Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Valerian-hops combination and diphenhydramine for treating insomnia: a randomized placebo-controlled clinical trial.

CONTEXT Insomnia is a prevalent health complaint associated with daytime impairments, reduced quality of life, and increased health-care costs. Although it is often self-treated with herbal and dietary supplements or with over-the-counter sleep aids, there is still little evidence on the efficacy and safety of those products. OBJECTIVE To evaluate the efficacy and safety of a valerian-hops combination and diphenhydramine for the treatment of mild insomnia. DESIGN AND SETTING Multicenter, randomized, placebo-controlled, parallel-group study conducted in 9 sleep disorders centers throughout the United States. PATIENTS A total of 184 adults (110 women, 74 men; mean age of 44.3 years) with mild insomnia. INTERVENTIONS (1) Two nightly tablets of standardized extracts of a valerian (187-mg native extracts; 5-8:1, methanol 45% m/m) and hops (41.9-mg native extracts; 7-10:1, methanol 45% m/m) combination for 28 days (n = 59), (2) placebo for 28 days (n = 65), or (3) 2 tablets of diphenhydramine (25 mg) for 14 days followed by placebo for 14 days (n = 60). OUTCOME MEASURES Sleep parameters measured by daily diaries and polysomnography, clinical outcome ratings from patients and physicians, and quality of life measures. RESULTS Modest improvements of subjective sleep parameters were obtained with both the valerian-hops combination and diphenhydramine, but few group comparisons with placebo reached statistical significance. Valerian produced slightly greater, though nonsignificant, reductions of sleep latency relative to placebo and diphenhydramine at the end of 14 days of treatment and greater reductions than placebo at the end of 28 days of treatment. Diphenhydramine produced significantly greater increases in sleep efficiency and a trend for increased total sleep time relative to placebo during the first 14 days of treatment. There was no significant group difference on any of the sleep continuity variables measured by polysomnography. In addition, there was no alteration of sleep stages 3-4 and rapid eye movement sleep with any of the treatments. Patients in the valerian and diphenhydramine groups rated their insomnia severity lower relative to placebo at the end of 14 days of treatment. Quality of life (Physical component) was significantly more improved in the valerian-hops group relative to the placebo group at the end of 28 days. There were no significant residual effects and no serious adverse events with either valerian or diphenhydramine and no rebound insomnia following their discontinuation. CONCLUSIONS The findings show a modest hypnotic effect for a valerian-hops combination and diphenhydramine relative to placebo. Sleep improvements with a valerian-hops combination are associated with improved quality of life. Both treatments appear safe and did not produce rebound insomnia upon discontinuation during this study. Overall, these findings indicate that a valerian-hops combination and diphenhydramine might be useful adjuncts in the treatment of mild insomnia.
Learning unions of boxes with membership and equivalence queries

We present two algorithms that use membership and equivalence queries to exactly identify the concepts given by the union of <italic>s</italic> discretized axis-parallel boxes in <italic>d</italic>-dimensional discretized Euclidean space where there are <italic>n</italic> discrete values that each coordinate can have. The first algorithm receives at most <italic>sd</italic> counterexamples and uses time and membership queries polynomial in <italic>s</italic> and log<italic>n</italic> for any <italic>d</italic> constant. Further, all equivalence queries made can be formulated as the union of <italic>O</italic>(<italic>sd</italic>log<italic>s</italic>) axis parallel boxes. Next, we introduce a new complexity measure that better captures the complexity of a union of boxes than simply the number of boxes and dimensions. Our new measure, &sgr;, is the number of segments in the target polyhedron where a segment is a maximum portion of one of the sides of the polyhedron that lies entirely inside or entirely outside each of the other halfspaces defining the polyhedron. We then present an improvement of our first algorithm that uses time and queries polynomial in &sgr; and log<italic>n</italic>. The hypothesis class used here is decision trees of height at most 2<italic>sd</italic>. Further we can show that the time and queries used by this algorithm are polynomial in <italic>d</italic> and log<italic>n</italic> for <italic>s</italic> any constant thus generating the exact learnability of DNF formulas with a constant number of terms. In fact, this single algorithm is efficient for either <italic>s</italic> or <italic>d</italic> constant.
Frailty in chronic kidney disease

1 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION . 10 1.1 Defining Frailty . 12 1.2 Demographics . 12 1.3 Pathophysiology . 13 1.4 Relationship between Frailty and CKD. 14 1.5 Frailty Assessment . 14 CHAPTER 2: SYSTEMATIC REVIEW . 17 2.
Shake Map Methodology for Intermediate-Depth Vrancea (Romania) Earthquakes

We establish and test a shake map methodology for intermediate-depth Vrancea earthquakes, based on seismological information gathered in Romania during recent years. We use region- (azimuth-) dependent attenuation relations derived from stochastic simulations of ground motions using spectral models of Vrancea earthquakes. Both region boundaries and Fourier amplification spectra for the characterization of seismic site effects are based on several hundred weak, moderate and strong-motion records and macroseismic intensity maps. We determine region-specific, magnitude- and distance-dependent amplification factors of peak values and instrumental intensity relative to rock. We interpolate recorded ground motions and ground motion estimates from the obtained amplification factors and attenuation relations for rock conditions. The resulting shake maps show a good agreement with macroseismic descriptions of moderate-sized and large Vrancea earthquakes, demonstrating the feasibility of a seismological approach to shake map generation. Unlike previous methodologies, this approach requires neither expensive assessments of geology-dependent site amplification factors, nor large numbers of strong-motion records. Our results are in good agreement with empirical topographic slope-site amplification relations, but give a better reflection of the abnormal attenuation of seismic waves in the Transylvanian region and the strong amplification in the Focsani basin.
Patterns of soil nitrogen mineralization under a land‐use change from desert to farmland

Understanding how soil nitrogen (N) mineralization (Nmin) responds to environmental changes is critical for improving ecosystem management, especially in a resource‐constrained region. Intensive land exploitation in arid land has profound influences on soil ecosystems and thus on soil Nmin. A local‐scale field investigation was conducted to reveal the temporal dynamics of Nmin under land‐use change from desert to farmland, and to verify the mechanisms controlling Nmin change during this process in a typical desert oasis region. The results showed that Nmin ranged from −0.14 to 2.69 mg N kg−1 day−1, with an average value of 0.74 mg N kg−1 day−1. Nmin in old oasis farmland (OOF) was significantly higher than that in GCF (Gobi desert conversion farmland) and SCF (sandy desert conversion farmland), and the average change rates of Nmin were 0.036 and 0.032 mg N kg−1 day−1 year−1 in GCF and SCF, respectively. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to test whether the measured variables affected Nmin, and the results showed that soil organic matter (SOM), bulk density (BD) and sand content were the main soil factors affecting Nmin. These soil factors, together with farmland type and cropping time, can explain 31% of the variation in Nmin. Our observations revealed that Nmin changed substantially under the land conversion process from desert to farmland, and our findings will help with assessments and predictions of future N cycles in desert oasis regions in response to land‐use change.
Idiopathic Orbital Inflammation Syndrome with Retro-Orbital Involvement: A Retrospective Study of Eight Patients

Background The aim of this retrospective study was to document the clinical findings and radiological features of idiopathic orbital inflammation syndrome with retro-orbital involvement. Methods We searched for ophthalmological patients who received orbital imaging at Zhejiang Provincial People's Hospital between October 2003 and April 2010. Seventy-three patients were diagnosed with idiopathic orbital inflammation syndrome based on clinicoradiological features, with pathological confirmation of nonspecific inflammatory conditions in 47 patients. Eight patients (11%) had MRI or CT evidence of retro-orbital involvement. All 8 patients were diagnosed with idiopathic orbital inflammation syndrome after biopsy of the orbital lesion. MR images were obtained for all 8 patients; 3 patients also had a contrast-enhanced CT scan. Results Seven out of 8 patients with retro-orbital involvement also had orbital apex lesions. Of the 65 patients without retro-orbital involvement, 19 had orbital apex lesions. The difference in the number of patients with orbital apex lesions between the two populations was significant (Fisher exact test P = .002). In all 8 patients with retro-orbital involvement, the inflammation spread through the superior orbital fissure. The retro-orbital lesions were isointense to grey matter on T1-weighted images, hypointense on T2-weighted images, and displayed uniform contrast enhancement; on contrast-enhanced CT scans, they were hyperdense relative to the contralateral mirror area and had radiological contours that were similar to those seen on MR images. The diffuse inflammation with marked sclerosis and hyalinization that we observed in the patients with retro-orbital involvement is consistent with the diagnosis of the sclerosing subtype of idiopathic orbital inflammation syndrome. All 8 patients also complained of mild to moderate periorbital pain (headache). Conclusions In patients with idiopathic orbital inflammation syndrome, it is important to perform MRI and CT scans to identify possible retro-orbital involvement. Retro-orbital involvement is more frequent when the lesion is present in the orbital apex.
Sensitisation to airborne allergens as a risk factor for allergic rhinitis and asthma in the Polish population

Introduction The patterns of sensitisation to airborne allergens and their association with allergic diseases have been analysed in different geographical regions. Aim To analyse the impact of sensitisation to airborne allergens on allergic rhinitis (AR) and asthma in different age groups of the Polish population. Material and methods Completed questionnaires of 18,617 subjects (53.8% females), collected within the ECAP, a cross-sectional multicentre study, were analysed. Three groups of respondents were included: 6–7-year-olds (24.2%), 13–14-year-olds (25.4%), 20–44-year-olds (50.4%). The clinical part (an anamnesis, physical examination, spirometry, skin prick tests and an assay of major airborne allergen-specific IgE) was attended by 25.7% of the respondents. Results The AR was most strongly related to sensitisation to Dermatophagoides pteronyssinus, with the highest odds ratios of 10 in two younger groups and of 16 for persistent AR in children. It was also the most important risk factor for allergic asthma, with odd ratios from 8.34 in children to 6.40 in adolescents. Sensitisation to grass pollen allergens was a major risk factor for both AR, with odds ratios from 9.16 in adults to 7.87 in adolescents, and asthma, with odds ratios from 6.16 in adolescents to 5.67 in adults. Conclusions AR and asthma shared common risk factors, independently of age. Sensitisation to airborne allergens was significantly associated with asthma and, even more strongly, with AR, across all age groups. The AR was the strongest risk factor for allergic asthma in the youngest group. Persistent AR increased asthma risk more than intermittent AR in all age groups.
Multiple large filament bundles observed in Caulobacter crescentus by electron cryotomography

While the absence of any cytoskeleton was once recognized as a distinguishing feature of prokaryotes, it is now clear that a number of different bacterial proteins do form filaments in vivo. Despite the critical roles these proteins play in cell shape, genome segregation and cell division, molecular mechanisms have remained obscure in part for lack of electron microscopy‐resolution images where these filaments can be seen acting within their cellular context. Here, electron cryotomography was used to image the widely studied model prokaryote Caulobacter crescentus in an intact, near‐native state, producing three‐dimensional reconstructions of these cells with unprecedented clarity and fidelity. We observed many instances of large filament bundles in various locations throughout the cell and at different stages of the cell cycle. The bundles appear to fall into four major classes based on shape and location, referred to here as ‘inner curvature’, ‘cytoplasmic’, ‘polar’ and ‘ring‐like’. In an attempt to identify at least some of the filaments, we imaged cells where crescentin and MreB filaments would not be present. The inner curvature and cytoplasmic bundles persisted, which together with their localization patterns, suggest that they are composed of as‐yet unidentified cytoskeletal proteins. Thus bacterial filaments are frequently found as bundles, and their variety and abundance is greater than previously suspected.
Measurement of temporal changes in DLSBCO-3EQ from small alveolar samples in normal subjects.

The dynamic changes in CO concentration [CO] during a single breath could be influenced by topographic inhomogeneity in the lung or by peripheral inhomogeneity due to a gas mixing resistance in the gas phase of the lung or to serial gradients in gas diffusion. Ten healthy subjects performed single-breath maneuvers by slowly inhaling test gas from functional residual capacity to one-half inspiratory capacity and slowly exhaling to residual volume with target breath-hold times of 0, 1.5, 3, 6, and 9 s. We calculated the three-equation single-breath diffusing capacity of the lung for CO (DLSBCO-3EQ) from the mean [CO] in both the entire alveolar gas sample and in four successive equal alveolar gas samples. DLSBCO-3EQ from the entire alveolar gas sample was independent of breath-hold time. However, with 0 s of breath holding, from early alveolar gas samples DLSBCO-3EQ was reduced and from late alveolar gas samples it was increased. With increasing breath-hold time, DLSBCO-3EQ from the earliest alveolar gas sample rapidly increased, whereas from the last alveolar gas sample it rapidly decreased such that all values from the small alveolar gas samples approached DLSBCO-3EQ from the entire alveolar sample. These changes correlated with ventilation inhomogeneity, as measured by the phase III He concentration slope and the mixing efficiency, and were larger for maneuvers with inspired volumes to one-half inspiratory capacity vs. total lung capacity. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Erythropoietin Fails to Interfere with the Antiproliferative and Cytotoxic Effects of Antitumor Drugs

Purpose: Erythropoietin (EPO) therapy is widely used for the prevention and treatment of anemia resulting from cancer chemotherapy. Native EPO regulates erythropoiesis, at least in part, by protecting erythroid progenitor cells from apoptotic cell death. The recent discovery of the EPO receptor (EPOR) on cancer cells raises the concern that EPO therapy might stimulate tumor growth and/or protect cancer cells from drug-induced apoptosis. Therefore, the capacity of EPO to interfere with the effects of conventional chemotherapeutic drugs on proliferation, apoptosis, and the induction of senescence was investigated in MCF-7 and MDA-MB231 breast tumor cells, which express the EPOR as well as in F-MEL erythroleukemia cells. Experimental Design: Breast cancer cells and F-MEL leukemic cells were cultured in the presence or absence of EPO and then exposed to antitumor drugs. Cell proliferation was assessed by a standard 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide dye reduction assay 72 hours after drug exposure. Cytotoxicity was monitored by clonogenic survival. Apoptosis was evaluated either by the terminal deoxyribonucleotide transferase–mediated nick-end labeling assay or fluorescence-activated cell sorting analysis, and senescence was monitored by β-galactosidase staining. EPO signaling was assessed by monitoring the phosphorylation/activation of specific signaling proteins. Results: EPO failed to stimulate the proliferation of MCF-7 or MDA-MB231 breast tumor cells or F-MEL leukemic cells. EPO treatment also failed to interfere with the antiproliferative and/or cytotoxic effects of Adriamycin, Taxol, and tamoxifen in breast tumor cells (or of cytarabine and daunorubicin in F-MEL cells). EPO failed to prevent apoptosis induced by Taxol or senescence induced by Adriamycin in MCF-7 cells. EPO stimulated the activation of extracellular signal-regulated kinase, p38, and c-Jun-NH2-kinase in MCF-7 cells but did not activate Akt or signal transducers and activators of transcription 5 (STAT5). EPO failed to activate any of these signaling pathways in MDA-MB231 cells. Cytarabine and daunorubicin interfered with EPO signaling in F-MEL cells. Conclusions: These findings suggest that EPO is unlikely to directly counteract the effectiveness of cancer chemotherapeutic drugs. This may be a consequence of either ineffective signaling through the EPOR or drug-mediated suppression of EPO signaling.
Slowly Rotating Non-Abelian Black Holes

It is shown that the well-known non-Abelian static SU(2) black hole solutions have rotating generalizations, provided that the hypothesis of linearization stability is accepted. Surprisingly, this rotating branch has an asymptotically Abelian gauge field with an electric charge that cannot vanish, although the non-rotating limit is uncharged. We argue that this may be related to our second finding, namely that there are no globally regular slowly rotating excitations of the particle-like Bartnik-McKinnon solutions.
WSN17-1: Capacity and Fairness Evaluation of IEEE 802.11-based Ad Hoc Networks with Multi-Hop Traffic

The capacity of IEEE 802.11-based ad hoc networks is a critical issue because multi-hop communication requires additional capacity which is not available for transmitting application data. Furthermore, the distributed coordination function (DCF) of IEEE 802.11 causes various channel access problems which can lead to bad utilization of the channel capacity and to unfair capacity assignment for the connections in a network. In this paper we present an approach for calculating an upper bound capacity for a given fairness constraint. Our calculations can be used for networks with any node distribution, routing and traffic pattern. We also discuss the performance of the DCF in regard to the calculated upper bound capacity by simulating example scenarios. Our results show that a DCF is able to provide about 55% of the upper bound capacity.
Human Bone Marrow Mesenchymal Stem Cells Display Anti-Cancer Activity in SCID Mice Bearing Disseminated Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma Xenografts

Background Although multimodality treatment can induce high rate of remission in many subtypes of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL), significant proportions of patients relapse with incurable disease. The effect of human bone marrow (BM) mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) on tumor cell growth is controversial, and no specific information is available on the effect of BM-MSC on NHL. Methodology/Principal Findings The effect of BM-MSC was analyzed in two in vivo models of disseminated non-Hodgkin's lymphomas with an indolent (EBV− Burkitt-type BJAB, median survival = 46 days) and an aggressive (EBV+ B lymphoblastoid SKW6.4, median survival = 27 days) behavior in nude-SCID mice. Intra-peritoneal (i.p.) injection of MSC (4 days after i.p. injection of lymphoma cells) significantly increased the overall survival at an optimal MSC∶lymphoma ratio of 1∶10 in both xenograft models (BJAB+MSC, median survival = 58.5 days; SKW6.4+MSC, median survival = 40 days). Upon MSC injection, i.p. tumor masses developed more slowly and, at the histopathological observation, exhibited a massive stromal infiltration coupled to extensive intra-tumor necrosis. In in vitro experiments, we found that: i) MSC/lymphoma co-cultures modestly affected lymphoma cell survival and were characterized by increased release of pro-angiogenic cytokines with respect to the MSC, or lymphoma, cultures; ii) MSC induce the migration of endothelial cells in transwell assays, but promoted endothelial cell apoptosis in direct MSC/endothelial cell co-cultures. Conclusions/Significance Our data demonstrate that BM-MSC exhibit anti-lymphoma activity in two distinct xenograft SCID mouse models of disseminated NHL.
The automated verification of timewise refinement ( Draft )

While Hoare’s CSP models reactive systems without assigning an exact time to events, Timed CSP records the exact times as nonnegative reals. Timed CSP therefore provides a more exact semantics of systems, but it still makes sense to ask whether a timed process satisfies an untimed specification. Indeed the question of whether such specifications are satisfied often reduces to the timing details of the implementation. Schneider showed how this could be understood at an abstract level via the concept of timewise refinement. The recent implementation of Timed CSP in the CSP refinement checker FDR (using Ouaknine’s theory of digitisation) has at last provided the framework for automating timewise refinement. In this paper we show how to do this, discovering that it is subtle because of the need to reconcile infinite behaviours with
Reference value for C-reactive protein and its distribution pattern in thai adults.

BACKGROUND To set a reference value for high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) in a healthy Thai population and study the effect of time, gender and age on that value. METHODS AND RESULTS Three hundred and sixty-four subjects, aged between 18 and 74 years, comprising 185 men and 279 women, were studied. Another 10 healthy subjects, aged between 18 and 54 years, were recruited for the study of circadian variation in hs-CRP over the days of the week and the months of a year. The reference value for the Thai adults in the present study was 1.8 mg/L, range 0.2-7.9 mg/L. There was no significant difference in the hs-CRP concentration because of region, time, gender or age (p>0.05), nor was the value affected by time. CONCLUSION The determination of hs-CRP can be performed at any time and the hs-CRP value determined by this study can be used as the reference for Thai adults.
Orthogonality of Syntax and Semantics within Distributional Spaces

A recent distributional approach to wordanalogy problems (Mikolov et al., 2013b) exploits interesting regularities in the structure of the space of representations. Investigating further, we find that performance on this task can be related to orthogonality within the space. Explicitly designing such structure into a neural network model results in representations that decompose into orthogonal semantic and syntactic subspaces. We demonstrate that learning from word-order and morphological structure within English Wikipedia text to enable this decomposition can produce substantial improvements on semantic-similarity, posinduction and word-analogy tasks.