Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Acute and Chronic Effects of Particles on Hospital Admissions in New-England

Background Many studies have reported significant associations between exposure to PM2.5 and hospital admissions, but all have focused on the effects of short-term exposure. In addition all these studies have relied on a limited number of PM2.5 monitors in their study regions, which introduces exposure error, and excludes rural and suburban populations from locations in which monitors are not available, reducing generalizability and potentially creating selection bias. Methods Using our novel prediction models for exposure combining land use regression with physical measurements (satellite aerosol optical depth) we investigated both the long and short term effects of PM2.5 exposures on hospital admissions across New-England for all residents aged 65 and older. We performed separate Poisson regression analysis for each admission type: all respiratory, cardiovascular disease (CVD), stroke and diabetes. Daily admission counts in each zip code were regressed against long and short-term PM2.5 exposure, temperature, socio-economic data and a spline of time to control for seasonal trends in baseline risk. Results We observed associations between both short-term and long-term exposure to PM2.5 and hospitalization for all of the outcomes examined. In example, for respiratory diseases, for every10-µg/m3 increase in short-term PM2.5 exposure there is a 0.70 percent increase in admissions (CI = 0.35 to 0.52) while concurrently for every10-µg/m3 increase in long-term PM2.5 exposure there is a 4.22 percent increase in admissions (CI = 1.06 to 4.75). Conclusions As with mortality studies, chronic exposure to particles is associated with substantially larger increases in hospital admissions than acute exposure and both can be detected simultaneously using our exposure models.
Measurement of |V_us| using hadronic tau decays from BaBar & Belle

We report on measurements of branching fractions for several hadronic tau decays to final states with kaons, which can be used to determine the strange quark mass and the element |V_us| of the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa quark-mixing matrix. The results are obtained from data collected with the BaBar and Belle detectors at the PEP-II and KEKB asymmetric-energy e+e- colliders at SLAC and KEK, respectively, both operating at center-of-mass energies near the Y(4S) resonance.
Gene and protein expression of RCAS1 in hepatocellular carcinoma.

BACKGROUND RCAS1 (receptor-binding cancer antigen expressed on SiSo cells) is expressed on the tumor cell membrane and induces apoptosis in infiltrated lymphocytes. In the present study, the clinical importance of RCAS1 gene and protein expression were analyzed in surgically resected hepatocellular carcinomas (HCCs). PATIENTS AND METHODS RCAS1 gene and protein expression levels were evaluated and compared with clinical findings in 60 patients with HCC. Expression levels of RCAS1 messenger RNA (mRNA) from tumors was analyzed quantitatively by real-time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). RCAS1 protein expression was analyzed by immunohistochemistry and the percentage of RCAS1-positive cancer cells was counted in each case. RESULTS RCAS1 messenger RNA levels significantly positively correlated with protein expression levels. RCAS1 protein expression was detected in 75% of cases and high RCAS1 immunoreactivity was detected in 19 tumors (31.7%). RCAS1 protein expression did not correlate with tumor differentiation, progression, nor disease-free survival. New tumors developed in the residual livers after resection of primary tumors in 39 patients. Treatment with transcatheter arterial embolization (TAE) from hepatic artery was performed in these patients. Survival periods after TAE treatment in these patients were analyzed. The mean survival period of 13 patients who had primary tumors with high RCAS1 protein expression (41.4 months) was significantly longer than that of 26 patients with low expression (23.5 months, p = 0.024). After TAE treatment, a low expression level of RCAS1 protein in primary tumors was recognized as a poor prognostic factor independently of tumor stage, by multivariate analysis, in patients who had developed new tumors in the residual livers. CONCLUSION RCAS1 protein expression in primary tumor may be a good marker for the effectiveness of TAE treatment in patients who develop new tumors in the residual livers.
[Alexithymia and Pathological Gambling: The Mediating Role of Difficulties in Emotion Regulation].

OBJECTIVE The main objective was to determine the prediction level of alexithymia and difficulties in emotion regulation on pathological gambling. Secondly, this study aimed to examine the mediating role of difficulties in emotion regulation on the relationship between alexithymia and pathological gambling. METHOD The sample was consisted of 246 male gamblers. The average age was 33.30 with a standard deviation of 11.62. In addition to socio-demographic form, The South Oaks Gambling Screen (SOGS), Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) and Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS) were used to collect data. RESULTS Regression analyses revealed that amount of money bet, total score of TAS-20 and DERS significantly predicted pathological gambling. In addition to these, difficulties in emotion regulation have a partial mediator role in the relationship between alexithymia and pathological gambling. CONCLUSION It is argued that individuals high in alexithymia become prone to addiction behavior through emotion dysregulation. In addition to the alexithymia level, difficulties in emotion regulation are seen to play an important role in pathological gambling. In this context, this study contributes to the relevant literature by discussing alexithymia, emotion regulation and pathological gambling together.
CH/π Interactions in Carbohydrate Recognition

Many carbohydrate-binding proteins contain aromatic amino acid residues in their binding sites. These residues interact with carbohydrates in a stacking geometry via CH/π interactions. These interactions can be found in carbohydrate-binding proteins, including lectins, enzymes and carbohydrate transporters. Besides this, many non-protein aromatic molecules (natural as well as artificial) can bind saccharides using these interactions. Recent computational and experimental studies have shown that carbohydrate–aromatic CH/π interactions are dispersion interactions, tuned by electrostatics and partially stabilized by a hydrophobic effect in solvated systems.
Effects of Entry Mode and Incumbency Status on Firm Product Innovation in the Worldwide Optical Disk Drive Industry , 1983-1999 *

Firms entering an industry de novo (start-up) and firms entering de alio (diversification away from another industry) differ in the initial entry conditions. In this paper, I propose that the differences in resource endowment, previous experience, and structural flexibility between de novo and de alio firms at the time of entry have long-lasting imprinting effects on their innovation behavior. In particular, I predict that de novo firms exert greater efforts and achieve greater technological outcomes in product innovation than de alio firms. Furthermore, I argue that firm entry mode explains additional variance in firm innovative behavior, which is not explained by entrant-incumbent status alone. I find strong empirical support for these predictions when analyzing product innovation of all firms that ever participated in the worldwide optical disk drive industry, 1983-1999. I discuss the implications of my findings for the entrant-incumbent research in the management of innovation literature.
Parallel flow-sensitive pointer analysis by graph-rewriting

Precise pointer analysis is a problem of interest to both the compiler and the program verification community. Flow-sensitivity is an important dimension of pointer analysis that affects the precision of the final result computed. Scaling flow-sensitive pointer analysis to millions of lines of code is a major challenge. Recently, staged flow-sensitive pointer analysis has been proposed, which exploits a sparse representation of program code created by staged analysis. In this paper we formulate the staged flow-sensitive pointer analysis as a graph-rewriting problem. Graph-rewriting has already been used for flow-insensitive analysis. However, formulating flow-sensitive pointer analysis as a graph-rewriting problem adds additional challenges due to the nature of flow-sensitivity. We implement our parallel algorithm using Intel Threading Building Blocks and demonstrate considerable scaling (upto 2.6x) for 8 threads on a set of 10 benchmarks. Compared to the sequential implementation of staged flow-sensitive analysis, a single threaded execution of our implementation performs better in 8 of the benchmarks.
To investigate the therapeutic potential of immunochemotherapy with cisplatin + 78 kDa + MPL‐A against Leishmania donovani in BALB/c mice

Leishmaniasis has recently garnered attention as one of the diseases ‘most neglected’ by drug research and development, as the current therapeutic modalities available for the patients are ridden with unacceptable toxicity due to high dosage of the drug, prolonged treatment schedules, resistance and prohibitive costs. A successful chemotherapy requires a restoration of immune response; therefore, we combined Leishmania‐specific 78 kDa antigen (with or without adjuvant MPL‐A) along with a novel drug cisplatin in infected BALB/c mice and did its comparative analysis with chemotherapy and immunotherapy alone. Animals that were treated with immunochemotherapy showed maximum curative potential as demonstrated by a marked reduction in parasite load. Delayed‐type hypersensitivity response to leishmanial antigens has been widely used to assess the level of host protection to the disease. An increased delayed‐type hypersensitivity (DTH) response was observed in animals given immunotherapy or chemotherapy or immunochemotherapy; however, maximum DTH response was observed in animals treated with cisplatin + 78 kDa + MPL‐A. These animals were also found to exhibit higher IgG2a levels greater cytokine (IFN‐γ and IL‐2) concentrations suggesting the generation of a strong Th1 type of immune response which is responsible for resolution of the disease.
Differential Modulation of the Cardiac Adenosine Triphosphate-sensitive Potassium Channel by Isoflurane and Halothane

Background The cardiac adenosine triphosphate–sensitive potassium (KATP) channel is activated during pathophysiological episodes such as ischemia and hypoxia and may lead to beneficial effects on cardiac function. Studies of volatile anesthetic interactions with the cardiac KATP channel have been limited. The goal of this study was to investigate the ability of volatile anesthetics halothane and isoflurane to modulate the cardiac sarcolemmal KATP channel. Methods The KATP channel current (IKATP) was monitored using the whole cell configuration of the patch clamp technique from single ventricular cardiac myocytes enzymatically isolated from guinea pig hearts. IKATP was elicited by extracellular application of the potassium channel openers 2,4-dinitrophenol or pinacidil. Results Volatile anesthetics modulated IKATP in an anesthetic-dependent manner. Isoflurane facilitated the opening of the KATP channel. Following initial activation of IKATP by 2,4-dinitrophenol, isoflurane at 0.5 and 1.3 mm further increased current amplitude by 40.4 ± 11.1% and 58.4 ± 20.6%, respectively. Similar results of isoflurane were obtained when pinacidil was used to activate IKATP. However, isoflurane alone was unable to elicit KATP channel opening. In contrast, halothane inhibited IKATP elicited by 2,4-dinitrophenol by 50.6 ± 5.8% and 72.1 ± 11.6% at 0.4 and 1.0 mm, respectively. When IKATP was activated by pinacidil, halothane had no significant effect on the current. Conclusions The cardiac sarcolemmal KATP channel is differentially modulated by volatile anesthetics. Isoflurane can facilitate the further opening of the KATP channel following initial channel activation by 2,4-dinitrophenol or pinacidil. The effect of halothane was dependent on the method of channel activation, inhibiting IKATP activated by 2,4-dinitrophenol but not by pinacidil.
Patient Loyalty to Healthcare Organizations: Relationship Marketing and Satisfaction

This study examined a model of patient loyalty from the perspectives of relationship marketing and patient satisfaction. Data were analyzed in two separate but sequentially related stages using structural equation modeling with partial least squares. Patient satisfaction directly affected loyalty, but it did not mediate the relationship between relationship marketing and loyalty. Although healthcare providers can increase patient satisfaction by demonstrating trustworthiness and commitment and by the use of good communication skills, these factors do not have a significant effect on loyalty despite their overall positive impact.
Enzyme-replacement therapy in mucopolysaccharidosis I.

BACKGROUND Mucopolysaccharidosis I is a lysosomal storage disease caused by a deficiency of the enzyme alpha-L-iduronidase. We evaluated the effect of enzyme-replacement therapy with recombinant human alpha-L-iduronidase in patients with this disorder. METHODS We treated 10 patients with mucopolysaccharidosis I (age, 5 to 22 years) with recombinant human alpha-L-iduronidase at a dose of 125,000 U per kilogram of body weight given intravenously once weekly for 52 weeks. The patients were evaluated at base line and at 6, 12, 26, and 52 weeks by detailed clinical examinations, magnetic resonance imaging of the abdomen and brain, echocardiography, range-of-motion measurements, polysomnography, clinical laboratory evaluations, measurements of leukocyte alpha-L-iduronidase activity, and urinary glycosaminoglycan excretion. RESULTS Hepatosplenomegaly decreased significantly in all patients, and the size of the liver was normal for body weight and age in eight patients by 26 weeks. The rate of growth in height and weight increased by a mean of 85 and 131 percent, respectively, in the six prepubertal patients. The mean maximal range of motion of shoulder flexion and elbow extension increased significantly. The number of episodes of apnea and hypopnea during sleep decreased 61 percent. New York Heart Association functional class improved by one or two classes in all patients. Urinary glycosaminoglycan excretion decreased after 3 to 4 weeks of treatment; the mean reduction was 63 percent of base-line values. Five patients had transient urticaria during infusions. Serum antibodies to alpha-L-iduronidase were detected in four patients. CONCLUSIONS In patients with mucopolysaccharidosis I, treatment with recombinant human alpha-L-iduronidase reduces lysosomal storage in the liver and ameliorates some clinical manifestations of the disease.
Epithelial and Stromal Cathepsin K and CXCL14 Expression in Breast Tumor Progression

Purpose: To evaluate the expression of cathepsin K (CTSK) and CXCL14 in stromal and epithelial cells in human breast tumor progression. Experimental Design: We did immunohistochemical analyses of CTSK and CXCL14 expression in normal breast tissue, biopsy sites, benign lesions, ductal carcinoma in situ, and invasive breast tumors of different stages. Expression patterns were related to histopathologic characteristics of the tumors and clinical outcome. The effect of CTSK+ breast stromal fibroblasts on CTSK- breast cancer cells was assessed in coculture. Results: Epithelial expression of CTSK was rarely detected in any of the tissue samples analyzed, whereas CXCL14-positive epithelial cells were found in all tissue types. The expression of CXCL14 was not associated with any tumor or patient characteristics analyzed. Stromal CTSK expression was significantly higher in invasive compared with in situ carcinomas, and in one of the two data sets analyzed, it correlated with higher tumor stage. Among all samples examined, the highest stromal CTSK levels were detected in biopsy sites. Neither epithelial nor stromal expression of CTSK was significantly associated with recurrence-free or overall survival. Coculture of CTSK+ fibroblasts enhanced the invasion of CTSK- breast tumor epithelial cells and this was blocked by CTSK inhibitors. Conclusions: CTSK may function as a paracrine factor in breast tumorigenesis. CTSK+ fibroblasts may play a role in tumor progression by promoting the invasiveness of tumor epithelial cells. The possibility that CTSK inhibitors may have a clinical role in decreasing the risk of tumor progression merits further investigation.
Aspect and sentiment unification model for online review analysis

User-generated reviews on the Web contain sentiments about detailed aspects of products and services. However, most of the reviews are plain text and thus require much effort to obtain information about relevant details. In this paper, we tackle the problem of automatically discovering what aspects are evaluated in reviews and how sentiments for different aspects are expressed. We first propose Sentence-LDA (SLDA), a probabilistic generative model that assumes all words in a single sentence are generated from one aspect. We then extend SLDA to Aspect and Sentiment Unification Model (ASUM), which incorporates aspect and sentiment together to model sentiments toward different aspects. ASUM discovers pairs of {aspect, sentiment} which we call senti-aspects. We applied SLDA and ASUM to reviews of electronic devices and restaurants. The results show that the aspects discovered by SLDA match evaluative details of the reviews, and the senti-aspects found by ASUM capture important aspects that are closely coupled with a sentiment. The results of sentiment classification show that ASUM outperforms other generative models and comes close to supervised classification methods. One important advantage of ASUM is that it does not require any sentiment labels of the reviews, which are often expensive to obtain.
Economic losses to sustainable timber production by fire in the Brazilian Amazon

Departamento de Engenharia Agrícola, Universidade Federal de Viçosa, Viçosa, MG, Brazil Centro de Sensoriamento Remoto, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil Laboratório de Gestão de Serviços Ambientais, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil Conservation Strategy Fund, Washington, DC, USA Integrative Research Institute on Transformations of Human-Environment Systems, IRITHESys, HumboldtUniversität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany
Mechanistic Studies on the Use of Polygonum multiflorum for the Treatment of Hair Graying

Polygonum multiflorum is a traditional Chinese medicine with a long history in hair growth promotion and hair blackening. The purpose of the study was to examine the effect and the mechanism of Polygonum multiflorum in hair blackening. C57BL/6 mice hair fade was induced with H2O2 and used in this research. Hair pigmentogenesis promotion activities of Polygonum Multiflorum Radix (PMR, raw crude drug), Polygonum Multiflorum Radix Preparata (PMRP, processed crude drug), and their major chemical constituent TSG were investigated. The regulation effects of several cytokines and enzymes such as POMC, α-MSH, MC1R, ASIP, MITF, TYR, TRP-1, and TRP-2 were investigated. PMR group gave out the most outstanding black hair among all groups with the highest contents of total melanin, α-MSH, MC1R, and TYR. Promotion of hair pigmentogenesis was slightly decreased after processing in the PMRP group. TSG as the major constituent of PMR showed weaker hair color regulation effects than both PMR and PMRP. PMR, but not PMRP, should be used to blacken hair. The α-MSH, MC1R, and TYR were the major targets in the medicinal use of PMR in hair graying. Chemical constituents other than TSG may contribute to the hair color regulation activity of PMR.
Coupled-mode theory and propagation losses in photonic crystal waveguides.

Mode coupling phenomena, manifested by transmission "ministopbands", occur in two-dimensional photonic crystal channel waveguides. The huge difference in the group velocities of the coupled modes is a new feature with respect to the classical Bragg reflection occurring, e.g., in distributed feedback lasers. We show that an adequate ansatz of the classical coupled-mode theory remarkably well accounts for this new phenomenon. The fit of experimental transmission data from GaAs-based photonic crystal waveguides then leads to an accurate determination of the propagation losses of both fundamental and higher, low-group-velocity modes.
Rates of Diabetes Mellitus-Related Complications in a Contemporary Adolescent Cohort

BACKGROUND Ten years after the Diabetes Control and Complications Trial there is a paucity of data as to what are current rates of diabetes-related complications in adolescence. OBJECTIVE To assess the incidence of diabetes-related complications in a contemporary cohort of adolescents with type 1 diabetes mellitus. DESIGN Retrospective cross-sectional survey. PATIENTS Adolescents aged >10 years with type 1 diabetes mellitus for >5 years from the Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne Diabetes Clinic. RESULTS 382 patients were studied (191 male). The mean HbA1c for males was 8.72% and for females was 8.80%. The rates of hypothyroidism and hypercholesterolaemia were 1.5% and 22% respectively. Twenty-five patients (8%) had intermittent microalbuminuria and six (2%) had persistent microalbuminuria. Only one patient had macroalbuminuria (0.3%). Only two patients (0.7%) with mild non-were diagnosed proliferative diabetic retinopathy. Coeliac disease was diagnosed in 6% of patients. CONCLUSIONS In this representative and contemporary cohort of diabetic adolescents the incidence of microvascular diabetes-related complications is quite low.
Brain MR imaging abnormalities in kidney transplant recipients.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE On the basis of limited available data, brain MR imaging abnormalities in kidney transplant recipients (KTRs) have been predominantly attributed to calcineurin inhibitors (CIs), characteristically presenting as posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome (PRES). The goal of this study was to evaluate whether CIs play an important role in the incidence, nature, and location of MR imaging brain lesions in adult KTRs by comparing them with dialysis-dependent patients. METHODS We retrospectively analyzed 98 brain MR imaging examinations in 77 consecutive KTRs presenting with neurologic symptoms from 1990 to 2003. The data were separated into 3 groups according to duration after transplantation of MR imaging: group 1, 0-3 months; group 2, 3-12 months; and group 3, >12 months. Twenty-six MR imaging examinations from 24 additional dialysis-dependent adults were used as controls and comprised group 0. RESULTS Acute changes (infarcts, infections, PRES) comprised 24% and 19% of lesions in KTRs and group 0 patients, respectively, with infarcts being the most common in all groups. Chronic lesions were responsible for 76% of changes in KTR and 81% in group 0 and were predominantly vascular in etiology. No statistically significant differences in incidence of PRES or other acute changes were found between dialysis-dependent patients and either individual KTR groups or all KTR patients combined. The deep gray matter lesions were more common in KTR, whereas frontal white matter was more frequently affected in patients on dialysis. CONCLUSION Our study does not support suggestion that MR imaging brain abnormalities in KTR are predominantly due to direct CI toxicity.