Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Identifying Vulnerable Atherosclerotic Plaque in Rabbits Using DMSA-USPIO Enhanced Magnetic Resonance Imaging to Investigate the Effect of Atorvastatin

Background Rupture of an atherosclerotic plaque is the primary cause of acute cardiovascular and cerebrovascular syndromes. Early and non-invasive detection of vulnerable atherosclerotic plaques (VP) would be significant in preventing some aspects of these syndromes. As a new contrast agent, dimercaptosuccinic acid (DMSA) modified ultra-small super paramagnetic iron oxide (USPIO) was synthesized and used to identify VP and rupture plaque by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Methods Atherosclerosis was induced in male New Zealand White rabbits by feeding a high cholesterol diet (n = 30). Group A with atherosclerosis plaque (n = 10) were controls. VP was established in groups B (n = 10) and C (n = 10) using balloon-induced endothelial injury of the abdominal aorta. Adenovirus-carrying p53 genes were injected into the aortic segments rich in plaques after 8 weeks. Group C was treated with atorvastatin for 8 weeks. Sixteen weeks later, all rabbits underwent pharmacological triggering, and imaging were taken daily for 5 d after DMSA-USPIO infusion. At the first day and before being killed, serum MMP-9, sCD40L, and other lipid indicators were measured. Results DMSA-USPIO particles accumulated in VP and rupture plaques. Rupture plaques appeared as areas of hyper-intensity on DMSA-USPIO enhanced MRI, especially T2*-weighted sequences, with a signal strength peaking at 96 h. The group given atorvastatin showed few DMSA-USPIO particles and had lower levels of serum indicators. MMP-9 and sCD40L levels in group B were significantly higher than in the other 2 groups (P <0.05). Conclusion After successfully establishing a VP model in rabbits, DMSA-USPIO was used to enhance MRI for clear identification of plaque inflammation and rupture. Rupture plaques were detectable in this way probably due to an activating inflammatory process. Atorvastatin reduced the inflammatory response and stabilizing VP possibly by decreasing MMP-9 and sCD40L levels.
Prognostic Value of Programmed Electrical Stimulation in Brugada Syndrome: 20 Years Experience

Background—The prognostic value of electrophysiological investigations in individuals with Brugada syndrome remains controversial. Different groups have published contradictory data. Long-term follow-up is needed to clarify this issue. Methods and Results—Patients presenting with spontaneous or drug-induced Brugada type I ECG and in whom programmed electric stimulation was performed at our institution were considered eligible for this study. A total of 403 consecutive patients (235 males, 58.2%; mean age, 43.2±16.2 years) were included. Ventricular arrhythmias during programmed electric stimulation were induced in 73 (18.1%) patients. After a mean follow-up time of 74.3±57.3 months (median 57.3), 25 arrhythmic events occurred (16 in the inducible group and 9 in the noninducible). Ventricular arrhythmias inducibility presented a hazard ratio for events of 8.3 (95% confidence interval, 3.6–19.4), P<0.01. Conclusions—Programmed ventricular stimulation of the heart is a good predictor of outcome in individuals with Brugada syndrome. It might be of special value to guide further management when performed in asymptomatic individuals. The overall accuracy of the test makes it a suitable screening tool to reassure noninducible asymptomatic individuals
ASSET MISPRICING AND HETEROGENEOUS BELIEFS AMONG ARBITRAGEURS

In financial markets, some assets may be overpriced (underpriced), i.e. whose price is above (below) the asset fundamentals. While professional traders may observe that the asset price does not reflect its fundamental value, such asset mispricing may persist over a substantial period of time. The purpose of this paper is to investigate under which conditions such asset mispricing may persist in the presence of well-funded arbitrageurs and how heterogeneous beliefs among arbitrageurs may affect mispricing duration. The paper is based on a financial heterogeneous agent model with boundedly rational agents, namely: arbitrageurs and chartists, who follow simple decision rules. This paper uses a market maker based method of price formation in order to study the price dynamics induced by the interplay between arbitrageurs and chartists. The results indicate that whenever arbitrageurs have heterogeneous beliefs about the asset fundamental value, first even though chartists do not dominate the market, arbitrageurs’ trading activity may not bring asset price back towards the asset fundamentals and asset mispricing may persist. Second if chartists dominate the market, chartists’ trading activity may further price correction.
Morphological and Functional Differences between Athletes and Novices in Cortical Neuronal Networks

The cortical structural and functional differences in athletes and novices were investigated with a cross-sectional paradigm. We measured the gray matter volumes and resting-state functional connectivity in 21 basketball players and 21 novices with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques. It was found that gray matter volume in the left anterior insula (AI), inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), inferior parietal lobule (IPL) and right anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), precuneus is greater in basketball players than that in novices. These five brain regions were selected as the seed regions for testing the resting-state functional connectivity in the second experiment. We found higher functional connectivity in default mode network, salience network and executive control network in basketball players compared to novices. We conclude that the morphology and functional connectivity in cortical neuronal networks in athletes and novices are different.
Metformin for weight reduction in non-diabetic patients on antipsychotic drugs: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Weight gain is a clinically important side effect of antipsychotic drug therapy. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of the antidiabetic drug metformin on antipsychotic-induced weight gain in non-diabetic patients. In a systematic literature review we identified 195 citations from which seven randomized, placebo-controlled studies (398 patients) were included in the final analysis. Studies in adults (n = 5) and in children (n = 2) were analysed separately. Compared with placebo, metformin treatment caused a significant body weight reduction in adult non-diabetic patients treated with atypical antipsychotics (4.8%, 95% CI 1.6 to 8.0) and in children (4.1%, 95% CI 2.2 to 6.0). There was evidence of substantial heterogeneity among studies, and when the analysis was restricted to patients with a manifest (>10%) body weight increase prior to randomisation metformin reduced weight by 7.5% (95% CI 2.9 to 12.0). The effect was larger in Asians (7.8%, 95% CI 4.4 to 11.2) than in Hispanics (2.0%, 95% CI 0.7 to 3.3). In conclusion, metformin has a pronounced weight-reducing effect in antipsychotic-treated patients, especially in those with a manifest weight gain. Although direct comparisons are lacking, the observed effect on body weight compares favourably with the effect of sibutramine and orlistat, approved for weight reduction. However, metformin is not approved for use in non-diabetic patients and it is still not generally advisable to recommend metformin to counteract antipsychotic-induced weight gain.
Central configurations in three dimensions

We consider the equilibria of point particles under the action of two–body central forces in which there are both repulsive and attractive interactions, often known as central configurations, with diverse applications in physics, in particular, as homothetic time–dependent solutions to Newton'equations of motion and as stationary states in the one–component–plasma model. Concentrating mainly on the case of an inverse square law balanced by a linear force, we compute numerically equilibria and their statistical properties. When all the masses (or charges) of the particles are equal, for small numbers of points, they are regular convex deltahedra, which, on increasing the number of points, give way to a multi–shell structure. In the limit of a large number of points, we argue, using an analytic model, that they form a homogeneous spherical distribution of points, whose spatial distribution appears, from our preliminary investigation, to be similar to that of a Bernal hard–sphere liquid.
Resolving ambiguous pronouns in a second language: A visual-world eye-tracking study with Dutch learners of German

Abstract This study examined whether resolving ambiguous pronouns in a second language is guided by the L1 preferences of the learners. Given the fact that the typologically closely related languages, German and Dutch, have both been found to use personal pronouns (German er, Dutch hij; ‘he’) to refer to topical antecedents, and d-pronouns (German der, Dutch die; ‘he’) for non-topical co-reference (Ellert 2010; Kaiser 2011; Kaiser and Trueswell 2004), it was asked whether Dutch L2 learners of German would exhibit similar preferences when resolving the two pronominal forms in their L2. This was examined with the visual-world eye-tracking paradigm and an off-line referent assignment task. The results showed differences in resolution patterns: the Dutch learners of German showed an overall topic preference across pronouns which became more target-like at higher proficiency levels. This suggests that L2 information organization cannot be merely explained by L1 influences, but needs to take more general L2 learner effects into account.
Lightning impulse voltage breakdown characteristics of vacuum interrupters with contact gaps 10 to 50 mm

The objective of this paper is to understand the standard lightning impulse voltage breakdown characteristics of vacuum interrupters with contact gaps 10 to 50 mm and how contact parameters influence the breakdown characteristics. The investigated contact parameters include contact diameter 75 and 60 mm, contact surface roughness 1.6 and 3.2 μ m, and contact radius of curvature 6 and 2 mm. Therefore we designed four high-voltage vacuum interrupters in the experiments. The vacuum interrupters were put into a porcelain envelope with SF6 gas as an external insulation of the vacuum interrupters. The contact gaps can be adjusted manually up to 50 mm. Positive polarity lightning impulse voltage (1.2/50 μs) was applied by an up-and-down method. Experimental results revealed the breakdown probability distributions followed Weibull distributions when the breakdown voltage saturated within the investigated contact gaps 10 to 50 mm. Within the contact gaps 10 to 50 mm, U50 of vacuum interrupter with contact radius of curvature 2 mm was higher than that of vacuum interrupter with contact radius of curvature 6 mm. And U50 of contact roughness 1.6 μm was close to that of contact roughness 3.2 μm. U50 of the contact diameter 60 mm was close to that of contact diameter 75 mm. And 50% breakdown voltage U50 depended on the contact gap d (10-50 mm) for four interrupters, can be expressed by an equation U50=kdα, where a is a power exponent; k denotes a coefficient which can be determined by experiments. And under our experimental condition, power α lay in a range of 0.6-0.7 for the four vacuum interrupters. The breakdown phenomenon could be due to the micro-particles.
Novel myristoylation of the sperm-specific hexokinase 1 isoform regulates its atypical localization

ABSTRACT The hexokinase 1 variant in mammalian spermatozoa (HK1S) has a unique N-terminus and this isoform atypically localizes to the plasma membrane. However, the mechanism of this process currently remains ambiguous. In this report, we show that fatty acylation underlies the specific sorting of HK1S. Employing chimeric reporter constructs, we first established that compartmentalization of HK1S does not function exclusively in sperm cells and that this feature is swappable to somatic HEK293 cells. Although the N-terminus lacks the classical consensus signature for myristoylation and the sequence-based predictions fail to predict myristoylation of HK1S, complementary experimental approaches confirmed that HK1S is myristoylated. Using live-cell confocal microscopy, we show that the mutation of a single amino acid, the myristoyl recipient Gly2, impedes the prominent feature of plasma membrane association and relocates the enzyme to the cytosol but not the nucleus. Additionally, substitutions of the putatively palmitoylated Cys5 is also reflected in a similar loss of compartmentalization of the protein. Taken together, our findings conclusively demonstrate that the N-terminal ‘MGQICQ’ motif in the unique GCS domain of HK1S acquires hydrophobicity by dual lipidic modifications, N-myristoylation and palmitoylation, to serve the requirements for membranous associations and thus its compartmentalization. Summary: Dual acylation (i.e. myristoylation and palmitoylation) regulates the atypical localization of sperm-specific hexokinase 1 isoform and thus is essential for ‘rewiring’ of glycolytic network.
A Quasi–Maximum Likelihood Approach for Large, Approximate Dynamic Factor Models

Abstract Is maximum likelihood suitable for factor models in large cross-sections of time series? We answer this question from both an asymptotic and an empirical perspective. We show that estimates of the common factors based on maximum likelihood are consistent for the size of the cross-section (n) and the sample size (T), going to infinity along any path, and that maximum likelihood is viable for n large. The estimator is robust to misspecification of cross-sectional and time series correlation of the idiosyncratic components. In practice, the estimator can be easily implemented using the Kalman smoother and the EM algorithm as in traditional factor analysis.
Meiosis-Specific Stable Binding of Augmin to Acentrosomal Spindle Poles Promotes Biased Microtubule Assembly in Oocytes

In the oocytes of many animals including humans, the meiotic spindle assembles without centrosomes. It is still unclear how multiple pathways contribute to spindle microtubule assembly, and whether they are regulated differently in mitosis and meiosis. Augmin is a γ-tubulin recruiting complex which “amplifies” spindle microtubules by generating new microtubules along existing ones in mitosis. Here we show that in Drosophila melanogaster oocytes Augmin is dispensable for chromatin-driven assembly of bulk spindle microtubules, but is required for full microtubule assembly near the poles. The level of Augmin accumulated at spindle poles is well correlated with the degree of chromosome congression. Fluorescence recovery after photobleaching shows that Augmin stably associates with the polar regions of the spindle in oocytes, unlike in mitotic cells where it transiently and uniformly associates with the metaphase spindle. This stable association is enhanced by γ-tubulin and the kinesin-14 Ncd. Therefore, we suggest that meiosis-specific regulation of Augmin compensates for the lack of centrosomes in oocytes by actively biasing sites of microtubule generation within the spindle.
Morphometrical changes in the apical surface of the colonic absorptive cells in perinatal rats with special reference to the effect of fetal oral administration of milk in utero

Perinatal changes in the apical surface of the colonic absorptive cells in the rat were studied morphometrically. Cell microvilli length increased from day 20 through neonatal day 3, during which a maximum incremental growth rate was noted between fetal day 22 and neonatal day 1. Microvilli width remained almost constant throughout the period. Enlargement of the apical surface of the microvilli showed a similar developmental pattern as was seen from the measurement of length and surface area of any one of the microvilli. Fetal oral administration of milk in utero caused incremental growth in length and surface area, as well as an associated apical surface enlargement. The present study indicates that the function of the colonic absorptive cells, which is acquired later on in utero, is activated by ingestion of maternal milk after birth.
No association between serum metal ions and implant fixation in large-head metal-on-metal total hip arthroplasty

Background — The mechanism of failure of metal-on-metal (MoM) total hip arthroplasty (THA) has been related to a high rate of metal wear debris, which is partly generated from the head-trunnion interface. However, it is not known whether implant fixation is affected by metal wear debris. Patients and methods — 49 cases of MoM THA in 41 patients (10 women) with a mean age of 52 (28–68) years were followed with stereoradiographs after surgery and at 1, 2, and 5 years to analyze implant migration by radiostereometric analysis (RSA). Patients also participated in a 5- to 7-year follow-up with measurement of serum metal ions, questionnaires (Oxford hip score (OHS) and Harris hip score (HHS)), and measurement of cup and stem positions and systemic bone mineral density. Results — At 1–2 years, mean total translation (TT) was 0.04 mm (95% CI: –0.07 to 0.14; p = 0.5) for the stems; at 2–5 years, mean TT was 0.13 mm (95% CI: –0.25 to –0.01; p = 0.03), but within the precision limit of the method. For the cups, there was no statistically significant TT or total rotation (TR) at 1–2 and 2–5 years. At 2–5 years, we found 4 cups and 5 stems with TT migrations exceeding the precision limit of the method. There was an association between cup migration and total OHS < 40 (4 patients, 4 hips; p = 0.04), but there were no statistically significant associations between cup or stem migration and T-scores < –1 (n = 10), cup and stem positions, or elevated serum metal ion levels (> 7µg/L (4 patients, 6 hips)). Interpretation — Most cups and stems were well-fixed at 1–5 years. However, at 2–5 years, 4 cups and 5 stems had TT migrations above the precision limits, but these patients had serum metal ion levels similar to those of patients without measurable migrations, and they were pain-free. Patients with serum metal ion levels > 7 µg/L had migrations similar to those in patients with serum metal ion levels < 7 µg/L. Metal wear debris does not appear to influence the fixation of hip components in large-head MoM articulations at medium-term follow-up.
Discrete element study of liquid-solid slurry flows through constricted channels

Discrete element model is used to simulate the flow of liquid-granule mixtures in an inclined channel containing a linear contraction. All the relevant particle/particle and particle/fluid interactions are included in the numerical model. The presence of the contraction induces different steady morphologies of the solid phase or the mixture depending on whether closed or open channels are used. These flows behave quite differently depending on the upstream Froude number and the contraction size ratio. The model is first validated by comparing with the existing results for dry granular (glass particles) chute flows (Vreman et al., 2007). Then simulations of a chute of glass particles in water flowing in a closed channel are compared to the dry granular case. With the same solid flux at the inlet, the hydrodynamic forces in the liquid-solid mixture induce higher particle solid volume fractions in the part of the flow containing the solid phase. The streamwise particle velocity (resp. depth of the solid phase) has the same evolution along the channel with smaller (larger) values than in the dry granular flow case.
Producing salience or keeping silence? An exploration of topics and non-topics of Special Eurobarometers

The term “neoliberalism” is encountered everywhere today. In popular leftist political rhetoric it is often simply a place-holder for “contemporary capitalism”, “austerity politics”, and “all that is bad in our world”, giving that rhetoric the appearance of a new diagnostic edge. However, one could be excused for thinking that its intelligibility is in inverse proportion to its ubiquity. By defining it in terms of its conceptual relationship with classical liberalism this paper offers a justification for thinking about our time as period in which a particular “community of ideas” has sought (with some success) to establish a neoliberal hegemony. Doing so reveals, however, that there are in fact a variety of neoliberalisms, and that the period we now inhabit is best conceived in terms of the rise of a distinctively economic variation. Europe’s history is sketched (anachronistically) in terms of shifting patterns and transitions in which neoliberal variants vie for power. Setting those transitions within a wide-angled vision of Europe’s modernity as inseparable from a movement of the decentring of our understanding of “man”, the chance for a new shift is identified – one to be accompanied, no doubt, by “a surge of laughter” that has been heard, regularly and without fail, throughout the entirety of Europe’s history.
PPP May not Hold for Agricultural Commodities

We use the well known USDA dataset of real exchange rates to address the question of whether PPP holds for agricultural commodities. Both unit root tests and the recently proposed more powerful class of panel unit root tests, which take into account cross-section correlation across the units in the panel, are used. Properties of unit roots and panel tests are analyzed by Monte Carlo simulation. Summarizing, our results show that during the post-Bretton-Woods period of flexible exchange rates, PPP does not hold for agricultural commodities.
Significance of biological markers for predicting prognosis and selecting chemotherapy regimens of advanced gastric cancer patients between continuous infusion of 5-FU and a combination of 5-FU and cisplatin.

BACKGROUND Our previous phase II study of 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) and cisplatin (FP) for treatment of advanced gastric cancer showed that strong immunoreactivity for vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is associated with chemoresponse. Patients with four or five of the favorable phenotypes, p53 (-), bcl-2 (-), gluthathione S-transferase pi (-), thymidylate synthase (-), and VEGF (+), survived longer than those with three or less of these phenotypes. The purpose of this study is to confirm our previous results and to compare the significance of those markers between continuous infusion of 5-FU (5-FUci) and FP. METHODS Pretreatment biopsies from 131 of 210 advanced gastric cancer patients enrolled to JCOG9205 were analyzed immunohistochemically for the presence of the five markers. RESULTS Median survival times of patients treated with 5-FUci (n = 65) or FP (n = 66) were 216 and 253 days, respectively (P = 0.6953). After FP treatment, patients with four or five favorable phenotypes (n = 20) survived longer than those with three or less favorable phenotypes (n = 46) (334 days and 243 days, respectively; P = 0.0463), and the survival times of 34 and 32 patients with VEGF (-) and (+) were similar (269 days and 253 days, respectively; P = 0.6317). After 5-FUci, 30 patients with VEGF (+) survived for a shorter time than 35 patients with VEGF (-) (142 days and 302 days, respectively; P = 0.0043). CONCLUSION The number of favorable phenotypes is prognostic for gastric cancer patients treated with FP, and VEGF has a different impact on survival between treatment with 5-FUci and FP.