Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The cortical and cerebellar representation of the lumbar spine

Eight decades after Penfield's discovery of the homunculus only sparse evidence exists on the cortical representation of the lumbar spine. The aim of our investigation was the description of the lumbar spine's cortical representation in healthy subjects during the application of measured manual pressure. Twenty participants in the prone position were investigated during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). An experienced manual therapist applied non‐painful, posterior‐to‐anterior (PA) pressure on three lumbar spinous processes (L1, L3, and L5). The pressure (30 N) was monitored and controlled by sensors. The randomized stimulation protocol consisted of 68 pressure stimuli of 5 s duration. Blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) responses were analyzed in relation to the lumbar stimulations. The results demonstrate that controlled PA pressure on the lumbar spine induced significant activation patterns. The major new finding was a strong and consistent activation bilaterally in the somatosensory cortices (S1 and S2). In addition, bilateral activation was located medially in the anterior cerebellum. The activation pattern also included other cortical areas probably related to anticipatory postural adjustments. These revealed stable somatosensory maps of the lumbar spine in healthy subjects can subsequently be used as a baseline to investigate cortical and subcortical reorganization in low back pain patients. Hum Brain Mapp 35:3962–3971, 2014. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Comparison of step-wise and ramp-wise incremental rowing exercise tests and 2000-m rowing ergometer performance.

PURPOSE This study examined parameters derived from both an incremental step-wise and a ramp-wise graded rowing exercise test in relation to rowing performance. METHODS Discontinuous step-wise incremental rowing to exhaustion established lactate threshold (LT), maximum oxygen consumption (VO(2maxSTEP)), and power associated with VO(2max) (W VO(2max)). A further continuous ramp-wise test was undertaken to derive ventilatory threshold (VT), maximum oxygen consumption (VO(2maxRAMP)), and maximum minute power (MMW). Results were compared with maximal 2000-m ergometer time-trial power. RESULTS The strongest correlation with 2000-m power was observed for MMW (r = .98, P < .001), followed by W VO(2max) (r = .96; P < .001). The difference between MMW and W VO(2max) compared with the mean of MMW/W VO(2max) showed a widening bias with a greater difference coincident with greater power. However, this bias was reduced when expressed as a ratio term and when a baseline VO₂ was accounted for. There were no differences (P = .85) between measures of VO(2maxSTEP) and VO(2maxRAMP); rather, the measures showed strong association (r = .97, P < .001, limits of agreement = -0.43 to 0.33 L/min). The power at LT and VT did not differ (P = .6), and a significant association was observed (r = .73, P = .001, limits of agreement = -54.3 to 20.2 W, SEE = 26.1). CONCLUSIONS This study indicates that MMW demonstrates a strong association with ergometer rowing performance and thus may have potential as an influential monitoring tool for rowing athletes.
The Rodney L . White Center for Financial Research Asset Prices and Business Cycles with Costly External Finance

This paper asks whether the asset pricing fluctuations induced by the presence of costly external finance are empirically plausible. To accomplish this, we incorporate costly external finance into a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model and explore its implications for the properties of the returns on key financial assets, such as stocks, bonds and risky loans. We find that the mean and volatility of the equity premium, although small, are significantly higher than those in comparable adjustment cost models. However, we also show that these results require a procyclical financing premium, a property that seems at odds with the data. ∗Finance Department, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, and CEPR. E-mail: gomesj@wharton.upenn. edu †Finance Department, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, and NBER. E-mail: yaron@wharton.upenn. edu ‡William E. Simon Graduate School of Business Administration, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627. E-mail: zhanglu@simon.rochester. edu §We have benefited from helpful comments from Ellen McGrattan, two anonymous referees, and Andy Abel, Joao Ejarque, Skander van den Heuvel, Urban Jermann, Sidney Ludvigson, Victor Rios-Rull, and seminar participants at Rochester, Wharton and at the C.V. Starr Conference in Macroeconomics and Finance. We are also indebted to Maria Vassalou and Chris Polk for providing us with their data. Financial support from the Rodney L. White Center for Financial Research is gratefully acknowledged. All remaining errors are our own.
Efficacy and tolerability of Laxatan® Granulat in patients with chronic constipation

Background: On average 12% of the population worldwide suffer from acute or chronic constipation. Pathological intestine alterations, an unhealthy diet with reduced liquid intake, and little exercise are potential reasons. Often the motility of the intestine is disturbed. Changing nutrition habits or lifestyle is not always successful. In such cases, laxatives containing macrogol and inulin are highly effective. Methodology: The efficacy and tolerability of Laxatan® Granulat, a laxative containing macrogol, inulin, and mineral salts, was assessed in a drug-monitoring study of 105 patients for four weeks. Results: At the end of this study, a highly significant reduction of the constipation symptoms in 98.1% of the patients was observed. No adverse events were reported during this drug-monitoring study. The overall efficacy was rated as being “very good” or “good” for 96% and the overall tolerability was rated as being “very good” or “good” for 99% of patients. Conclusion: The combination of macrogol, inulin, and mineral salts is highly effective in the treatment of chronic constipation. Due to its prebiotic activity, inulin probably leads to proliferation of lactic acid-producing bacteria. The lowered pH and increased water content probably increases the peristaltic action and therefore reduces constipation.
Pattern-Coupled Sparse Bayesian Learning for Recovery of Block-Sparse Signals

We consider the problem of recovering block-sparse signals whose cluster patterns are unknown a priori. Block-sparse signals with nonzero coefficients occurring in clusters arise naturally in many practical scenarios. However, the knowledge of the block partition is usually unavailable in practice. In this paper, we develop a new sparse Bayesian learning method for recovery of block-sparse signals with unknown cluster patterns. A pattern-coupled hierarchical Gaussian prior is introduced to characterize the pattern dependencies among neighboring coefficients, where a set of hyperparameters are employed to control the sparsity of signal coefficients. The proposed hierarchical model is similar to that for the conventional sparse Bayesian learning. However, unlike the conventional sparse Bayesian learning framework in which each individual hyperparameter is associated independently with each coefficient, in this paper, the prior for each coefficient not only involves its own hyperparameter, but also its immediate neighbor hyperparameters. In doing this way, the sparsity patterns of neighboring coefficients are related to each other and the hierarchical model has the potential to encourage structured-sparse solutions. The hyperparameters are learned by maximizing their posterior probability. We exploit an expectation-maximization (EM) formulation to develop an iterative algorithm that treats the signal as hidden variables and iteratively maximizes a lower bound on the posterior probability. In the M-step, a simple suboptimal solution is employed to replace a gradient-based search to maximize the lower bound. Numerical results are provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.
A Multiomics Assessment of Preoperative Exercise in Pancreatic Cancer Survivors Receiving Neoadjuvant Therapy: A Case Series

To molecularly characterize the impact of exercise on mitigating neoadjuvant treatment (NAT)-induced physical decline in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) patients, a multi-omics approach was employed for the analysis of plasma samples before and after a personalized exercise intervention. Consisting of personalized aerobic and resistance exercises, this intervention was associated with significant molecular changes that correlated with improvements in lean mass, appendicular skeletal muscle index (ASMI), and performance in the 400-m walk test (MWT) and sit-to-stand test. These alterations indicated exercise-induced modulation of inflammation and mitochondrial function markers. This case study provides proof-of-principal application for multiomics-based assessments of supervised exercise, thereby supporting this intervention as a feasible and beneficial intervention for PDAC patients to potentially enhance treatment response and patient quality of life. The molecular changes observed here underscore the importance of physical activity in cancer treatment protocols, advocating for the development of accessible multiomics-guided exercise programs for cancer patients.
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Phagocytosis mediated by three distinct Fc gamma receptor classes on human leukocytes

We have evaluated the capacity of the three major classes of human Fc gamma R to mediate phagocytosis by measuring the ability of adherent phagocytes to internalize erythrocytes coated with anti-Fc gamma R mAb. Five different cell types were studied, freshly purified monocytes, cultured monocytes, alveolar macrophages, freshly purified polymorphonuclear neutrophilic leukocytes, and PMNs cultured in IFN- gamma. Fc gamma RI and Fc gamma RII on whichever cells they were expressed were capable of phagocytosing anti-Fc gamma R mAb-coated erythrocytes. Furthermore, Fc gamma RIII on mononuclear phagocytes, which appears to be a conventional integral membrane protein that spans the lipid bilayer, was capable of phagocytosing anti-Fc gamma RIII- coated erythrocytes. However, Fc gamma RIII on neutrophils, a molecule linked to the membrane by a phosphatidylinositol-glycan moiety, although binding anti-Fc gamma RIII-coated erythrocytes vigorously was incapable of mounting a phagocytic response. This deficiency correlates with the limited capacity of Fc gamma RIII on neutrophils to mediate superoxide generation and antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity and it may be related to the unique structural features of Fc gamma RIII.
Episomal Persistence of Recombinant Adenoviral Vector Genomes during the Cell Cycle In Vivo

ABSTRACT Previously we showed that recombinant adenoviral helper-dependent (HD) vectors result in long-term transgene expression levels in vivo which slowly declined by 95% over a period of 1 year. In this study, we further establish that this was not predominantly immune mediated. To determine if cell turnover was responsible for the loss of transgene expression, we induced rapid hepatocyte cell cycling in mouse liver, by performing a surgical two-thirds partial hepatectomy. We observed a 55 and 65% reduction in transgene expression levels and a 50 and 71% loss of vector genomes for the HD vector and the first-generation adenoviral vector. In sharp contrast, in nonviral, episomal plasmid DNA-injected mice, transgene expression levels and DNA copy numbers decreased by 95 and 99%, respectively. These findings suggest that cell division alone was not the primary reason for the slow decrease in transgene expression levels and that recombinant adenoviral vectors have a more robust mechanism for maintaining persistence during cell cycling. Several potential mechanisms are proposed.
Vitamin D Levels and Mortality in Type 2 Diabetes

OBJECTIVE To evaluate vitamin D as a predictor of all-cause and cardiovascular mortality and risk of progression to micro- or macroalbuminuria in type 2 diabetic patients. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS In a longitudinal observational follow-up study, 289 type 2 diabetic patients with normoalbuminuria (n = 172), microalbuminuria (n = 73), and macroalbuminuria (n = 44) at baseline were followed for a median (range) of 15.0 (0.2–23) years. Mean ± SD age was 54 ± 9 years. Plasma 25-hydroxyvitamin D3 levels were determined by high-performance liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry on baseline samples. Severe vitamin D deficiency was defined as the lower 10th percentile (<13.9 nmol/l). RESULTS Median (range) vitamin D level was 35.7 (5–136.7) nmol/l. Vitamin D levels were not associated with age, sex, estimated glomerular filtration rate, urinary albumin excretion rate (UAER), or A1C at baseline, but low levels were weakly associated with elevated systolic blood pressure (R = 0.13, P = 0.03). During follow-up, 196 (68%) patients died. All-cause mortality was increased in patients with severe vitamin D deficiency (hazard ratio 1.96 [95% CI 1.29–2.98]). The association persisted after adjustment for UAER, A1C, diabetes duration, and conventional cardiovascular risk factors (2.03 [1.31–3.13]). Severe vitamin D deficiency was associated with increased cardiovascular mortality (1.95 [1.11–3.44]), and the association persisted after adjustment (1.90 [1.15–3.10]). Severe vitamin D deficiency at baseline did not predict progression to micro- or macroalbuminuria. CONCLUSIONS In type 2 diabetic patients, severe vitamin D deficiency predicts increased risk of all-cause and cardiovascular mortality, independent of UAER and conventional cardiovascular risk factors. Whether vitamin D substitution improves prognosis remains to be investigated.
The Role of Extracellular Matrix in Transperitoneal Transport of Water and Solutes

♦ Objective To define the extracellular matrix (ECM), to discuss the physical properties of its components and their impact on transport, and to review data in humans and in animals on the importance of hyaluronan to peritoneal dialysis. ♦ Methods Literature survey. ♦ Results The ECM fills the interstitium between parenchymal cells and blood vessels in the subperitoneal interstitium. It is responsible for the interstitial resistance to solute and water transfer through the peritoneal barrier. Major components are collagen and hyaluronan, which are synthesized locally in the peritoneal tissue. Synthesis and deposition of these components increase with inflammation, and concentrations of the components influence the mechanical properties of the tissue and the interstitial Starling forces as well as transport. Removal of hyaluronan appears to increase the rates of water and large-solute transport. Addition of hyaluronan to dialysate appears to enhance fluid recovery and to reduce protein loss. ♦ Conclusion Many of the physicochemical properties of ECM components are well described, but a large knowledge gap remains concerning the in vivo consequences of specific alterations in the interstitial components. More research is needed.
Recognizing Threat: A Simple Geometric Shape Activates Neural Circuitry for Threat Detection

The urgent need to recognize danger quickly has been shown to rely on preferential processing in dedicated neural circuitry. In previous behavioral studies examining the pattern of the face when displaying anger, we found evidence that simple noncontextual geometric shapes containing downward-pointing V-shaped angles activate the perception of threat. We here report that the neural circuitry known to be mobilized by many realistic, contextual threatening displays is also triggered by the simplest form of this V-shaped movement pattern, a downward-pointing triangle. Specifically, we show that simple geometric forms containing only downward-pointing V-shapes elicit greater activation of the amygdala, subgenual anterior cingulate cortex, superior temporal gyrus, and fusiform gyrus, as well as extrastriate visual regions, than do presentations of the identical V-shape pointing upward. Thus, this simple V-shape is capable of activating neural networks instantiating detection of threat and negative affect, suggesting that recognition of potential danger may be based, in part, on very simple, context-free visual cues.
Beneficial Effects of Alternate Dietary Regimen on Liver Inflammation, Atherosclerosis and Renal Activation

Background Alternate day calorie restriction (CR) has been shown to be almost as beneficial as daily CR. The question arises whether this concept is also applicable to alternating dietary composition. Objective To seek evidence that alternating high cholesterol (HC) - cholesterol-free (CON) Western diet can effectively diminish hepatic and renal inflammation and cardiovascular risk factors as compared with daily HC-supplemented Western diet. Design Four groups of ApoE*3Leiden mice, a humanized model for atherosclerosis, were subjected to different feeding treatments for 16 weeks. Mice were fed CON diet; CON diet with 1% w/w cholesterol (HC); alternate (ALT) diet regimen of CON (4 days) and HC (3 days); or CON diet supplemented with 0.43% (w/w) cholesterol (MC), with overall dietary cholesterol intake equal to ALT. Plasma was analyzed for cardiovascular risk factors, aorta for atherosclerotic lesion formation, and liver and kidney for inflammation. Results ALT diet but not MC was almost as effective as daily CON feeding in preventing disease development. Compared to HC, the ALT group showed 62% lower hepatic nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB) activity (P<0.001), a reduction of the circulating inflammatory markers E-selectin (−20%; P<0.05), vascular cell adhesion molecule 1 (VCAM-1; −15%; P<0.05) and Serum Amyloid A (SAA; −31%; P<0.05), smaller atherosclerotic lesion sizes (−51%; 46497±10791 µm2 vs. 94664±16470 µm2; P<0.05) and diminished renal expression of specific inflammation and activation markers (VCAM-1, −27%; P<0.05; monocyte chemotactic protein-1 (MCP-1); −37%; P<0.01). Conclusion Alternate HC-CON feeding reproduced most of the beneficial effects of daily cholesterol-free diet, including strongly diminished hepatic, vascular and renal activation and inflammation; also atherosclerosis was reduced by half as compared to HC, albeit still higher compared to the CON group.
Circulating Total Bilirubin and Risk of Incident Cardiovascular Disease in the General Population

Objective— To assess the association of circulating total bilirubin and cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk in a new prospective study and to determine whether adding information on total bilirubin values to established cardiovascular risk factors is associated with improvement in prediction of CVD risk. Approach and Results— Circulating total bilirubin levels were measured at baseline in the PREVEND (Prevention of Renal and Vascular End-stage Disease) prospective study of 7222 participants and 773 incident CVD events. Total bilirubin was log-linearly associated with CVD risk. Age- and sex-adjusted hazard ratio (95% confidence interval) for CVD per 1-SD increase in loge total bilirubin was 0.82 (0.76 to 0.88; P<0.001), which was minimally attenuated to 0.89 (0.82 to 0.96; P=0.003) after further adjustment for established risk factors. In a meta-analysis of 12 population-based prospective studies involving 9378 incident CVD cases, the pooled multivariate-adjusted relative risk (95% confidence interval) for CVD was 0.93 (0.90 to 0.97; P<0.001) per 1-SD increase in total bilirubin levels. The corresponding pooled risks for coronary heart disease and stroke were 0.95 (0.92 to 0.99; P=0.018) and 0.93 (0.88 to 0.98; P=0.006), respectively. Addition of information on total bilirubin to a CVD risk prediction model containing established risk factors was associated with a C-index change of 0.0013 (−0.0004 to 0.0029; P=0.13). Conclusions— There is a log-linear inverse association between circulating total bilirubin level and CVD risk, which is independent of established risk factors. Nonetheless, inclusion of total bilirubin in the standard established risk factors panel provides no significant improvement in CVD risk prediction.
The importance of defining left ventricular area at risk in vivo during acute myocardial infarction: an experimental evaluation with myocardial contrast two-dimensional echocardiography.

Because the left ventricular "area at risk" is the most important determinant of ultimate infarct size, it would be useful to know the size of the area at risk during acute myocardial infarction to make therapeutic decisions. We therefore performed a series of experiments in four groups of dogs. In group I dogs (n = 15) we attempted to determine whether current methods of assessing left ventricular function during acute myocardial infarction reflect the true size of the area at risk. At each of two to five sequential stages, a more proximal coronary occlusion was performed to produce a larger area at risk until cardiovascular collapse occurred. At each stage, the area at risk (measured by myocardial contrast echocardiography), hemodynamic variables, and left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) were measured. Hemodynamic variables became abnormal when the area at risk was large (25% to 40% of the left ventricle), whereas LVEF became abnormal when the area at risk was of moderate size (18%). When cardiac output and LVEF were normalized to baseline values, a close inverse relationship was noted between these variables and area at risk. In contrast, there was a poor relationship between normalized mean arterial pressure and area at risk (r = .42). In group II dogs (n = 9) the area at risk was measured serially over 6 hr after coronary occlusion. The size of the area at risk remained unchanged regardless of the transmural extent of the ultimate infarct. The circumferential endocardial extent of the area at risk closely predicted the circumferential endocardial extent of the infarct at 6 hr in eight of nine dogs that developed an infarct. Group III dogs (n = 7) underwent the same protocol as group II dogs, but the duration of occlusion was 3 hr. The circumferential endocardial extent of the area at risk closely predicted the circumferential endocardial extent of the infarct. Group IV dogs (n = 5) underwent subtotal coronary occlusion. Although regional wall motion abnormalities were noted in this group, no area at risk could be defined. We conclude that although a close inverse relationship is noted between normalized cardiac output and area at risk, the absolute values for cardiac output and other hemodynamic variables become abnormal only when the area at risk is large (25% to 40%); measurement of LVEF may provide a better assessment of the size of the area at risk than hemodynamic variables. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)