Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The potential impact of anaemia of chronic disease in COPD

Anaemia of chronic disease (ACD), with chronically low levels of circulating haemoglobin, is an immune driven abnormality that occurs in many inflammatory diseases, and also in chronic heart failure. Although chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is “traditionally” associated with polycythaemia, the systemic inflammation that is now recognised as a feature of COPD makes it a possible cause of ACD. If present in COPD, anaemia could worsen dyspnoea and limit exercise tolerance. Preliminary evidence suggests that anaemia in COPD patients may be more prevalent than expected, concerning 10–15% of patients suffering from severe forms of the disease. A database study conducted in 2,524 COPD patients being prescribed long-term oxygen therapy has shown that a low haematocrit is a strong predictor of survival in this population, before body mass index, and is associated with more hospitalisations and a longer cumulative duration of hospitalisation. COPD patients with low haemoglobin levels have a poorer prognosis than COPD patients with normal haemoglobin levels in the event of acute gastrointestinal bleeding or after elective aneurysm repair. Raising haemoglobinaemia through transfusion decreases minute ventilation and work of breathing in COPD patients. These preliminary evidences point to the need to study the prevalence of anaemia, and its physiological and clinical impact in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. When this body of knowledge is available, the question of the putative benefits of raising haemoglobinaemia in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease will have to be addressed.
Comparison of rabbit breed types for postweaning litter growth, feed efficiency, and survival performance traits.

Postweaning data on 643 rabbits from 122 litters representing four breed types, New Zealand White (NZW) and Californian (CAL) purebreds, CAL X NZW (CXN), and Flemish Giant (FG) crossbreds (the latter group was a collection of FG X CAL, FG X Champagne D'Argent [CHA], and 1/2 FG X 1/4 CAL X 1/4 CHA), were gathered over five seasons and compared for growth, feed efficiency, and survival-related performance traits. Evaluation criteria included litter size and weight at weaning (28 d); 28- to 70-d litter feed intake, weight gain, feed efficiency, and mortality rate; and litter and average market weight (70 d). The least squares model included main effects of breed type, season of birth of the litter and parity of dam, litter size at weaning as a linear covariate, and the random error. Breed-type differences were not detected for litter size and weight at weaning and feed efficiency. Purebred NZW and CAL litter trait performances were comparable (P greater than .05). Purebred NZW litters consumed less feed than CXN and FG crosses, gained weight less rapidly than FG crosses, and weighed less per fryer at 70 d than CXN and FG crosses (P less than .05). Feed intake was lower and average market weight was lighter for CAL purebred litters than for CXN and FG crossbred litters (P less than .05). The CXN and FG crossbreds only differed (P less than .05) for average market weight (2,078 vs 2,192 g). Mortality rate was lower (P less than .05) in CXN crossbred litters than in CAL purebred litters. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Sutureless aortic valve replacement: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND Sutureless aortic valve replacement (SU-AVR) has emerged as an innovative alternative for treatment of aortic stenosis. By avoiding the placement of sutures, this approach aims to reduce cross-clamp and cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) duration and thereby improve surgical outcomes and facilitate a minimally invasive approach suitable for higher risk patients. The present systematic review and meta-analysis aims to assess the safety and efficacy of SU-AVR approach in the current literature. METHODS Electronic searches were performed using six databases from their inception to January 2014. Relevant studies utilizing sutureless valves for aortic valve implantation were identified. Data were extracted and analyzed according to predefined clinical endpoints. RESULTS Twelve studies were identified for inclusion of qualitative and quantitative analyses, all of which were observational reports. The minimally invasive approach was used in 40.4% of included patients, while 22.8% underwent concomitant coronary bypass surgery. Pooled cross-clamp and CPB duration for isolated AVR was 56.7 and 46.5 minutes, respectively. Pooled 30-day and 1-year mortality rates were 2.1% and 4.9%, respectively, while the incidences of strokes (1.5%), valve degenerations (0.4%) and paravalvular leaks (PVL) (3.0%) were acceptable. CONCLUSIONS The evaluation of current observational evidence suggests that sutureless aortic valve implantation is a safe procedure associated with shorter cross-clamp and CPB duration, and comparable complication rates to the conventional approach in the short-term.
Mapping the Protein Universe

The comparison of the three-dimensional shapes of protein molecules poses a complex algorithmic problem. Its solution provides biologists with computational tools to organize the rapidly growing set of thousands of known protein shapes, to identify new types of protein architecture, and to discover unexpected evolutionary relations, reaching back billions of years, between protein molecules. Protein shape comparison also improves tools for identifying gene functions in genome databases by defining the essential sequence-structure features of a protein family. Finally, an exhaustive all-on-all shape comparison provides a map of physical attractor regions in the abstract shape space of proteins, with implications for the processes of protein folding and evolution.
Stability of magnesiowüstite in Earth's lower mantle

Magnesiowüstite [(Mg,Fe)O] is the second most abundant mineral of Earth's lower mantle. Understanding its stability under lower mantle conditions is crucial for interpreting the physical and chemical properties of the whole Earth. Previous studies in an externally heated diamond anvil cell suggested that magnesiowüstites decompose into two components, Fe-rich and Mg-rich magnesiowüstites at 86 GPa and 1,000 K. Here we report an in situ study of two magnesiowüstites [(Mg0.39,Fe0.61)O and (Mg0.25,Fe0.75)O] at pressures and temperatures that overlap with mantle conditions, using a laser-heated diamond anvil cell combined with synchrotron x-ray diffraction. Our results show that addition of Mg in wüstite (FeO) can stabilize the rock-salt structure to much higher pressures and temperatures. In contrast to the previous studies, our results indicate that Mg-rich magnesiowüstite is stable in the rock-salt structure in the lower mantle. The physical and chemical properties of magnesiowüstite should change gradually and continuously in the lower mantle, suggesting that it does not make a significant contribution to seismic-wave heterogeneity of the lower mantle. Stable Mg-rich magnesiowüstite in lowermost mantle can destabilize FeO in the core–mantle boundary region and remove FeO from the outer core.
Auditory material perception

Two experiments are reported in which subjects identified the perceived material of synthetic impact sounds varying in two parameters: centre frequency and decay time. In one experiment, subjects were asked to write down the material they thought had produced the sound. The stimulus uncertainty was kept low, as the subjects could listen to a stimulus as often as they liked and listened to the sounds over headphones. In the other experiment, stimulus uncertainty was high, as subjects had to choose the material they thought produced the sound within three seconds after one stimulus presentation among five alternatives. In this forcedchoice condition, the five alternatives were the five materials most often mentioned on the response sheets in the first experiment. These were 'metal', 'wood', 'glass', 'rubber', and 'plastic'. It appears that the parameter values for which 'metal', 'wood', and 'glass' are perceived are similar for the two experimental conditions. For 'rubber' and even more so for 'plastic' the responses are more variable.
Learning to Live with Patents: Acquiescence & adaptation to the law by the scientific community

Law plays a central, but under-appreciated role in knowledge work. While economic and policy scholars debate the way in which changing legal institutions, particularly expanding property rights, shape the daily lives of knowledge workers, lawyers, with their contracts and concerns, are not key actors on the stage of detailed ethnographies of knowledge work. We reconcile these alternatives arguing that in response to changing legal institutions, knowledge communities acquiesce to but also adapt to and adapt the law. We use our analytical framework to ground an empirical study of the role played by changing legal enforcement of intellectual property rights in shaping exchange in knowledge communities. Using a large-scale quantitative analysis of publications and patents drawn from a period characterized by dynamic changes in property rights enforcement, we econometrically assess whether and how the enforcement of intellectual property rights over scientific knowledge influences the life sciences community. We also examine how different subcommunities acquiesce and adapt to legal changes at differing rates. More broadly, we initiate an agenda incorporating legal institutions into scholarship on communities of practice and knowledge work. [
Methanol, formaldehyde, and sodium formate exposure in rat and mouse conceptuses: a potential role of the visceral yolk sac in embryotoxicity.

BACKGROUND Methanol (CH3OH) is believed to be teratogenic based on rodent studies. The mouse is more sensitive than the rat, but mechanisms of toxicity and identification of teratogenic metabolites are uncertain. METHODS Rat and mouse whole embryo cultures are used to distinguish toxicity of CH3OH and its metabolites, formaldehyde (HCHO) and formate (HCOONa), which are produced following transit through the visceral yolk sac (VYS), via addition to culture medium, or by direct embryonic exposure through microinjection into the amnion. RESULTS Embryonic viability, increased dysmorphogenesis, and decreased growth parameters were altered in a dose-dependent fashion for each compound. Mouse embryos were more sensitive than rat, as indicated by significant decreases in viability at comparable, lower concentrations. HCHO produced dysmorphogenesis and caused embryolethality at nearly 1000-fold lower concentrations (0.004 mg/ml) than seen with either CH3OH or HCOONa. All agents produced incomplete axial rotation and delayed neural tube closure in mice, but only CH3OH elicited similar effects in the rat. Increased growth retardation, blood pooling in the head and VYS, enlarged pericardium, accumulation of necrotic matter in the amnion, and hypoplastic prosencephalon were observed in both species with all compounds. Microinjection of compounds into the amnion produced higher mortality in mouse and rat, compared to equimolar amounts added to the culture medium. CH3OH did not prevent neural tube closure in the rat when microinjected. CONCLUSIONS HCHO is the most embryotoxic CH3OH metabolite and elicits the entire spectrum of lesions produced by CH3OH. The VYS serves a general protective role against toxicity and inherent differences in the embryonic metabolism of CH3OH may determine species sensitivity.
Prevalence of non‐ulcer dyspepsia in the Japanese population

Background : Non‐ulcer dyspepsia (NUD) is one of the most frequently encountered disorders in general practice in Western countries. The prevalence of this disorder in the Japanese, however, has not been fully investigated. This study is designed to clarify the characteristics and prevalence of dyspepsia in the Japanese.
The relevance of hippocampal subfield integrity and clock drawing test performance for the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease and mild cognitive impairment

Abstract Objectives: The clock drawing test (CDT) is one of the worldwide most used screening tests for Alzheimer’s disease (AD). MRI studies have identified temporo-parietal regions being involved in CDT impairment. However, the contributions of specific hippocampal subfields and adjacent extrahippocampal structures to CDT performance in AD and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) have not been investigated so far. It is unclear whether morphological alterations or CDT score, or a combination of both, are able to predict AD. Methods: 38 AD patients, 38 MCI individuals and 31 healthy controls underwent neuropsychological assessment and MRI at 3 Tesla. FreeSurfer 5.3 was used to perform hippocampal parcellation. We used a collection of statistical methods to better understand the relationship between CDT and hippocampal formation. We also tested the clinical feasibility of this relationship when predicting AD. Results: Impaired CDT performance in AD was associated with widespread atrophy of the cornu ammonis, presubiculum, and subiculum, whereas MCI subjects showed CDT-related alterations of the CA4-dentate gyrus and subiculum. CDT correlates in AD and MCI showed regional and quantitative overlap. Importantly, CDT score was the best predictor of AD. Conclusions: Our findings lend support for an involvement of different hippocampal subfields in impaired CDT performance in AD and MCI. CDT seems to be more efficient than subfield imaging for predicting AD.
Propofol protects against hepatic ischemia/reperfusion injury via miR‐133a‐5p regulating the expression of MAPK6

Propofol has been found to play an important role in hepatic ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury with the antioxidant effects. However, the molecular mechanism of propofol in hepatic I/R injury has not been fully understood. Male Sprague–Dawley rats were randomly assigned into Sham group, hepatic I/R group, and propofol treatment group. I/R injury was attained by ischemia for 1 h and reperfusion for 2 h. Serum aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and alanine aminotransferase (ALT) activity were detected. QSG‐7701 cells were cultured in hypoxia condition for 15 h and then in reoxygenation condition for 6 h to imitate hypoxia/reoxygenation (H/R) injury in vitro. Real‐time RT‐PCR and Western blot were performed to determine the expression of miR‐133a‐5p and MAPK6. Luciferase reporter assay was used to determine the regulation of miR‐133a‐5p on MAPK6. Propofol significantly reduced the activities of serum AST and ALT induced by hepatic I/R injury in rats. Propofol increased the level of miR‐133a‐5p and decreased the expression of MAPK6 in vivo and in vitro. Luciferase reporter assay showed that MAPK6 was a target of miR‐133a‐5p. Knockdown of miR‐133a‐5p abrogated the effect of propofol on the upregulation of MAPK6 induced by H/R. MAPK6 overexpression promoted the cell apoptosis induced by H/R which could be attenuated by propofol. Finally, we found that miR‐133a‐5p reversed the protective effect of propofol in rats with hepatic I/R injury. Propofol showed protective roles for hepatic I/R injury in vivo and H/R injury in vitro, which involved with miR‐133a‐5p regulating the expression of MAPK6.
MMPI-A Characteristics of Male Adolescents in Juvenile Justice and Clinical Treatment Settings

The current study investigates the extent to which the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-Adolescent (MMPI-A) profiles of 196 male adolescents evaluated in a South Carolina detention center could be successfully discriminated from the protocols of 200 male adolescent psychiatric inpatients in three states and 151 dually diagnosed male adolescents. Results showed significant differences in mean T-score values among these three groups of adolescents across a variety of MMPI-A scales and subscales. Results from discriminant function analyses indicate that treatment setting can be predicted effectively from MMPI-A profiles. Beyond the MMPI-A profile differences established for adolescents in these groups, the similarities of adolescents were also noted, particularly in terms of the frequent occurrence of Within-Normal-Limits profiles for adolescents in all groups. Potential directions for future research with the MMPI-A are presented.
The internal transcribed spacers of ribosomal DNA in five members of the Anopheles gambiae species complex

The primary and secondary structure of the internal transcribed spacers of ribosomal DNA (ITS1 and ITS2) and their utility for phylogenetic analysis of closely related species were examined using the Anopheles gambiae complex as a model. Restriction mapping revealed an unusual architectural feature in the ITS1 of several members of an An. gambiae cryptic species complex. Multiple spacer lengths are prevalent in An. merus and An. melas and are due to variable numbers of a repeated 250 bp sequence. Secondary structure analysis indicated that the repeat forms a helix and loop that may be involved in rDNA processing. Intra‐and interspecific polymorphism within the species complex were further examined by DNA sequencing of forty‐eight ITS2 clones obtained by polymerase chain reaction from individuals of the five species. Interspecies variation in the approximately 426 bp ITS2 sequence ranged between 0.4% and 1.6%; intraspecies variation ranged from 0.07% in An. arabiensis to 0.43% in An. gambiae. lntraindividual variation ranged from 0% in four individuals to a high of 0.4% in one An. quadriannulatus specimen. None of the variants were shared between species. The low level of variation supports the hypothesis that species of the complex evolved recently.
Determinants of Stock Returns: Factors or Systematic Co-Moments? Crisis versus Non-Crisis Periods

In this paper we evaluate the intertemporal pricing performance of stock return determinants over the periods surrounding, and outside of, financial crises. The analysis focuses on the variables of size, book-to-market ratio, momentum, liquidity, and higher-order systematic co-moments. The evidence reveals that over non-crisis periods the market beta plays an important role in determining the cross-section of stock returns. Size, value, momentum, and liquidity also exhibit associations with the cross-section of stock returns. However, over crisis periods most of the variables we examined lose their explanatory power, suggesting that their usefulness is limited for investment purposes when financial markets experience crises. There is some evidence of coskewness pricing surrounding market crashes. Practitioners may consider coskewness over crisis periods.
Pragmatism: A Guide for the Perplexed

1. Introduction: The Origins of Pragmatism 2. Pragmatism and Epistemology 3. Pragmatism and Truth 4. Pragmatism and Metaphysics 5. Pragmatism and Ethics 6. Pragmatism and Politics 7. Pragmatism and Environmental Philosophy.
You and I listening to me: towards an understanding of the significance of personal pronoun usage in psychotherapy

The idea that clients need to take responsibility for the material they present in psychotherapy is commonly encountered in humanistic therapies. On the one hand, many therapies encourage the use of first person pronouns in order to achieve ownership and responsibility, yet on the other hand, excessive use of the first person is associated with unhelpful functioning such as poor interpersonal relating and narcissism. A large body of evidence exists which associates above-average levels of first person pronoun usage with unhelpful rumination depression, suicide and anxiety. This study explored this dichotomy, using a mixed methods approach to investigate first person pronoun usage in a sample of eight clients referred by their GPs for short to medium term therapy. For the qualitative phase, clients completed kept a journal in which they could recorded their experiences of therapy generally and interventions around their pronoun use specifically. Sessions were audio recorded and interventions concerning pronoun usage were transcribed. After the end of therapy, six out of the eight clients participated in interview in which they discussed their experiences of therapist pronoun interventions (such as invitations to ‘own’ statements in the first person) and the significance of these for their overall experience of the therapy. In the quantitative study, clients completed a CORE-OM at start and end of therapy. Also, changes in clients’ use of first, second and third person pronouns between beginning and end of therapy were determined using Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC). Analysis looked for correlations between these two measures (outcome and pronoun use) as well as for potential relationships between therapist and client pronoun use in individual sessions.
Multi-group Adaptation for Event Recognition from Videos

Recognizing events in consumer videos is becoming increasingly important because of the enormous growth of consumer videos in recent years. Current researches mainly focus on learning from numerous labeled videos, which is time consuming and labor expensive due to labeling the consumer videos. To alleviate the labeling process, we utilize a large number of loosely labeled Web videos (e.g., from YouTube) for visual event recognition in consumer videos. Web videos are noisy and diverse, so brute force transfer of Web videos to consumer videos may hurt the performance. To address such a negative transfer problem, we propose a novel Multi-Group Adaptation (MGA) framework to divide the training Web videos into several semantic groups and seek the optimal weight of each group. Each weight represents how relative the corresponding group is to the consumer domain. The final classifier for event recognition is learned using the weighted combination of classifiers learned from Web videos and enforced to be smooth on the consumer domain. Comprehensive experiments on three real-world consumer video datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of MGA for event recognition in consumer videos.
Routine Use of a Protease Zymogen-Based Colorimetric Assay for the Detection of Beta-Glucan and its Role in Clinical Practice

The detection of Aspergillus antigen (galactomannan) is considered a reliable marker for the diagnosis of invasive aspergillosis (IA), yet the sensibility and specificity of the assays commonly employed in routine are not optimal. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether the detection of another panfungal antigen, the (1,3)-b-D-glucan could have an auxiliary role in the identification of patients with IA. The study was carried out on 63 sera belonging to patients who had been screened for galactomannan, according to the clinical suspect of IA. Our data show that the positive galactomannan results were not confirmed by positive (1,3)-b-D-glucan results in patients receiving therapy with beta-lactam antibiotics associated with tazobactam, whereas in all the other cases, with the exception of four, the results of the (1,3)-b-D-glucan test were confirmatory of the galactomannan results.