Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Two controlled trials of rifabutin prophylaxis against Mycobacterium avium complex infection in AIDS.

BACKGROUND Disseminated Mycobacterium avium complex infection eventually develops in most patients with the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). This infection results in substantial morbidity and reduces survival by about six months. METHODS We conducted two randomized, double-blind, multicenter trials of daily prophylactic treatment with either rifabutin (300 mg) or placebo. All the patients had AIDS and CD4 cell counts < or = 200 per cubic millimeter. The primary end point was M. avium complex bacteremia as assessed monthly by blood culture. The secondary end points were signs and symptoms associated with disseminated M. avium complex infection, adverse events, hospitalization, and survival. RESULTS In the first trial, M. avium complex bacteremia developed in 51 of 298 patients (17 percent) assigned to placebo and 24 of 292 patients (8 percent) assigned to rifabutin (P < 0.001). In the second trial, bacteremia developed in 51 of 282 patients in the placebo group (18 percent) and 24 of 274 patients in the rifabutin group (9 percent) (P = 0.002). Rifabutin significantly delayed fatigue, fever, decline in the Karnofsky performance score (by > or = 20 percent), decline in the hemoglobin level (by more than 10 percent), elevation in alkaline phosphatase, and hospitalization. The incidence of adverse events was similar with rifabutin and placebo. Overall survival did not differ significantly between the two groups, although there were fewer deaths with rifabutin (33) than with placebo (47) during the double-blind phase (P = 0.086). The distribution of minimal inhibitory concentrations of rifabutin among the isolates of M. avium complex did not differ significantly between the treatment groups. CONCLUSIONS Rifabutin, given prophylactically, reduces the frequency of disseminated M. avium complex infection in patients with AIDS and CD4 counts < or = 200 per cubic millimeter.
Correlates of Antiretroviral Therapy Adherence among HIV-Infected Older Adults

Background: Despite the success of antiretroviral therapy (ART), HIV-infected older African Americans experience higher mortality rates compared to their white counterparts. This disparity may be partly attributable to the differences in ART adherence by different racial and gender groups. The purpose of this study was to describe demographic, psychosocial, and HIV disease-related factors that influence ART adherence and to determine whether race and gender impact ART adherence among HIV-infected adults aged 50 years and older. Methods: This descriptive study involved a secondary analysis of baseline data from 426 participants in “PRIME,” a telephone-based ART adherence and quality-of-life intervention trial. Logistic regression was used to examine the association between independent variables and ART adherence. Results: Higher annual income and increased self-efficacy were associated with being ≥95% ART adherent. Race and gender were not associated with ART adherence. Conclusion: These findings indicated that improvements in self-efficacy for taking ART may be an effective strategy to improve adherence regardless of race or gender.
Evidence for Strengthening of the Tropical General Circulation in the 1990s

Satellite observations suggest that the thermal radiation emitted by Earth to space increased by more than 5 watts per square meter, while reflected sunlight decreased by less than 2 watts per square meter, in the tropics over the period 1985–2000, with most of the increase occurring after 1990. By analyzing temporal changes in the frequency of occurrence of emitted thermal and reflected solar fluxes, the effects of El Niño–Southern Oscillation are minimized, and an independent longer-time-scale variation of the radiation budget is identified. Similar analyses of upper tropospheric humidity, cloud amount, surface air temperature, and vertical velocity confirm that these flux changes are associated with a decadal-time-scale strengthening of the tropical Hadley and Walker circulations. Equatorial convective regions have intensified in upward motion and moistened, while both the equatorial and subtropical subsidence regions have become drier and less cloudy.
Dedicated Myosin Light Chain Kinases with Diverse Cellular Functions*

Cell signaling events that lead to increased [Ca]i 1 in smooth and skeletal muscles activate Ca/calmodulin-dependent MLCK. The kinase phosphorylates a specific site on the N terminus of the RLC of the molecular motor myosin II (1–3). RLC phosphorylation is sufficient to initiate contraction in smooth muscle, but in striated muscles, RLC phosphorylation potentiates the force and speed of contractions that are dependent on Ca binding to troponin on actin-containing thin filaments. The only known physiological substrate for MLCK is myosin RLC; thus, it is a dedicated protein kinase. Interest in RLC phosphorylation has increased substantially with recent reports implicating phosphorylation-dependent myosin II activity in many functions of nonmuscle cells. These include cell spreading and migration, neurite growth cone advancement, cytokinesis, cytoskeletal clustering of integrins at focal adhesions, stress fiber formation, platelet shape changes, secretion, transepithelial permeability, and cytoskeletal arrangements that affect ion currents or exchange at the plasma membrane (4–8). The potential importance of RLC phosphorylation in pathophysiological processes involving cell migration is apparent, but less obvious involvements may include cerebral vasospasm (9), increased endothelial permeability during inflammation (10), and asthma (11).
Tuning MPC for desired closed-loop performance for SISO systems

Model Predictive Control (MPC) is widely used in the process industries. A successful implementation of MPC involves the setting of a considerable number of parameters which must be appropriately tuned. Despite a number of publications on MPC tuning, there is a lack of a systematic approach that relates MPC tuning to linear control theory. In this paper, a systematic tuning of the prediction horizon, the control horizon and the penalty weights is discussed such that desired closed-loop pole and zero locations result as long as the constraints are not active. We verify our approach on two challenging examples.
No evidence of association between a dopamine transporter gene polymorphism (1215A/G) and Parkinson's disease

Extensive epidemiological evidence indicates that prolonged treatment with nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) significantly reduces risk, delays onset, and reduces symptomatic severity of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Reports that the inflammatory enzyme nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) is expressed in neurons in AD suggest that neuronal iNOS can contribute to AD pathology. These findings led to the recognition that the etiology of AD involves a significant inflammatory component. However, the mechanisms underlying NSAID’s beneficial actions are unclear. The well-characterized action of NSAIDs is inhibition of cyclooxygenases (COX) and thereby prostanoid synthesis. However, COX inhibition alone is unlikely to account for the beneficial action of NSAIDs, insofar as their therapeutic effects occur at concentrations higher than those needed for COX inhibition, and, in a recent AD clinical trial, the selective COX2 inhibitor celecoxib was not protective. Similarly, we find that inhibition of neuronal and microglia activation by NSAIDs, but not by the selective COX2 inhibitor NS-398, prevents neuronal cell death but only at concentrations higher than those that inhibit COX. Together, these data support the existence of alternate targets for NSAID actions. It was recently recognized that NSAIDs directly activate members of the nuclear hormone receptor peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR) family. PPARs play a central role in dietary fat and glucose metabolism, which led to the development of antidiabetic thiazolinediones (TZDs) that are in clinical use for type II diabetes (Rezulin, Actos, Avandia). Recently it was shown that activation of the PPARg isoform (PPARg) attenuates proinflammatory gene expression in macrophages and glial cells and blocks neuronal iNOS expression. These results were obtained using structurally distinct ligands, including TZDs, the natural agonist prostaglandin J2, and NSAIDs, including indomethacin and ibuprofen. In our models of neurotoxicity, protective effects were obtained with TZDs, demonstrating the antiinflammatory effectiveness of PPARg activation in these systems. We therefore suggest, based on epidemiological and experimental evidence, that the effects of NSAIDs in AD are mediated principally through activation of PPARg, which is expressed in normal brain and increased in AD. PPARg agonists are an attractive therapeutic option in aged, at-risk populations, as demonstrated prospectively by the ability of NSAIDs to reduce risk and delay the onset of AD in aged populations. Because highly specific PPARg agonists are in clinical use, these drugs can be evaluated in clinical trials for AD.
Pharmacotherapies for the treatment of glioblastoma – current evidence and perspectives

ABSTRACT Introduction: Glioblastoma, the most common malignant brain tumor, exhibits a poor prognosis with little therapeutic progress in the last decade. Novel treatment strategies beyond the established standard of care with temozolomide-based radiotherapy are urgently needed. Areas covered: We reviewed the literature on glioblastoma with a focus on phase III trials for pharmacotherapies and/or innovative concepts until December 2015. Expert opinion: In the last decade, phase III trials on novel compounds largely failed to introduce efficacious pharmacotherapies beyond temozolomide in glioblastoma. So far, inhibition of angiogenesis by compounds such as bevacizumab, cediranib, enzastaurin or cilengitide as well as alternative dosing schedules of temozolomide did not prolong survival, neither at primary diagnosis nor at recurrent disease. Promising strategies of pharmacotherapy currently under evaluation represent targeting epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) with biomarker-stratified patient populations and immunotherapeutic concepts including checkpoint inhibition and vaccination. The clinical role of the medical device delivering ‘tumor-treating fields’ in newly diagnosed glioblastoma which prolonged overall survival in a phase III study has remained controversial. After failure of several phase III trials with previously promising agents, improvement of concepts and novel compounds are urgently needed to expand the still limited therapeutic options for the treatment of glioblastoma.
The Half-Zöllner Illusion

The Zöllner figure contains stacks of short parallel segments oriented obliquely to the direction of the stack. Adjacent parallel stacks of opposite polarity seem to diverge where their top segments form an arrowhead. To probe whether or not the opposite polarities are necessary to the illusion, three ‘half-Zöllner’ configurations were designed, containing stacks of a single polarity. The ‘orientation profile’ of these configurations was studied, that is, the way the strength of the perceived illusion varies with the orientation of the stacks. The subjects had to align two stacks or align stacks with target segments situated at a slight distance from them. All three half-Zöllner configurations produced errors that could be assimilated to global-orientation misjudgments. These errors were of opposite sign for the two types of stacks and varied with the orientation of the stacks as in the standard Zöllner illusion. A further study was conducted in which the effect of several configurational parameters was explored for a single observer. The standard Zöllner illusion increases with the separation of the stacks. The illusion is also increased when the orientations of the segments in different stacks are orthogonal, independently of the particular longitudinal orientations of the stacks. When the ends of the short segments are curved so that at their endpoints they become precisely perpendicular to the axis of the stacks, the standard and half-Zöllner illusions are reduced, but not abolished. Therefore, they cannot be entirely accounted for by a mechanism of alignment of illusory contours generated at these endpoints. The results are consistent with the existence of a single common mechanism at work in both the standard and the half-Zöllner illusion. It is suggested that the illusion itself is not a rotation of the stacks but either a shear deformation in which the segments of a stack slide with respect to one another, or an expansion of the stacks orthogonally to the segments.
Morphologic changes in pulmonary oxygen toxicity.

Exposure to high concentrations of oxygen has been demonstrated to cause alterations throughout the respiratory tract in humans and other animals. Changes occur in the airway epithelium, the arterial vascular bed, the alveolar septa, and in the pleural space. Atelectasis, interstitial and alveolar edema, pleural effusions, and changes in cell function and structure occur. The morphologic changes that occur in the lung in response to inhalation of high concentrations of oxygen were first described in 1897-1899 by J. Lorraine Smith (24, 25) who characterized the acute histologic features as including atelectasis, inflammation, and vascular congestion, with death due to con­ solidation of the lungs from congestion and exudation into the alveoli. This has subsequently been defined as the early or exudative phase of severe pulmonary oxygen toxicity. Multiple investigators have confirmed similar morphologic patterns in a wide variety of animal species (6), including primates (19) and man (14, 18, 22). Among the most dramatic effects are those involving the cells of the alveolar septum. Kistler et al (20) used electron microscopy to identify qualitatively and quantitatively many of the changes occurring in rat lungs. The earliest change was a twofold increase in the width of the interstitial space caused initially by edema. Subsequently the number of interstitial cells and interstitial matrix elements increased. The capillary endothelial cell was identified as one of the primary targets of oxygen-mediated cell injury; cytoplasmic changes in these endothelial cells were followed by fragmentation and cell destruction. These changes in the lung microvasculature are those most closely associated with events leading to death of animals given lethal doses of hyperoxia.
A MODAL EXTENSION OF FIRST ORDER CLASSICAL LOGIC{Part II

We expand classical first order logic by formalizing a fragment of its metatheory, namely adding a predicate “is a theorem” (`) in its modes of expression. We do this by embedding the classical logic into a very basic version of modal logic, letting the latter’s modal operator play the role of the predicate “is a theorem”. We conclude with a number of illustrations of use and a proof of the conservatism of the extended logic: If it proves A for a classical formula A, then A is indeed a classical theorem.
Coupled Reactions in Hemoglobin.

Five different human hemoglobins were used to test the postulate that dissociation of hemoglobin (Hb) tetramers into αβ dimers and dissociation of heme from globin are linked reactions. Spectrophotometric measurements of the initial rate of heme transfer from Hb to serum albumin were made over a 3000-fold range of Hb concentration and yielded the heme-globin dissociation rate constant for tetramers and that for dimers. The tetramer-dimer dissociation constant (K) could then be calculated from the rate constant at intermediate concentrations. The values obtained for the five hemoglobins, spanning a 250-fold range in K, were in good agreement with those found by direct methods. The relation between this new linkage reaction of hemoglobin and the classical ones, such as the reciprocal relation between the binding of oxygen and protons, is discussed briefly.
Limb Amputation and Limb Deficiency: Epidemiology and Recent Trends in the United States

Background. The purpose of this study was to provide a comprehensive perspective on the epidemiology and time trends in the incidence of limb amputations and limb deficiency in the United States. Methods. Data from the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project from 1988 through 1996 were used to calculate rates of congenital deficiency, trauma-related, cancer-related, and dysvascular amputations in the United States. Trends over time in adjusted rates were then examined using linear regression techniques. Results. Dysvascular amputations accounted for 82% of limb loss discharges and increased over the period studied. Over all years, the estimated increase in the rate of dysvascular amputations was 27%. Rates of trauma-related and cancer-related amputations both declined by approximately half. The incidence of congenital deficiencies remained stable. Conclusions. The risk of amputations increased with age for all causes and was highest among blacks having dysvascular amputations. Increasing risk of dysvascular amputations, particularly among elderly and minority populations, is of concern and warrants further investigation.
Effect of Biofertilizer Application on Growth Parameters of Spathiphyllum illusion

Biofertilizers have some microorganisms which convert elements to available nutrient for plant's roots. This study was conducted to investigate the effects of biofertilizers and chemical fertilizers on growth indices of Spathiphyllum illusion. This trial was carried out in a Randomized complete block design (RCBD) in 3 replications. Treatments were: control (without fertilizer), Nitrokara (nitrogen biofertilizer), urea, Nitrokara + urea, Barvar-2 (phosphate biofertilizer), triple super phosphate, triple super phosphate + Barvar-2, Barvar-2 + Nitrokara. The results showed that "triple super phosphate + Barvar 2" treatment resulted in increasing leaves number, dry and fresh weight of leaves and the size of spadix. "Barvar-2 + Nitrokara" has the best effect on leaf size, height of flower stalk and chlorophyll content. The maximum amount of absorbing nitrogen was obtained under urea application.
The Effect of Ownership Structure on Dividend Payout Policy: Evidence from Jordanian Context

This research examines the possible association between ownership structure and Jordanian industrial public shareholding companies’ dividend payout policy. The present study examines the payout behavior of dividends for Jordanian industrial public shareholding companies over the period 2005-2007. The results consistently support that there is positive and significant relation between foreign ownership structure and the dividends payout policy through Tobin’s Q. However, the results document significant relationship between foreign ownership structure, company size and debt ratio and dividends policy measured by return on assets (ROA).
Regulation of Cyclooxygenase-2 and Prostaglandin F Synthase Gene Expression by Steroid Hormones and Interferon-τ in Bovine Endometrial Cells.

Estradiol (E2) and progesterone are responsible for regulating PG synthesis in the endometrium during the estrous cycle and interferon-τ (IFN-τ) alters PG synthesis during early pregnancy in ruminants. In this study, we examined the effects of these steroid hormones and recombinant bovine IFN-τ (rbIFN-τ) on PG production and on cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) and PG F (PGF) synthase (PGFS) gene expression in isolated endometrial cells. E2 decreased both PGF2α and PG E2 (PGE2) whereas progesterone increased PGF2α secretion in epithelial cells. Steroid hormones had no effect on PG production in stromal cells. rbIFN-τ attenuated both PGF2α and PGE2 production in epithelial cells and enhanced their production, and the ratio of PGE2 to PGF2α, in stromal cells. Northern blot analysis showed that E2 and rbIFN-τ decreased COX-2 messenger RNA (mRNA) levels in epithelial cells. Conversely, rbIFN-τ increased COX-2 mRNA in stromal cells. Furthermore, rbIFN-τ decreased PGFS mRNA in both cell types and this was associated wit.
Effectiveness of Continuity-of-Care Programs to reduce time in hospital in persons with schizophrenia

Aims. To assess the impact of the Continuity-of-Care Program (CCP; a clinical case management model) on hospital use of persons with schizophrenia in three Community Mental Health Services in Madrid (Spain). Methods. Using data provided by the Psychiatric Case Register, we analyzed the use of hospitalization in 250 individuals before and after the date of inclusion in this program. Results. During the first year after launching the program, there was a 40–69% reduction in the number of admissions, length of each hospital stay, proportion of admitted patients, total number of days in-hospital, proportion of patients visiting the emergency room, and emergency room visits. This drop was maintained over the subsequent 3 years of program functioning. Conclusions. These results encourage the development and implementation of such programs, even though more studies evaluating the effectiveness of these programs for other endpoints are needed.
Taking a Walk on the Supply Side

When and why do states transfer nuclear technology, materials, and knowledge to other states for peaceful purposes? This question is important given the recent finding that countries receiving nuclear aid are more likely to pursue and acquire nuclear weapons. I argue that countries provide civil nuclear assistance for three strategic reasons: to strengthen their allies and alliances, to strengthen their relationship with enemies of enemies, and to strengthen existing democracies and bilateral relationships with these countries (if the supplier is also a democracy). I test these arguments using statistical analysis and a new data set on more than 2,000 bilateral civilian nuclear cooperation agreements signed between 1950 and 2000. The findings offer robust empirical support for my argument and very little support for the competing explanation rooted in norms and nonproliferation. This article enhances scholarly understanding of how and why nuclear weapons spread and encourages further research on the supply side of nuclear proliferation. It also has broad implications for the literatures on norms and international cooperation.
Impact of ethnicity on urodynamic outcomes

The aim of this study was to assess the impact of ethnicity on urodynamic outcomes. The urodynamic studies (UDS) of 100 women were analysed; 41 were of white Caucasian origin, 35 of Asian origin and 24 of African origin. The presence of detrusor overactivity (DOA) in the three ethnic groups was compared and the nature of DOA in terms of cystometric capacity, volume of strong desire, maximum flow rate (Qmax), volume at which DOA occurred, mean amplitude of contraction and number of contractions, were compared. Asian (p < 0.003) and African (p < 0.008) women were more likely to have a diagnosis of DOA compared with white Caucasian women. There was no difference in UDS outcomes when comparing Asian and African Women. The ethnicity did not appear to impact significantly on the nature of the DOA. Women of Asian and African origin attending for UDS presented with DOA more commonly than those of white Caucasian origin.