Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Role of Cognitive Factors in Predicting Balance and Fall Risk in a Neuro-Rehabilitation Setting

Introduction There is a consistent body of evidence supporting the role of cognitive functions, particularly executive function, in the elderly and in neurological conditions which become more frequent with ageing. The aim of our study was to assess the role of different domains of cognitive functions to predict balance and fall risk in a sample of adults with various neurological conditions in a rehabilitation setting. Methods This was a prospective, cohort study conducted in a single centre in the UK. 114 participants consecutively admitted to a Neuro-Rehabilitation Unit were prospectively assessed for fall accidents. Baseline assessment included a measure of balance (Berg Balance Scale) and a battery of standard cognitive tests measuring executive function, speed of information processing, verbal and visual memory, visual perception and intellectual function. The outcomes of interest were the risk of becoming a faller, balance and fall rate. Results Two tests of executive function were significantly associated with fall risk, the Stroop Colour Word Test (IRR 1.01, 95% CI 1.00–1.03) and the number of errors on part B of the Trail Making Test (IRR 1.23, 95% CI 1.03–1.49). Composite scores of executive function, speed of information processing and visual memory domains resulted in 2 to 3 times increased likelihood of having better balance (OR 2.74 95% CI 1.08 to 6.94, OR 2.72 95% CI 1.16 to 6.36 and OR 2.44 95% CI 1.11 to 5.35 respectively). Conclusions Our results show that specific subcomponents of executive functions are able to predict fall risk, while a more global cognitive dysfunction is associated with poorer balance.
Effect of CD4+ cell count and viral suppression on risk of ischemic stroke in HIV infection

Objectives:Evidence from the current era of combination antiretroviral therapy supports an association between HIV and cerebrovascular disease. In addition to traditional vascular risk factors, HIV-specific factors including immunodeficiency and viral replication may also predict stroke risk. The aim of this study was to determine the relationship between CD4+ cell count, viral suppression and validated ischemic stroke outcomes. Design:A single-centre, case–control study. Methods:We identified ischemic stroke cases in HIV-infected adults from an HIV clinic using International Classification of Diseases codes for cerebrovascular disease followed by validation of each case. Controls from the same HIV clinic were selected by incidence density sampling. Demographic and clinical data, including the most recent CD4+ cell count and plasma HIV RNA concentration, were abstracted from hospital and HIV clinic electronic medical records. Matched conditional logistic regression models were used to evaluate the association between CD4+ cell count, viral suppression and ischemic stroke. Results:In an adjusted model, viral suppression decreased the odds of ischemic stroke by a factor of 0.16 [95% confidence interval (95% CI) 0.05–0.50, P = 0.002]. This association, although attenuated [odds ratio (OR) 0.31, 95% CI 0.09–1.06, P = 0.062], remained after restricting the analysis to ischemic strokes due to true atherosclerotic mechanisms (i.e. excluding infection and malignancy-related strokes). Conclusion:Achieving viral suppression may reduce ischemic stroke risk, including risk of atherosclerotic strokes, in HIV-infected individuals.
Measurement Validity in Comparative Welfare State Research: The Case of Measuring Welfare State Generosity

Examining the generosity of welfare states and individual benefit schemes is a classical task in comparative welfare state studies. Three types of welfare states can be discerned based, in part, on their level of benefit generosity. Although significant advances have been made in the development of measures of welfare state generosity, this progress has not been without its challenges and limitations. In this article, the authors examine two sets of limitations related to measurement validity in comparative welfare state research: securing content validation and ensuring comparability across time and place. Through the use of illustrative examples to compare the situation of the unemployed in five European countries across several income levels and two family types, we demonstrate that, by profiling and stacking public benefits using the OECD Tax-Benefit micro-simulation model, we are able to carry out a more informed analysis of the redistributive strategies of the welfare state.
End-organ damage in diabetes : Exploring innovative targets and therapies

Diabetes mellitus (DM) affects the function of blood vessels and various organs, eventually leading to life-threatening DM complications. The prediction of diabetic end-organ damage and exploring novel treatment strategies herein was the topic of this thesis. We first showed that intra-renal small artery function at pre-diabetes predicted an individual’s susceptibility to diabetic nephropathy. DM also increases the risk of brain damage and Alzheimer's disease via derailment of protein homeostasis. We showed that NaHS - a donor of H2S - is a powerful antioxidant compound which attenuated brain protein aggregation DM-rats. The results highlight the role of CBS system – which produces H2S in the brain – and the potential use of NaHS as a novel strategy against protein aggregation in diabetic brain. Anti-diabetic drugs may also exert beneficial effects independent of blood glucose control. Employing an animal model of hypertension, we found that metformin and vildagliptin both reduced blood pressure and improved vascular function. However, when hypertension was combined with insulin-dependent DM the beneficial effects remained after metformin, but not vildagliptin. The results suggest superior vascular pleiotropic effects of metformin compared to vildagliptin in DM. The immunosuppressant drug and sphingosine 1-phosphate (S1P) analog fingolimod – used in the treatment of multiple sclerosis - also exerts pleiotropic effects on vascular function but the mechanisms involved are relative unknown. Our present findings in normal rats now suggest a dual action of fingolimod treatment both on vascular smooth muscle and endothelial cell S1P-receptors; how this translates in DM conditions remains to be determined. This research may help to identify individuals at higher risk of diabetic end-organ damage and provide fuel for novel treatment strategies in DM.
The internal diffusion of new digital innovations : a case of enterprise social networking adoption

Despite a growing interest in processes of diffusion within organisations and some understanding of the social processes of creating and enacting external and internal IT innovations, little empirical research has studied potentially relevant intra-organisational diffusion dynamics underlying the movement of innovations adopted at an organisational level, into the front-line practices of organisational subunits. Furthermore, we know even less about the diffusion processes of non-transactional digital innovations, such as enterprise social networking (ESN). ESNs embedded “ideology of openness” and its nontransactional nature particularly create social tensions that largely run against the grain of organisational rationality and efficiency, pervade key organisational processes and lead to wide variations in how organisational actors interpret and appropriate ESN features within organisations. The goal of this research is to theorize about the institutional mechanisms and processes by which these highly flexible digital innovations become misaligned, aligned and diffused at the micro-level of everyday work, as well as the enabling and precipitating dynamics that condition and trigger these mechanisms. This theorization involved a longitudinal exploration of how different communities of actors in a globally distributed technology services firm appropriated an ESN platform over a four year period, and how managerial intervention shaped appropriation outcomes. These dynamics can be understood through a rhetorical legitimation lens as a process where organisational actors with competing interests use strategic communications, to legitimate and enable the generation of collective meanings around distinctly different IT features and practices. Findings indicate that the core internal diffusion process was intra-organisational theorizing around ESN. Intra-organisational theorizing was an on-going process of elaborating and refining the organisational level theorization for ESN to suit front- line employees in their immediate contexts. In this way, it gradually helped to standardize and scale the ESNs features and functions as it was appropriated by different communities of actors (infusion). In each infusion, intra-organisational theorizing unfolded in three cumulative and relatively sequential phases of legitimation: (1) rationale framing (2) value advertising, and (3) motivating engagement, which were instrumental for respectively managing political, technical and cultural institutional misalignments, and promoting intra-group meaning making. On the other hand, negotiation and inter-group meaning-making was enabled by strategically grafting on other intra-organisational theorizations, and co-opting people, ESN functions, and practices from other infusions. Further, these legitimation processes unfolded as a sequence of primarily pragmatic pathos and logos appeals. In particular, early and on-going logos appeals helped to de-legitimate established, competing technologies, and directly enabled legitimation and collective meaning-making around ESN.
Conditional Knockout of the RNA-Binding Protein HuR in CD4+ T Cells Reveals a Gene Dosage Effect on Cytokine Production

The posttranscriptional mechanisms by which RNA binding proteins (RBPs) regulate T-cell differentiation and cytokine production in vivo remain unclear. The RBP HuR binds to labile mRNAs, usually leading to increases in mRNA stability and/or translation. Previous work demonstrated that HuR binds to the mRNAs encoding the Th2 transcription factor trans-acting T-cell-specific transcription factor (GATA-3) and Th2 cytokines interleukin (IL)-4 and IL-13, thereby regulating their expression. By using a novel conditional HuR knockout (KO) mouse in which HuR is deleted in activated T cells, we show that Th2-polarized cells from heterozygous HuR conditional (OX40-Cre HuRfl/+) KO mice had decreased steady-state levels of Gata3, Il4 and Il13 mRNAs with little changes at the protein level. Surprisingly, Th2-polarized cells from homozygous HuR conditional (OX40-Cre HuRfl/fl) KO mice showed increased Il2, Il4 and Il13 mRNA and protein via different mechanisms. Specifically, Il4 was transcriptionally upregulated in HuR KO T cells, whereas Il2 and Il13 mRNA stabilities increased. Additionally, when using the standard ovalbumin model of allergic airway inflammation, HuR conditional KO mice mounted a robust inflammatory response similar to mice with wild-type HuR levels. These results reveal a complex differential posttranscriptional regulation of cytokines by HuR in which gene dosage plays an important role. These findings may have significant implications in allergies and asthma, as well as autoimmune diseases and infection.
Activation of Coagulation by Administration of Recombinant Factor VIIa Elicits Interleukin 6 (IL-6) and IL-8 Release in Healthy Human Subjects

ABSTRACT The activation of coagulation has been shown to contribute to proinflammatory responses in animal and in vitro experiments. Here we report that the activation of coagulation in healthy human subjects by the administration of recombinant factor VIIa also elicits a small but significant increase in the concentrations of interleukin 6 (IL-6) and IL-8 in plasma. This increase was absent when the subjects were pretreated with recombinant nematode anticoagulant protein c2, the inhibitor of tissue factor-factor VIIa.
Postpartum hysterectomy: A regional multicentre analysis in Italy

To estimate prevalence, indications, risk factors and complications associated with emergency postpartum hysterectomy and to compare different results in Teaching and District Hospitals we designed a retrospective analysis in 34 cases of postpartum hysterectomy performed from 1 January 2002 to 31 December 2006, in three different obstetrics and gynaecology units (one University Hospital and two Regional Hospitals). The prevalence of postpartum hysterectomies was 2.2 per 1,000 deliveries. District Hospitals revealed a significantly increased risk (OR: 2.28). Severe complications were few. No deaths were reported. Considering the totality of patients and cases of District Hospitals, placenta praevia was the main cause of hysterectomy (44.1% and 52.2%, respectively), but uterine atony had a major prevalence in the Teaching Hospital (45.4%). Operating time was significantly longer (p = 0.0001) and the blood loss was significantly more important (p = 0.041) in the Teaching Hospitals.
Factors Affecting Subjective Estimates of Magnitude: When is 9 > 221?

112 undergraduates separately judged the size of the numbers 9 then 221 or 221 then 9 on a 10-point scale or on a continuous line that were both anchored only at the extremes by “very, very small” and “very, very large. ” Replicating the 1999 Birnbaum study, 9 was given a higher rating than 221 when the numbers were judged first by different people on the numerical scale. However, 9 was given a similar or smaller rating than 221 in the other conditions. The results are discussed in terms of context effects.
Evaluation of Thrombopoiesis in Thrombocytopenic Disorders by Simultaneous Measurement of Reticulated Platelets of Whole Blood and Serum Thrombopoietin Concentrations

Summary To evaluate thrombopoiesis in thrombocytopenic disorders, we simultaneously determined reticulated platelet counts in whole blood by FACScan flow cytometry and serum thrombopoietin (TPO) concentrations by a sensitive sandwich ELISA. The subjects were 40 healthy volunteers and 45 thrombocytopenic patients. In idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP), the percentage of reticulated platelets was significantly elevated (5.61 ± 2.02%: mean ± SD) relative to normal controls (2.17 ± 0.90%), but serum TPO concentrations (1.91 ± 1.27 fmol/l) did not differ significantly from the normal range (1.43 ± 0.62 fmol/l). The patients with aplastic anemia (AA) had decreased reticulated platelet counts and markedly increased serum TPO concentrations (13.65 ± 10.64 fmol/l). In thrombocytopenic patients with liver cirrhosis (LC), the absolute number of reticulated platelets (1.65 ± 1.11 × 109/l) decreased similarly that in AA. However, serum TPO concentrations (1.38 ± 0.50 fmol/l) did not increase in contrast to AA. Our findings suggested a possible dual mechanism of thrombocytopenia in LC; that is, thrombocytopenia in LC results from the decreased TPO production primarily in the liver adding to an increase in platelet sequestration in the spleen.
Long-Term Dynamics of the State in Francophone West Africa: Fiscal Capacity Pathways 1850–2010

ABSTRACT This study identifies and analyses common and country-specific patterns in the evolution of the state in francophone West Africa through a detailed comparison of long-term fiscal capacity between Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Niger and Senegal. The study finds common patterns of long-term growth in fiscal capacity in the four countries since the early colonial period, which is indicative of a process of long-term economic development. It also finds significant differences in the historical fiscal pathways between the individual countries in spite of geographic proximity and common colonial heritage, which can be explained by country specific variation in economic and political context and in particular the prospects of key export commodities. These differences provide reasons to be cautious about generalizations about the history of the ‘African state’ and its capacity.
Meta-Analysis in Neuropsychology: Basic Approaches, Findings, and Applications

ABSTRACT This article is a broad review of the approaches, findings, and applications of meta-analyses on clinical neuropsychological topics. The review is divided into four sections: basic characteristics of meta-analysis; the value of meta-analysis for neuropsychological investigations; illustrative findings from various meta-analyses on neuropsychological topics demonstrating the type of questions that can be answered; and problems and limitations of meta-analysis with a focus on future directions. The article is not intended to exhaustively review all the relevant literature nor detail the technical aspects of meta-analytic techniques, but rather it is designed to provide a basic, conceptual introduction for the general reader, particularly the clinician, to aid in comprehension of the now burgeoning literature that uses meta-analysis. Throughout, illustrative examples are developed and references are made to the practice of clinical neuropsychology.
Proteomic responses of human intestinal Caco‐2 cells exposed to silver nanoparticles and ionic silver

Even although quite a number of studies have been performed so far to demonstrate nanoparticle‐specific effects of substances in living systems, clear evidence of these effects is still under debate. The present study was designed as a comparative proteomic analysis of human intestinal cells exposed to a commercial silver nanoparticle reference material and ions from AgNO3. A two‐dimensional gel electrophoresis/MALDI mass spectrometry (MS)‐based proteomic analysis was conducted after 24‐h incubation of differentiated Caco‐2 cells with non‐cytotoxic and low cytotoxic silver concentrations (2.5 and 25 µg ml−1 nanosilver, 0.5 and 5 µg ml−1 AgNO3). Out of an overall number of 316 protein spots differentially expressed at a fold change of ≥ 1.4 or ≤ −1.4 in all treatments, 169 proteins could be identified. In total, 231 spots were specifically deregulated in particle‐treated groups compared with 41 spots, which were limited to AgNO3‐treatments. Forty‐four spots (14 %) were commonly deregulated by both types of treatment. A considerable fraction of the proteins differentially expressed after treatment with nanoparticles is related to protein folding, synthesis or modification of proteins as well as cellular assembly and organization. Overlays of networks obtained for particulate and ionic treatments showed matches, indicating common mechanisms of combined particle and ionic silver exposure and exclusive ionic silver treatment. However, proteomic responses of Caco‐2 cells treated with higher concentrations of silver species also showed some differences, for example regarding proteins related to fatty acid and energy metabolism, suggesting an induction of also some different molecular mechanisms for particle exposure and ionic treatment. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Low Complexity Maximum Likelihood Detection in Spatial Modulation Systems

Spatial Modulation (SM) is a recently developed low-complexity Multiple-Input Multiple-Output scheme that uses antenna indices and a conventional signal set to convey information. It has been shown that the Maximum-Likelihood (ML) detection in an SM system involves joint detection of the transmit antenna index and the transmitted symbol, and hence, the ML search complexity grows linearly with the number of transmit antennas and the size of the signal set. In this paper, we show that the ML search complexity in an SM system becomes independent of the constellation size when the signal set employed is a square- or a rectangular-QAM. Further, we show that Sphere Decoding (SD) algorithms become essential in SM systems only when the number of transmit antennas is large and not necessarily when the employed signal set is large. We propose a novel {\em hard-limiting} enabled sphere decoding detector whose complexity is lesser than that of the existing detector and a generalized detection scheme for SM systems with {\em arbitrary} number of transmit antennas. We support our claims with simulation results that the proposed detectors are ML-optimal and offer a significantly reduced complexity.
Effects of selenite and chelating agents on mammalian thioredoxin reductase inhibited by mercury: implications for treatment of mercury poisoning

Mercury toxicity is a highly interesting topic in biomedicine due to the severe endpoints and treatment limitations. Selenite serves as an antagonist of mercury toxicity’ but the molecular mechanism of detoxification is not clear. Inhibition of the selenoen‐zyme thioredoxin reductase (TrxR) is a suggested mechanism of toxicity. Here, we demonstrated enhanced inhibition of activity by inorganic and organic mercury compounds in NADPH‐reduced TrxR, consistent with binding of mercury also to the active site selenolthiol. On treatment with 5 µM selenite and NADPH’ TrxR inactivated by HgCl2 displayed almost full recovery of activity. Structural analysis indicated that mercury was complexed with TrxR’ but enzyme‐generated selenide removed mercury as mercury selenide’ regenerating the active site selenocysteine and cysteine residues required for activity. The antagonistic effects on TrxR inhibition were extended to endogenous antioxidants’ such as GSH, and clinically used exogenous chelating agents BAL’ DMPS’ DMSA’ and α‐lipoic acid. Consistent with the in vitro results’ recovery of TrxR activity and cell viability by selenite was observed in HgCl2‐treated HEK 293 cells. These results stress the role of TrxR as a target of mercurials and provide the mechanism of selenite as a detoxification agent for mercury poisoning. —Carvalho, C. M. L. , Lu, J., Zhang, X. , Arnér, E. S. J., Holmgren, A. Effects of selenite and chelating agents on mammalian thiore‐doxin reductase inhibited by mercury: implications for treatment of mercury poisoning. FASEB J. 25, 370–381 (2011). www.fasebj. org
Do Crises Induce Reform? A Critical Review of Conception, Methodology and Empirical Evidence of the ‘Crisis Hypothesis’

The notion that economic crises induce the adoption of reform ranks among the most widely accepted concepts in the political economics literature. However, the underlying mechanism of the soâ€ called â€˜crisis hypothesisâ€™ has yet to be fully understood. This paper provides a comprehensive survey of the relevant empirical evidence to date, and scrutinizes the operationalization of the hypothesisâ€™ key concepts: crisis, reform and the political mediation of reform during crises. We argue that the social perception of both crises and the subsequent cost of reform requires consideration of how these concepts are operationalized. As a product of the broader economic and institutional environment, social perceptions largely determine the manner in which the political mediation of reform during crises works. Presentâ€ day methodological approaches fail to adequately reflect social perceptions and consequently compromise the determination of what constitutes both crisis and the cost of reform in the context of the crisis hypothesis. Most notably, the identification of crises by fixed thresholds constructed around macroeconomic variables impedes the interpretation of the hypothesisâ€™ underlying mechanism. A fuller treatment of social perception within the operationalization of the hypothesisâ€™ key concepts can enhance our understanding of how economic crises influence political dynamics in bringing about reform.