Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Response to Warfarin and Other Oral Anticoagulants: Effects of Disease States

Background. Warfarin is associated with numerous drug and food interactions, and much attention has been appropriately focused on this subject. Because several disease states may also affect response to oral anticoagulants, we present a summary of the literature. Methods. We searched MEDLINE for original articles on the effect of disease states on response to warfarin. Results. Liver disease and thyroid dysfunction are well-documented as affecting warfarin response. Further study is needed to establish whether febrile illness, congestive heart failure, and other disease states enhance the effect of warfarin in some patients. Conclusion. Careful monitoring of anticoagulant therapy in patients with diseases that have the potential to affect warfarin response could increase safety and efficacy of this important agent.
Optimal Contracting, Corporate Finance, and Valuation with Inalienable Human Capital

A risk‐averse entrepreneur with access to a profitable venture needs to raise funds from investors. She cannot indefinitely commit her human capital to the venture, which limits the firm's debt capacity, distorts investment and compensation, and constrains the entrepreneur's risk sharing. This puts dynamic liquidity and state‐contingent risk allocation at the center of corporate financial management. The firm balances mean‐variance investment efficiency and the preservation of financial slack. We show that in general the entrepreneur's net worth is overexposed to idiosyncratic risk and underexposed to systematic risk. These distortions are greater the closer the firm is to exhausting its debt capacity.
Human CD18 Is the Functional Receptor for Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans Leukotoxin

ABSTRACT Aggregatibacter (Actinobacillus) actinomycetemcomitans is the causative organism of localized aggressive periodontitis, a rapidly progressing degenerative disease of the gingival and periodontal ligaments, and is also implicated in causing subacute infective endocarditis in humans. The bacterium produces a variety of virulence factors, including an exotoxic leukotoxin (LtxA) that is a member of the repeats-in-toxin (RTX) family of bacterial cytolysins. LtxA exhibits a unique specificity to macrophages and polymorphonuclear cells of humans and other primates. Human lymphocyte function-associated antigen 1 (LFA-1) has been implicated as the putative receptor for LtxA. Human LFA-1 comprises the CD11a and CD18 subunits. It is not clear, however, which of its subunits serves as the functional receptor that confers species-specific susceptibility to LtxA. Here we demonstrate that the human CD18 is the receptor for LtxA based on experiments performed with chimeric β2-integrins recombinantly expressed in a cell line that is resistant to LtxA effects. In addition, we show that the cysteine-rich tandem repeats encompassing integrin-epidermal growth factor-like domains 2, 3, and 4 of the extracellular region of human CD18 are critical for conferring susceptibility to LtxA-induced biological effects.
Rapid identification of pathogenic Leptospira species (Leptospira interrogans, L. borgpetersenii, and L. kirschneri) with species-specific DNA probes produced by arbitrarily primed PCR

Arbitrarily primed PCR (AP-PCR) assays can be used to discriminate between species of Leptospira. Comparative analysis of the fingerprints obtained from representative sets of serovar reference strains of Leptospira interrogans sensu stricto, L. borgpetersenii, and L. kirschneri and the reference strains of the other Leptospira spp. revealed species-specific DNA fragments. These species-specific sequences were reamplified in order to produce digoxigenin-11-dUTP-labeled genomic DNA probes that could be used to identify Leptospira species. Three probes (specific for L. interrogans sensu stricto, L. borgpetersenii, and L. kirschneri) were selected and tested with 72 representative serovar reference strains, all of which had previously been studied by DNA-DNA hybridization. The two techniques were in general agreement, and hybridization with AP-PCR-derived probes was shown to be a useful approach for rapid species determination of leptospires, without the prior need for DNA sequence information. These nonradioactive probes can be used to identify Leptospira species in nonspecialized laboratories, and this should contribute to a better knowledge of the molecular epidemiology of leptospirosis.
Smartphones, text messages, and political participation

In recent years, usage of text messages sent by political parties and candidates to potential voters has been on the rise. Such messages may also offer response options, which create bilateral communications with potential voters. This article examines responsiveness to political text messages during election campaigns and the factors that affect such responsiveness, using a natural experiment in which the campaign headquarters of 3 municipal candidates sent text messages to the residents of 3 municipalities. Findings indicate that response rates ranged from 4% to 18%, which approximate the response rates to marketing campaigns and other forms of text-based political participation. Age and gender did not have a significant effect on response rates, but message personalization (texts that include recipient identity) and response mode (text reply/landing page) did. These findings offer new empirical evidence of certain patterns of mobile interactions that encourage political participation.
Biofidelic white matter heterogeneity decreases computational model predictions of white matter strains during rapid head rotations

Abstract The finite element (FE) brain model is used increasingly as a design tool for developing technology to mitigate traumatic brain injury. We developed an ultra high-definition FE brain model (>4 million elements) from CT and MRI scans of a 2-month-old pre-adolescent piglet brain, and simulated rapid head rotations. Strain distributions in the thalamus, coronal radiata, corpus callosum, cerebral cortex gray matter, brainstem and cerebellum were evaluated to determine the influence of employing homogeneous brain moduli, or distinct experimentally derived gray and white matter property representations, where some white matter regions are stiffer and others less stiff than gray matter. We find that constitutive heterogeneity significantly lowers white matter deformations in all regions compared with homogeneous properties, and should be incorporated in FE model injury prediction.
The Effect of Pneumoperitoneum on Intraocular Pressure in Rabbits with alpha-Chymotrypsin-Induced Glaucoma

Increased intraperitoneal pressure is associated with physiological changes including alterations of intraocular pressure (IOP). We have previously shown that IOP is not adversely affected by increased intraperitoneal pressure up to 15 mm Hg in women with no preexisting eye disease. The aim of this study was to measure IOP changes associated with increased intraperitoneal pressure (up to 15 mm Hg) of 2 h duration in 12 rabbits with alpha-chymotrypsin-induced glaucoma. A reliable model of glaucoma was created by injecting alpha-chymotrypsin into the posterior chamber of the right eye in 12 rabbits. Thereafter, 5 of the 12 rabbits with glaucomatous eyes were treated with topical timolol. The left eye was used as a control. During pentobarbital general anesthesia, increased intraperitoneal pressure up to 15 mm Hg was created by intraperitoneal CO2 insufflation. Body temperature and expired CO2 were kept constant throughout the study. IOP measurements were made using an electronic pneumotonometer. IOP, mean arterial pressure, heart rate, and central venous pressure were recorded in head-up and head-down positions before, during, and after increased intraperitoneal pressure. The IOP of both eyes, in both treated and untreated rabbits, increased significantly from baseline only when increased intraperitoneal pressure associated with the head-down position resulted in a significant increase in central venous pressure. However, the IOP increase remained within the diurnal range. The major finding of this study is that, in a reliable model of glaucoma, CO2 pneumoperitoneum was associated with an increase in IOP when a head-down position was combined with pneumoperitoneum. Implications: In rabbits with alpha-chymotrypsin-induced glaucoma, increased intraperitoneal pressure (up to 15 mm Hg) resulted in a significant intraocular pressure increase when pneumoperitoneum was associated with the head-down position. However, the intraocular pressure increase remained within the diurnal range. (Anesth Analg 1998;86:1283-8)
Particulated bone grafts--effectiveness of bone cell supply.

OBJECTIVE The objective of this study was to measure the amount of viable bone cells present in different types of bone graft. MATERIAL AND METHODS Bone chips were harvested from the trabecular or cortical bone of the mandible or the iliac crest and either milled or not. The average size of unmilled bone particles was 5 x 5 x 5 mm and that of milled was 2 x 2 x 2 mm. Drill sludge was obtained using either a ball reamer, a diamond ball or an implant drill (the latter from mandibular bone and of average dimension 1 x 1 x 1 mm). A measure of 0.5 g of each category was cultured in Dulbecco's modified Eagle's medium with additives for four weeks. Cell counts were performed. An analysis of the osteocalcin synthesis, the alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity, the collagen types and the concentration of bone-specific collagen cross-links in medium supernatants was performed. RESULTS Cells stained positively for osteocalcin and ALP in all groups. Bone-specific collagen cross-links could be quantified and collagen of types I and V was present with no difference in all groups. Unmilled spongy bone chips revealed greater cell counts than milled (P<0.05). Spongy bone chips revealed greater cell counts than cortical bone chips (P<0.05). Drill sludge obtained by hard alloy ball reamer showed the least amount of viable cells (P<0.05). CONCLUSIONS Bone milling reduces the quantity of osteoblasts. Bone obtained by the ball reamer supplies a smaller number of cells than bone obtained by other methods. Unmilled spongy bone chips appear to offer the greatest amount of viable osteoblasts.
Disk halo size measured in individuals implanted with monofocal versus diffractive multifocal intraocular lenses

METHOD: Halo radius was measured using a vision monitor (MonCv3) with low-luminance optotypes in 39 eyes that had cataract surgery and the bilateral implant of an Acrysof Restor SN6AD1 multifocal IOL or Acrysof IQ monofocal IOL 6 to 9 months previously. The visual angle subtended by the disk halo radius was calculated in minutes of arc (arcmin). Patient complaints of halo disturbances were recorded. Monocular uncorrected distance visual acutity (UDVA) and corrected distance visual acuity (CDVA) were measured using high-contrast (96%) and lowcontrast (10%) logMAR letter charts.
Cinematographic analysis of bovine embryo development in serum-free oviduct-conditioned medium.

Development of bovine embryos produced in vitro from the one-cell to the blastocyst stage in serum-free oviduct-conditioned medium was investigated for 8 days consecutively by time-lapse cinematography. Three movies were analysed (130 embryos). The following observations were made. (1) Development under cine-recording conditions was similar to that in a classical incubator. (2) The highest proportion of embryos at the two-cell, three-four-cell, five-eight-cell, 9-16-cell, morula and blastocyst stages were recorded at 34, 46, 61, 115, 149 and 192 h after insemination, respectively. Cleavage asynchrony between blastomeres within individual embryos started at the two-cell stage. (3) The duration of the first three cell cycles was 35 h, 14 h and 11-62 h, respectively. (4) Detailed analysis of 13 embryos revealed that developmental arrest ('Lag-phase') occurred at the four-cell (1 of 13), five-cell (2 of 13), six-cell (3 of 13), seven-cell (3 of 13) or eight-cell stage (4 of 13); this phase lasted about 59 h. Embryos arrested at the eight-cell stage developed into morula-blastocysts (3 of 4) at a higher rate than did those arrested at earlier stages (2 of 9). (5) The faster the embryos cleaved into early stages (two-cell, three-four-cell and five-eight-cell), the higher the probability that they developed into morula-blastocyst: 70% of the embryos reaching the two-cell stage before 30-31 h after insemination developed into morula-blastocyst. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Occupational injuries by hour of day and day of week: a 20‐year study

Objective: To examine by hour of day and day of week the 750,000 compensation claims that were lodged by male workers in Queensland, Australia, during the 20‐year period from 1968 to 1988, including an investigation into some possible reasons for the increased number of claims on Mondays and the reduced number of claims on Fridays.
Molecular analyses of prostate tumors for diagnosis of malignancy on fine-needle aspiration biopsies

Prostate cancer (PCa) is a common cancer and remains the second-leading cause of cancer-associated mortality in men, but diagnosis of PCa remains a main clinical challenge. To investigate the involvement of differentially expressing genes in PCa with deregulated pathways to allow earlier diagnosis of the disease, transcriptomic analyses of differential expression genes in fine-needle aspiration (FNA) biopsies helped to discriminate PCa from benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH). We identified 255 genes that were deregulated in prostate tumors compared with BPH tissues. qRT-PCR was conducted to examine the expression levels of the four genes in FNA biopsies and confirmed that ITGBL1 was significantly up-regulated and HOXA7, KRT15 and TGM4 were down-regulated in the PCa compared to the BPH, with a sensitivity of 87.1% and a specificity of 87.8%; the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve was estimated at 0.94, which was significantly improved compared with PSA alone (AUC = 0.82). Moreover, the increased expression of ITGBL1 correlated with total cholesterol, triglyceride and PSA. Our results demonstrated that transcriptomic analyses in FNA biopsies could facilitate rapid identification of potential targets for therapy and diagnosis of PCa.
Efficient methods for computing linkage likelihoods of recessive diseases in inbred pedigrees

Traditional methods for computing linkage likelihoods can be infeasible for data that involve considerable inbreeding and missing information, characteristics of large pedigrees affected by rare recessive diseases. For this type of data, we propose alternative procedures that can efficiently provide good approximates of linkage likelihoods. These approximation procedures are constructed based on a new mathematical representation of the multiloci inheritance model. Instead of representing each person by a single variable, the genotype, the disease gene alleles, and the marker alleles are taken as separate variables. This allows us to break down the computations into manageable pieces. This new representation is also potentially useful for multipoint mapping.
Aminotransferase levels and 20-year risk of metabolic syndrome, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.

BACKGROUND & AIMS Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is the hepatic manifestation of obesity and metabolic syndrome (MetS). Alanine aminotransferase (ALT) levels are used to detect NAFLD and have also been associated with increased risk for MetS, diabetes mellitus, and cardiovascular disease (CVD). We studied the relationship between ALT levels and these disorders in a long-term follow-up study. METHODS Framingham Offspring Heart Study participants (n = 2812; mean age, 44 years; 56% women) were followed for the development of MetS, diabetes, CVD, and all-cause mortality using logistic regression (MetS, diabetes) or Cox proportional hazards models (CVD, all-cause mortality). RESULTS Among individuals at baseline, per 1 standard deviation increase in log ALT level, there were increased odds of the development of MetS (odds ratio [OR] 1.21, P < .001) and diabetes (OR, 1.48; P < .0001) over 20 years of follow-up. These findings also applied to participants with ALT levels within the normal range (MetS OR, 1.17; P = .006; diabetes OR, 1.34; P =.002). There was an increased risk of CVD in age/gender-adjusted models (hazard ratio, 1.23; P < .0001), but this was attenuated in multivariable-adjusted models (hazard ratio 1.05; P = .27); no association was observed for all-cause mortality. Aspartate aminotransferase levels were found to be associated with an increased risk of only diabetes. CONCLUSIONS Both normal and increased levels of ALT are associated with long-term development of multiple metabolic disorders. These results indicate the potential for ALT values as biomarkers for the risk of metabolic disease.
Livestock as a Buffer Stock in Poorly Integrated Markets

Livestock holdings in rural areas of the West African semiarid tropics are often substantial, yet the evidence for livestock sales in response to shocks is mixed. This paper revisits farm households’ ability to cope with adverse shocks via livestock sales. Based on data covering Burkina Faso’s 2004 drought, we find that livestock sales increase significantly in response to drought, with households citing the need to finance food consumption. At the same time, we find no effects of rainfall shocks on revenues from livestock sales. We show that this seemingly contradictory finding is largely due to a decrease in livestock prices during droughts. Our findings suggest that precautionary saving, while costly as a coping strategy in poorly integrated markets, is nevertheless common in this setting.
On the determinants of Airbnb location and its spatial distribution

This article explores Airbnb accommodation spatial distribution and it estimates the main determinants of its location choice. It employs spatial bivariate correlations and spatial econometrics to understand the heterogeneous spatial relationship between established hotels and Airbnb for three kinds of local tourism destinations: sun and beach, nature-based, and city. The case study concerns the Canary Islands where a good mixture of these attractions can be found. The main conclusion drawn is that Airbnb regulation needs to distinguish the kind of tourism. More precisely, Airbnb supply overlaps established hotels in city tourism, but it does not so clearly in sun and beach nor nature-based destinations. Airbnb supply matches tourist visits spatial distribution better than established hotels in city and nature-based destinations, but not in sun and beach destinations, where the incumbent hotels are closer to the tourism resources. Finally, the results from the spatial econometrics model shows that population size and the number of tourist visits matters as determinants of Airbnb location. However, the main determinant is price, which has got a much larger elasticity.
Decrease in sensitivity of D-dimer for acute venous thromboembolism after starting anticoagulant therapy

D-Dimer testing is useful for the exclusion of acute venous thromboembolism (VTE). Anticoagulant therapy is expected to reduce D-dimer levels in patients with thrombosis and, consequently, it may not be safe to use D-dimer levels to exclude VTE after anticoagulant therapy has been started. The objectives of this study were to estimate the decrease in D-dimer levels after 24 h of heparin therapy and, applying this estimate to the results of a recent study, to calculate the expected reduction in sensitivity. Using pre-defined criteria, we first performed a literature review to determine whether, and by how much, D-dimer levels decrease within 24 h of starting heparin therapy in patients with acute VTE. Using D-dimer levels that were measured in a prospective study of patients with confirmed deep vein thrombosis and/or pulmonary embolism as baselines, we then determined the change in sensitivity (and specificity) that would result from the fall in D-dimer levels that the literature review suggested would have occurred after 24 h of heparin therapy. On the basis of the literature review, we calculated that mean D-dimer levels decrease by 25%, 24 h after starting heparin therapy in patients with acute VTE. This 25% decrease in D-dimer levels resulted in a decrease in sensitivity from 95.6% (95% confidence interval, 90.0–98.6) to 89.4% (95% confidence interval, 83.7–95.1). There is a decrease in D-dimer levels in patients with acute VTE 24 h after starting heparin therapy that is expected to result in a clinically important drop in sensitivity.
Separation and Partial Characterization of Three Distinct Intracellular GLUT4 Compartments in Rat Adipocytes

Insulin recruits GLUT4 from an intracellular location to the plasma membrane in rat adipocytes. The process involves multiple intracellular compartments and multiple protein functions, details of which are largely unknown partly due to our inability to separate individual GLUT4 compartments. Here, by hypotonic lysis, differential centrifugation, and glycerol density gradient sedimentation, we separated intracellular GLUT4 compartments in rat adipocytes into three fractions: plasma membrane-containing fraction T and plasma membrane-free fractions H and L. The GLUT4 contents in fractions T, H, and L were ∼25, 56, and 18% of total GLUT4, respectively, in basal adipocytes and 55, 42, and 3–4% in insulin-stimulated adipocytes. The plasma membrane GLUT4 contents estimated separately further revealed that intracellular GLUT4 in fraction T amounts to ∼20% in both basal and insulin-stimulated adipocytes. Organelle-specific marker and membrane traffic-related protein distribution data suggested that intracellular GLUT4 in fraction T represents sorting endosomes, whereas GLUT4 in fractions H and L represents storage endosomes and exocytic vesicles, respectively. The subcellular fractionation without homogenization described here should be useful in identifying the role of the individual GLUT4 compartments and the associated proteins in insulin-induced GLUT4 recruitment in rat adipocytes.
Depression and Caregiver Mastery in Grandfathers Caring for Their Grandchildren

Kin caregiving research tends to focus on the experiences of grandmothers. Often unnoticed and underserved are grandfathers who also take on this responsibility. Here, two groups of grandfathers participated in focus group interviews to discuss their experiences as caregivers to their grandchildren. Common themes for the grandfathers were the feeling of missing freedom, experiencing child rearing differently now than they had with their own children, and fear of what would happen to the children should their health fail. Thirty-three grandfathers also answered questions about themselves; their grandchild; need, use, and satisfaction with formal services; depression; and caregiving mastery. A sample of 33 grandmothers selected from a previous study was matched to the grandfathers on age, race, and marital status. Differences in depressive symptoms between the grandfathers and grandmothers were statistically significant. There was no statistically significant difference between the grandparent caregivers on caregiving mastery. These findings suggest that there may be differences in the impact of caregiving for grandmothers and grandfathers. These differences should be further investigated.