Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Exenatide once weekly: sustained improvement in glycemic control and cardiometabolic measures through 3 years

Background Type 2 diabetes mellitus is a progressive metabolic disease necessitating therapies with sustained efficacy and safety over time. Exenatide once weekly (ExQW), an extended-release formulation of the glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist exenatide, has demonstrated improvements in glycemic and cardiometabolic measures from 30 weeks to 2 years of treatment. Here, the efficacy and safety of treatment with ExQW for 3 years are described. Methods Patients were initially randomized to receive either ExQW (2 mg) or exenatide twice daily for 30 weeks. Following the initial 30 weeks, all patients were treated with ExQW in an open-label extension. Analyses of primary glycemic endpoints, beta-cell function, and cardiometabolic measures were assessed for patients who completed 3 years of ExQW treatment and for the intention-to-treat population. Safety and tolerability analyses were provided for the intention-to-treat population. Results Sixty-six percent of the intention-to-treat population (n = 295) completed 3 years of treatment (n = 194). At 3 years, a significant reduction in hemoglobin A1c (least squares mean ± standard error) of −1.6% ± 0.08% was observed, with 55% and 33% of patients achieving hemoglobin A1c targets of <7% and ≤6.5%, respectively. Consistent with a sustained reduction in hemoglobin A1c, improvements in beta-cell function were also observed. Body weight was significantly reduced by −2.3 ± 0.6 kg. Reductions in blood pressure, total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and triglycerides were also observed. Adverse events reported most frequently during both controlled and uncontrolled periods included diarrhea, nausea, and vomiting of mostly mild intensity. The incidence of these adverse events decreased over time. Incidence of minor hypoglycemia was low and no major hypoglycemia was observed. Conclusion ExQW produced clinically meaningful improvements in glycemic control that were durable through 3 years of treatment. Significant improvements in cardiometabolic measurements were also observed. ExQW was well-tolerated during long-term treatment and no new adverse events were noted. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT00308139.
RNA-Seq of Human Breast Ductal Carcinoma In Situ Models Reveals Aldehyde Dehydrogenase Isoform 5A1 as a Novel Potential Target

Breast ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) is being found in great numbers of women due to the widespread use of mammography. To increase knowledge of DCIS, we determined the expression changes that are common among three DCIS models (MCF10.DCIS, SUM102 and SUM225) compared to the MCF10A model of non-tumorigenic mammary epithelial cells in three dimensional (3D) overlay culture with reconstituted basement membrane (rBM). Extracted mRNA was subjected to 76 cycles of deep sequencing (RNA-Seq) using Illumina Genome Analyzer GAIIx. Analysis of RNA-Seq results showed 295 consistently differentially expressed transcripts in the DCIS models. These differentially expressed genes encode proteins that are associated with a number of signaling pathways such as integrin, fibroblast growth factor and TGFβ signaling, show association with cell-cell signaling, cell-cell adhesion and cell proliferation, and have a notable bias toward localization in the extracellular and plasma membrane compartments. RNA-Seq data was validated by quantitative real-time PCR of selected differentially expressed genes. Aldehyde dehydrogenase 5A1 (ALDH5A1) which is an enzyme that is involved in mitochondrial glutamate metabolism, was over-expressed in all three DCIS models at both the mRNA and protein levels. Disulfiram and valproic acid are known to inhibit ALDH5A1 and are safe for chronic use in humans for other disorders. Both of these drugs significantly inhibited net proliferation of the DCIS 3D rBM overlay models, but had minimal effect on MCF10A 3D rBM overlay models. These results suggest that ALDH5A1 may play an important role in DCIS and potentially serve as a novel molecular therapeutic target.
Novel Cruzain Inhibitors for the Treatment of Chagas’ Disease

The protozoan parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, the etiological agent of Chagas’ disease, affects millions of individuals and continues to be an important global health concern. The poor efficacy and unfavorable side effects of current treatments necessitate novel therapeutics. Cruzain, the major cysteine protease of T. cruzi, is one potential novel target. Recent advances in a class of vinyl sulfone inhibitors are encouraging; however, as most potential therapeutics fail in clinical trials and both disease progression and resistance call for combination therapy with several drugs, the identification of additional classes of inhibitory molecules is essential. Using an exhaustive virtual‐screening and experimental validation approach, we identify several additional small‐molecule cruzain inhibitors. Further optimization of these chemical scaffolds could lead to the development of novel drugs useful in the treatment of Chagas’ disease.
The logs of Eliza and other media stories: Behavioral and Developmental Effects of a School Based Media Education Program— Berlin Longitudinal Study Media

The implementation of electronic media platforms by teachers and tutors is considered as state-of-the-art education. In the last decade, teachers at all levels of schooling had to take up the challenge of acquiring the needed knowledge, both to handle and to teach the appropriate use of multimedia computers as well as internet-based communication and learning tools. Beyond educational use of modern media technologies, leisure time media usage by children has developed even more rapidly. Modern childhood is undeniably a media childhood. Most children’s everyday life activities are characterized, if not dominated, by the usage of several electronic media formats and contents. German nine-year-old schoolchildren, for example, spend an average of 1.5 hours daily watching television, and an average of 0.5 hours playing video and computer games. About 14 percent spend more than 3 hours daily total in both activities (see Feierabend & Klingler, 2003a; Mosle, Kleimann, & Rehbein, 2007). In 2002, about 25 percent of all German first graders already had their own TV in their bedroom (Feierabend & Klingler, 2003b). Internet communities like facebook.com or its German equivalent schuelervz.net empower young children to live an independent, digital life apart from “offliners” like parents, teachers and tutors. Compared with the enormous difficulties in establishing media use and teaching skills in a constantly overstrained teaching staff, children’s abilities to integrate new media technologies into their everyday life seem to be nearly unlimited. Depending on one’s point of view, the consequences of these trends can be described as either promising or depressing. Optimists refer to the complex and creative media use patterns many children were able to develop without any adult guidance in recent years. Pessimists rather point to the long-term consequences.
The Creation and Spread of Technology and Total Factor Productivity in China's Agriculture

The study's overall goal is to create a framework for assessing the trends of China's national and international investment in agricultural research and to measure its impact on total factor productivity. The main methodological contribution is to provide more convincing measures of crop-specific technologies from China's national research program and of those imported from the international agricultural research system. Our results find that from 1980-95, China's total factor productivity for rice, wheat and maize grew rapidly and new technology accounts for most of the productivity growth.
Extreme conservation and non-neutral evolution of the cpmA Circadian locus in a globally distributed Chroococcidiopsis sp. from naturally stressful habitats.

Cyanobacteria are among the most ancient organisms known to have circadian rhythms. The cpmA gene is involved in controlling the circadian output signal. We studied polymorphism and divergence of this gene in six populations of a stress-tolerant cyanobacterium, Chroococcidiopsis sp. , sampled in extreme habitats across the globe. Despite high haplotype diversity (0.774), nucleotide diversity of cpmA is very low (π = 0.0034): the gene appears to be even more conserved than housekeeping genes. Even though the populations were sampled thousands kilometers apart, they manifested virtually no genetic differentiation at this locus (F(ST) = 0.0228). Using various tests for neutrality, we determined that evolution of cpmA significantly departures from the neutral model and is governed by episodic positive selection.
On the DMT optimality of the rotate-and-forward scheme in a two-hop MIMO relay channel

The rotate-and-forward scheme was introduced in (Yang-Belfiore, 2010) to recover spatial diversity in multi-hop MIMO relay networks. It was shown that this scheme achieves the optimal diversity-multiplexing (DMT) trade-off in a two-hop relay network, with two antennas at the relay node. In this paper, it is shown that the scheme is DMT optimal for arbitrary number of antennas at the source, relay, and destination node.
Measuring the Three-dimensional Structure of Galaxy Clusters. II. Are Clusters of Galaxies Oblate or Prolate?

The intrinsic shape of galaxy clusters can be obtained through a combination of X-ray and Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect observations once cosmological parameters are assumed to be known. In this paper we discuss the feasibility of modeling galaxy clusters as either prolate or oblate ellipsoids. We analyze the intracluster medium distribution for a sample of 25 X-ray-selected clusters, with measured Sunyaev-Zeldovich temperature decrements. A mixed population of prolate and oblate ellipsoids of revolution fits the data well, with prolate shapes preferred by ~60%-76%. We observe an excess of clusters nearly aligned along the line of sight, with respect to what is expected from a randomly oriented cluster population, which might imply the presence of a selection bias in our sample. We also find signs that a more general triaxial morphology might better describe the morphology of galaxy clusters. Additional constraints from gravitational lensing could disentangle the degeneracy between an ellipsoidal and a triaxial morphology, and could also allow an unbiased determination of the Hubble constant.
Respiratory Syncytial Virus Coinfections With Rhinovirus and Human Bocavirus in Hospitalized Children

Abstract It is not clearly established if coinfections are more severe than single viral respiratory infections. The aim of the study was to study and to compare simple infections and viral coinfections of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in hospitalized children. From September 2005 to August 2013, a prospective study was conducted on children younger than 14 years of age, admitted with respiratory infection to the Pediatric Department of the Severo Ochoa Hospital, in Spain. Specimens of nasopharyngeal aspirate were taken for virological study by using polymerase chain reaction, and clinical data were recorded. Simple RSV infections were selected and compared with double infections of RSV with rhinovirus (RV) or with human bocavirus (HBoV). In this study, 2993 episodes corresponding to 2525 children were analyzed. At least 1 virus was detected in 77% (2312) of the episodes. Single infections (599 RSV, 513 RV, and 81 HBoV) were compared with 120 RSV-RV and 60 RSV-HBoV double infections. The RSV-RV coinfections had fever (63% vs 43%; P < 0.001) and hypoxia (70% vs 43%; P < 0.001) more often than RV infections. Hypoxia was similar between single or dual infections (71%). Bronchiolitis was more frequent in the RSV simple group (P < 0.001). Pediatric intensive care unit admission was more common in RSV simple or RSV-RV groups than in the RV monoinfection (P = 0.042). Hospitalization was longer for both RSV simple group and RSV-HBoV coinfection, lasting about 1 day (4.7 vs 3.8 days; P < 0.001) longer than in simple HBoV infections. There were no differences in PICU admission. RSV single group was of a younger age than the other groups. Coinfections between RSV-RV and RSV-HBoV are frequent. Overall viral coinfections do not present greater severity, but have mixed clinical features.
Recruitment and Succession in a Tropical Benthic Community in Response to In-Situ Ocean Acidification

Ocean acidification is a pervasive threat to coral reef ecosystems, and our understanding of the ecological processes driving patterns in tropical benthic community development in conditions of acidification is limited. We deployed limestone recruitment tiles in low aragonite saturation (Ωarag) waters during an in-situ field experiment at Puerto Morelos, Mexico, and compared them to tiles placed in control zones over a 14-month investigation. The early stages of succession showed relatively little difference in coverage of calcifying organisms between the low Ωarag and control zones. However, after 14 months of development, tiles from the low Ωarag zones had up to 70% less cover of calcifying organisms coincident with 42% more fleshy algae than the controls. The percent cover of biofilm and turf algae was also significantly greater in the low Ωarag zones, while the number of key grazing taxa remained constant. We hypothesize that fleshy algae have a competitive edge over the primary calcified space holders, coralline algae, and that acidification leads to altered competitive dynamics between various taxa. We suggest that as acidification impacts reefs in the future, there will be a shift in community assemblages away from upright and crustose coralline algae toward more fleshy algae and turf, established in the early stages of succession.
Pregnancy complications and outcomes in women with epilepsy

Epilepsy is the most common serious neurological disorder. This is prospective study to investigate whether women with epilepsy have an increased risk of fetal and maternal complications during pregnancy. In this descriptive cross-sectional study, 50 pregnant women who were presented for delivery at Afzalipour Hospital, Kerman, Iran during 2003 to 2009 were assessed. The groups were compared using the Student’s t-test, and one-way-ANOVA for continuous variables and the chisquare test (or Fisher’s exact test if required) for categorical variables. P values of 0.05 or less were considered statistically significant. All the statistical analyses were performed using SPSS version 13 (SPSS Inc, Chicago, IL, USA) for Windows.In 32 (64%) of cases no fetal complication was found, in 5 cases (10.0%) intrauterine growth retardation (IUGR), in 2 cases (4.0%) post-term labor, in 2 cases (4.0%) fetal distress and in 9 cases (18.0%) preterm labor were found. In 15 patients (30.0%) no maternal complication was found; in 2 cases (4.0%) pregnancy induced hypertension (PIH), in 12 cases (24.0%) preterm labor , in 4 cases (8.0%) bleeding, in 14 cases (28.0%) premature rupture of the membranes (PROM) and in 3 cases (6.0%) other complications were detected. Given these findings and previous studies, it seems that epileptic women required more care during pregnancy and the rate of maternal, fetal and obstetrical complications are relatively high among them.
Tissue plasminogen activator as a key effector in neurobiology and neuropathology.

Tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) is expressed by many types of neurons in the developing and adult rodent brain. We have now mapped tPA transcripts and protein in the human central nervous system using tissue arrays and find widespread expression, in particular in neocortical mantle, thalamus, amygdala, and hippocampal pyramidal neurons. The abundant presence of tPA protein in cellular vesicles implies that its acute release, e.g. upon ischaemic stroke or trauma, could play a role in neuronal damage. We also found in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS), and to a lesser extent patients with leukaemia and encephalitis, prominently elevated tPA activity in the cerebrospinal fluid and in MS in neurons in the proximity of areas of demyelination elevated tPA mRNA and antigen levels. In addition, we observed up-regulation of tPA expression in a mouse model of MS, experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis. Accumulating evidence implies roles for tPA in normal neural function, as well as in neurodestructive processes in humans, such as occur in MS and brain tumours and warrant further studies on expression of tPA and its regulatory molecules in neurodegenerative diseases.
Failures in risk management

Risk management has received increasing attention in recent years, both from academics and from practitioners. The heightened interest is the result of a number of coincident secular trends, including increased investment in volatile emerging markets and the growing role of capital markets in both developed and emerging economies, as well as the introduction of volatile financial innovations. Risk management has also attracted attention as a result of the repeated and well-publicized failures associated with its implementation. Despite the increased attention paid to risk management, frequent instances still occur when sophisticated investors or firms experience sudden, unexpected, and devastating losses. ; This article discusses failures in risk management, why they occur, and what can be done to reduce their occurrence. The author discusses the nature of risk and the objectives of risk management. He argues that intuitively attractive conceptual simplifications often create significant errors in risk measurement. He describes such failures in risk management and goes on to discuss the implications, both for managers and for regulators.
Communicating Ideas Purposefully - toward a Design Theory of Innovation Artifacts

Fostering innovation is an essential task for companies, particularly in the dynamic and constantly changing software industry. Whereas it is widely acknowledged that the innovative capacity of a company depends crucially on how well it supports employees in realizing ideas, there is a lack of explicit, practitioner-oriented guidance on how these can communicate their ideas purposefully. We contribute to this field with an exploratory field study, in which we interviewed 32 experienced innovators at a major Swiss banking software provider, and collected objects through which they communicated ideas. We analyzed the collected data applying three types of causal analysis – creative causation, active causation, and passive causation. The outcome of this research is a nascent design theory that provides structured prescriptions on how to communicate ideas through what we term “innovation artifacts”. In brief terms, our study shows that innovation artifacts should enable innovators to persuade and collaborate with relevant stakeholders.
Representations of Facial Identity Information in the Ventral Visual Stream Investigated with Multivoxel Pattern Analyses

The neural basis of face recognition has been investigated extensively. Using fMRI, several regions have been identified in the human ventral visual stream that seem to be involved in processing and identifying faces, but the nature of the face representations in these regions is not well known. In particular, multivoxel pattern analyses have revealed distributed maps within these regions, but did not reveal the organizing principles of these maps. Here we isolated different types of perceptual and conceptual face properties to determine which properties are mapped in which regions. A set of faces was created with systematic manipulations of featural and configural visual characteristics. In a second part of the study, personal and spatial context information was added to all faces except one. The perceptual properties of faces were represented in face regions and in other regions of interest such as early visual and object-selective cortex. Only representations in early visual cortex were correlated with pixel-based similarities between the stimuli. The representation of nonperceptual properties was less distributed. In particular, the spatial location associated with a face was only represented in the parahippocampal place area. These findings demonstrate a relatively distributed representation of perceptual and conceptual face properties that involves both face-selective/sensitive and non-face-selective cortical regions.
What Contributes to Self-Control and Grit?: The Key Factors in College Students

Abstract:Although scholars know an increasing amount about the benefits of self-control and grit for college students, they know less about what influences self-control and grit in students. In this study we examined influences on self-control and a key element of grit in a national sample of college students. Results indicated that 5 of the 13 predictor variables significantly contributed to self-control and grit: others-focused purpose, time spent socializing, time spent in academic activities, success-focused purpose, and importance of religion.
Recovering the topology of the initial density fluctuations using the IRAS Point Source Catalogue Redshift Survey

We apply the reconstruction technique of Nusser & Dekel to the recently available Point Source Catalogue Redshift Survey (PSCz) in order to subtract the non-Gaussianities that are expected to develop in the mild non-linear regime of gravitational evolution. We study the evolution of isodensity contours defined using an adaptive smoothing algorithm, in order to minimize the problems derived from the non-commutativity of the smoothing operator and the time-evolution operator. We study the topology of these isodensity contours and concentrate on the evolution of the amplitude drop of the genus compared to a Gaussian field with an identical power spectrum, in order to quantify the level of phase-correlation present in the field. In order to test the method and to quantify the level of statistical uncertainty, we apply the method to a set of mock PSCz catalogues derived from the N-body simulations of two standard cold dark matter (CDM) models, kindly granted to us by the Virgo consortium. We find the method to be reliable in recovering the correct amplitude drops. When applied to PSCz, the level of phase correlations observed is very low on all scales ranging from 5 to 60 h−1 Mpc, providing support to the theory that structure originated from Gaussian initial conditions.
The impact of images on user clicks in product search

Product search engine faces unique challenges that differ from web page search. The goal of a product search engine is to rank relevant items that the user may be interested in purchasing. Clicks provide a strong signal of a user's interest in an item. Traditional click prediction models include many features such as document text, price, and user information. In this paper, we propose adding information extracted from the thumbnail image of the item as additional features for click prediction. Specifically, we use two types of image features -- photographic features and object features. Our experiments reveal that both types of features can be highly useful in click prediction. We measure our performance in both prediction accuracy and NDCG. Overall, our experiments show that augmenting with image features to a standard model in click prediction provides significant improvement in precision and recall and boosts NDCG.