Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Achieving the composite endpoint of HbA1c, body weight, and systolic blood pressure reduction with canagliflozin in patients with type 2 diabetes

Abstract Objective: In addition to achieving glycemic control, weight loss and blood pressure (BP) reduction are important components of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) management, as many patients with T2DM are overweight/obese and/or have hypertension. Canagliflozin, an SGLT2 inhibitor, has demonstrated improvements in HbA1c, body weight (BW), and systolic BP across a broad range of patients with T2DM. This analysis evaluated achievement of composite endpoints of HbA1c, BW, and systolic BP targets with canagliflozin versus placebo. Methods: This post hoc analysis evaluated the proportion of T2DM patients achieving the composite endpoint of HbA1c reduction ≥0.5%, BW reduction ≥3%, and systolic BP reduction ≥4mmHg with canagliflozin 100 and 300mg compared with placebo using pooled data from four 26-week, phase 3 studies (N = 2313; NCT01081834, NCT01106677, NCT01106625, NCT01106690). The proportion of patients achieving the composite endpoint of HbA1c <7.0%, BW reduction ≥3%, and BP <130/80 mmHg was also evaluated. Results: At week 26, greater proportions of patients met individual HbA1c, BW, and systolic BP targets with canagliflozin versus placebo. A greater proportion of patients treated with canagliflozin 100 or 300 mg versus placebo also achieved the composite endpoint of HbA1c reduction ≥0.5%, BW reduction ≥3%, and systolic BP reduction ≥4 mmHg at week 26 (21.1%, 25.3%, and 5.7%, respectively; odds ratios [95% CI] of 4.5 [3.1, 6.5] and 5.6 [3.8, 8.2]). A greater proportion of patients also achieved the composite endpoint of HbA1c <7.0%, BW reduction ≥3%, and BP <130/80 mmHg with canagliflozin 100 and 300 mg versus placebo (14.7%, 20.9%, and 3.3%, respectively; odds ratios [95% CI] of 5.2 [3.2, 8.4] and 8.4 [5.2, 13.5]). Canagliflozin was generally well tolerated, with a safety profile similar to that seen in other phase 3 studies. Conclusions: Patients with T2DM were more likely to achieve clinically important reductions in HbA1c, BW, and systolic BP with canagliflozin versus placebo.
“Forget to Whom You Have Told This Proverb”: Directed Forgetting of Destination Memory in Alzheimer's Disease

Destination memory is the ability to remember the receiver of transmitted information. By means of a destination memory directed forgetting task, we investigated whether participants with Alzheimer's Disease (AD) were able to suppress irrelevant information in destination memory. Twenty-six AD participants and 30 healthy elderly subjects were asked to tell 10 different proverbs to 10 different celebrities (List 1). Afterwards, half of the participants were instructed to forget the destinations (i.e., the celebrities) whereas the other half were asked to keep them in mind. After telling 10 other proverbs to 10 other celebrities (List 2), participants were asked to read numbers aloud. Subsequently, all the participants were asked to remember the destinations of List 1 and List 2, regardless of the forget or remember instructions. The results show similar destination memory in AD participants who were asked to forget the destinations of List 1 and those who were asked to retain them. These findings are attributed to inhibitory deficits, by which AD participants have difficulties to suppress irrelevant information in destination memory.
Distinct dendritic morphology across the blades of the rodent dentate gyrus

The dentate gyrus (DG) is a hippocampal region that has long been characterized as a critical mediator of enduring memory formation and retrieval. As such, there is a wealth of studies investigating this area. Most of these studies have either treated the DG as a homogeneous structure, or examined differences in neurons along the septal‐temporal axis. Recent data, however, have indicated that a functional distinction exists between the suprapyramidal and infrapyramidal blades of the DG, with the former showing more robust responses during spatial tasks. To date, few anatomical studies have addressed this functional gradient in rats, and no study has done so in the mouse. To address this, we investigated dendritic morphology and spine density in hippocampal granule cells of rats and mice using the Golgi‐Cox technique. We find that granule cells from the suprapyramidal blade of the DG contain greater dendritic material in the region receiving spatial information from the medial perforant path. This provides a potential anatomical substrate for the asymmetric response of the DG to spatial input. Synapse 70:277–282, 2016. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Learning from Between-class Examples for Deep Sound Recognition

Deep learning methods have achieved high performance in sound recognition tasks. Deciding how to feed the training data is important for further performance improvement. We propose a novel learning method for deep sound recognition: Between-Class learning (BC learning). Our strategy is to learn a discriminative feature space by recognizing the between-class sounds as between-class sounds. We generate between-class sounds by mixing two sounds belonging to different classes with a random ratio. We then input the mixed sound to the model and train the model to output the mixing ratio. The advantages of BC learning are not limited only to the increase in variation of the training data; BC learning leads to an enlargement of Fisher's criterion in the feature space and a regularization of the positional relationship among the feature distributions of the classes. The experimental results show that BC learning improves the performance on various sound recognition networks, datasets, and data augmentation schemes, in which BC learning proves to be always beneficial. Furthermore, we construct a new deep sound recognition network (EnvNet-v2) and train it with BC learning. As a result, we achieved a performance surpasses the human level.
Abuse of Older Persons With Dementia: A Review of the Literature

In view of the rapidly aging population, increasing attention has been paid to studying persons with dementia. Factors associated with its onset, prognosis, and treatment as well as ways to support caregivers in the community have been extensively studied. Despite the fact that older persons with dementia are at higher risk of abuse compared to their cognitively unimpaired counterparts in institutions and the community, however, relatively little attention has been paid to understanding such abuse. This review summarizes the available literature on abuse of older persons with dementia. It compares methodologies used across studies and highlights the implications of using different informants, sampling strategies, and abuse subtypes in studying abuse of persons with dementia and discussed the relevant cultural considerations for research. The results of this review provide important information for researchers, policy makers, and practitioners.
Imaging Corneal Biomechanical Responses to Ocular Pulse Using High-Frequency Ultrasound

Imaging corneal biomechanical changes or abnormalities is important for better clinical diagnosis and treatment of corneal diseases. We propose a novel ultrasound-based method, called ocular pulse elastography (OPE), to image corneal deformation during the naturally occurring ocular pulse. Experiments on animal and human donor eyes, as well as synthetic radiofrequency (RF) data, were used to evaluate the efficacy of the OPE method. Using very high-frequency ultrasound (center frequency = 55 MHz), correlation-based speckle tracking yielded an accuracy of less than 10% error for axial tissue displacements of <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$0.5~\mu \text{m}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> or above. Satisfactory speckle tracking was achieved for out-of-plane displacements up to <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$32~\mu \text{m}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>. Using synthetic RF data with or without a pre-defined uniform strain, the OPE method detected strains down to 0.0001 axially and 0.00025 laterally with an error less than 10%. Experiments in human donor eyes showed excellent repeatability with an intraclass correlation of 0.98. The measurement outcome from OPE was also shown to be highly correlated with that of standard inflation. These results suggest the feasibility of OPE as a potential clinical tool for evaluating corneal biomechanics <italic>in vivo</italic>.
Long-Term Efficacy and Safety of Everolimus-Eluting Bioresorbable Vascular Scaffolds Versus Everolimus-Eluting Metallic Stents: A Meta-Analysis of Randomized Trials

Background— Data regarding the long-term efficacy and safety of everolimus-eluting bioresorbable vascular scaffolds (BVS) compared with everolimus-eluting stents are limited. This meta-analysis aimed to compare the long-term outcomes with both devices. Methods and Results— Randomized trials reporting clinical outcomes beyond 1 year and comparing BVS with everolimus-eluting stents were included. Summary estimates risk ratios (RRs) were constructed. The primary efficacy outcome was target lesion failure, defined as cardiac death, target vessel myocardial infarction, and ischemia-driven target lesion revascularization, and the primary safety outcome was definite or probable stent/scaffold thrombosis. Six trials with 5392 patients were included (mean follow-up, 25 months). BVS had a higher rate of target lesion failure (RR, 1.33; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.11–1.58) driven by the higher rates of target vessel myocardial infarction (RR, 1.65; 95% CI, 1.26–2.17) and target lesion revascularization (RR, 1.39; 95% CI, 1.08–1.78). The risk of definite or probable stent/scaffold thrombosis (RR, 3.22; 95% CI, 1.89–5.49) and very late stent/scaffold thrombosis (>1 year; RR, 4.78; 95% CI, 1.66–13.8) was higher with BVS. The risk of cardiac and all-cause mortality was similar in both groups. Conclusions— Compared with everolimus-eluting stents, BVS is associated with increased risk of target lesion failure driven by the increased rates of target vessel myocardial infarction and ischemia-driven target lesion revascularization in these studies (mean follow-up, 25 months). The risk of definite or probable stent/scaffold thrombosis and very late stent/scaffold thrombosis seems to be higher with BVS. Further information from randomized trials is critical to evaluate clinical outcomes with BVS on complete resolution of the scaffold.
Predictive Uncertainty Estimation via Prior Networks

Estimating how uncertain an AI system is in its predictions is important to improve the safety of such systems. Uncertainty in predictive can result from uncertainty in model parameters, irreducible data uncertainty and uncertainty due to distributional mismatch between the test and training data distributions. Different actions might be taken depending on the source of the uncertainty so it is important to be able to distinguish between them. Recently, baseline tasks and metrics have been defined and several practical methods to estimate uncertainty developed. These methods, however, attempt to model uncertainty due to distributional mismatch either implicitly through model uncertainty or as data uncertainty. This work proposes a new framework for modeling predictive uncertainty called Prior Networks (PNs) which explicitly models distributional uncertainty. PNs do this by parameterizing a prior distribution over predictive distributions. This work focuses on uncertainty for classification and evaluates PNs on the tasks of identifying out-of-distribution (OOD) samples and detecting misclassification on the MNIST dataset, where they are found to outperform previous methods. Experiments on synthetic and MNIST and CIFAR-10 data show that unlike previous non-Bayesian methods PNs are able to distinguish between data and distributional uncertainty.
The Role of Ambidexterity in Managing Buyer-Supplier Relationships: The Toyota Case

Most ambidexterity theories deal with managing exploration-exploitation trade-offs among business units within firms or between alliance partners, but these theories remain yet to be extended to the buyer-supplier relationship level. Through an in-depth case study of the Toyota Motor Corporation, we illustrate how buying firms can simultaneously achieve short-term and long-term benefits with their long-standing suppliers. Taking two inherently different activities as a starting point-mass production with its focus on exploitation and product development with its focus on exploration-we show that the deliberate use of ambiguity and explicitness can function as a countervailing mechanism against overemphasizing either exploration or exploitation. We also show that structural separation and structural integration are two organizational systems that can be used by buying firms to help suppliers realize ambidexterity in their operations. Finally, we argue that "requisite security" can help to motivate suppliers to address the paradoxical tensions deliberately created by buying firms.
Resistance to cycloxaprid in Laodelphax striatellus is associated with altered expression of nicotinic acetylcholine receptor subunits.

BACKGROUND Cycloxaprid is a new oxabridged cis-configuration neonicotinoid insecticide, the resistance development potential and underlying resistance mechanism of which were investigated in the small brown planthopper, Laodelphax striatellus (Fallén), an important agricultural pest of rice. RESULTS A cycloxaprid-resistant strain (YN-CPD) only achieved 10-fold higher resistance, in contrast to 106-fold higher resistance to buprofezin and 332-fold higher resistance to chlorpyrifos achieved after exposure to similar selection pressure, and the cycloxaprid selected line showed no cross-resistance to the buprofezin and chlorpyrifos-selected resistance strains. Moreover, we identified 10 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR) subunits from the transcriptome of L. striatellus, and six segments had open reading frames (ORFs). While we did not find mutations in the nAChR genes of L. striatellus, subunits Lsα1 and Lsβ1 exhibited, respectively, 9.60-fold and 3.36-fold higher expression in the resistant strain, while Lsα8 exhibited 0.44-fold lower expression. Suppression of Lsα1 through ingestion of dsLsα1 led to an increase in susceptibility to cycloxaprid. CONCLUSION The findings indicate that resistance to cycloxaprid develops slowly compared with resistance to other chemicals and without cross-resistance to chlorpyrifos or buprofezin; over-expressed Lsα1 is associated with low cycloxaprid resistance levels, but the importance of over-expressed Lsβ1 and reduced expression of Lsα8 could not be excluded. © 2017 Society of Chemical Industry.
Potencies of vitamin D analogs, 1α‐hydroxyvitamin D3, 1α‐hydroxyvitamin D2 and 25‐hydroxyvitamin D3, in lowering cholesterol in hypercholesterolemic mice in vivo

Vitamin D3 and the synthetic vitamin D analogs, 1α‐hydroxyvitamin D3 [1α(OH)D3], 1α‐hydroxyvitamin D2 [1α(OH)D2] and 25‐hydroxyvitamin D3 [25(OH)D3] were appraised for their vitamin D receptor (VDR) associated‐potencies as cholesterol lowering agents in mice in vivo. These precursors are activated in vivo: 1α(OH)D3 and 1α(OH)D2 are transformed by liver CYP2R1 and CYP27A1 to active VDR ligands, 1α,25‐dihydroxyvitamin D3 [1,25(OH)2D3] and 1α,25‐dihydroxyvitamin D2 [1,25(OH)2D2], respectively. 1α(OH)D2 may also be activated by CYP24A1 to 1α,24‐dihydroxyvitamin D2 [1,24(OH)2D2], another active VDR ligand. 25(OH)D3, the metabolite formed via CYP2R1 and or CYP27A1 in liver from vitamin D3, is activated by CYP27B1 in the kidney to 1,25(OH)2D3. In C57BL/6 mice fed the high fat/high cholesterol Western diet for 3 weeks, vitamin D analogs were administered every other day intraperitoneally during the last week of the diet. The rank order for cholesterol lowering, achieved via mouse liver small heterodimer partner (Shp) inhibition and increased cholesterol 7α‐hydroxylase (Cyp7a1) expression, was: 1.75 nmol/kg 1α(OH)D3 > 1248 nmol/kg 25(OH)D3 (dose ratio of 0.0014) > > 1625 nmol/kg vitamin D3. Except for 1.21 nmol/kg 1α(OH)D2 that failed to lower liver and plasma cholesterol contents, a significant negative correlation was observed between the liver concentration of 1,25(OH)2D3 formed from the precursors and liver cholesterol levels. The composite results show that vitamin D analogs 1α(OH)D3 and 25(OH)D3 exhibit cholesterol lowering properties upon activation to 1,25(OH)2D3: 1α(OH)D3 is rapidly activated by liver enzymes and 25(OH)D3 is slowly activated by renal Cyp27b1 in mouse.
Thermoregulatory postures limit antipredator responses in peafowl

ABSTRACT Many animals inhabit environments where they experience temperature fluctuations. One way in which animals can adjust to these temperature changes is through behavioral thermoregulation. However, we know little about the thermal benefits of postural changes and the costs they may incur. In this study, we examined the thermoregulatory role of two postures, the head-tuck and leg-tuck posture, in peafowl (Pavo cristatus) and evaluated whether the head-tuck posture imposes a predation cost. The heads and legs of peafowl are significantly warmer when the birds exhibit these postures, demonstrating that these postures serve an important thermoregulatory role. In addition, the birds are slower to respond to an approaching threat when they display the head-tuck posture, suggesting that a thermoregulatory posture can limit antipredator behavior. Summary: The head-tuck and leg-tuck postures of peafowl help conserve heat but can impair antipredator responses.
Outcome of medial hamstring lengthening in children with spastic paresis: A biomechanical and morphological observational study

To improve gait in children with spastic paresis due to cerebral palsy or hereditary spastic paresis, the semitendinosus muscle is frequently lengthened amongst other medial hamstring muscles by orthopaedic surgery. Side effects on gait due to weakening of the hamstring muscles and overcorrections have been reported. How these side effects relate to semitendinosus morphology is unknown. This study assessed the effects of bilateral medial hamstring lengthening as part of single-event multilevel surgery (SEMLS) on (1) knee joint mechanics (2) semitendinosus muscle morphology and (3) gait kinematics. All variables were assessed for the right side only. Six children with spastic paresis selected for surgery to counteract limited knee range of motion were measured before and about a year after surgery. After surgery, in most subjects popliteal angle decreased and knee moment-angle curves were shifted towards a more extended knee joint, semitendinosus muscle belly length was approximately 30% decreased, while at all assessed knee angles tendon length was increased by about 80%. In the majority of children muscle volume of the semitendinosus muscle decreased substantially suggesting a reduction of physiological cross-sectional area. Gait kinematics showed more knee extension during stance (mean change ± standard deviation: 34±13°), but also increased pelvic anterior tilt (mean change ± standard deviation: 23±5°). In most subjects, surgical lengthening of semitendinosus tendon contributed to more extended knee joint angle during static measurements as well as during gait, whereas extensibility of semitendinosus muscle belly was decreased. Post-surgical treatment to maintain muscle belly length and physiological cross-sectional area may improve treatment outcome of medial hamstring lengthening.
Complications of thoracentesis: incidence, risk factors, and strategies for prevention

Purpose of review Although thoracentesis is generally considered safe, procedural complications are associated with increased morbidity, mortality, and healthcare costs. In this article, we review the risk factors and prevention of the most common complications of thoracentesis including pneumothorax, bleeding (chest wall hematoma and hemothorax), and re-expansion pulmonary edema. Recent findings Recent data support the importance of operator expertise and the use of ultrasound in reducing the risk of iatrogenic pneumothorax. Although coagulopathy or thrombocytopenia and the use of anticoagulant or antiplatelet medications have traditionally been viewed as contraindications to thoracentesis, new evidence suggests that patients may be able to safely undergo thoracentesis without treating their bleeding risk. Re-expansion pulmonary edema, a rare complication of thoracentesis, is felt to result in part from the generation of excessively negative pleural pressure. When and how to monitor changes in pleural pressure during thoracentesis remains a focus of ongoing study. Summary Major complications of thoracentesis are uncommon. Clinician awareness of risk factors for procedural complications and familiarity with strategies that improve outcomes are essential components for safely performing thoracentesis.
Overnight News and Daily Equity Trading Risk Limits

This paper proposes a new bivariate modeling approach for setting daily equity-trading risk limits using high-frequency data. We construct one-day-ahead Value-at-Risk (VaR) forecasts by taking into account the different dynamics of the overnight and daytime return processes and their covariance. The covariance is motivated by market microstructure effects such as price staleness and news spillover. Among the competitors we include a simpler bivariate model where the overnight return is redefined by moving the open price further into the trading day, and a univariate model based on the close-to-close return and an overnight-adjusted realized volatility. We illustrate the different approaches using data on the S&P 500 and Russell 2000 indices. The evidence in favour of modeling the covariance is more convincing for the latter index due to the lower trading volumes and, relatedly, the less efficient price discovery at market open for small-cap stocks.