Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Management of Type 2 Diabetes in Treatment-Naive Elderly Patients

OBJECTIVE—The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy and safety of vildagliptin in elderly patients with type 2 diabetes. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS—Efficacy data from five double-blind, randomized, placebo- or active-controlled trials of ≥24 weeks’ duration were pooled. Effects of 24-week vildagliptin monotherapy (100 mg daily) were compared in younger (<65 years, n = 1,231) and older (≥65 years, n = 238) patients. Safety data from eight controlled clinical trials of ≥12-weeks’ duration were pooled; adverse event profiles in younger (n = 1,890) and older (n = 374) patients were compared. RESULTS—Mean baseline A1C and fasting plasma glucose (FPG) were significantly lower in older (70 years: 8.3 ± 0.1% and 9.6 ± 0.1 mmol/l, respectively) than in younger (50 years: 8.7 ± 0.0% and 10.5 ± 0.1 mmol/l, respectively) patients. Despite this, the adjusted mean change from baseline (AMΔ) in A1C was −1.2 ± 0.1% in older and −1.0 ± 0.0% in younger vildagliptin-treated patients (P = 0.092), and the AMΔ in FPG was significantly larger in older (−1.5 ± 0.2 mmol/l) than in younger (−1.1 ± 0.1 mmol/l, P = 0.035) patients. Body weight was significantly lower at baseline in older (83.4 ± 1.0 kg) than in younger (92.0 ± 0.6 kg) patients. Weight decreased significantly in the older subgroup (AMΔ −0.9 ± 0.3 kg, P = 0.007), whereas smaller, nonsignificant decreases occurred in younger patients (AMΔ −0.2 ± 0.1 kg). Adverse event rates were slightly higher in older than in younger subgroups but were lower among older, vildagliptin-treated subjects (63.6%) than in the pooled active comparator group (68.1%). Vildagliptin treatment did not increase adverse events among older patients with mild renal impairment (62.0%). Hypoglycemia was rare (0.8%) in the elderly patients, and no severe events occurred. CONCLUSIONS—Vildagliptin monotherapy was effective and well tolerated in treatment-naive elderly patients.
The Anti-Inflammatory Actions of Platelet Endothelial Cell Adhesion Molecule-1 Do Not Involve Regulation of Endothelial Cell NF-κB

PECAM-1 is a cell adhesion and signaling receptor that is expressed on many hematopoietic cells and at endothelial cell–cell junctions. Accumulating evidence from a number of in vitro and in vivo model systems suggests that PECAM-1 suppresses cytokine production and vascular permeability induced by a wide range of inflammatory stimuli. In several of these models of inflammatory disease, endothelial, and not leukocyte or platelet, PECAM-1 conferred protection against inflammatory insult. However, the mechanism by which endothelial PECAM-1 functions as an anti-inflammatory protein is poorly understood. It was recently suggested that PECAM-1 exerts its anti-inflammatory effects in endothelial cells by inhibiting the activity of NF-κB, a proinflammatory transcription factor. To confirm and extend these observations, we examined the effect of engaging, cross-linking, or expressing PECAM-1 on NF-κB activation in a variety of human cells. PECAM-1 had no effect on the phosphorylation of the NF-κB inhibitory protein, IκBα; on the nuclear translocation of NF-κB; on the suppression of cytokine-induced transcriptional activation of an NF-κB luciferase reporter plasmid; or on the cytokine-stimulated upregulation of ICAM-1, an NF-κB target gene, in endothelial cells. Taken together, these studies strongly suggest that the anti-inflammatory actions of PECAM-1 in endothelial cells are not likely to involve its regulation of NF-κB.
Reliability, validity, and clinical utility of the research diagnostic criteria for Temporomandibular Disorders Axis II Scales: depression, non-specific physical symptoms, and graded chronic pain.

AIMS To analyze the reliability, validity, and clinical utility of the depression, non-specific physical symptoms, and graded chronic pain scales comprising the Research Diagnostic Criteria for Temporomandibular Disorders (RDC/TMD) Axis II. METHODS Data resulting from independent longitudinal and cross-sectional epidemiological studies as well as randomized clinical trials conducted at the University of Washington and the University at Buffalo were submitted to descriptive, correlational, and inferential statistical analyses to evaluate selected psychometric properties of the RDC/TMD Axis II scales. RESULTS Analyses of available data from both TMD clinical centers revealed good to excellent reliability, validity, and clinical utility for the Axis II measures of depression, somatization, and graded chronic pain. Specifically, data were presented comparing the RDC/TMD depression scale to the Beck Depression Inventory and the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale; these data supported concurrent validity of the RDC/TMD measure and its use as a depression screening tool. Its clinical utility lies in its demonstrated usefulness for alerting TMD clinicians to potentially noteworthy depressive symptomatology in TMD patients. Others have shown that elevated somatization, the tendency to report non-specific physical symptoms as noxious or troublesome, is a predictor of poor TMD treatment outcome. The present analyses demonstrated that the RDC/TMD Axis II non-specific physical symptoms scale has acceptable reliability and that severe levels of somatization can potentially confound interpretation of the Axis I clinical examination. The graded chronic pain scale was demonstrated to have clinical utility for tailoring TMD treatment to levels of a patient's psychosocial adaptation. CONCLUSION The major RDC/TMD Axis II measures demonstrate psychometric properties suitable for comprehensive assessment and management of TMD patients.
Optimization of Encounter Gossip propagation in mobile ad-hoc networks

Encounter Gossip is a family of message propagation protocols for mobile ad-hoc networks. The coverage of propagation (the fraction of nodes that receive the message) can be made arbitrarily close to 1 at the cost of increased bandwidth overhead. This paper proposes several schemes to minimize this overhead without compromising the achieved coverage. The schemes can be timer based or history based. Their effectiveness is assessed through simulations performed in the context of two mobility models.
Physiological factors affecting transcription of genes involved in the flavonoid biosynthetic pathway in different rice varieties

Flavonoids play an important role in the grain color and flavor of rice. Since their characterization in maize, the flavonoid biosynthetic genes have been extensively studied in grape, Arabidopsis, and Petunia. However, we are still a long way from understanding the molecular features and mechanisms underlying the flavonoid biosynthetic pathway. The present study was undertaken to understand the physiological factors affecting the transcription and regulation of these genes. We report that the expression of CHI, CHS, DFR, LAR, and ANS, the 5 flavonoid biosynthetic genes in different rice varieties, differ dramatically with respect to the stage of development, white light, and sugar concentrations. We further demonstrate that white light could induce the transcription of the entire flavonoid biosynthetic gene pathway; however, differences were observed in the degrees of sensitivity and the required illumination time. Our study provides valuable insights into understanding the regulation of the flavonoid biosynthetic pathway.
Chloroplast genomes of Lilium lancifolium, L. amabile, L. callosum, and L. philadelphicum: Molecular characterization and their use in phylogenetic analysis in the genus Lilium and other allied genera in the order Liliales

Chloroplast (cp) genomes of Lilium amabile, L. callosum, L. lancifolium, and L. philadelphicum were fully sequenced. Using these four novel cp genome sequences and five other previously sequenced cp genomes, features of the cp genomes were characterized in detail among species in the genus Lilium and other related genera in the order Liliales. The lengths and nucleotide composition showed little variation. No structural variation was found among the cp genomes in Liliales. Gene contents were conserved among four newly sequenced cp genome in Lilium species, the only differences being in two pseudogenes. We identified 112 genes in 13 functional categories, 18 of which carried introns that were conserved among the species in Liliales. There were 16–21 SSR loci (>12 bp, >3 repeats) in the cp genomes in Lilium and the genomic locations of these loci were highly variable among the species. Average mutations were 15 SNPs per 1kb and 5 indels per 1kb, respectively, in the cp genomes of the newly sequenced four Lilium species. Phylogenetic classifications revealed some discrepancies between trees based on the cp genomes and previous classifications based on the morphology and geographic distributions.
Incidence of Recurrent and Persistent Carpal Tunnel Syndrome following Open Transverse Carpal Ligament Release

Article history: Received: 4 July 2013 Accepted: 23 July 2013 Available online: 26 Oct 2013 ZJRMS 2015 Jan; 17(1): 19-22 Background: Carpal tunnel syndrome is entrapment of the median nerve in carpal tunnel of the wrist. In severe cases of carpal tunnel syndrome, or those refractory to conservative treatment, surgery is performed. The main aim of this research was to determine the incidence of recurrent and persistent rates of carpal tunnel syndrome following open surgery. Materials and Methods: This descriptive cross sectional study was performed on 105 patients having open carpal tunnel release in the range of 5 to 60 months ago. These cases were operated at Shahid Beheshti hospital in Yasuj, Iran. Assessment of carpal tunnel syndrome after open surgical release of the median nerve was done by electrodiagnostic studies and MRI. If symptoms of carpal tunnel syndrome maintain after surgery, this condition is persistent and if reappearance of the syndrome 3 months or more following surgery this is recurrent. In cases of observing changes from severe to lower stages of the disease in electrodiagnostic studies, treatment is considered successful. Results: All of 58.1% of patients had right severe carpal tunnel syndrome and 41.9 % had left severe carpal tunnel syndrome prior to surgery. The incidence of recurrent and persistent carpal tunnel syndrome following open transverse carpal release was 12.4% and 10.4%, respectively. Conclusion: The incidence of persistent and recurrent rates of carpal tunnel syndrome following open transverse carpal release was higher than the expected rate. These rates were dependant to the appropriate patient, the correct diagnosis and duration of symptoms before surgery. Copyright © 2015 Zahedan University of Medical Sciences. All rights reserved.
A national evaluation of the impact of the secondary social and emotional aspects of learning (SEAL) programme

In recent years, the English education system has reflected a worldwide interest in social and emotional learning (SEL), as evidenced by the national launch of the secondary social and emotional aspects of learning (SEAL) programme in 2007. SEAL is a whole-school approach designed to positively influence a range of pupil outcomes, including increased social and emotional skills, better behaviour and reduced mental health difficulties. The aim of the current study was to examine the impact of SEAL on such outcomes. The study utilised a quantitative, quasi-experimental design with a sample of 22 schools (approximately 2360 pupils) implementing the SEAL programme, and 19 ‘matched comparison’ schools (approximately 1991 pupils), selected on the basis of similar school-level characteristics. A cohort of pupils in these schools completed annual self-rated assessments of their social and emotional skills (using the Emotional Literacy Assessment and Intervention instrument), mental health difficulties and pro-social behaviour (using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire) over a two-year period. After controlling for a range of school- and pupil-level characteristics, analysis using multi-level modelling indicated marginal, non-significant effects of the SEAL programme on pupils’ social and emotional skills and mental health difficulties, and no significant effect on their pro-social behaviour. The study findings are discussed in relation to existing evidence about the effectiveness of the SEAL programme and the broader SEL evidence base.
Social Constructionism and Social Inequality

This article highlights two major trends in the social sciences: an increasing concern with inequality and a growing interest in interpretive variability and the creation of meaning. Despite these trends, not enough research treats inequality itself as a meaning that is socially constructed. The article proposes a list of ten ideas useful for guiding research on inequality in a more consistently constructionist direction. Then it introduces the five articles that compose this special issue on social constructionism and social inequality, articles that contribute to the constructionist agenda in varied ways.
Semi-supervised Learning with Sparse Autoencoders in Phone Classification

We propose the application of a semi-supervised learning method to improve the performance of acoustic modelling for automatic speech recognition based on deep neural net- works. As opposed to unsupervised initialisation followed by supervised fine tuning, our method takes advantage of both unlabelled and labelled data simultaneously through mini- batch stochastic gradient descent. We tested the method with varying proportions of labelled vs unlabelled observations in frame-based phoneme classification on the TIMIT database. Our experiments show that the method outperforms standard supervised training for an equal amount of labelled data and provides competitive error rates compared to state-of-the-art graph-based semi-supervised learning techniques.
Is asking patients in palliative care, “Are you depressed?” appropriate? Prospective study

Depression is a serious problem that affects about a quarter of patients in palliative care.1 Diagnosing depression is difficult because most patients are understandably sad. Lack of recognition of depression can lead to further morbidity and a detrimental effect on the quality of life.2 Screening for depression attracts wide interest, but as patients are frail and unwell, a screening tool needs to be brief. Asking North American patients in palliative care the single question, “Are you depressed? ” had perfect sensitivity and specificity and 100% positive predictive value compared with the schedule for affective disorders.3 Other studies of patients with stroke and elderly patients found that a single statement with a “yes” or “no” response correctly classified …
Performance appraisal satisfaction and employee outcomes: mediating and moderating roles of work motivation

The purpose of this study was to explore alternative relationships between performance appraisal satisfaction and employee outcomes in the form of self-reported work performance, affective organizational commitment and turnover intention. A cross-sectional survey of 593 employees from 64 Norwegian savings banks showed that performance appraisal satisfaction was directly related to affective commitment and turnover intention. The relationship between performance appraisal satisfaction and work performance, however, was both mediated and moderated by employees' intrinsic work motivation. The form of the moderation revealed a negative relationship for employees with low intrinsic motivation and a positive relationship for those with high intrinsic motivation. Implications for practice and directions for future research are discussed.
Epigenetic regulation of antigen receptor gene rearrangement

V(D)J recombination assembles antigen-specific immunoglobulin and T-cell receptor variable region genes from germline V, D, and J segments during lymphocyte development. Regulation of this site-specific DNA rearrangement process occurs with respect to the cell type and stage of differentiation, order of locus recombination, and allele usage. Many of these controls are mediated via the modulation of gene accessibility to the V(D)J recombinase. Here, we summarise recent advances regarding the impact of nuclear organisation and epigenetic-based mechanisms on the regulation of V(D)J recombination.
Theoretical bases for teacher‐ and peer‐delivered sexual health promotion

Purpose – This paper seeks to explore the theoretical bases for teacher‐delivered and peer‐delivered sexual health promotion and education.Design/methodology/approach – The first section briefly outlines the main theories informing sexual health interventions for young people, and the second discusses their implications for modes of delivery.Findings – Most interventions that claim to be theoretically based draw on social‐psychological cognition theories. Other programmes aim to develop self‐esteem and/or empowerment, while the two main sociological ideas underpinning sexual health programmes are the gendered construction of sexuality and the diffusion of innovations.Research limitations/implications – More research is necessary to clarify the mechanisms by which sexual health promotion works, which in turn should contribute to more empirically based theory.Practical implications – If theoretical ideas are to be translated into potentially effective programmes, the specific features of the setting, target.
Down syndrome: searching for the genetic culprits

Down syndrome (DS) is caused by trisomy of human chromosome 21 (Hsa21) and results in a large number of phenotypes, including learning difficulties, cardiac defects, distinguishing facial features and leukaemia. These are likely to result from an increased dosage of one or more of the ∼310 genes present on Hsa21. The identification of these dosage-sensitive genes has become a major focus in DS research because it is essential for a full understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying pathology, and might eventually lead to more effective therapy. The search for these dosage-sensitive genes is being carried out using both human and mouse genetics. Studies of humans with partial trisomy of Hsa21 have identified regions of this chromosome that contribute to different phenotypes. In addition, novel engineered mouse models are being used to map the location of dosage-sensitive genes, which, in a few cases, has led to the identification of individual genes that are causative for certain phenotypes. These studies have revealed a complex genetic interplay, showing that the diverse DS phenotypes are likely to be caused by increased copies of many genes, with individual genes contributing in different proportions to the variance in different aspects of the pathology.
CLOCK-Pro: An Effective Improvement of the CLOCK Replacement

With the ever-growing performance gap between memory systems and disks, and rapidly improving CPU performance, virtual memory (VM) management becomes increasingly important for overall system performance. However, one of its critical components, the page replacement policy, is still dominated by CLOCK, a replacement policy developed almost 40 years ago. While pure LRU has an unaffordable cost in VM, CLOCK simulates the LRU replacement algorithm with a low cost acceptable in VM management. Over the last three decades, the inability of LRU as well as CLOCK to handle weak locality accesses has become increasingly serious, and an effective fix becomes increasingly desirable. Inspired by our I/O buffer cache replacement algorithm, LIRS [13], we propose an improved CLOCK replacement policy, called CLOCK-Pro. By additionally keeping track of a limited number of replaced pages, CLOCK-Pro works in a similar fashion as CLOCK with a VM-affordable cost. Furthermore, it brings all the much-needed performance advantages from LIRS into CLOCK. Measurements from an implementation of CLOCK-Pro in Linux Kernel 2.4. 21 show that the execution times of some commonly used programs can be reduced by up to 47%.
A Comparison of Three Feedback Procedures for Improving Teaching Skills

The present study analyzed the effects of three feedback procedures on the teaching skills of paraprofessionals in a mental retardation facility. Procedures compared were supervisor feedback, videotape feedback, and a combination of supervisor and videotape feedback. Findings indicated that a combination of supervisor and videotape feedback resulted in thc greatest and most rapid improvement in work performance, though surprisingly, videotape feedback improved performance comparable to Baseline.
Cefazolin in the treatment of gonorrhea.

Cefazolin was used to treat 146 men and women with uncomplicated gonorrhea. Among patients reexamined within two weeks, treatment failures occurred in 42% of 31 men treated im with 1 g of cefazolin and in 10% of 76 men and 24 women given 2 g im. Failure rates increased progressively with increasing in vitro resistance to cefazolin of isolates of Neisseria gonorrhoeae obtained before treatment. Cefazolin compares favorably with other cephalosporins in the treatment of gonorrhea, but in the doses evaluated, was not as effective as the antibiotic regimens currently recommended by the U.S. Public Health Service. However, concentrations of cefazolin in serum through 12 hr after administration of a 2-g im dose were increased markedly with simultaneous administration of probenecid, and the use of cefazolin with probenecid warrants further evaluation in the treatment of gonorrhea.
Immigrant parents’ and teachers’ views on bilingual preschool language policy

It has been found that parents, searching for external control of a supporting sociolinguistic environment for L1 and L2 development, can plan several relevant strategies and implement them as a part of their family language policy. The choice of bilingual education serves as an important link in the practical realization of family language ideology. This paper aims to examine language policy and models in bilingual preschools from immigrant parents’ and bilingual teachers’ perspectives. The focus was on the following topics: (1) the parents’ views on the language policy of the bilingual preschool education, (2) the teachers’ reflections on their language policy and (3) the negotiation between parents’ and teachers’ views on bilingual preschool language policy. It was important to address both parents’ and teachers’ opinions in order to obtain a deeper understanding of parent–teacher interactions and negotiations of their views. The study was conducted in two bilingual Russian-Hebrew speaking preschools in Israel. I applied methodological triangulation with a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods. The study revealed that questions regarding input in each language, ratio between L1 and L2, and changes of this ratio in different age groups are central concerns for both the pedagogical staff and parents.
Validity of the Mayer—Salovey— Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test: Youth Version—Research Edition

This study examines the criterion-related validity evidence of scores on the Mayer—Salovey—Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test: Youth Version—Research Version. The authors also investigate the relationship between scores on the MSCEIT-YV and chronological age. Results provide initial support for the construct validity of the MSCEIT-YV but also raise questions for future research. Cette recherche porte sur l'évidence de la validité liée au critère des scores sur le Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test: Youth Version-Research Version (MSCEIT-YV). Les auteurs se penchent également sur la relation entre les scores sur cet instrument et l'âge chronologique. Les résultats viennent appuyer la validité de concept du MSCEIT-YV, mais soulèvent également des questions qui pourraient faire l'objet de recherches ultérieures.