Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of Manidipine and Nifedipine on Blood Pressure and Renal Function in Patients with Chronic Renal Failure: A Multicenter Randomized Controlled Trial

Several studies suggest the distinctive advantages of ACE-inhibitors and calcium-channel blockers in protecting the residual renal function in hypertensive patients. Pre-clinical and clinical studies have shown rare adverse events in the treatment with manidipine, which is commonly used as antihypertensive drug. We therefore decided to compare the effects of manidipine and nifedipine, on blood pressure, and renal function. One hundred and one hypertensive patients with chronic renal failure were randomly assigned to receive either manidipine 20 mg daily or nifedipine 60 mg daily, respectively. Patients were assessed every two weeks during the active treatment period with the final follow-up after three months. The primary endpoint was the achievement of DBP ≤90 mmHg or a 10 mmHg DBP reduction from the baseline values, whilst the secondary endpoints was the improvement of the renal function assessed through the creatinine clearance, creatinine blood levels, protein and sodium urine excretion. Significant reduction in SBP (p<0.001) and DBP (p<0.001), compared to the baseline values, was reached in both treatments. Creatinine blood levels (p<0.05) and creatinine clearance (p<0.01) significantly increased in the manidipine group. Protenuria did not significantly change in the manidipine group but increased in the nifedipine group (p<0.05). The number of patients with severe adverse reactions differed significantly (p<0.01) between the groups with the highest frequency for nifedipine (14.5%) compared to manidipine (8.5%). The withdrawal rate was not significantly different between the groups. Manidipine is equally safe and effective as nifedipine and it may have more activity on renal function and less severe side effects compared to nifedipine.
Problematizing the healing metaphor of restorative justice

Beginning with the premise that our linguistic and cognitive systems are fundamentally metaphorical in nature, this study seeks to explore the predominant metaphor of restorative justice (RJ), the metaphor of healing. Metaphor choice is important, particularly in conflict situations, as they encourage and discourage particular behaviors, attitudes, and perceptions. The conceptualization of RJ as a healing process (where participants heal the wounds caused by offending behaviors) is pervasive and integrated into the academic literature. Perhaps either due to its banality or its seeming beneficiality, we assert that the healing metaphor has not received sufficiently critical reflection. We examined primary metaphor use among RJ facilitators using 319 single-spaced pages of interview data gathered from 20 RJ facilitators. Our results suggest that the healing metaphor is potentially problematic for victims, offenders, and facilitators. We suggest an alternative, garden metaphor, for consideration as an alternative.
Tactical Decision Making in Team Sports — A Model of Cognitive Processes

In dynamic situations such as sports, athletes use environmental information to compare the current situation with similar situations in the past. On the basis of this experience a recognized option will be generated and chosen (1). We evaluated decision making in team handball by tracking the eye movements of participants during the decision-making process. We performed two studies using the same sample that differed in the format of visual presentation. In Study 1 we presented different offensive scenes on a virtual tactic board via a computer screen. In Study 2, the participants watched real decision-making situations in a large video projection on a wall. The same participants took part in both studies (i.e., experienced both formats). The studies were intended to extend previous research on the take-the-first heuristic (limited cue use and limited option generation). An option-generation paradigm was used to measure choice behavior in participants with high and low expertise levels. Results of Study 1 showed that all participants produced nearly the same gaze behavior but experts generated options with a higher probability of success. In Study 2 we conceptually validated the effect in more complex situations. Benefits of that information search and choice behavior are explained based on a simple heuristics approach, and practical recommendations are provided.
The study of clinical manifestation of osteoarticular tuberculosis in Siriraj Hospital, Thailand.

OBJECTIVE To study of clinical manifestations of osteoarticular tuberculosis. MATERIAL AND METHOD This study is an observational retrospective study design from the electronic medical record database of Siriraj Hospital in 2005-2006. RESULTS Ninety- nine patients fit in to the inclusion criteria. All were non HIV-infected. There were 44 males (44.4%) and 55 females (55.6%) with a male/female ratio of 8:10. The mean and median age was 50.9 +/- 19.8 and 50 years, respectively, with a range from 1-85 years. The most frequent chief complaint was pain (84.8%), followed by functional disability/neurological deficit (47.5%), constitutional symptoms (38.4%), fever (24.2%), localized swelling (21.2%), fistulas and drainage (11.1%) and discovery as a co-morbid disease (1%). The most frequent clinical manifestation was tuberculous spondylodiscitis (66.7%) followed by tuberculous septic arthritis (28.3%), tuberculous osteomyelitis (10.1%), tuberculous tenosynovitis (4.0%), tuberculous bursitis (2.0%) and tuberculous pyomyositis (2.0%). Concurrent pulmonary TB was 30.3%. The mean and median time to diagnosis was 20.4 +/- 16.9 and 13 weeks, respectively, with a range from 4 days to 104 weeks. The shortest duration of time to diagnosis was 0-4 weeks (19.2%) followed by 12-16 weeks (14.1%) and 20-24 weeks (13.1%). The longest duration of time to diagnosis was 104 weeks (1%). The diagnosis from histopathology was 46.5%, positive AFB 40.4%, positive PCR 33.3% and positive culture 19.2%. The radiological abnormalities were osteolytic lesion (79.8%), narrowing intervertebral disc space/joint space (54.5%), cold abscess (49.5%) and vertebral collapse (43.4%). Surgery with medical treatment was performed on 72.7% while the percentage of those receiving medical treatment only was 27.3%. The results of treatment were improvement with residual deformities/dysfunction occurring in 97%. Death occurred in 3%. CONCLUSION Osteoarticular tuberculosis is common in all age groups. Tuberculous spondylodiscitis was the most frequent clinical manifestation in Siriraj Hospital, Thailand. Although the patients were provided with adequate medical and surgical therapy, osteoarticular tuberculosis was still associated with mortality and morbidity.
A Fuzzy Computing Model for Identifying Polarity of Chinese Sentiment Words

With the spurt of online user-generated contents on web, sentiment analysis has become a very active research issue in data mining and natural language processing. As the most important indicator of sentiment, sentiment words which convey positive and negative polarity are quite instrumental for sentiment analysis. However, most of the existing methods for identifying polarity of sentiment words only consider the positive and negative polarity by the Cantor set, and no attention is paid to the fuzziness of the polarity intensity of sentiment words. In order to improve the performance, we propose a fuzzy computing model to identify the polarity of Chinese sentiment words in this paper. There are three major contributions in this paper. Firstly, we propose a method to compute polarity intensity of sentiment morphemes and sentiment words. Secondly, we construct a fuzzy sentiment classifier and propose two different methods to compute the parameter of the fuzzy classifier. Thirdly, we conduct extensive experiments on four sentiment words datasets and three review datasets, and the experimental results indicate that our model performs better than the state-of-the-art methods.
Joint CP-AMPA and group I mGlu receptor activation is required for synaptic plasticity in dentate gyrus fast-spiking interneurons

Significance During spatial learning, hippocampal fast-spiking inhibitory cells couple dynamically to excitatory principal cell (PC) assemblies that encode locations in the animal’s environment. Repeated coactivation of highly active PC assemblies and fast-spiking interneurons strengthens their synaptic connections and promotes silencing of less active neurons, thereby stabilizing the active assembly. Here, we show that synaptic plasticity between excitatory dentate gyrus granule cells and fast-spiking interneurons requires coincident activation of postsynaptic Ca2+-permeable AMPA and group I metabotropic glutamate receptors. Both jointly activate postsynaptic PKC to induce long-term synaptic plasticity. In the future, understanding the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying synaptic plasticity between PCs and interneurons in vitro will enable us to study its role in memory formation in vivo. Hippocampal principal cell (PC) assemblies provide the brain with a mnemonic representation of space. It is assumed that the formation of cell assemblies is supported by long-lasting modification of glutamatergic synapses onto perisomatic inhibitory interneurons (PIIs), which provide powerful feedback inhibition to neuronal networks. Repetitive activation of dentate gyrus PIIs by excitatory mossy fiber (MF) inputs induces Hebbian long-term potentiation (LTP). In contrast, long-term depression (LTD) emerges in the absence of PII activity. However, little is known about the molecular mechanisms underlying synaptic plasticity in PIIs. Here, we examined the role of group I metabotropic glutamate receptors 1 and 5 (mGluRs1/5) in inducing plastic changes at MF-PII synapses. We found that mGluRs1/5 are located perisynaptically and that pharmacological block of mGluR1 or mGluR5 abolished MF-LTP. In contrast, their exogenous activation was insufficient to induce MF-LTP but cleared MF-LTD. No LTP could be elicited in PIIs loaded with blockers of G protein signaling and Ca2+-dependent PKC. Two-photon imaging revealed that the intracellular Ca2+ rise necessary for MF-LTP was largely mediated by Ca2+-permeable AMPA receptors (CP-AMPARs), but less by NMDA receptors or mGluRs1/5. Thus, our data indicate that fast Ca2+ signaling via CP-AMPARs and slow G protein-mediated signaling via mGluRs1/5 converge to a PKC-dependent molecular pathway to induce Hebbian MF-LTP. We further propose that Hebbian activation of mGluRs1/5 gates PIIs into a “readiness mode” to promote MF-LTP, which, in turn, will support timed PII recruitment, thereby assisting in PC assembly formation.
Treatment of Depressed Tinnitus Patients with Nortriptyline

Patients disabled by tinnitus show a high prevalence of major depression. Furthermore, tinnitus produces patterns of disability similar to those produced by major depression. To explore further this link between tinnitus and depression, and to investigate the efficacy of treating depression in the treatment of tinnitus, a single-blind, placebo-washout, nonrandomized pilot study of the tricyclic antidepressant nortriptyline (hydrochloride) was undertaken in disabled tinnitus patients who also met diagnostic criteria for major depression. Nineteen patients began the study, two responded to placebo, and two dropped out prior to completion. Fourteen considered their tinnitus improved, and 12 chose to continue taking nortriptyline after the study. Depression severity decreased, on the average, by 65% (p<.0001). Tinnitus loudness measured by audiometric matching decreased by a mean of 10 dB or 50% (p<.02). Self-reports of tinnitus loudness and severity, somatic and psychologic symptoms, and psychosocial dysfunction all showed significant improvement with treatment. These results suggest that what initially appears to be an irreversible otologic disability in these patients may be in large part a reversible psychiatric disability.
From personal fear to mass panic: The neurological basis of crowd perception.

Recent studies have investigated the neural correlates of how we perceive emotions of individuals or a group of individuals using images of individual bodily expressions. However, it is still largely unknown how we perceive the emotion of a dynamic crowd. This fMRI study used realistic videos of a large group of people expressing fearful, happy or neutral emotions. Furthermore, the emotions were expressed by either unrelated individuals in the group or by an interacting group. It was hypothesized that the dynamics between the people in a crowd is a more salient signal than merely the emotion of the crowd. Second, it was expected that the group interaction is of special importance in a fearful or "panic" situation, as opposed to a happy or neutral situation. Using a fast-event related design, it was revealed that observing interactive individuals, more so than independently expressive individuals, activated networks related to the perception, execution and integration of action and emotion. Most importantly, the interactive or panicked crowds, as opposed to the individually fearful crowds, triggered more anticipatory and action preparation activity, whereas the brain was less sensitive to the dynamics of individuals in a happy or neutral crowd. This is the first study to assess the effect of the dynamics between people and the collectively displayed emotion as an important aspect of emotional crowd perception. Hum Brain Mapp, 2015. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Language: en
Enhanced phasic GABA inhibition during the repair phase of stroke: a novel therapeutic target

While tonic GABA appears to suppress brain repair after stroke, the effects of phasic (synaptic) GABA signalling are unclear. Hiu et al. reveal an increase in phasic GABA signalling during the repair phase that enhances plasticity-related recovery in mice. Increasing phasic signalling with zolpidem improves behavioural recovery, suggesting therapeutic potential.
Comparative heat and gas exchange measurements in the Heidelberg Aeolotron, a large annular wind-wave tank

Abstract. A comparative study of simultaneous heat and gas exchange measurements was performed in the large annular Heidelberg Air–Sea Interaction Facility, the Aeolotron, under homogeneous water surface conditions. The use of two gas tracers, N2O and C2HF5, resulted not only in gas transfer velocities, but also in the measurement of the Schmidt number exponent n with a precision of ±0.025. The original controlled flux, or active thermographic, technique proposed by Jahne et al. (1989) was applied by heating a large patch at the water surface to measure heat transfer velocities. Heating a large patch, the active thermography technique is laterally homogeneous, and problems of lateral transport effects are avoided. Using the measured Schmidt number exponents, the ratio of the scaled heat transfer velocities to the measured gas transfer velocities is 1.046 ± 0.040, a good agreement within the limits of experimental uncertainties. This indicates the possibility to scale heat transfer velocities measured by active thermography to gas transfer velocities, provided that the Schmidt number exponent is known and that the heated patch is large enough to reach the thermal equilibrium.
Effects of combination oral care on oral health, dry mouth and salivary pH of intubated patients: A randomized controlled trial.

Intubated patients are at risk of oral health problems. Although a variety of oral care regimens for intubated patients have been studied, there is a lack of research on the effects of combination oral care that includes tooth brushing, chlorhexidine and cold water. This open-labelled, randomized, controlled trial aimed to evaluate the effects of combination oral care on oral health status. Participants aged 20 years and older were recruited on the first day after intubation through convenience sampling in a medical intensive care unit. Random assignment was performed using an internet randomization service. The primary outcome was oral health status. Data were collected during May and June 2013. Participants were randomized to one of two groups (23 intervention and 21 control). The final analysis included 18 patients with combination oral care and 17 in the control group. The intervention group had better oral health (effect size = 1.56), less dry mouth and higher salivary pH than the control group. Any additional burden of providing combination oral care to patients who are mechanically ventilated is worthwhile in terms of clinical outcomes.
Continuity of caregivers for care during pregnancy and childbirth.

BACKGROUND Care is often provided by multiple caregivers, many of whom work only in the antenatal clinic, labour ward or postnatal unit. However continuity of care is provided by the same caregiver or a small group from pregnancy through the postnatal period. OBJECTIVES The objective of this review was to assess continuity of care during pregnancy and childbirth and the puerperium with usual care by multiple caregivers. SEARCH STRATEGY The Cochrane Pregnancy and Childbirth Group trials register was searched. SELECTION CRITERIA Controlled trials comparing continuity of care with usual care during pregnancy, childbirth and the postnatal period. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS Trial quality was assessed. Study authors were contacted for additional information. MAIN RESULTS Two studies involving 1815 women were included. Both trials compared continuity of care by midwives with non-continuity of care by a combination of physicians and midwives. The trials were of good quality. Compared to usual care, women who had continuity of care from a team of midwives were less likely to be admitted to hospital antenatally (odds ratio 0.79, 95% confidence interval 0.64 to 0.97) and more likely to attend antenatal education programs (odds ratio 0.58, 95% confidence interval 0.41 to 0.81). They were also less likely to have drugs for pain relief during labour (odds ratio 0.53, 95% confidence interval 0.44 to 0.64) and their newborns were less likely to require resuscitation (odds ratio 0.66, 95% confidence interval 0.52 to 0.83). No differences were detected in Apgar scores, low birthweight and stillbirths or neonatal deaths. While they were less likely to have an episiotomy (odds ratio 0.75, 95% confidence interval 0.60 to 0.94), women receiving continuity of care were more likely to have either a vaginal or perineal tear (odds ratio 1.28, 95% confidence interval 1.05, 1.56). They were more likely to be pleased with their antenatal, intrapartum and postnatal care. REVIEWER'S CONCLUSIONS Studies of continuity of care show beneficial effects. It is not clear whether these are due to greater continuity of care, or to midwifery care.
Antiparasitic Activity of C‐Geranyl Flavonoids from Mimulus bigelovii

Bioactivity‐directed fractionation of the MeOH fraction of the extract of Mimulus bigelovii by means of an axenic Leishmania amastigote assay and chromatographic techniques resulted in the isolation of four C‐geranyl flavanones, diplacone (1), 3′‐O‐methyldiplacone (2), 4′‐O‐methyldiplacone (3), 3′‐O‐methyldiplacol (4), together with a geranylated flavone, cannflavin A (5). These compounds were separated from M. bigelovii for the first time. All compounds showed moderate antileishmanial activity against axenic Leishmania donovani amastigotes with IC50 values ranging from 4.8 to 14.6 μg/mL. The compounds were also tested against the related kinetoplastid parasite Trypanosoma brucei brucei and they showed activity with IC50 values ranging from 1.4 to 7.2 μg/mL. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
CD8 T-cell-mediated protection against liver-stage malaria: lessons from a mouse model

Malaria is a major global health problem, with severe mortality in children living in sub-Saharan Africa, and there is currently no licensed, effective vaccine. However, vaccine-induced protection from Plasmodium infection, the causative agent of malaria, was established for humans in small clinical trials and for rodents in the 1960s. Soon after, a critical role for memory CD8 T cells in vaccine-induced protection against Plasmodium liver-stage infection was established in rodent models and is assumed to apply to humans. However, these seminal early studies have led to only modest advances over the ensuing years in our understanding the basic features of memory CD8 T cells required for protection against liver-stage Plasmodium infection, an issue which has likely impeded the development of effective vaccines for humans. Given the ethical and practical limitations in gaining mechanistic insight from human vaccine and challenge studies, animal models still have an important role in dissecting the basic parameters underlying memory CD8 T-cell immunity to Plasmodium. Here, we will highlight recent data from our own work in the mouse model of Plasmodium infection that identify quantitative and qualitative features of protective memory CD8 T-cell responses. Finally, these lessons will be discussed in the context of recent findings from clinical trials of vaccine-induced protection in controlled human challenge models.
The Efficacy of Antidepressants in the Treatment of Late-Life Depression

Abstract: This review addresses the question of whether there is evidence that antidepressants are more efficacious than placebo in the treatment of late-life depression and what is the rate of response that physician and patient can expect when antidepressant medication is prescribed in a typical clinical setting. To date, 5 placebo-controlled and 10 comparison trials have study designs of sufficient rigor to provide evidence of antidepressant efficacy and effectiveness in the treatment of late-life depression. The results suggest that antidepressant medications are more effective than placebo. However, placebo-controlled trials are not a simple comparison of only medication versus placebo. Rather, the amount of nonspecific psychosocial interventions included in these trials is considerable and often not systematically measured. Trial design also affects outcome: response and remission rates in comparison trials consistently are 20% to 30% higher than those reported in placebo-controlled trials. Clinical trials do not consistently assess the many moderators that are believed to affect treatment outcome in late-life depression, and therefore, comparisons across studies are problematic because of an inability to determine whether patient samples are truly comparable. For future clinical trials to have maximal relevance, study design should evolve to reflect as closely as possible a typical clinical setting especially with respect to frequency and duration of patient visits.