Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Impact of Neuraminidase Inhibitor Treatment on Outcomes of Public Health Importance During the 2009–2010 Influenza A(H1N1) Pandemic: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis in Hospitalized Patients

Background. The impact of neuraminidase inhibitor (NAI) treatment on clinical outcomes of public health importance during the 2009–2010 pandemic has not been firmly established. Methods. We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis, searching 11 databases (2009 through April 2012) for relevant studies. We used standard methods conforming to Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. Pooled odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were estimated using random effects models. Results. Regarding mortality we observed a nonsignificant reduction associated with NAI treatment (at any time) versus none (OR, 0.72 [95% CI, .51–1.01]). However we observed significant reductions for early treatment (≤48 hours after symptom onset) versus late (OR, 0.38 [95% CI, .27–.53]) and for early treatment versus none (OR, 0.35 [95% CI, .18–.71]). NAI treatment (at any time) versus none was associated with an elevated risk of severe outcome (OR, 1.76 [95% CI, 1.22–2.54]), but early versus late treatment reduced the likelihood (OR, 0.41 [95% CI, .30–.56]). Conclusions. During the 2009–2010 influenza A(H1N1) pandemic, early initiation of NAI treatment reduced the likelihood of severe outcomes compared with late or no treatment. PROSPERO Registration. CRD42011001273.
Machiavellian Individuals’ Reciprocation Tend to be Smaller in a Trust Game

Machiavellianism is a combination of a behavioral strategy characterized by the tendency to manipulate and exploit others, and a worldview resting upon cynicism and opportunism. The aim of our study was to explore the extent to which highly Machiavellian people tend to trust others and reciprocate favors. To model everyday relationships, we used the so-called Trust Game: a two-person experimental situation in which participants took part with a stranger as a partner. Eighty university students participated in the study, and played for real money. Their inclination to Machiavellian behavior was measured by the Mach IV questionnaire. Our results showed that there was no significant difference in the deposits made by the first players between high and low Machs; as first players, high Machs tended to trust the other player to the same degree than low Mach participants. We also found that high Machs as second players are less likely than low Mach participants to reciprocate the favors of the other player. From the results, it might be inferred that Machiavellians make decisions in cold blood; they do not trust others and reciprocate rather moderately, regardless of the amount of money they have received from the partner.
A DIFFERENTIAL EVOLUTION APPROACH FOR GLOBAL OPTIMIZATION OF MINLP PROBLEMS

The global optimization of mixed integer non-linear programming (MINLP) problems is an active research area in many engineering fields. In this work, Differential Evolution (DE), a hybrid Evolutionary Computation method, is used for the optimization of nonconvex MINLP problems and a comparison is made among the algorithms based on hybrid of Simplex & Simulated Annealing (MSIMPSA), Genetic Algorithms (GA), and DE. It is found that DE, an exceptionally simple evolutionary computation method, is significantly faster and yields the global optimum for a wide range of the key parameters. Results indicate that DE is more reliable, efficient and hence a better approach to the optimization of nonconvex nonlinear problems. DE found to be the best evolutionary computation method in all the problems studied.
Temporary employment and segmentation in the Spanish labour market: An empirical analysis through the study of wage differentials

Abstract.We aim to add empirical evidence to the already studied field of wage differentials between temporary and permanent workers in Spain. Our goal is to find out which determinants of wage differentials are relevant when explaining such differences. Furthermore, the endogeneity of such feature (the type of contract) is controlled for. The same exercise is done with two data sets: the ECHP and the Structure of Earnings Survey. Results show that wage differentials between temporary and permanent workers are explained by the differences in the distribution of personal and job characteristics in both groups, but not by differences in the rewards for those characteristics. These results remain mostly unchanged during the second part of the 1990’s, using information from five waves of the ECHP, and are robust to different changes in the econometric specification.
The Kinetics of Inhibition of Human Acetylcholinesterase and Butyrylcholinesterase by Two Series of Novel Carbamates

Controlled inhibition of brain acetyl- and butyrylcholinesterases (AChE and BChE, respectively) and of monoamine oxidase-B (MAO-B) may slow neurodegeneration in Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases. It was postulated that certain carbamate esters would inhibit AChE and BChE with the concomitant release in the brain of the OH-derivatives of rasagiline or selegiline that can serve as inhibitors of MAO-B and as antioxidants. We conducted a detailed in vitro kinetic study on two series of novel N-methyl, N-alkyl carbamates and compared them with rivastigmine, a known anti-Alzheimer drug. The rates of carbamylation (ki) and decarbamylation (kr) of recombinant human AChE were mainly determined by the size of the N-alkyl substituent and to a lesser extent by the nature of the leaving group. ki was highest when the alkyl was methyl, hexyl, cyclohexyl, or an aromatic substituent and lowest when it was ethyl. This suggested that ki depends on a delicate balance between the length of the residue and its degree of freedom of rotation. By contrast, presumably because of its wider gorge, inhibition of human BChE was less influenced by the size of the alkyl group and more dependent on the structure of the leaving group. The data show how the degree of enzyme inhibition can be manipulated by structural changes in the N-methyl, N-alkyl carbamates and the corresponding leaving group to achieve therapeutic levels of brain AChE, BChE, and MAO-B inhibition.
Is Hata Path loss model a macro-cell model only? a question of debate

Since the first publication of Hata Path loss model in 1980, it was imposed by the author that the model is valid for distances more than 1 km. Therefore, Researchers have categorized the model to suit Macro cells of distances from 1 km up to 20 km. Many recent and older researches have argued that Hata model can be used even in micro cell distances down to tens of meters from the transmitter under certain conditions. Accurate results are achieved in such distances which supports the claim that this model is precise enough down to tens of meters. The argument is to evaluate between simplicity, and cost efficacy of applying Hata model verses optimum accuracy required in view of the fact that real measurements are to be collected after all. In this brief article, arguments are highlighted to realize if this model is a matter of choice to be used in micro cells, and though the imposed constrained as the range of validity to be greater than 1 km, would be relaxed. Examples are given to support the claim.
Luteolin Limits Infarct Size and Improves Cardiac Function after Myocardium Ischemia/Reperfusion Injury in Diabetic Rats

Background The present study was to investigate the effects and mechanism of Luteolin on myocardial infarct size, cardiac function and cardiomyocyte apoptosis in diabetic rats with myocardial ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury. Methodology/Principal Findings Diabetic rats underwent 30 minutes of ischemia followed by 3 h of reperfusion. Animals were pretreated with or without Luteolin before coronary artery ligation. The severity of myocardial I/R induced LDH release, arrhythmia, infarct size, cardiac function impairment, cardiomyocyte apoptosis were compared. Western blot analysis was performed to elucidate the target proteins of Luteolin. The inflammatory cytokine production were also examined in ischemic myocardium underwent I/R injury. Our results revealed that Luteolin administration significantly reduced LDH release, decreased the incidence of arrhythmia, attenuated myocardial infarct size, enhanced left ventricular ejection fraction and decreased myocardial apoptotic death compared with I/R group. Western blot analysis showed that Luteolin treatment up-regulated anti-apoptotic proteins FGFR2 and LIF expression, increased BAD phosphorylation while decreased the ratio of Bax to Bcl-2. Luteolin treatment also inhibited MPO expression and inflammatory cytokine production including IL-6, IL-1a and TNF-a. Moreover, co-administration of wortmannin and Luteolin abolished the beneficial effects of Luteolin. Conclusions/Significance This study indicates that Luteolin preserves cardiac function, reduces infarct size and cardiomyocyte apoptotic rate after I/R injury in diabetic rats. Luteolin exerts its action by up-regulating of anti-apoptotic proteins FGFR2 and LIF expression, activating PI3K/Akt pathway while increasing BAD phosphorylation and decreasing ratio of Bax to Bcl-2.
Social work in East Africa: A mzungu perspective

Social work in East Africa is confronted with myriad social and structural problems. The heritage of imported theories and concepts from the West is still affecting education and practice. The profession lacks resources and has only limited influence on social policies. Since 2010, a multi-phase, research-focused project called PROSOWO has been running in order to bring the professionalization of social work on the agenda. In this article, empirical data are discussed with regard to developmental and indigenized social work in these countries. The discussion reflects on social work in East Africa from a cross-cultural perspective.
FGFs: Neurodevelopment’s Jack-of-all-Trades – How Do They Do it?

From neurulation to postnatal processes, the requirements for FGF signaling in many aspects of neural precursor cell biology have been well documented. However, identifying a requirement for FGFs in a particular neurogenic process provides only an initial and superficial understanding of what FGF signaling is doing. How FGFs specify cell types in one instance, yet promote cell survival, proliferation, migration, or differentiation in other instances remains largely unknown and is key to understanding how they function. This review describes what we have learned primarily from in vivo vertebrate studies about the roles of FGF signaling in neurulation, anterior–posterior patterning of the neural plate, brain patterning from local signaling centers, and finally neocortex development as an example of continued roles for FGFs within the same brain area. The potential explanations for the diverse functions of FGFs through differential interactions with cell intrinsic and extrinsic factors is then discussed with an emphasis on how little we know about the modulation of FGF signaling in vivo. A clearer picture of the mechanisms involved is nevertheless essential to understand the behavior of neural precursor cells and to potentially guide their fates for therapeutic purposes.
A successive convex approximation algorithm for weighted sum-rate maximization in downlink OFDMA networks

We consider a downlink OFDMA cellular network wherein groups of access points are coordinated and we address the problem of jointly selecting the set of co-channel users and the power allocation across tones in order to maximize the weighted system sum-rate subject to per-base-station power constraints. To solve this problem, we propose a successive convex approximation for low-complexity (SCALE) algorithm which extends a previous optimization procedure developed for ADSL. Numerical examples are provided to assess its performance.
Decreased expression of Klotho in cardiac atria biopsy samples from patients at higher risk of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease

Background Klotho proteins (α- and β) are membrane-based circulating proteins that regulate cell metabolism, as well as the lifespan modulating activity of Fibroblast Growth Factors (FGFs). Recent data has shown that higher plasma circulating Klotho levels reduce cardiovascular risk, suggesting Klotho has a protective role in cardiovascular diseases. However, although so far it has been identified in various organs, it is unknown whether cardiomyocytes express Klotho and FGFs, and whether high cardiovascular risk could affect cardiac expression of Klotho, FGFs and other molecules. Methods We selected 20 patients with an estimated 10-year high atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease and 10 age-matched control subjects with an estimated 10-year low risk undergone cardiac surgery for reasons other than coronary artery by-pass. In myocardial biopsies, we evaluated by immuno-histochemistry whether Klotho and FGFs were expressed in cardiomyocytes, and whether higher cardiovascular risk influenced the expression of other molecules involved in endoplasmic reticulum stress, oxidative stress, inflammation and fibrosis. Results Only cardiomyocytes of patients with a higher cardiovascular risk showed lower expression of Klotho, but higher expressions of FGFs. Furthermore, higher cardiovascular risk was associated with increased expression of oxidative and endoplasmic reticular stress, inflammation and fibrosis. Conclusions This study showed for the first time that Klotho proteins are expressed in human cardiomyocytes and that cardiac expression of Klotho is down-regulated in higher cardiovascular risk patients, while expression of stress-related molecules were significantly increased.
Inhibits FPRL1 and FPR (FPRL1 Inhibitory Protein) That aureus Staphylococcus 1 (FPRL1) Inhibitor from A Homolog of Formyl Peptide Receptor-Like

The members of the formyl peptide receptor (FPR) family are involved in the sensing of chemoattractant substances, including bacteria-derived N -formylated peptides and host-derived peptides and proteins. We have recently described two chemoattractant receptor inhibitors from Staphylococcus aureus . Chemotaxis inhibitory protein of S. aureus (CHIPS) blocks the formyl peptide receptor (FPR) and the receptor for complement C5a (C5aR), while FPR-like 1 (FPRL1) inhibitory protein (FLIPr) blocks the FPRL1. Here, we describe another staphylococcal chemoattractant-inhibiting protein with 73% overall homology to FLIPr and identical ﬁrst 25 aa, which we termed FLIPr-like. This protein inhibits neutrophil calcium mobilization and chemotaxis induced by the FPRL1-ligand MMK-1 and FPR-ligand fMLP. While its FPRL1-inhibitory activity lies in the comparable nanomolar range of FLIPr, its antagonism of the FPR is (cid:1) 100-fold more potent than that of FLIPr and comparable to that of CHIPS. The second N -terminal phenylalanine was required for its inhibition of the FPR, but it was dispensable for the FPRL1. Furthermore, the deletion of the ﬁrst seven amino acids reduced its antagonism of the FPRL1, and the exchange of the ﬁrst six amino acids with that of CHIPS-conferred receptor speciﬁcity. Finally, studies with cells transfected with several chemoattractant receptors conﬁrmed that FLIPr-like speciﬁcally binds to the FPR and FPRL1. In conclusion,
Regularized Structured Perceptron: A Case Study on Chinese Word Segmentation, POS Tagging and Parsing

Structured perceptron becomes popular for various NLP tasks such as tagging and parsing. Practical studies on NLP did not pay much attention to its regularization. In this paper, we study three simple but effective task-independent regularization methods: (1) one is to average weights of different trained models to reduce the bias caused by the specific order of the training examples; (2) one is to add penalty term to the loss function; (3) and one is to randomly corrupt the data flow during training which is called dropout in the neural network. Experiments are conducted on three NLP tasks, namely Chinese word segmentation, part-of-speech tagging and dependency parsing. Applying proper regularization methods or their combinations, the error reductions with respect to the averaged perceptron for some of these tasks can be up to 10%.
Surface bundles versus Heegaard splittings

This paper studies Heegaard splittings of surface bundles via the curve complex of the fibre. The translation distance of the monodromy is the smallest distance it moves any vertex of the curve complex. We prove that the translation distance is bounded above in terms of the genus of any strongly irreducible Heegaard splitting. As a consequence, if a splitting surface has small genus compared to the translation distance of the monodromy, the splitting is standard.
A Dynamic Network Simulation of the Nematode Tap Withdrawal Circuit: Predictions Concerning Synaptic Function Using Behavioral Criteria

The nematode tap withdrawal reflex demonstrates several forms of behavioral plasticity. Although the neural connectivity that supports this behavior is identified (Integration of mechanosensory stimuli in Caenorhabditis elegans, Wicks and Rankin, 1995, J Neurosci 15:2434–2444), the neurotransmitter phenotypes, and hence whether the synapses in the circuit are excitatory or inhibitory, remain uncharacterized. Here we use a novel strategy to predict the polarity configuration, i.e., the array of excitatory and inhibitory connections, of the nematode tap withdrawal circuit using an anatomically and physiologically justifiable dynamic network simulation of that circuit. The output of the modeled circuit was optimized to the behavior of animals, which possessed circuits altered by surgical ablation by exhaustively enumerating an array of synaptic signs that constituted the modeled circuit. All possible polarity configurations were then compared, and a statistical analysis was used to determine whether, for a given synaptic class, a particular polarity was associated with a good fit to behavioral data. The results from four related experiments were used to predict the polarities of seven of the nine cell classes of the tap withdrawal circuit. In addition, the model was used to assess possible roles for two novel mechanosensory integration neurons: DVA and PVD.
Regular Outcome Monitoring in a Low Intensity-Cognitive Behavioural Intervention: A Case Study Approach

Regular monitoring of client progress has been shown to enhance psychotherapy outcomes, yet this is not common in everyday practice. Regular monitoring allows for the examination of individual change trajectories, which provides important information about when change is occuring and can predict deterioration in outcome early in treatment. This paper presents two case studies of individuals who participated in a guided self-help low intensity cognitive behavioural intervention (LI-CBI); Overcoming Depression and Low Mood (Williams, 2012). Differing trajectories of change are demonstrated in the case studies. The outcomes are reviewed in terms of change in depression (PHQ-9), psychological distress (CORE-10), and quality of life (QLES-SF). The case studies have been anonymised to protect the identity of the individuals.
Specific inhibition of gene expression by small double-stranded RNAs in invertebrate and vertebrate systems

Short interfering RNAs (siRNAs) are double-stranded RNAs of ≈21–25 nucleotides that have been shown to function as key intermediaries in triggering sequence-specific RNA degradation during posttranscriptional gene silencing in plants and RNA interference in invertebrates. siRNAs have a characteristic structure, with 5′-phosphate/3′-hydroxyl ends and a 2-base 3′ overhang on each strand of the duplex. In this study, we present data that synthetic siRNAs can induce gene-specific inhibition of expression in Caenorhabditis elegans and in cell lines from humans and mice. In each case, the interference by siRNAs was superior to the inhibition of gene expression mediated by single-stranded antisense oligonucleotides. The siRNAs seem to avoid the well documented nonspecific effects triggered by longer double-stranded RNAs in mammalian cells. These observations may open a path toward the use of siRNAs as a reverse genetic and therapeutic tool in mammalian cells.
The impact of candidemia on length of hospital stay, outcome, and overall cost of illness.

Although numerous studies have examined trends in nosocomial fungal infections, few have specifically addressed the cost of care associated with candidemia. This study analyzes the direct medical costs associated with treating candidemia in the United States. The study design was a cost-of-illness analysis estimating the average cost of candidemia for a single episode of care. Data were obtained from three sources: the 1993 Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project of the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research, the relevant literature, and a clinical expert in systemic fungal infections. The estimated cost (1997 U.S.$) of an episode of care for candidemia is $34,123 per Medicare patient and $44,536 per private insurance patient. The major cost associated with candidemia is that of an increased hospital stay. The estimated cost of care for candidemia may change in the future because of the use of more expensive antifungal treatments with improved safety and efficacy profiles.
The Role of SGLT1 and GLUT2 in Intestinal Glucose Transport and Sensing

Intestinal glucose absorption is mediated by SGLT1 whereas GLUT2 is considered to provide basolateral exit. Recently, it was proposed that GLUT2 can be recruited into the apical membrane after a high luminal glucose bolus allowing bulk absorption of glucose by facilitated diffusion. Moreover, SGLT1 and GLUT2 are suggested to play an important role in intestinal glucose sensing and incretin secretion. In mice that lack either SGLT1 or GLUT2 we re-assessed the role of these transporters in intestinal glucose uptake after radiotracer glucose gavage and performed Western blot analysis for transporter abundance in apical membrane fractions in a comparative approach. Moreover, we examined the contribution of these transporters to glucose-induced changes in plasma GIP, GLP-1 and insulin levels. In mice lacking SGLT1, tissue retention of tracer glucose was drastically reduced throughout the entire small intestine whereas GLUT2-deficient animals exhibited higher tracer contents in tissue samples than wild type animals. Deletion of SGLT1 resulted also in reduced blood glucose elevations and abolished GIP and GLP-1 secretion in response to glucose. In mice lacking GLUT2, glucose-induced insulin but not incretin secretion was impaired. Western blot analysis revealed unchanged protein levels of SGLT1 after glucose gavage. GLUT2 detected in apical membrane fractions mainly resulted from contamination with basolateral membranes but did not change in density after glucose administration. SGLT1 is unequivocally the prime intestinal glucose transporter even at high luminal glucose concentrations. Moreover, SGLT1 mediates glucose-induced incretin secretion. Our studies do not provide evidence for GLUT2 playing any role in either apical glucose influx or incretin secretion.