Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
GST Effects on Goods and Services Included in the CPI Basket

This paper quantifies the magnitude and duration of the GST effect on the quarterly growth rate of the eleven groups of the consumer price index (CPI) in Australia using the Box and Tiao intervention analysis. It was found that prices did not increase significantly before or after the introduction of GST beyond what could have been expected on the basis of the discernible systematic pattern of fluctuation in the data. Furthermore, the varying one-off effect of GST on prices was significant in seven out of eleven CPI groups, the effect was found insignificant for the other four CPI groups.
Functional analysis of the promoters of the human red and green visual pigment genes.

PURPOSE To delineate cis-acting DNA elements involved in the expression of the human red and green visual pigment genes and to correlate these with transcription factor binding sites. METHODS Assays of promoter activity were accomplished by transient transfection into WERI cells. Nested deletion and block mutagenesis were undertaken to delineate critical elements. Transcription factor binding sites were determined by DNase I footprinting and electrophoretic mobility shift (EMSA) analyses. RESULTS The human retinoblastoma cell line WERI, but not Y-79, was found to express the red and green pigment genes. Transfection assays in WERI cells revealed that the proximal region of the red pigment gene promoter had positive (-130 to -113 and -96 to -23) and negative (-190 to -130 and - 113 to -96) regulatory elements. The green pigment gene promoter was found to be 2 to 4 times more active than was that of the red pigment. This difference in activity was attributable mainly to a T to C substitution at position -3. DNase I protection and EMSA studies demonstrated the binding of several ubiquitous and WERI-enriched proteins to DNA sequences between - 130 and the TATA box. The locus control region (LCR) did not have any enhancer activity in transient transfection. CONCLUSIONS The WERI cell line is a good model system for the analysis of gene expression of the human cone visual pigment genes. The expression of these genes in a cell-specific fashion seems to be controlled mainly by positive-acting elements in the region between - 130 and the TATA box. The higher activity of the green pigment gene promoter could have evolved to compensate for its longer distance from the activating LCR than that of the red pigment gene promoter (approximately 34 versus 3.5 kb). Although the LCR does not enhance transcription in transient transfection, it binds factors that also recognize the proximal promoter region. These interactions may be important for the establishment of a transcriptionally active domain in a chromatin context.
The Effects of the Rate of Postresuscitation Rewarming Following Hypothermia on Outcomes of Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation in a Rat Model*

Objective:To investigate the optimal rewarming rate following therapeutic hypothermia in a rate model of cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Both clinical and laboratory studies have demonstrated that mild therapeutic hypothermia following cardiopulmonary resuscitation improves myocardial and neurologic outcomes of cardiac arrest. However, the optimal rewarming strategy following therapeutic hypothermia remains to be explored. Design:Prospective randomized controlled experimental study. Setting:University-affiliated research institution. Subjects:Twenty-three healthy male Sprague-Dawley rats. Interventions:Four groups of Sprague-Dawley rats were randomized: 1) normothermia group (control), 2) rewarming rate at 2°C/hr, 3) rewarming rate at 1°C/hr, and 4) rewarming rate at 0.5°C/hr. Ventricular fibrillation was induced and untreated for 8 minutes, and defibrillation was attempted after 8 minutes of cardiopulmonary resuscitation. For the 2, 1, and 0.5°C/hr groups, rapid cooling was started at the beginning of cardiopulmonary resuscitation. On reaching the target cooling temperature of 33°C ± 0.2°C, the temperature was maintained with the aid of a cooling blanket until 4 hours after resuscitation. Rewarming was then initiated at the rate of 2.0, 1.0, or 0.5°C/hr, respectively, until the body temperature reached 37°C ±0.2°C. Blood samples were drawn at baseline and postresuscitation of 4, 6, 8, 10, and 12 hours for the measurements of blood gas and serum biomarkers. Measurements and Main Results:Blood temperature significantly decreased in the hypothermic groups from cardiopulmonary resuscitation to postresuscitation 4 hours. Significantly better cardiac output, ejection fraction, myocardial performance index, reduced neurologic deficit scores, and longer duration of survival were observed in the 1 and 0.5°C/hr groups. The increased serum concentration of troponin I, interleukin-6, and tumor necrosis factor-&agr; was partly attenuated in the 1 and 0.5°C/hr groups when compared with the control and 2°C/hr groups. Conclusions:This study demonstrated that the severity of myocardial, cerebral injuries, and inflammatory reaction after cardiopulmonary resuscitation was reduced when mild therapeutic hypothermia was applied. A rewarming rate at 0.5–1°C/hr did not alter the beneficial effects of therapeutic hypothermia. However, a rapid rewarming rate at 2°C/hr abolished the beneficial effects of hypothermia.
The long‐term effects of the rodenticide, brodifacoum, on blood coagulation and vitamin K metabolism in rats

1 The long‐term (30 days) effects of a single dose of brodifacoum (0.2 mg kg−1, orally) on blood clotting activity and on liver parameters of the vitamin K cycle were investigated in rats. Maximal effect on blood clotting activity was seen on day one. On day seven blood clotting activity had returned to normal. 2 Liver microsomal vitamin KO reductase activity was maximally suppressed (10% of control activity) on day one, steadily recovered to about 40% on day 15 to remain at that level. The same time course was seen for the number of microsomal warfarin binding sites. 3 The persistent inhibition of the vitamin K cycle was also verified in vivo; following vitamin K administration (10 mg kg−1, i.v.) on day 30, the brodifacoum‐treated rats accumulated vitamin KO in the liver. 4 Although clotting factor synthesis was normal, brodifacoum‐treated rats were highly sensitive to warfarin. 5 Brodifacoum rapidly accumulated in the liver until the saturation of the microsomal binding site. Brodifacoum binding to the target prevented its elimination from the liver; liver content on day 30 was not different from day 7. 6 The results show (1) an over capacity for the hepatocellular vitamin K cycle, (2) a dissociation of the vitamin K epoxidation and the vitamin K‐dependent carboxylation, (3) the ‘superwarfarin’ rodenticides to be extremely persistent due to their binding to the target.
Bilateral and unilateral ECT: follow-up study and critique.

The authors conclude from their work and from a critical review of the literature that unilateral ECT is likely to result in reduced memory dysfunction during the immediate treatment period and to require more treatment sessions for satisfactory immediate therapeutic response. In the patient who is a guarded risk, attainment of a transiently reduced memory loss with a method likely to require additional anesthetic exposure (more treatments) would appear to be unwarranted. The authors stress the need for further studies using careful methodological design and techniques.
Early, Goal‐Directed Therapy for Septic Shock — A Patient‐Level Meta‐Analysis

BACKGROUND After a single‐center trial and observational studies suggesting that early, goal‐directed therapy (EGDT) reduced mortality from septic shock, three multicenter trials (ProCESS, ARISE, and ProMISe) showed no benefit. This meta‐analysis of individual patient data from the three recent trials was designed prospectively to improve statistical power and explore heterogeneity of treatment effect of EGDT. METHODS We harmonized entry criteria, intervention protocols, outcomes, resource‐use measures, and data collection across the trials and specified all analyses before unblinding. After completion of the trials, we pooled data, excluding the protocol‐based standard‐therapy group from the ProCESS trial, and resolved residual differences. The primary outcome was 90‐day mortality. Secondary outcomes included 1‐year survival, organ support, and hospitalization costs. We tested for treatment‐by‐subgroup interactions for 16 patient characteristics and 6 care‐delivery characteristics. RESULTS We studied 3723 patients at 138 hospitals in seven countries. Mortality at 90 days was similar for EGDT (462 of 1852 patients [24.9%]) and usual care (475 of 1871 patients [25.4%]); the adjusted odds ratio was 0.97 (95% confidence interval, 0.82 to 1.14; P=0.68). EGDT was associated with greater mean (±SD) use of intensive care (5.3±7.1 vs. 4.9±7.0 days, P=0.04) and cardiovascular support (1.9±3.7 vs. 1.6±2.9 days, P=0.01) than was usual care; other outcomes did not differ significantly, although average costs were higher with EGDT. Subgroup analyses showed no benefit from EGDT for patients with worse shock (higher serum lactate level, combined hypotension and hyperlactatemia, or higher predicted risk of death) or for hospitals with a lower propensity to use vasopressors or fluids during usual resuscitation. CONCLUSIONS In this meta‐analysis of individual patient data, EGDT did not result in better outcomes than usual care and was associated with higher hospitalization costs across a broad range of patient and hospital characteristics. (Funded by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences and others; PRISM ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT02030158.)
Perturbation by the PCB mixture aroclor 1254 of GABA(A) receptor-mediated calcium and chloride responses during maturation in vitro of rat neocortical cells.

GABA(A) receptors are targets of highly chlorinated environmental chemicals and have important roles in developing neurons. As such, we examined effects of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) on GABA(A) receptor responses in primary cultures of rat neocortical cells using fluorescence imaging techniques. Between days in vitro (DIV) 5 and 8, the effect of GABA(A) receptor stimulation switched from excitatory (Ca(2+) entry following a Cl(-) efflux; DIV </=6) to inhibitory (Cl(-) influx without a Ca(2+) rise; DIV >/=7). GABA(A)-receptor-stimulated increases in [Ca(2+)](i) were diminished in a concentration-dependent (1-20 microM) manner following 1 h of exposure to the PCB mixture Aroclor 1254 (A1254), with significant reductions at concentrations as low as 2 microM. A1254 (1-20 microM) also led to concentration-dependent increases in basal [Ca(2+)](i), irrespective of DIV. A1254 (10 and 20 microM) significantly increased basal Ca(2+)(i); the Ca(2+)(i) was elevated to 426 +/- 39 nM by 20 microM A1254 but this concentration was not cytotoxic at 1 h. In addition, the mixture, A1254, as well as ortho- and non-ortho-chlorinated PCB congeners (IUPAC Nos. 4, 15, 126, and 138; 5-10 microM) individually decreased GABA(A)-stimulated Ca(2+)(i) responses and this tended not to depend on increases in basal Ca(2+)(i). In cultures DIV 7 and older, A1254 (20 microM) also impaired inhibitory GABA(A) responses as evidenced by an approximately 50% reduction of GABA(A)-stimulated Cl(-) influx (from approximately 6 to 8 mM net accumulation in controls). The results demonstrate that: (1) GABA(A) receptor increases in Ca(2+)(i) and Cl(-)(i) are inhibited by 2-20 microM A1254, regardless of whether the responses are at excitatory or inhibitory stages of development; (2) Ca(2+)(i) homeostasis in cortical cells is disrupted by 10 microM A1254; yet (3) disruption of excitatory GABA(A) responses by A1254 or PCB congeners does not necessarily depend on impaired Ca(2+) homeostasis. These novel observations suggest that GABA(A) receptor responses are a sensitive target for PCB effects in the rat developing nervous system.
Trail: a track-based logging disk architecture for zero-overhead writes

A novel disk architecture called Trail is proposed to optimize the disk write latency without sacrificing the disk read performance. This architecture features a track-based logging technique, which essentially reduces a disk write latency to the transfer delay. In addition, this disk architecture allows concurrent read/write, and implicit write scheduling without compromising data integrity. Through a synthetic-trace simulation study, we have shown that for transaction processing workloads, the write latency improvement of Trail over conventional disk devices is at least an order of magnitude. Trail's read latency performance is also better in all cases, sometimes the improvement is also over an order of magnitude. In terms of disk bandwidth utilization, the Trail architecture has a close to 100% write bandwidth efficiency and a read bandwidth efficiency at least as good as a conventional disk. <<ETX>>
An Evidence-Based Case for the Value of Social Workers in Efficient Hospital Discharge

A study was undertaken to make an evidence-based case for the value of social workers in efficient discharge of patients from acute care hospitals and to assist hospital managers in making informed staffing decisions. Hospital administrative databases from March 1 to November 30, 2008, were used for the analysis of inpatient discharges on days when social workers were on vacation compared with days fully staffed with social workers. Two performance measures, daily discharge rate and average length of stay, were evaluated. During the study period, 1825 patients were discharged from the General Internal Medicine inpatient service. Team discharge rates were significantly lower on social work vacation Fridays versus regular Fridays. In contrast, the average length of stay for patients discharged on social work vacation Fridays was significantly shorter than that for patients discharged on regular Fridays. It was concluded that daily discharge rate better quantified the role of social work in patient discharge. More generally, these results provide preliminary support for the need for adequate social work staffing in timely and efficient patient discharge.
On the Generation of Sampling Schemes for Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is probably one of the most successful application fields of compressed sensing. Despite recent advances, there is still a large discrepancy between theories and most actual implementations. Overall, many important questions related to sampling theory remain open. In this paper, we attack one of them: given a set of sampling constraints (e.g., measuring Fourier coefficients along physically plausible trajectories), how to optimally design a sampling pattern? We first outline three aspects that should be carefully designed by inspecting the literature, namely admissibility, limit of the empirical measure, and coverage speed. To address them jointly, we then propose an original approach which consists of projecting a probability distribution onto a set of admissible measures. The proposed algorithm permits handling arbitrary constraints and automatically generates efficient sampling patterns for MRI as shown on realistic simulations. We achieve a 20-fold undersampling factor.
Assessment of germ cell apoptosis in cryptorchid rats.

AIM To investigate the relationship between germ cell degeneration and apoptosis in cryptorchid rats. METHODS Thirteen 21-day-old Wistar rats were made unilaterally cryptorchid by closing the left inguinal canal. At day 30 (Group 1, n=6) and day 60 (Group 2, n=7) after operation, the testes were removed for histopathological examination. The controls (n=8) were sham operated and were sacrificed at day 60. Germ cell apoptosis was assessed by means of the TUNEL method. RESULTS Spermatogenesis was arrested and the testicular and seminiferous tubular diameters were significantly reduced In the unilateral undescended testes (UUTs) compared with the contralateral descended testes (CDTs) and the control rats. However, atrophic changes, pathological calcification, necrosis of seminiferous tubule, and absence or sloughing of germ cells were not found in all the animals. The spermatocytes were the main type of germ cells undergoing apoptosis in all the groups. In the UUTs, there was a significant and time-dependent increase in the mean apoptotic index. By 60 days after surgery, increased apoptosis in germ cells was also observed in the CDTs. CONCLUSION Apoptosis is the predominant mechanism of germ cell death rather than atrophy and necrosis in cryptorchidism.
Managing multiple goals during fertility treatment: An interpretative phenomenological analysis

This study investigated how men and women made sense of multiple goals during fertility treatment. Both members of three heterosexual couples participated in two or three semi-structured interviews over 6 months, producing 14 accounts, which were analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. The goal of biological parenthood dominates assumptions in infertility research, but its importance varied between participants, who balanced that goal with retaining emotional well-being, avoiding financial difficulties and maintaining their relationship. These themes are discussed in the context of the self-regulation model, which allows fertility treatment experiences to be conceptualised more broadly than do other models.
Potential application of aqueous two‐phase systems and three‐phase partitioning for the recovery of superoxide dismutase from a clarified homogenate of Kluyveromyces marxianus

Superoxide dismutase (SOD; EC 1.15.1.1) is an antioxidant enzyme that represents the primary cellular defense against superoxide radicals and has interesting applications in the medical and cosmetic industries. In the present work, the partition behavior of SOD in aqueous two‐phase systems (ATPS) (using a standard solution and a complex extract from Kluyveromyces marxianus as sample) was characterized on different types of ATPS (polymer–polymer, polymer–salt, alcohol–salt, and ionic liquid (IL)–salt). The systems composed of PEG 3350‐potassium phosphate, 45% TLL, 0.5 M NaCl (315 U/mg, 87% recovery, and 15.1‐fold purification) and t‐butanol‐20% ammonium sulfate (205.8 U/mg, 80% recovery and 9.8‐fold purification), coupled with a subsequent 100 kDa ultrafiltration stage, allowed the design of a prototype process for the recovery and partial purification of the product of interest. The findings reported herein demonstrate the potential of PEG‐salt ATPS for the potential recovery of SOD. © 2014 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Biotechnol. Prog. , 30:1326–1334, 2014
A new hybrid approach to sentiment classification

With the advancement of the World Wide Web, opinion sharing online has gained a lot of popularity. These opinions are utilized for decision making, market analysis, as well as other applications. The need to harness these opinions, and the motivation behind this need has led to the development and subsequent advancement of the field of Sentiment Analysis. Various issues have arisen from these, such as difficulty in locating these opinions in a body of text, as well as determining the sentiment/polarity of these opinions. To tackle the issue of opinion polarity determination, a number of classification approaches have been developed. These approaches have focused on opinion classification at various levels, such as document, sentence and aspect levels. Most document level approaches treat documents as a bag of words during the classification process, and hence classify them as a whole. The problem with this is that there could be a mixture of opinions directed towards various aspects, within a document. It is therefore imperative to utilize a classification approach which takes into account these constituent opinions. This is the focus of classification approaches which work at the aspect level. Another important factor in the issue of sentiment/polarity classification is the choice of the classification approach. This can be machine learning, lexical/lexicon-based, and more recently, hybrid. The machine learning approaches have the benefits of carrying out classification with high accuracies, and efficiently handling large feature sets, which makes them a favourite choice where high accuracies are desired. They however also have the drawback of difficulty in adaptability, due to the domain dependency of sentiment words. The pure lexicon-based approaches do not achieve the accuracy of the machine learning approaches, but are said to offer more explainable results and take into consideration the information in lexicons. In this work, we present a novel hybrid approach, which incorporates information from lexicons in a machine learning classifier, and takes as features various linguistic knowledge sources. Our novel hybrid approach utilizes transitive dependencies to incorporate the opinions expressed towards different aspects of a document in determining the polarity classification of the whole document. The domain dependency of sentiment words is also addressed through the use of composite features and a domain specific lexicon created in this work. It was found that the use of transitive dependencies in an aspect-focused classification is a promising area, which has the potential of improving aspect based classification once the aspects have been properly determined. It was also found that although using composite features does not necessarily improve the classification accuracy, it gives rise to context rich classifiers, and the domain specific lexicon generated performed on par with the widely used generic lexicon, SentiWordNet.
Inbreeding tolerance and fitness costs in wild bottlenose dolphins

In wild populations, inbreeding tolerance is expected to evolve where the cost of avoidance exceeds that of tolerance. We show that in a wild population of bottlenose dolphins found in East Shark Bay, Western Australia, levels of inbreeding are higher than expected by chance alone, and demonstrate that inbreeding is deleterious to female fitness in two independent ways. We found that inbred females, and females with inbred calves, have reduced fitness (lower calving success). We further show that one of the costs of inbreeding is extended weaning age, and that females' earlier calves are more likely to be inbred. While the exact causes of inbreeding remain obscure, our results indicate that one factor is female age, and thus experience. Any inbreeding avoidance mechanisms such as female evasion of kin, or male dispersal, do not seem to be completely effective in this population, which supports the view that inbreeding avoidance does not always evolve wherever inbreeding incurs a cost.