Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Concomitant Medication Use and New-Onset Diabetes Among Medicaid Beneficiaries with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.

Use of multiple prescription medications is common among individuals with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) because of coexisting inflammatory-related conditions. Specifically, the use of antidepressants, inhaled corticosteroids (ICSs), and statins may place individuals with COPD at high risk for new-onset diabetes. The objective was to examine the relationship between the use of antidepressants, ICSs, and statins and new-onset diabetes among Medicaid beneficiaries with COPD. This study used a retrospective longitudinal cohort design using multiple years (2005-2008) of Medicaid claims for beneficiaries with newly diagnosed COPD (n = 15,287), who were diabetes free at baseline. National Drug Codes were used to determine the receipt of antidepressants, ICSs, and statins, and International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification codes were used to define new-onset diabetes (250.x2). Multivariable logistic regression was used to examine the adjusted relationship between medication use and new-onset diabetes. Overall, 6.3% of the study population was diagnosed with new-onset diabetes. After controlling for baseline characteristics, individuals using ICSs (adjusted odds ratio [AOR]: 1.23; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.07, 1.47) or statins (AOR: 1.48; 95% CI: 1.27, 1.72) had a greater risk of new-onset diabetes compared to those not given ICSs, statins, or antidepressants. Analyses using combined medication categories revealed that adults using statins in combination with both antidepressants and ICSs, or when combined with ICS, were more likely to have new-onset diabetes. These findings indicate that multiple medication use (ICSs and statins) was associated with increased rates of new-onset diabetes. Further research is warranted to understand this association.
Asteroidal Triple-Free Graphs

An independent set of three vertices such that each pair is joined by a path that avoids the neighborhood of the third is called an asteroidal triple. A graph is asteroidal triple-free (AT-free) if it contains no asteroidal triples. The motivation for this investigation was provided, in part, by the fact that the AT-free graphs provide a common generalization of interval, permutation, trapezoid, and cocomparability graphs. The main contribution of this work is to investigate and reveal fundamental structural properties of AT-free graphs. Specifically, we show that every connected AT-free graph contains a dominating pair, that is, a pair of vertices such that every path joining them is a dominating set in the graph. We then provide characterizations of AT-free graphs in terms of dominating pairs and minimal triangulations. Subsequently, we state and prove a decomposition theorem for AT-free graphs. An assortment of other properties of AT-free graphs is also provided. These properties generalize known structural properties of interval, permutation, trapezoid, and cocomparability graphs.
Social predictors of recovery in late middle-aged and older persons after injury to the extremities: a prospective study.

OBJECTIVES The impact of educational level and social support on short-term and long-term recovery of activities of daily living and instrumental activities of daily living after injuries to the extremities was examined in a prospective study concerning late middle-aged and older persons. METHODS Patients (N = 171) who had sustained fall-related injuries (hip fractures, other fractures, or sprains and dislocations) participated in the study. Disability scores were collected at baseline (before the injury) and 8 weeks, 5 months, and 12 months after the injury. The authors used analysis of variance to assess possible differences between 3 levels of education and social support with respect to changes in disability scores from baseline to the 3 follow-up measurements while adjusting for covariates. RESULTS Preinjury assessed educational level or social support did not play a role in short-term changes in disability. In the long term (5 and 12 months after the injury), recovery was significantly associated with social support: Those with higher levels of support had a better recovery. Although patients with high levels of education most closely approached their pre-event level of disability as well, differences did not reach statistical significance. Short-term changes in disability appeared to be determined by the severity of the injury. Social support began to influence recovery only when the impact of severity expired. DISCUSSION Patients recovering from fall-related injuries who had reported high levels of social support before their injury had recovered better at 5 and 12 months. Encouragement and special attention given by health professionals to maintain social support may be beneficial for rehabilitation after fall-related injuries in older persons.
Evaluation of genotoxicity induced by exposure to antineoplastic drugs in lymphocytes of oncology nurses and pharmacists

The hazards of handling antineoplastic drugs have been raised and discussed in several studies. Introduction of new antineoplastics together with abuse of safety standards have contributed to the exposure risk for personnel who handle these substances. Interactions of antineoplastic drugs with biological structures vary according to the drug(s) and the individual's genetic susceptibility. This study was carried out to evaluate the genome damage induced by exposure to antineoplastic drugs in nurses (n = 20) and pharmacists (n = 18) working in the Oncology Department of Tanta Cancer Center. Thirty subjects matched in age, gender and smoking habit were selected as controls. Both chromosomal aberration analysis and micronucleus assay were used to evaluate genome damage in peripheral blood lymphocytes of the study subjects. The numbers of aberrant lymphocytes, as well as chromosomal aberration and micronuclei frequencies, were significantly increased in exposed personnel in comparison to matched controls. Compared with pharmacists, nurses showed notably higher level of chromosome damage. On the other hand, no significant difference in micronuclei frequency was observed between nurses and pharmacists. Correlation analyses pointed to the influence of age and duration of occupational exposure on the level of chromosome damage among exposed subjects. The results of this study confirmed that handling antineoplastic drugs without appropriate precautions imposed a genotoxic risk for exposed healthcare workers. These results address the need for regular biomonitoring of exposed personnel. In addition, they call attention to the need for proper implementation of intervention measures aiming to eliminate or significantly reduce worker exposure and prevent untoward biological effects. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Polymorphous Low-Grade Adenocarcinoma of the Vulva and Vagina: A Tumor Resembling Adenoid Cystic Carcinoma

We report the first case of a polymorphous low-grade adenocarcinoma (PLGA) occurring in the vulva and vagina of a 32-year-old woman. This tumor consisted of cellular lobules with distinct cribriform, papillary, and cystic patterns. Owing to its location and its distinct cribriform pattern, this lesion was initially diagnosed as an unusual variant of adenoid cystic carcinoma (ACC). However, this diagnosis was revised to PLGA when it was recognized that the cribriform, papillary and cystic patterns and their concomitant occurrence in the same lesion are characteristic of PLGA. PLGA should be added to the differential diagnosis of vulvar and vaginal neoplasia.
Cooperation, decision time, and culture: Online experiments with American and Indian participants

Two separate bodies of work have examined whether culture affects cooperation in economic games and whether cooperative or non-cooperative decisions occur more quickly. Here, we connect this work by exploring the relationship between decision time and cooperation in American versus Indian subjects. We use a series of dynamic social network experiments in which subjects play a repeated public goods game: 80 sessions for a total of 1,462 subjects (1,059 from the United States, 337 from India, and 66 from other countries) making 13,560 decisions. In the first round, where subjects do not know if connecting neighbors are cooperative, American subjects are highly cooperative and decide faster when cooperating than when defecting, whereas a majority of Indian subjects defect and Indians decide faster when defecting than when cooperating. Almost the same is true in later rounds where neighbors were previously cooperative (a cooperative environment) except decision time among Indian subjects. However, when connecting neighbors were previously not cooperative (a non-cooperative environment), a large majority of both American and Indian subjects defect, and defection is faster than cooperation among both sets of subjects. Our results imply the cultural background of subjects in their real life affects the speed of cooperation decision-making differentially in online social environments.
Diel variation of mercury stable isotope ratios record photoreduction of PM2.5-bound mercury

Abstract. Mercury (Hg) bound to fine aerosols (PM2.5-Hg) may undergo photochemical reaction that causes isotopic fractionation and obscures the initial isotopic signatures. In this study, we quantified Hg isotopic compositions for 56 PM2.5 samples collected between Sept. 15th and Oct. 16th, 2015 from Beijing, China, among which 26 were collected during the daytime (between 8:00 a.m. and 6:30 p.m.) and 30 during night (between 7:00 p.m. and 7:30 a.m.). The results show that diel variation was statistically significant (p < 0.05) for Hg content, Δ199Hg and Δ200Hg, with Hg content during the daytime (0.32 ± 0.14 µg g−1) lower than at night (0.48 ± 0.24 µg g−1) and Δ199Hg and Δ200Hg values during the daytime (mean of 0.26 ‰ ± 0.40 ‰ and 0.09 ‰ ± 0.06 ‰, respectively) higher than during the nighttime (0.04 ‰ ± 0.22 ‰ and 0.06 ‰ ± 0.05 ‰, respectively), whereas PM2.5 concentrations and δ202Hg values showed insignificant (p > 0.05) diel variation. Geochemical characteristics of the samples and the air mass backward trajectories (PM2.5 source related) suggest that diel variation in Δ199Hg values resulted primarily from the photochemical reduction of divalent PM2.5-Hg, rather than variations in emission sources. The importance of photoreduction is supported by the strong correlations between Δ199Hg and: (i) Δ201Hg (positive, slope = 1.1), (ii) δ202Hg (positive, slope = 1.15), (iii) content of Hg in PM2.5 (negative), (iv) sunshine durations (positive), and (v) ozone concentration (positive) observed for consecutive day-night paired samples. Our results provide isotopic evidence that local, daily photochemical reduction of divalent Hg is of critical importance to the fate of PM2.5-Hg in urban atmospheres and that, in addition to variation in sources, photochemical reduction appears to be an important process that affects both the particle mass-specific abundance and isotopic composition of PM2.5-Hg.
Noisy speech recognition using string kernels

In the last few years, Support Vector Machine classifiers have been shown to give results comparable, or better, than Hidden Markov Models for a variety of tasks involving variable length sequential data. This type of data arises naturally in the fields of bioinformatics, text categorization and automatic speech recognition. In particular, in a previous work it was shown that certain string kernels gave a classification performance comparable to discrete Hidden Markov Models on an isolated Spanish digit recognition task. It is known that speech recognition degrades, often quite severely, when noise is present, and it is interesting to ask whether Support Vector Machines with string kernels continue to give a similar proficiency to discrete Hidden Markov Models in this context. In the present paper, this question is explored by considering the performance of Support Vector Machines with string kernels on the same isolated Spanish digit recognition task in which the speech data has been corrupted with different types of noise. Specifically, white noise and speech babble from the NOISEX-92 database. Results of these experiments are given.
Naringenin up-regulates the expression of death receptor 5 and enhances TRAIL-induced apoptosis in human lung cancer A549 cells.

SCOPE While TRAIL is relatively non-toxic to normal cells, it can selectively induce apoptosis in many types of transformed cells. Nevertheless, some non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) cells are particularly resistant to the effects of TRAIL. Here, we report that in combination with naringenin exposure to TRAIL induced apoptosis in TRAIL-resistant NSCLC A549 cells with no detectable inhibitory effects on cell proliferation of normal lung fibroblast cells. METHODS AND RESULTS Cytotoxicity was evaluated by MTT assay. Apoptosis was detected using DAPI staining, and flow cytometry. The protein levels were determined by Western blot analysis. Caspase activity was measured using a colorimetric assay. For knockdown of Bid and DR5 expression, Bid and DR5 siRNAs were transfected into cells via lipofection. We could show that following exposure to naringenin, DR5 proteins were up-regulated and knockdown of DR5 expression by siRNA attenuated naringenin plus TRAIL-induced apoptosis. Naringenin and TRAIL effectively induced Bid cleavage and siRNA-mediated silencing of Bid reduced the sensitizing effect of naringenin. Furthermore, co-treatment with naringenin and TRAIL resulted in reduction of the clonogenic capacity of A549 cells, and surviving clones could be re-sensitized for repeated TRAIL treatment. CONCLUSION Our results indicate that treatment with a combination of TRAIL and naringenin may be a safe strategy for treatment of resistant NSCLC.
Emotion recognition using PHOG and LPQ features

We propose a method for automatic emotion recognition as part of the FERA 2011 competition. The system extracts pyramid of histogram of gradients (PHOG) and local phase quantisation (LPQ) features for encoding the shape and appearance information. For selecting the key frames, K-means clustering is applied to the normalised shape vectors derived from constraint local model (CLM) based face tracking on the image sequences. Shape vectors closest to the cluster centers are then used to extract the shape and appearance features. We demonstrate the results on the SSPNET GEMEP-FERA dataset. It comprises of both person specific and person independent partitions. For emotion classification we use support vector machine (SVM) and largest margin nearest neighbour (LMNN) and compare our results to the pre-computed FERA 2011 emotion challenge baseline.
Towards a unified paradigm for sequence‐based identification of fungi

The nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region is the formal fungal barcode and in most cases the marker of choice for the exploration of fungal diversity in environmental samples. Two problems are particularly acute in the pursuit of satisfactory taxonomic assignment of newly generated ITS sequences: (i) the lack of an inclusive, reliable public reference data set and (ii) the lack of means to refer to fungal species, for which no Latin name is available in a standardized stable way. Here, we report on progress in these regards through further development of the UNITE database (http://unite.ut.ee) for molecular identification of fungi. All fungal species represented by at least two ITS sequences in the international nucleotide sequence databases are now given a unique, stable name of the accession number type (e.g. Hymenoscyphus pseudoalbidus|GU586904|SH133781.05FU), and their taxonomic and ecological annotations were corrected as far as possible through a distributed, third‐party annotation effort. We introduce the term ‘species hypothesis’ (SH) for the taxa discovered in clustering on different similarity thresholds (97–99%). An automatically or manually designated sequence is chosen to represent each such SH. These reference sequences are released (http://unite.ut.ee/repository.php) for use by the scientific community in, for example, local sequence similarity searches and in the QIIME pipeline. The system and the data will be updated automatically as the number of public fungal ITS sequences grows. We invite everybody in the position to improve the annotation or metadata associated with their particular fungal lineages of expertise to do so through the new Web‐based sequence management system in UNITE.
Basement membrane stiffening promotes retinal endothelial activation associated with diabetes

Endothelial activation is a hallmark of the high‐glucose (HG)‐induced retinal inflammation associated with diabetic retinopathy (DR). However, precisely how HG induces retinal endothelial activation is not fully understood. We hypothesized that HG‐induced upregulation of lysyl oxidase (LOX), a collagen‐cross‐linking enzyme, in retinal capillary endothelial cells (ECs) enhances subendothelial basement membrane (BM) stiffness, which, in turn, promotes retinal EC activation. Diabetic C57BL/6 mice exhibiting a 70 and 50% increase in retinal intercellular adhesion molecule (ICAM)‐1 expression and leukocyte accumulation, respectively, demonstrated a 2‐fold increase in the levels of BM collagen IV and LOX, key determinants of capillary BM stiffness. Using atomic force microscopy, we confirmed that HG significantly enhances LOX‐dependent subendothelial matrix stiffness invitro, which correlated with an ~2.5‐fold increase in endothelial ICAM‐1 expression, a 4‐fold greater monocyte—EC adhesion, and an ~ 2‐fold alteration in endothelial NO (decrease) and NF‐κB activation (increase). Inhibition of LOX‐dependent subendothelial matrix stiffening alone suppressed HG‐induced retinal EC activation. Finally, using synthetic matrices of tunable stiffness, we demonstrated that subendothelial matrix stiffening is necessary and sufficient to promote EC activation. These findings implicate BM stiffening as a critical determinant of HG‐induced retinal EC activation and provide a rationale for examining BM stiffness and underlying mechanotransduction pathways as therapeutic targets for diabetic retinopathy. —Yang, X. , Scott, H. A. , Monickaraj, F. , Xu, J., Ardekani, S. , Nitta, C. F. , Cabrera, A. , McGuire, P. G. , Mohideen, U. , Das, A. , Ghosh, K. Basement membrane stiffening promotes retinal endothelial activation associated with diabetes. FASEB J. 30, 601‐611 (2016). www.fasebj. org
Power consumption modeling of different base station types in heterogeneous cellular networks

In wireless communications micro cells are potentially more energy efficient than conventional macro cells due to the high path loss exponent. Also, heterogeneous deployments of both cell types can be used to optimize the energy efficiency. Energy efficiency of any deployment is impacted by the power consumption of each individual network element and the dependency of transmit power and load. In this paper we developed such power models for macro and micro base stations relying on data sheets of several GSM and UMTS base stations with focus on component level, e.g., power amplifier and cooling equipment. In a first application of the model a traditional macro cell deployment and a heterogeneous deployment are compared.
Potent and specific inhibition of the breast cancer resistance protein multidrug transporter in vitro and in mouse intestine by a novel analogue of fumitremorgin C.

Inhibitors of the breast cancer resistance protein (BCRP/ABCG2) multidrug transporter are of interest as chemosensitizers for clinical drug resistance, for improving the pharmacokinetics of substrate chemotherapeutic drugs, and in functional assays of BCRP activity for tailoring chemotherapy. The fungal toxin fumitremorgin C (FTC) is a potent and specific inhibitor of BCRP, but its neurotoxic effects preclude use in vivo. We have therefore evaluated a new tetracyclic analogue of FTC, Ko143, as a practical inhibitor of BCRP, comparing it with two other analogues in the same class and with GF120918. All three FTC analogues are effective inhibitors of both mouse Bcrp1 and human BCRP, proving highly active for increasing the intracellular drug accumulation and reversing Bcrp1/BCRP-mediated multidrug resistance. Indeed, Ko143 appears to be the most potent BCRP inhibitor known thus far. In contrast, the compounds have only low activity against P-glycoprotein, the multidrug resistance-associated protein (MRP1), or other known drug transporters. They are nontoxic in vitro at useful concentrations and evinced no signs of toxicity in mice at high oral or i.p. doses. Administered p.o. to inhibit intestinal Bcrp1, Ko143 markedly increased the oral availability of topotecan in mice. It is thus the first highly potent and specific BCRP inhibitor applicable in vivo. As such, Ko143 and other FTC analogues of this type represent valuable reagents for analysis of drug resistance mechanisms and may be candidates for development as clinical BCRP inhibitors.
Knockdown of Tripartite Motif Containing 24 by Lentivirus Suppresses Cell Growth and Induces Apoptosis in Human Colorectal Cancer Cells

Colorectal cancer remains one of the most common cancers in men and women, and it accounts for a large proportion of cancer-related deaths worldwide. Tripartite motif (TRIM) proteins are a novel class of “single protein RING finger” E3 ubiquitin ligases, which have been shown to be involved in many cancers. The aim of this study was to investigate the potential role of TRIM24 in human colorectal cancer. By using a lentivirus-mediated RNA interference system, we first explored the effect of TRIM24 knockdown on HCT116 cell proliferation and colony formation. Moreover, flow cytometry analysis was used to examine its effects on cell cycle distribution and apoptosis. Our data showed that knockdown of TRIM24 expression in HCT116 cells significantly decreased cell growth due to the induction of apoptosis. Hence, the present study provides evidence that TRIM24 functions as an oncogene in colorectal carcinogenesis.
Volatility impulse response functions for multivariate GARCH models

In the empirical analysis of financial time series, multivariate GARCH models have been used in various forms. As it is typical for nonlinear models there is yet no unique framework available to uncover dynamic covariance relationships for vector return processes. We introduce a new concept of impulse response functions tracing the effects of independent shocks on volatility through time. The advocated methodology avoids typical orthogonalization and ordering problems. Theoretical properties of volatility impulse response functions are derived and compared with conditional moment profiles introduced by Gallant, Rossi and Tauchen (1993) for semi-nonparametric models. In an empirical study of a bivariate foreign exchange rate series we use volatility impulse response functions to compare alternative parametric volatility specifications. It is shown that for shocks affecting foreign exchange rates in an asymmetric way, the difference between our methodology and conditional volatility profiles can be substantial.
Improvement and validation of a computer model for the thermo-mechanical fuel rod behavior during reactivity transients in nuclear reactors

Nuclear safety analysis has to demonstrate that the safety criteria are ensured, e.g. for a reactivity initiated accident (RIA). For this purpose, computer codes are widely applied. The performance of the fuel performance code TRANSURANUS was evaluated thanks to participation in the OECD/NEA RIA Fuel Codes Benchmark for highly irradiated fuel rods. The interaction between neutron kinetics, thermal hydraulics and detailed fuel behaviour modelling has been rarely analysed in the open literature. The RIA simulation results of the developed coupled code system DYN3D-TRANSURANUS showed that the influence can be pronounced.