent progress.

MTC is a neoplasm derived from the thyroid C-cell. There are two clinical types of MTC, a sporadic form which accounts for the majority of tumors and a less common hereditary variety. Four variants of hereditary MEN 2 have been identified: 1) Multiple endocrine neoplasia type 2A (MEN 2A), the most common form, has three components; medullary thyroid carcinoma, pheochromocytoma, and hyperparathyroidism. 2) MEN 2B, is characterized by MTC, pheochromocytoma, and mucosal neuromas. 3) Familial MTC may occur without other components of MEN 2A. 4) MEN 2 in association with a pruritic skin lesion located over the upper back (cutaneous lichen amyloidosis) is the rarest variant (1). Recent efforts in the field have focused on defining the disease genes for hereditary MTC, with the expectation that the sporadic form of MTC will probably share some or all of the molecular defects. A broad outline of the molecular events implicated in the development of MTC has evolved, but none of the disease genes have been identified or cloned (2).
Can We Influence “Quality of Life” for Patients in Hospital?

The seminal words of the great Canadian physician Sir William Osler (1849-1919) are as pertinent today as they were in the 20th century: "The Good Physician Treats the Disease; The Great Physician Treats the Patient Who Has the Disease . " This phrase can be interpreted in many ways but to most of us it reflects the "holistic" approach to medicine described by Hippocrates, Plato, and the 12th-century physician/philosopher Maimonides among others.Since most of us believe that the body and mind are intimately connected, it seems obvious that physical disease always has a "mental" dimension. In other words, physical illness is often accompanied by anxiety, depression, and other nonphysical symptoms. If this is accepted, then the question posed is "can we influence the quality of life of patients? " Quality of Life (QoL) is an elusive concept and has a different meaning according to the setting in which it is used. For the purposes of this article, we will consider QoL as the ability of patients with a serious illness to minimize the stress, anxiety, and depression associated with their illness together with the possibility of death.Many observers, researchers, and healthcare workers believe we can and the credit for opening up this debate goes to [Ulrich (1984)]. However, many studies into the effect of environment or interventions on patient care contain relatively few subjects, are not randomized, and make claims that are not always supported by the data.In 2002, the hospital (St. James' Hospital, Dublin) built a new 21-bed stem cell transplant unit. All patients were treated in single en suite rooms with an air-lock entrance and high-efficiency particulate air filtration to minimize the risk of infection. The use of wall-mounted pictures and flowers was disallowed also to minimize infection risk. As I was in charge of the unit, I was very pleased with my state-of-the-art facility but gradually I began to notice that patients were becoming depressed by the lack of visual stimulation. The final manifestation of this was a request from a patient to place a flower pot outside her window. I suggested that she should write to the chief executive officer of the hospital, as he was much more likely to accede to her request than if I made it! Following this, I spent a number of years trying to find a way of stimulating patients by changing their environment. I eventually met an artist, Denis Roche, who came up with the idea of a virtual window in patients' rooms. I knew that medical colleagues and others would be skeptical, so I obtained funding from the Irish Cancer Society to conduct a large prospective randomized study to measure the psychological effect of "Open Window" on patients. …
Benefits of Collaboration in Capacity Investment and Allocation

This paper studies capacity collaboration between two (potentially competing) firms. We explore the ways that the firms can collaborate by either building capacity together or sharing the existing capacity for production. We consider cases where the two firms' products are potential substitutes and also where the firms' products are independent. We find that a firm can benefit from collaboration even with its competitor. Moreover, the firms do not have to jointly make the production decisions to realize the benefits of collaboration. We consider a model where firms build capacity before demand is realized and make production decisions after they receive a demand signal. They can potentially collaborate in jointly building capacity and/or in exchanging capacity once they receive their demand signals. Interestingly, we find that having firms compete at the production stage can result in firms deciding to build less overall capacity than if they coordinated capacity investment and production. Also, we find that though collaboration in capacity investment is bene cial, collaboration in production using existing capacity is often more beneficial. The benefits of collaboration is largest when competition is more intense, demand is more variable and cost of investment is higher.
Opioid-related mortality and filled prescriptions for buprenorphine and methadone.

INTRODUCTION AND AIMS To assess opioid-related mortality and correlation with filled prescriptions for buprenorphine and methadone. DESIGN AND METHODS A register study, including data from the Swedish Forensic Pathology and Forensic Toxicology databases 2003-2010, the Prescribed Drug Register and the National Patient Register. RESULTS A total of 1301 deaths, assessed as related to buprenorphine, methadone or heroin, or a combination of them, were studied. The largest number of fatalities was related to intake of heroin (n = 776), followed by methadone (n = 342) and buprenorphine (n = 168). The total annual number of fatal cases related to the studied drugs more than doubled (116 to 255) during the study period. There were increases in mortality related to both buprenorphine and methadone: from 1 to 49 cases for buprenorphine, and from 19 to 81 cases for methadone. Only one-fifth of the fatal cases had a filled prescription for the maintenance drug assessed as the cause of death. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION This study showed that most fatalities were not related to filled prescriptions of maintenance drugs, and a substantial illicit use of buprenorphine and methadone resulting in deaths was revealed. To prevent opioid toxicity deaths it is important to make efforts not only to reduce drug diversion from maintenance programs, but also to improve the control of drug trafficking and other illegal sources.
Memory Retrieval Has a Dynamic Influence on the Maintenance Mechanisms That Are Sensitive to ζ-Inhibitory Peptide (ZIP)

In neuroscientists' attempts to understand the long-term storage of memory, topics of particular importance and interest are the cellular and system mechanisms of maintenance (e.g., those sensitive to ζ-inhibitory peptide, ZIP) and those induced by memory retrieval (i.e., reconsolidation). Much is known about each of these processes in isolation, but less is known concerning how they interact. It is known that ZIP sensitivity and memory retrieval share at least some molecular targets (e.g., recycling α-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazolepropionic acid, AMPA, receptors to the plasma membrane); conversely, the fact that sensitivity to ZIP emerges only after consolidation ends suggests that consolidation (and by extension reconsolidation) and maintenance might be mutually exclusive processes, the onset of one canceling the other. Here, we use conditioned taste aversion (CTA) in rats, a cortically dependent learning paradigm, to test this hypothesis. First, we demonstrate that ZIP infusions into gustatory cortex begin interfering with CTA memory 43–45 h after memory acquisition—after consolidation ends. Next, we show that a retrieval trial administered after this time point interrupts the ability of ZIP to induce amnesia and that ZIP's ability to induce amnesia is reengaged only 45 h after retrieval. This pattern of results suggests that memory retrieval and ZIP-sensitive maintenance mechanisms are mutually exclusive and that the progression from one to the other are similar after acquisition and retrieval. They also reveal concrete differences between ZIP-sensitive mechanisms induced by acquisition and retrieval: the latency with which ZIP-sensitive mechanisms are expressed differ for the two processes. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Memory retrieval and the molecular mechanisms that are sensitive to ζ-inhibitory peptide (ZIP) are the few manipulations that have been shown to effect memory maintenance. Although much is known about their effect on maintenance separately, it is unknown how they interact. Here, we describe a model for the interaction between memory retrieval and ZIP-sensitive mechanisms, showing that retrieval trials briefly (i.e., for 45 h) interrupt these mechanisms. ZIP sensitivity emerges across a similar time window after memory acquisition and retrieval; the maintenance mechanisms that follow acquisition and retrieval differ, however, in the latency with which the impact of ZIP is expressed.
Development of TV003/TV005, a single dose, highly immunogenic live attenuated dengue vaccine; what makes this vaccine different from the Sanofi-Pasteur CYD™ vaccine?

ABSTRACT Dengue is caused by four serotype-distinct dengue viruses (DENVs), and developing a multivalent vaccine against dengue has not been straightforward since partial immunity to DENV may predispose to more severe disease upon subsequent DENV infection. The vaccine that is furthest along in development is CYD™, a live attenuated tetravalent vaccine (LATV) produced by Sanofi Pasteur. Although the multi-dose vaccine demonstrated protection against severe dengue, its overall efficacy was limited by DENV serotype, serostatus at vaccination, region and age. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has developed the LATV dengue vaccines TV003/TV005. A single dose of either TV003 or TV005 induced seroconversion to four DENV serotypes in 74–92% (TV003) and 90% (TV005) of flavivirus seronegative adults and elicited near-sterilizing immunity to a second dose of vaccine administered 6–12 months later. The important differences in the structure, infectivity and immune responses to TV003/TV005 are compared with CYD™.
Binaural fusion: its limits as defined by signal duration and signal onset.

The results of two experiments on the interaural frequency limits for binaural fusion indicate that (1) the limits for binaural fusion decrease as a direct function of signal duration for both low‐ and high‐frequency sine waves, and (2) signal onset is a significant factor in the determination of the spectral limits for binaural fusion only for high‐frequency sine waves and low‐frequency sine waves of short duration. In general, these results are consistent with a model of binaural interaction in which fusion is determined by a tonotopically organized mechanism, fusion being the product of binaural activity in a channel of limited bandwidth.
Why Some Women Have an Optimistic or a Pessimistic Bias About Their Breast Cancer Risk: Experiences, Heuristics, and Knowledge of Risk Factors

Perceived risk to a health problem is formed by inferential rules called heuristics and by comparative judgments that assess how one's risk compares to the risk of others. The purpose of this cross-sectional, community-based survey was to examine how experiences with breast cancer, knowledge of risk factors, and specific heuristics inform risk judgments for oneself, for friends/peers, and comparative judgments for breast cancer (risk friends/peers − risk self). We recruited an English-speaking, multicultural (57% nonwhite) sample of 184 middle-aged (47 ± 12 years old), well-educated women. Fifty percent of participants perceived that their breast cancer risk was the same as the risk of their friends/peers; 10% were pessimistic (risk friends/peers − risk self < 0), whereas 40% were optimistic (risk friends/peers − risk self > 0). Family history of breast cancer and worry informed risk judgments for oneself. The availability and cultural heuristics specific for black women informed risk judgments for friends/peers. Knowledge of risk factors and interactions of knowledge with the availability, representativeness, and simulation heuristics informed comparative judgments (risk friends/peers − risk self). We discuss cognitive mechanisms with which experiences, knowledge, and heuristics influence comparative breast cancer risk judgments. Risk communication interventions should assess knowledge deficits, contextual variables, and specific heuristics that activate differential information processing mechanisms.