Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Prevalence of chronic kidney disease in a population in southern Brazil (Pro-Renal Study).

INTRODUCTION Chronic kidney disease (CKD) affects 10-12% of the adult population in many countries. In Brazil, there is no reliable information about the actual prevalence of CKD. OBJECTIVE To determine the prevalence of CKD by estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) and proteinuria/albuminuria in an urban population randomly selected in Southern Brazil. Patients and. METHODS 5,216 individuals were randomly selected out of a pool of 10,000 individuals identified from the database of a local energy company. The screening consisted of collection of demographic data, history of diabetes mellitus, hypertension, kidney/cardiovascular disease in the family and obesity through the body mass index - BMI (CKD risk factors). Blood samples were collected for determination of serum creatinine and subsequent eGFR estimation by the MDRD formula and urine samples for determination of albuminuria by dipstick. Albuminuria was further evaluated by HemoCue© in a selected CKD risk group. RESULTS The population was predominantly Caucasians (93%), 64% were females and the mean age of participants was 45 years old (18-87). BMI (kg/m2) was 27±5. Albuminuria was found in 5.25% of individuals. 88.6% of this population had no CKD (eGFR > 60 ml/min/1.73m2 & normoalbuminuria) and 11.4% were identified as having CKD, with majority on stages 3A (7.2%) and 3B (1.1%). Hypertension, diabetes, older age and obesity was associated with a higher prevalence of CKD (p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS The prevalence of CKD in an urban population in southern Brazil mirrors other developed countries and indicates that kidney disease is an important public health problem in Brazil.
Automatic Methods to Supplement Broad-Coverage Subcategorization Lexicons

The paper describes a system for extracting subcategorization frames of verbs not found in existing broad-coverage valency lexicons. The system uses two parameters: the results of a finite-state parser and the predictions of a set of automatically learned rules which transfer subcategorization frames from cognate verbs. An in-depth evaluation quantified the contribution of the individual parameters.
Parent alcoholism and the leaving home transition

Although they have received little empirical attention, departures from the parental home play a significant role in demarcating the transition from adolescence to young adulthood. The current study examined the extent to which various features of young adults' experiences of leaving home differed for children of alcoholic (COAs) versus nonalcoholic parents, what adolescent precursors might account for noted differences and what indicators of young adult adjustment are related to the leaving home experience. A total of 227 young adults drawn from a high-risk, community sample of COAs and matched controls were interviewed at ages 18–23 years regarding their prior leaving home experiences. COAs showed greater difficulties in negotiating this transition, fewer positive feelings about the transition, and different reasons for leaving home as compared to participants without an alcoholic parent. Moreover, adolescent risk behaviors, family conflict, and family disorganization (assessed prior to this transition) each partly accounted for COAs' risk for difficulty in the leaving home transition. Although certain aspects of the leaving home transition were uniquely related to young adult adjustment, future research is still needed to more comprehensively understand the implications for young adult development associated with such individual differences in the leaving home transition.
Work-family conflict An exploration of the differential effects of a dependent child's age on working parents

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to explore the impact of life cycle stage, specifically parenting stage, on work-family conflict among working parents to determine whether discernible differences are evident among those individuals at the early stage of their parenting cycle compared with those with older children. Design/methodology/approach – An explorative study was undertaken among parents employed within the Irish hotel sector. The questionnaire was distributed to 22 hotels and 76 individuals who reported having children responded. A number of measures were used to assess the impact which a number of factors, namely job stress, job involvement, managerial support and colleague support, may have on working parents' work-life conflict. Correlation and regression analysis are performed to test the hypotheses proposed. Findings – The research findings provide initial support for the possibility that the factors influencing work-family conflict differ for each of the parenting groups analysed. For all parents with dependent children it was found that job involvement, job stress and colleague support all have predictive powers in terms of explaining the antecedents of work-family conflict. Research limitations/implications – The findings provide a compelling case for the need to begin to address work-family conflict in a more holistic manner, examining both the immediate and long-term consequences for employees with childcare responsibilities. Practical implications – The ability to design and implement specific, targeted responses to employees' work-life needs is an area where HRD can make a real and significant contribution. Strategic HRD has the potential to reduce the misappropriation of organisational resources by ensuring a focused and targeted response, thereby minimising the fruitless pursuit of “one size fits all” approaches to this complex issue. Originality/value – The paper seeks to lay the first key foundation-stones in framing the debate in relation to work-life balance in terms of the entire working lives of individuals and not just specific snapshots during the course of that employment. The paper is critical of current organisational thinking in relation to employees' work-life balance needs and challenges HRD professionals to begin to examine this important and complex issue in a more holistic manner.
Failed CTL/NK cell killing and cytokine hypersecretion are directly linked through prolonged synapse time

Jenkins et al. discover that failure of perforin and granzyme cytotoxicity by human and mouse CTLs/NK cells prolongs the immunological synapse, leading to repetitive calcium signaling and hypersecretion of inflammatory mediators that subsequently activate macrophages. Disengagement from target cells is dependent on apoptotic caspase signaling. The findings may provide mechanistic understanding for immunopathology in familial hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis.
In vivo imaging of pituitary tumours using a radiolabelled dopamine D2 receptor radioligand

OBJECTIVE Knowledge of the dopamine D2 receptor status of pituitary tumours may play a predictive role in differential diagnosis and therapeutic decisions. This study was performed to evaluate the value of pituitary dopamine D2 receptor scintigraphy with (S)‐2‐hydroxy‐3‐123I‐iodo‐6‐methoxy‐N‐[(1‐ethyl‐2‐pyrrolidinyl)methyl]benzamide (123I‐IBZM) in the diagnostic evaluation of patients with pituitary tumours.
Clinical and genetic characterization of a Danish family with North Carolina macular dystrophy

Purpose To describe the phenotype of a family with an autosomal dominant macular dystrophy and identify the chromosomal location of the gene that causes this phenotype. Methods Twelve members of a three-generation family underwent routine clinical examination, including fundus photography. Four of the patients underwent extended examination with Goldmann perimetry, full-field electroretinogram, dark adaptation, and color vision testing, and two patients underwent optical coherence tomography and fundus autofluorescence examination. DNA samples were obtained from 12 family members and 3 spouses and genotyped at the known North Carolina Macular Dystrophy (NCMD) locus on chromosome 6q (MCDR1: OMIM 136550) using short tandem repeat polymorphisms. DNA samples were subsequently examined with a genome-wide scan of single nucleotide polymorphisms and the genotypes that were produced were studied with linkage and haplotype analyses. Results The 10 affected family members had clinical findings of macular lesions that are typical for NCMD. The small drusen-like yellowish lesions of mild NCMD were hyperautofluorescent. Hyperpigmented foveal lesions were surrounded by a zone of confluent hyperautofluorescence. Linkage analysis of short tandem repeat polymorphism genetic markers excluded the NCMD locus on chromosome 6. However, analysis of single nucleotide polymorphism genotypes from a genome-wide scan showed that NCMD in our pedigree is linked to a region on chromosome 5p that overlaps the previously mapped macular dystrophy (MCDR3) locus with a maximum log of the odds (LOD) score of 2.69 at a recombination fraction of 0.00 (markers D5S406, D5S1987, and D5S2505). Discussion We report the first pedigree with NCMD from Scandinavia, and the first confirmation that a gene for this condition is located on chromosome 5p13-p15. The bright elements or lesions typical of NCMD differed from drusen in that no sign of accumulation of material between the retinal pigment epithelium and Bruch’s membrane was seen. While the present study has found indications that the elements are located in the outermost layers of the retina, their precise location remains to be identified directly.
On the Reliability of Laterality Effects in a Dichotic Emotion Recognition Task

The present study examined the reliability of a dichotic emotion recognition task under three different conditions presumed to provide different levels of control of attention deployment. Sixty right-handed undergraduate students were randomly assigned to one of the three conditions. The task involved dichotic presentation of words pronounced in an angry, happy, sad, or neutral, emotional tone. The free recall condition applied no attention control. It required participants to report the emotion heard in each ear. Both the monitoring and ABX conditions presumably forced participants to divide their attention equally between the ears. In monitoring, participants were required to indicate when a target emotion was presented to either ear. Finally, the ABX condition required participants to indicate whether the emotional tone of a binaural stimulus matched either of the dichotic stimuli on the same trial. Results showed the expected left ear advantage (LEA). In addition, the monitoring and ABX procedures were found to be somewhat more reliable than the free recall procedure. The present study suggests that control of attention deployment strategies is critical in the reliable assessment of laterality. Issues related to task difficulty and its effect on the reliability and magnitude of laterality effects are also discussed.
Taxane‐Grafted Metal‐Oxide Nanoparticles as a New Theranostic Tool against Cancer: The Promising Example of Docetaxel‐Functionalized Titanate Nanotubes on Prostate Tumors

The combination of anticancer drugs and metal oxide nanoparticles is of great interest in cancer nanomedicine. Here, the development of a new nanohybrid, titanate nanotube–docetaxel (TiONts–DTX) is reported, the two parts of which are conjugated by covalent linkages. Unlike most nanoparticles currently being developed for biomedical purposes, TiONts present a needle‐shaped morphology. The surface of TiONts is linked with 3‐aminopropyl triethoxysilane and with a hetero‐bifunctional polymer (polyethylene glycol) to create well‐dispersed and biocompatible nanovectors. The prefunctionalized surface of this scaffold has valuable attachments to graft therapeutic agents (DTX in our case) as well as chelating agents (1,4,7,10‐tetraazacyclododecane‐1,4,7,10‐tetraacetic acid) to monitor the nanohybrids. To evaluate drug efficacy, in vitro tests have demonstrated that the association between TiONts and DTX shows cytotoxic activity against a hormone‐refractory prostate cancer cell line (22Rv1) whereas TiONts without DTX do not. Finally, the first in vivo tests with intratumoral injections show that more than 70% of TiONts nanovectors are retained within the tumor for at least 7 d. Moreover, tumor growth in mice receiving TiONts–DTX is significantly slower than that in mice receiving free DTX. This nanohybrid can thus become a promising new tool in biomedicine to fight against prostate cancer.
Nonhuman Primate Models of Chikungunya Virus Infection and Disease (CHIKV NHP Model)

Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) is a positive-sense RNA virus transmitted by Aedes mosquitoes. CHIKV is a reemerging Alphavirus that causes acute febrile illness and severe and debilitating polyarthralgia of the peripheral joints. Huge epidemics and the rapid spread of CHIKV seen in India and the Indian Ocean region established CHIKV as a global health concern. This concern was further solidified by the recent incursion of the virus into the Western hemisphere, a region without pre-existing immunity. Nonhuman primates (NHPs) serve as excellent animal models for understanding CHIKV pathogenesis and pre-clinical assessment of vaccines and therapeutics. NHPs present advantages over rodent models because they are a natural amplification host for CHIKV and they share significant genetic and physiological homology with humans. CHIKV infection in NHPs results in acute fever, rash, viremia and production of type I interferon. NHPs develop CHIKV-specific B and T-cells, generating neutralizing antibodies and CHIKV-specific CD4+ and CD8+ T-cells. CHIKV establishes a persistent infection in NHPs, particularly in cynomolgus macaques, because infectious virus could be recovered from spleen, liver, and muscle as late as 44 days post infection. NHPs are valuable models that are useful in preclinical testing of vaccines and therapeutics and uncovering the details of CHIKV pathogenesis.
Discordant responses to cART in HIV-1 patients in the era of high potency antiretroviral drugs: clinical evaluation, classification, management prospects

The goal of antiretroviral treatment (ART) in HIV-1 patients is immune reconstitution following control of viral replication. CD4+ cell number/proportions are a crude but essential correlate of immune reconstitution. Despite suppression of HIV replication, a fraction of ART-treated patients still fails to fully reconstitute CD4+ T cell numbers (immunological nonresponders, INRs). New drugs, regimens and treatment strategies led to increased efficacy, lower side effects and higher virological success rates in clinical practice. The multitude of described immune defects and clinical events accompanying INR opposed to the marginal effect of antiretroviral intensification or immunotherapy trials underline the need for continuing efforts at understanding the mechanisms that underlie INR. Here, we reassess INR definition, frequency, and the achievements of active clinical and translational research suggesting a shared definition for insufficient, partial and complete CD4+ cell number recovery thus improving homogeneity in patient selection and mechanism identification.
A Control Theoretic Analysis of XCP

Prior studies have shown that XCP [1], while showing high potential for effective congestion control, may have significant performance problems if it misestimates the bottleneck link capacity [3]. To explore the magnitude of this implication and ultimately to contain it, we have conducted a control theoretic analysis of the XCP protocol and have studied its properties in the presence of capacity estimation errors. Under such conditions, by using a revised fluid model, we have discovered that XCP will not settle at zero steady-state error. However, we found that the steady-state error is bounded by the estimation error, and this bound can be exploited in XCP router queue size planning. This preliminary analysis explains what we have observed experimentally in an implementation study of XCP.
Bank Lending, Geographical Distance, and Credit risk: An Empirical Assessment of the Church Tower Principle

Does the Church Tower Principle, i.e. geographical proximity between borrowing firm and lending bank, matter in credit risk management? If so, the bank might expose itself to a greater risk by lending to distant firms and should therefore respond by rationing them harder. In this paper we incorporate the Church Tower Principle in a simple theoretical model and derive implications that are empirically testable. We use data on corporate loans granted 1994 to 2000 by a leading Swedish bank and find no evidence that the principle applies.
Targeted Mutagenesis of the Hypophysiotropic Gnrh3 in Zebrafish (Danio rerio) Reveals No Effects on Reproductive Performance

Gnrh is the major neuropeptide regulator of vertebrate reproduction, triggering a cascade of events in the pituitary-gonadal axis that result in reproductive competence. Previous research in mice and humans has demonstrated that Gnrh/GNRH null mutations result in hypogonadotropic hypogonadism and infertility. The goal of this study was to eliminate gnrh3 (the hypophysiotropic Gnrh form) function in zebrafish (Danio rerio) to determine how ontogeny and reproductive performance are affected, as well as factors downstream of Gnrh3 along the reproductive axis. Using the TALEN technology, we developed a gnrh3-/- zebrafish line that harbors a 62 bp deletion in the gnrh3 gene. Our gnrh3-/- zebrafish line represents the first targeted and heritable mutation of a Gnrh isoform in any organism. Using immunohistochemistry, we verified that gnrh3-/- fish do not possess Gnrh3 peptide in any regions of the brain. However, other than changes in mRNA levels of pituitary gonadotropin genes (fshb, lhb, and cga) during early development, which are corrected by adulthood, there were no changes in ontogeny and reproduction in gnrh3-/- fish. The gnrh3-/- zebrafish are fertile, displaying normal gametogenesis and reproductive performance in males and females. Together with our previous results that Gnrh3 cell ablation causes infertility, these results indicate that a compensatory mechanism is being activated, which is probably primed early on upon Gnrh3 neuron differentiation and possibly confined to Gnrh3 neurons. Potential compensation factors and sensitive windows of time for compensation during development and puberty should be explored.
Computation-Communication Overlap of Linpack on a GPU-Accelerated PC Cluster

In this paper, we propose an approach to obtaining enhanced performance of the Linpack benchmark on a GPU-accelerated PC cluster connected via relatively slow inter-node connections. For one node with a quad-core Intel Xeon W3520 processor and a NVIDIA Tesla C1060 GPU card, we implement a CPU–GPU parallel double-precision general matrix–matrix multiplication (dgemm) operation, and achieve a performance improvement of 34% compared with the GPU-only case and 64% compared with the CPU-only case. For an entire 16-node cluster, each node of which is the same as the above and is connected with two gigabit Ethernet links, we use a computation-communication overlap scheme with GPU acceleration for the Linpack benchmark, and achieve a performance improvement of 28% compared with the GPU-accelerated high-performance Linpack benchmark (HPL) without overlapping. Our overlap GPU acceleration solution uses overlaps in which the main inter-node communication and data transfer to the GPU device memory are overlapped with the main computation task on the CPU cores. These overlaps use multi-core processors, which almost all of today’s high-performance computers use. In particular, as well as using a CPU core for communication tasks, we also simultaneously use other CPU cores and the GPU for computation tasks. In order to enable overlap between inter-node communication and computation tasks, we eliminate their close dependence by breaking the main computation task into smaller tasks and rescheduling. Based on a scheme in which part of the CPU computation power is simultaneously used for tasks other than computation tasks, we experimentally find the optimal computation ratio for CPUs; this ratio differs from the case of parallel dgemm operation of one node. key words: parallel processing, multi-core processor, GPU, computationcommunication overlap
Sii: the lightweight analytical search interface inspector

In this paper we report on a recent analytical inspection framework, called Sii, which has been designed to evaluate the ways in which a search interface supports different information seeking behaviours. Using established theories from information seeking research, this inspection method can be used by the designers of search interfaces to quickly assess design ideas. Whether the evaluator is a digital librarian, a usability specialist, or an information retrieval engineer, the method provides early search-focused insights into designs. We present an overview of the framework, some key related research, and some example results. We conclude by discussing our efforts for making sure the method is as lightweight to apply as possible, while still producing insightful results.
Burst generation in neocortical neurons after GABA withdrawal in the rat.

1. gamma-Aminobutyric acid (GABA) withdrawal syndrome (GWS) represents a particular model of focal epilepsy consecutive to the interruption of a chronic intracortical GABA infusion and is characterized by the appearance of focal epileptic electroencephalographic (EEG) discharges and localized clinical signs on withdrawal of GABA. Effects of Ca2+ channel blockers and N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) antagonists were evaluated in living rats presenting a GWS after interruption of a 5-day GABA infusion into the somatomotor cortex and in neocortical slices obtained from such rats. Bursting properties and morphology of neurons were also analyzed in slices. 2. In living rats, the noncompetitive NMDA antagonist phencyclidine [1-(1-phenylcyclohexyl)piperidine] and the Ca2+ antagonist flunarizine [E-1 (bis(4fluorophenyl)methyl)-4(3phenyl2-propenyl)-piperazine] were administered systemically to two groups of rats. Rats in the first group (n = 12) were injected with the drug 30-60 min before discontinuation of the GABA infusion. In this case, phencyclidine (10 mg/kg ip) prevented the development of GWS (n = 5), whereas flunarizine (40 mg/kg ip) had no consistent effect on the GWS appearance and characteristics (n = 7). Rats in the second group (n = 12) were injected 60-90 min after GABA discontinuation, i.e., during a fully developed GWS. In that case, neither drug suppressed GWS. 3. Neuronal activities in the epileptic focus were studied in slices with conventional intracellular recording and stimulation techniques. From the 65 neurons recorded, 29 responded with EPSPs and paroxysmal depolarization shifts (PDSs) to white matter stimulation (synaptic bursting or SB cells). Nineteen other neurons presented, in addition to synaptically induced PDSs, bursts of action potentials (APs) induced by intracellular depolarizing current injection (intrinsic bursting or IB cells). The remaining 17 neurons presented no bursting properties to either synaptic stimulation or depolarizing current injection (nonbursting or NB cells). 4. The recorded neurons were located 0.7-1.2 mm distant from the lesion because of the penetration of the GABA infusion cannula. Intracellular injection of neurons (n = 4) with biocytin or Lucifer yellow revealed that both SB and IB neurons were large, spiny pyramidal neurons localized in layer V of the sensorimotor cortex. 5. Bath application of the selective antagonist of NMDA receptors DL-2amino-5phosphonovalerate or DL-2amino-7phosphonoheptanoate (10-50 microM) reversibly reduced the amplitude (by 25-50%) and the duration (by 20-25%) of PDSs in all cases (n = 17). (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)