Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Spinal shrinkage in females: circadian variation and the effects of circuit weight-training.

Compressive loading of the spine leads to spinal shrinkage and a loss of stature. The aim of this study was to measure the circadian variation in the stature of females and to examine differential effects of spinal loading with the time of day. Ten females aged 20–30 years were studied in nine measurements on a 24-hour period. Between rising and retiring to bed, the mean peak-to-trough variation was 15·4 mm (0·92% of stature). Subjects underwent two sequences of 20 min circuit-training with weights, followed by 20 min reclining in Fowler's position and 20 min standing erect, these being first thing in the morning after 7 hours of sleep and before retiring at midnight. Mean loss of height from circuit-training was 5·4 mm in the morning and 4·3 mm in the evening (P < 0·001): mean height regained in Fowler's position was 4·5 mm and 3·4 mm respectively (P<0·05). There were significant height losses in the subsequent standing posture but no time of day effect. Height losses with exercise were related to the is.
Temporal variation in floral display size and individual floral sex allocation in racemes of Narthecium asiaticum (Liliaceae).

We analyzed the effects of temporal variation in floral display size (number of flowers open at one time on a plant) on the rate of pollen removed and receipt of individual flowers for the sequential blooming plant Narthecium asiaticum (Liliaceae). Because of the acropetal blooming of this species, the display sizes when upper flowers opened was much greater than the display sizes when lower flowers opened. Our experiments revealed that large displays lead to a high rate of pollen removal from individual flowers, though they do not lead to a high rate of ovule fertilization. Consequently, the rate of pollen grains removed per flower by pollinators was greater in upper flowers than in lower flowers. The pattern of sex allocation in individual flowers within a raceme was consistent with such variation. Namely, both maleness [stamen mass/(stamen mass + pistil mass)] and pollen : ovule ratio were larger in upper flowers. We suggest that the temporal variation in display size, in addition to such factors as dichogamy and pollinator directionality, also produces variation in the probability of successful pollen transfer from individual flowers that may cause the variation in the sex allocation of individual flowers.
Short-term load forecasting via ARMA model identification including non-Gaussian process considerations

In this paper, the short-term load forecast by use of autoregressive moving average (ARMA) model including non-Gaussian process considerations is proposed. In the proposed method, the concept of cumulant and bispectrum are embedded into the ARMA model in order to facilitate Gaussian and non-Gaussian process. With embodiment of a Gaussianity verification procedure, the forecasted model is identified more appropriately. Therefore, the performance of ARMA model is better ensured, improving the load forecast accuracy significantly. The proposed method has been applied on a practical system and the results are compared with other published techniques.
Adapting Safety Rules in a High Reliability Context

Safety rules are unavoidable in hazardous work and are often codified insights from accidents and fatalities. Safety rules research predominantly focuses on factors that influence compliance and violation of rules (a rationalist view), but rarely examines how members draw from safety rules to take action and gain experience. This study draws from and extends an adaptation view of safety rules, which considers how members use safety rules as “tools” to inform action. The study compares how two wildland firefighting workgroups incorporate safety rules into communication practices, and specifically, how they ventriloquize them. From a communication perspective, ventriloquization directs attention to ways safety rules enable members to make sense of hazards, navigate authority, and develop experience. The findings contribute an explanatory workgroup model for how members adapt safety rules into action according to workgroup norms, complementary relationships, and practices, which extends our understanding of adaptive action and learning in hazardous work organizations.
Reduced expression of C1q‐mRNA in monocytes from patients with systemic lupus erythematosus

Inherited C1q deficiency is associated strongly with the development of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). The aim of our study was to evaluate the ability of monocytes from SLE patients without inherited C1q deficiency to up‐regulate C1q‐mRNA upon stimulation. Furthermore, we wanted to elucidate the physiological stimulus for up‐regulation of C1q‐mRNA. Peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC)‐derived monocytes from 10 SLE patients, 10 patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and 10 healthy controls (HC) were stimulated with dexamethasone (DXM), interferon‐gamma or both. Additionally, purified monocytes from HC were stimulated with interleukin (IL)‐10. C1q‐mRNA expression was measured by quantitative reverse transcription–polymerase chain reaction (RT–PCR). C1q protein was detected using the standard alkaline phosphatase/anti‐alkaline phosphatase (APAAP) technique. SLE monocytes were significantly less able to up‐regulate C1q‐mRNA when compared to RA or HC. IL‐10 was identified as an important stimulus for C1q synthesis. In SLE patients there is a significant functional impairment of monocytes to synthesize C1q upon stimulation. As C1q is linked to the process of recognition and removal of apoptotic cells, this relative C1q deficiency is likely to contribute to the reduced phagocytosis of apoptotic material observed in SLE and thereby might be a central pathogenetic factor.
Competing approaches to analysis of failure times with competing risks

For the analysis of time to event data in contraceptive studies when individuals are subject to competing causes for discontinuation, some authors have recently advocated the use of the cumulative incidence rate as a more appropriate measure to summarize data than the complement of the Kaplan–Meier estimate of discontinuation. The former method estimates the rate of discontinuation in the presence of competing causes, while the latter is a hypothetical rate that would be observed if discontinuations for the other reasons could not occur. The difference between the two methods of analysis is the continuous time equivalent of a debate that took place in the contraceptive literature in the 1960s, when several authors advocated the use of net (adjusted or single decrement life table rates) rates in preference to crude rates (multiple decrement life table rates). A small simulation study illustrates the interpretation of the two types of estimate – the complement of the Kaplan–Meier estimate corresponds to a hypothetical rate where discontinuations for other reasons did not occur, while the cumulative incidence gives systematically lower estimates. The Kaplan–Meier estimates are more appropriate when estimating the effectiveness of a contraceptive method, but the cumulative incidence estimates are more appropriate when making programmatic decisions regarding contraceptive methods. Other areas of application, such as cancer studies, may prefer to use the cumulative incidence estimates, but their use should be determined according to the application. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Incomplete Contracts and the Internal Organization of Firms

We survey the theoretical and empirical literature on decentralization within firms. We first discuss how the concept of incomplete contracts shapes our views about the organization of decision-making within firms. We then overview the empirical evidence on the determinants of decentralization and on the effects of decentralization on firm performance. A number of factors highlighted in the theory are shown to be important in accounting for delegation, such as heterogeneity and congruence of preferences as proxied by trust. Empirically, competition, human capital and IT also appear to foster decentralization. There are substantial gaps between theoretical and empirical work and we suggest avenues for future research in bridging this gap.
Duration of therapy with metoclopramide: a prescription claims data study

Metoclopramide‐induced tardive dyskinesia is associated with cumulative drug exposure, which can result from prolonged use of the drug. We estimated therapy duration with metoclopramide, and measured the extent of therapy beyond the maximum time period of 12 weeks evaluated in the clinical trials and recommended in the label.
Pulmonary Embolism—A Clinical and Autopsy Study

This paper reports 2 retrospective 5-year studies. A clinical review of 120 cases of pulmonary embolism at the Western General Hospital, Edinburgh, between 1965 and 1969 is followed by a review of 303 cases of embolism detected at 2291 routine autopsies in the Edinburgh Northern Hospital Group between 1967 and 1971. The main conclusions drawn from the studies are: 1. Venous thrombo-embolic disease is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in the Edinburgh Northern Group of Hospitals; 2. Greater use should be made of special diagnostic techniques in thrombo-embolic disease; 3. Oral anticoagulants do not protect from further embolism; 21 per cent of patients had recurrent emboli whilst on anticoagulant treatment; 4. The fatal episode in those patients with an otherwise good prognosis had been preceded by a clinically recognised minor episode in 27 per cent. At autopsy 52 per cent of patients dying of embolism showed evidence of previous smaller episodes. Minor embolism must be regarded as heralding major embolism unless phlebography proves otherwise; and 5. Every hospital should have a policy for the management of pulmonary embolism.
The development of communication skills: modifications in the speech of young children as a function of listener.

SHATZ, MARILYN, and GELMAN, ROCHEL. The Development of Communication Skills: Modifications in the Speech of Young Children as a Function of Listener. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 1973, 38 (5, Serial No. 152). This Monograph reports three studies of the 4-year-old's ability to adjust to a listener. In the first study (Study A) 16 Ss were pretested on modified versions of standard tests of "egocentrism. " Following these, the children were asked first to tell an adult about a toy and then tell a 2-year-old about that toy. The eight Ss who had 2-year-old siblings were run on the toy task twice: once in an adult-sibling session, and once in an adult-nonsibling session. Finally, tapes were made of spontaneous conversations between the Ss and their mothers. As expected, the Ss performed poorly on the tests of "egocentrism. " In contrast, Ss adjusted their speech production to their different listeners. Speech to 2-year-olds contained more short, simple utterances and more attentional utterances. The younger the 2-year-old, the greater was the observed speech adjustment. All children adjusted their speech whether or not they had younger siblings. In Study B tapes of uncontrolled conversations of five 4-year-olds each talking to a 2-year-old and an adult were obtained. Analyses of speech adjustments revealed a pattern of results like those of Study A. In Study C tapes of eight 4-year-olds talking to peers were collected and compared with the taped conversations with their mothers obtained in the first study. Analyses of the peer-directed versus adult-directed speech showed that, with respect to utterance length, the use of various constructions, and attentional utterances, peers were treated like adults. These results, combined with those of Study A, indicate that the 4-year-old adjusts his speech with regard to the changing capacities of different-aged listeners. The results of these studies are discussed with regard to previous work on the preschooler's communication skills and the variety of listener-produced cues that may influence the 4-year-old's tendency to "talk down. " The implications of speaker-listener interaction for the process of language acquisition are considered. This content downloaded from 157.55. 39.163 on Wed, 21 Sep 2016 04:38:28 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor. org/terms
Flight-to-quality or Contagion? An Empirical Analysis of Stock-bond correlations

This paper analyzes the existence of flight-to-quality from stocks to bonds and contagion between the two asset classes. Flight-to-quality is present if correlations between stocks and bonds strongly decrease in falling stock markets since this constitutes a movement of the asset classes in opposite directions. A movement in the same direction characterized by strongly increasing correlations in falling stock markets implies contagion across asset classes. We estimate dynamic conditional correlations and analyze normal and extreme changes of these correlations through time without an a priori specification of any crisis period. Daily MSCI stock and government bond returns are analyzed for a selection of European countries and the US. Our findings show that the correlation between the asset classes is characterized by large fluctuations and negative on average for the whole sample period. Extreme negative and positive correlation changes explained with flight-to-quality and contagion are relatively frequent phenomena. Examples of flight-to-quality are in the Asian and Russian crisis 1997 and 1998 and contagion is found after September 11. Controlling for the regime of correlations further shows that stock market volatility contributes to flight-to-quality and bond volatility to contagion.
Continuing uncertainty about the value of percutaneous revascularization in atherosclerotic renovascular disease: a meta-analysis of randomized trials.

BACKGROUND To study the effect of revascularization on blood pressure (BP) and serum creatinine (SCr) in patients with atherosclerotic renovascular disease (ARVD). METHODS Three randomized studies comparing balloon angioplasty (plus medication if necessary) with medical therapy alone in patients with ARVD were identified. In one study, patients were stratified and analysed according to whether they had unilateral or bilateral disease. Therefore, four sets of results were available for inclusion in a meta-analysis comparing BP and SCr at 6 months and changes from baseline. RESULTS The three trials recruited 210 patients. There was no clear benefit for angioplasty when comparing BP at 6 months. Relative to the medical therapy group, the mean (95% CI) systolic/diastolic BP was 2.9 mmHg (-9.1, 3.4)/0.35 mmHg (-3.6, 2.9) lower in the angioplasty group (P=0.4/0.8). There was, however, some suggestion of benefit for angioplasty when changes in BP were compared. There was a greater reduction in the systolic/diastolic BP in the angioplasty group, with a difference of 6.3 mmHg (-11.7, -0.8)/3.3 mmHg (-6.2, -0.4) in the mean change (P=0.02/0.03). There was some suggestion of benefit for angioplasty in terms of changes in SCr, although this was not significant (P=0.06). CONCLUSIONS The reported trials have been too small to determine reliably the role of angioplasty in ARVD. Although the combined results of three previous trials exclude the possibility of a large improvement in renal function or hypertension after angioplasty, a moderate but clinically worthwhile benefit cannot be ruled out. Further large-scale randomized evidence is needed.
Premarital first births: The influence of the timing of sexual onset versus post-onset risks in the United States

Motivated by long-standing debates between abstinence proponents and sceptics, we examine how socio-economic factors influence premarital first births via: (i) age at first sexual intercourse and (ii) the risk of a premarital first birth following the onset of sexual activity. Factors associated with an earlier age at first intercourse will imply more premarital first births owing to increased exposure to risk, but many of these same factors will also be associated with higher risks of a premarital first birth following onset. Our analyses confirm previous findings that women from disadvantaged backgrounds are younger at first intercourse and have higher premarital first-birth risks than women from more advantaged backgrounds. However, differences in onset timing have a strikingly smaller influence on premarital first-birth probabilities than do differences in post-onset risks. Our findings thus suggest that premarital first births result primarily from differences in post-onset risk behaviours as opposed to differences in onset timing.
Modeling piezoelectric actuators

The piezoelectric actuator (PEA) is a well-known device for managing extremely small displacements in the range from 10 pm to 100 /spl mu/m. When developing a control system for a piezo-actuated positioning mechanism, the actuator dynamics have to be taken into account. An electromechanical piezo model, based on physical principles, is presented in this paper. In this model, a first-order differential equation is adopted to describe the hysteresis effect, and a partial differential equation is used to describe the mechanical behavior. Since, in practice, a PEA is most often used as an actuator for positioning mechanisms, we considered the influence of such a mechanism on the overall mechanical behavior of PEA and positioning mechanism together. For a well-designed mechanism, the overall mechanical behavior practically equals that of a single mass-spring-damper system, of which the undamped eigenfrequency and the relative damping can be designed favorably. With respect to traditional voltage steering, charge steering has the advantage that no hysteresis is encountered between electrical input and elongation. Electrical steering configurations for both cases of steering are presented. Finally, for the case of charge steering, we derived the total model of a piezo-actuated positioning mechanism. This model is dominated by the mechanical model, which could be designed favorably. Therefore, this model gives a broad range of possibilities for model-based controller design.
Lateral Jaw Stability in Adults, Children, and Children with Developmental Speech Disorders

This study investigated the contribution of lateral movement to articulatory (in)stability. Using an optical three-dimensional movement analysis system, articulographic data on jaw movements were collected on the reiterated productions of the words /spa:/ and /pa:s/ (consisting of the same sequence of speech sounds but with a different syllabic structure) of 18 adults, 16 5to 6-year-olds typically developing children, and five children (ages, 4–7 years) with a variety of speech sound disorders (SSDs). Results of earlier studies showed that in the midsagittal plane, articulatory movement trajectories become more stable with age and during linguistic and phonemic development. The current results on the stability of jaw movements in the coronal plane corroborate these findings. Furthermore, the results indicate deviances from the norm data for the children with SSDs; however, in the midsagittal plane, no deviances were found for jaw movements for children with SSDs and subtype childhood apraxia of speech compared with control participants in a previous study. These results suggest that assessing lateral movement stability is important for the profiling of SSDs and might provide direct starting points for therapy planning.
Botulinum toxin injection in patients with hereditary spastic paraparesis

In an open label study, we analyzed the efficacy of botulinum toxin injection at the lower limbs of patients with hereditary spastic paraparesis (HSP). Fifteen patients who showed disabling spasticity with no or poor effect of oral treatment were recruited consecutively. Botulinum toxin was injected (400 U; Botox®) into the spastic muscles identified by clinical examination (equinus, varus, and pathological hip adduction). Patients were regularly assessed from the first day to the fifth month: spasticity (Ashworth), motor strength, range of movements, Functional Ambulation Categories (FAC), gait parameter, Rivermead Motor Assessment, self‐analysis of benefit and satisfaction. We observed a moderate and significant (P < 0.05) reduction of ankle plantar flexor and hip adductor spasticity, with a partial increase in the range of the active and passive motion at the ankle and in gait velocity. At an individual level, six of 15 patients showed an increase in gait velocity. The FAC and RMA did not change. Patients often reported partial improvement in foot position and lower limb propulsion, and fair satisfaction. In conclusion, botulinum toxin injection can be effective in HSP patients with relatively ancient spasticity. This technique can be introduced into the therapeutic panel, which also includes physiotherapy, oral treatment and baclofen pump.
Indoxyl sulfate-induced endothelial dysfunction in patients with chronic kidney disease via an induction of oxidative stress.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Recent data suggest indoxyl sulfate (IS), one of the uremic toxins that accelerate the progression of chronic kidney disease (CKD), may also be responsible for vascular disease via an induction of oxidative stress. The role of IS in endothelial dysfunction in CKD and potential mechanisms of IS-induced endothelial dysfunction were investigated. DESIGN, SETTING, PARTICIPANTS, & MEASUREMENTS A prospective observational study in 40 CKD patients was performed. Flow-mediated endothelium-dependent vasodilatation (FMD) and its reaction time before and 24 weeks after an oral adsorbent of IS were evaluated. Plasma levels of IS and markers of oxidative stress were also measured. The proliferation, senescence, and production of nitric oxide and reactive oxygen species from human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC) were evaluated and the effect of antioxidants, N-acetylcysteine, rotenone, and apocynin was examined to explore the mechanism of IS-induced endothelial dysfunction. RESULTS AST-120 treatment for 24 weeks resulted in a significant increase in FMD with a decrease in IS and oxidized/reduced glutathione ratio. The presence of diabetes and high-sensitivity C-reactive protein were the independent predictors for an improved FMD. IS induced a production of reactive oxygen species in HUVEC, and pretreatment with antioxidants ameliorated IS-induced inhibition of proliferation and nitric oxide production and inhibited a senescence of HUVEC. CONCLUSIONS IS may play an important role in endothelial dysfunction via generation of oxidative stress with an induction of endothelial senescence. AST-120 improved endothelial dysfunction in patients with CKD associated with a decrease in IS and a restoration of antioxidant reserve.
Production of bispecific antibodies in “knobs-into-holes” using a cell-free expression system

Bispecific antibodies have emerged in recent years as a promising field of research for therapies in oncology, inflammable diseases, and infectious diseases. Their capability of dual target recognition allows for novel therapeutic hypothesis to be tested, where traditional mono-specific antibodies would lack the needed mode of target engagement. Among extremely diverse architectures of bispecific antibodies, knobs-into-holes (KIHs) technology, which involves engineering CH3 domains to create either a “knob” or a “hole” in each heavy chain to promote heterodimerization, has been widely applied. Here, we describe the use of a cell-free expression system (Xpress CF) to produce KIH bispecific antibodies in multiple scaffolds, including 2-armed heterodimeric scFv-KIH and one-armed asymmetric BiTE-KIH with tandem scFv. Efficient KIH production can be achieved by manipulating the plasmid ratio between knob and hole, and further improved by addition of prefabricated knob or hole. These studies demonstrate the versatility of Xpress CF in KIH production and provide valuable insights into KIH construct design for better assembly and expression titer.