Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Fibrillary glomerulonephritis: a report of 66 cases from a single institution.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Fibrillary glomerulonephritis (FGN) is a rare primary glomerular disease. Most previously reported cases were idiopathic. To better define the clinical-pathologic spectrum and prognosis, we report the largest single-center series with the longest follow-up. DESIGN, SETTING, PARTICIPANTS, & MEASUREMENTS The characteristics of 66 FGN patients who were seen at Mayo Clinic, Rochester, between 1993 and 2010 are provided. RESULTS The mean age at diagnosis was 53 years. Ninety-five percent of patients were white, and the female:male ratio was 1.2:1. Underlying malignancy (most commonly carcinoma), dysproteinemia, or autoimmune disease (most commonly Crohn's disease, SLE, Graves' disease, and idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura), were present in 23, 17, and 15% of patients, respectively. Presentation included proteinuria (100%), nephrotic syndrome (38%), renal insufficiency (66%), hematuria (52%), and hypertension (71%). The most common histologic pattern was mesangial proliferative/sclerosing GN followed by membranoproliferative GN. During an average of 52.3 months of follow-up for 61 patients with available data, 13% had complete or partial remission, 43% had persistent renal dysfunction, and 44% progressed to ESRD. The disease recurred in 36% of 14 patients who received a kidney transplant. Independent predictors of ESRD by multivariate analysis were older age, higher creatinine and proteinuria at biopsy, and higher percentage of global glomerulosclerosis. CONCLUSIONS Underlying malignancy, dysproteinemia, or autoimmune diseases are not uncommon in patients with FGN. Prognosis is poor, although remission may occur in a minority of patients without immunosuppressive therapy. Age, degree of renal impairment at diagnosis, and degree of glomerular scarring are predictors of renal survival.
Emerging therapeutic targets for synovial sarcoma

Synovial sarcoma is part of soft tissue sarcomas, an uncommon group of malignant tumors of mesenchymal origin. Unfortunately, a very limited number of useful drugs are active for most advanced synovial sarcoma. These tumors showed VEGF expression, and elevated serum VEGF levels correlate with higher histologic tumor grade. Inhibition of VEGFR was associated with tumor activity in preclinical models of synovial sarcoma and drugs such as sorafenib, pazopanib and bevacizumab have been employed in synovial sarcoma in monotherapy and in combination with chemotherapy. Other targets such as EGFR, HER2, IGFR-1R and mTOR have been exploited, but their inhibition by drugs such as gefitinib, trastuzumab, figitumumab, and temsirolimus, has not resulted in meaningful activity. Newer approaches include CXCR4 inhibition, immune-based therapies (NY-ESO-1), targeting epigenetic misregulation with HDAC inhibitors and targeting developmental pathways such Notch and Hedgehog. This review will summarize achievements and pitfalls of drugs against emerging therapeutic targets for synovial sarcoma.
The Effects of Customer Satisfaction, Relationship Commitment Dimensions, and Triggers on Customer Retention

In a study of telecommunications services, the authors examine the effects of customer satisfaction, affective commitment, and calculative commitment on retention. The study further examines the potential for situational and reactional trigger conditions to moderate the satisfaction–retention relationship. The results support consistent effects of customer satisfaction, calculative commitment, and prior churn on retention. Prior churn also moderates the satisfaction–retention relationship. The results have implications for both customer relationship managers and researchers who use satisfaction surveys to predict behavior.
Breastfeeding problems in first six months of life in Rural Karnataka.

The present study was conducted to document the breastfeeding problems encountered in a rural community and to know the reasons for starting top feeds in infants less than 6 months of life. Using the stratified sampling method, 420 mother infant pairs were enrolled from 224 villages of Central Karnataka. Out of these 338 (80.5%) were practicing exclusive breastfeeding, 82 (19.5%) had started on top feeds. Seven (1.7 %) mothers had completely stopped breastfeeding. Bottle feeding was practiced by 39% of mothers. Maximal onset of breastfeeding problem was noted in the first two weeks of neonatal period. Breastfeeding problems are not uncommon even in a predominantly breastfeeding rural community.
Asset Pricing with Downside Liquidity Risks

We develop a parsimonious liquidity-adjusted downside capital asset pricing model to investigate whether phenomena such as downward liquidity spirals and flights to liquidity impact expected asset returns. We find strong empirical support for the model. Downside liquidity risk (sensitivity of stock liquidity to negative market returns) has an economically meaningful return premium that is 10 times larger than its symmetric analogue. The expected liquidity level and downside market risk are also associated with meaningful return premiums. Downside liquidity risk and its associated premium are higher during periods of low marketwide liquidity and for stocks that are relatively small, illiquid, volatile, and have high book-to-market ratios. These results are consistent with investors requiring compensation for holding assets susceptible to adverse liquidity phenomena. Our findings suggest that mitigation of downside liquidity risk can lower firms cost of capital.
Safety and Pharmacokinetics of Coadministered Voriconazole and Anidulafungin

There is considerable interest in combining echinocandin and triazole antifungal agents for treatment of invasive fungal infections; however, information is needed regarding the tolerability and potential for pharmacokinetic interactions. Anidulafungin is a semisynthetic echinocandin, and voriconazole is an extended‐spectrum triazole. In a random sequence, 17 subjects received anidulafungin with placebo, voriconazole with placebo, and anidulafungin with voriconazole. Anidulafungin was administered intravenously: 200 mg on day 1, then 100 mg/d on days 2 through 4. Voriconazole was administered orally: 400 mg every 12 hours on day 1, then 200 mg every 12 hours on days 2 to 4. No dose‐limiting toxicities or serious adverse events occurred, and all adverse events were mild and consistent with the known safety profiles of both drugs. Pharmacokinetic parameters were not affected by coadministration. The geometric mean ratio (90% confidence interval) of the combination/drug alone for AUCss was 97.4% (94.9–99.9), 97.4% (92.1–103.0), and 94.4% (87.0–102.5) for anidulafungin, voriconazole, and the voriconazole metabolite, respectively.
[Histology does not accurately predict the clinical behaviour of bronchopulmonary carcinoids - results from an Icelandic population-based study].

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Bronchopulmonary carcinoids (BPC) are rare tumors of neuroendocrine origin. These tumors are histologically classified into two distinctive forms, typical and the more malignant atypical BPC. We evaluated the epidemiology and results of treatment for BPC in Iceland with special emphasis on how atypical vs. typical histology relates to clinical behavior. MATERIAL AND METHODS This retrospective nation-wide study included all cases of BPC diagnosed in Iceland from 1955-2005. Histology of all the cases was reviewed and survival was based on data obtained from medical records and vital statistics. RESULTS BPC was diagnosed in 64 patients (22 males, mean age 49 yrs.), accounting for 1.9% of all lung neoplasms in Iceland. Average tumor-diameter was 2.5 cm (range 0.4-5.5), with typical histology in 54 (84%) and atypical in 10 patients (16%). Altogether 56 patients (87.5%) were operated on, most with lobectomy (82.1%). Forty eight patients were diagnosed in TNM stage I, two patients in stage II, four patients had mediastinal lymph node metastases (stage III) and distant metastases were diagnosed in 6 patients (stage IV), 2 of whom had typical histology. At follow-up, 5 out of 64 patients had died of the disease (7.8%), two of them with typical histology. Five-year disease specific survival was 96% for patients with typical and 70% with atypical histology (p<0.05). CONCLUSION BPCs usually behave as benign neoplasms, with excellent long-term survival after surgical removal. Metastases are more common in patients with atypical histology (40%), and their survival is worse. However patients with typical histology can metastasize (14.8%) and die from the disease. Therefore, histology (typical vs. atypical) can not be used with certainty to predict the clinical behaviour of these tumors.
Perspectives of academic web content managers on the effectiveness of web publishing and web hosting policies

The development of policy to handle the increasingly diverse issues that arise from web content management is becoming a concern for academic institutions. An exploratory investigation that seeks institutional web content manager perspectives from higher educational settings on current web publishing and hosting policy and issues is presented as a mixed-method research design, using both quantitative and qualitative methodologies, to investigate how field factors influence policy creation. A web-based version of a survey instrument was designed, piloted, and implemented for this investigation, and data is presented, and discussed in relation to current field literature. Findings indicate that web hosting and publishing policies increasingly fall under the purview of institutional Communications or Public Relations departments and that policy elements concerning web content do not yet match field recommendations in several key areas.
Predicting aberrant behaviors in opioid-treated patients: preliminary validation of the Opioid Risk Tool.

OBJECTIVE To provide clinicians with a brief screening tool to predict accurately which individuals may develop aberrant behaviors when prescribed opioids for chronic pain. DESIGN One hundred and eighty-five consecutive new patients treated in one pain clinic took the self-administered Opioid Risk Tool (ORT). The ORT measured the following risk factors associated in scientific literature with substance abuse: personal and family history of substance abuse; age; history of preadolescent sexual abuse; and certain psychological diseases. Patients received scores of 0-3 (low risk), 4-7 (moderate risk), or >or= 8 (high risk), indicating the probability of their displaying opioid-related aberrant behaviors. All patients were monitored for aberrant behaviors for 12 months after their initial visits. RESULTS For those patients with a risk category of low, 17 out of 18 (94.4%) did not display an aberrant behavior. For those patients with a risk category of high, 40 out of 44 (90.9%) did display an aberrant behavior. The authors used the c statistic to validate the ORT, because it simultaneously assesses sensitivity and specificity. The ORT displayed excellent discrimination for both the male (c = 0.82) and the female (c = 0.85) prognostic models. CONCLUSION In a preliminary study, among patients prescribed opioids for chronic pain, the ORT exhibited a high degree of sensitivity and specificity for determining which individuals are at risk for opioid-related, aberrant behaviors. Further studies in a variety of pain and nonpain settings are needed to determine the ORT's universal applicability.
Sulfate Reduction in Freshwater Sediments Receiving Acid Mine Drainage

One arm of Lake Anna, Va. , receives acid mine drainage (AMD) from Contrary Creek (SO42− concentration = 2 to 20 mM, pH = 2.5 to 3.5). Acid-volatile sulfide concentrations, SO42− reduction rates, and interstitial SO42− concentrations were measured at various depths in the sediment at four stations in four seasons to assess the effects of the AMD-added SO42− on bacterial SO42− reduction. Acid-volatile sulfide concentrations were always an order of magnitude higher at the stations receiving AMD than at a control station in another arm of the lake that received no AMD. Summer SO42− reduction rates were also an order of magnitude higher at stations that received AMD than at the control station (226 versus 13.5 mmol m−2 day−1), but winter values were inconclusive, probably due to low sediment temperature (6°C). Profiles of interstitial SO42− concentrations at the AMD stations showed a rapid decrease with depth (from 1,270 to 6 μM in the top 6 cm) due to rapid SO42− reduction. Bottom-water SO42− concentrations in the AMD-receiving arm were highest in winter and lowest in summer. These data support the conclusion that there is a significant enhancement of SO42− reduction in sediments receiving high SO42− inputs from AMD.
Discovering thematic knowledge from code-mixed chat messages using topic model

In current times, the trend of mixing two or more languages together (code-mixing) in communication on social media is very popular. Such code-mixed chat data is enormously generated and is usually noisy, sparse and exhibits high dispersion of useful topics which people discuss. In such a scenario, it is very challenging to automatically extract relevant thematic information which contributes to useful knowledge. In order to discover latent themes from multilingual data, a standard topic model called Probabilistic Latent Semantic Analysis (PLSA) is used in existing literature. However, it addresses the inter-sentence multilingualism. In this paper, we propose a novel method which is basically based on co-occurrences of words within a code-mixed message. Thus built co-occurrence matrix for chat is exposed to PLSA which is used to discover thematic knowledge from it. In such code-mixed chat text, inter-sentence, intra-sentence and intra-word level code mixing may randomly occur. We have proved with extensive experiments that it is possible to use this strategy to discover latent themes from semantic topic clusters. We tested our system using FIRE 2014 dataset.
Elevated rates of whole body protein metabolism in patients with disseminated malignancy in the immediate postoperative period

Protein metabolism after surgery in the presence of disseminated malignancy has been investigated and compared with results obtained from patients undergoing similar surgical procedures for benign disease and localized malignancy. Whole body nitrogen turnover, measured by primed continuous infusion of15 N glycine, was highest with disseminated malignancy. Similarly rates of whole body protein synthesis and breakdown, calculated from turnover and nitrogen excretion (nitrogen intake being zero), were elevated in the presence of disseminated malignant disease. The increased rates of protein metabolism may represent adaptation to the demands of inevitably growing malignant tissue.
Variation in eggshell characteristics and in intrauterine egg retention between two oviparous clades of the lizard lacerta vivipara: insight into the oviparity–viviparity continuum in squamates

The concept of the oviparity–viviparity continuum refers to the wide range in the length of intrauterine egg retention and, hence, in the stage of embryonic development at oviposition existing in squamates. The evolutionary process underlying this continuum may involve not only a lengthening of egg retention in utero, but also a marked reduction in the thickness of the eggshell. The idea that there may exist a negative correlation between the developmental stage reached by the embryo at oviposition and the eggshell thickness within squamates, although supported by the comparison of oviparous vs. viviparous species, has seldom been evaluated by comparing eggshell thickness of oviparous forms with different lengths of intrauterine egg retention. Eggs of two distinct oviparous clades of the lizard Lacerta vivipara were compared. The eggs laid by females from Slovenian and Italian populations have thicker eggshells, contain embryos on average less developed at the time of oviposition, and require a longer incubation period before hatching than the eggs laid by females from French oviparous populations. Our data and several other examples available from the literature support the idea that the lengthening of intrauterine retention of eggs and the shortening of the subsequent external incubation of eggs are associated with reduction in the thickness of the eggshell, at least in some lineages of oviparous squamates. The current hypotheses that may account for this correlation are presented and a few restrictions and refinements to those hypotheses are discussed. In particular, other changes, such as increased vascularization of the oviduct and of the extraembryonic membranes, may play the same role as the decrease of eggshell thickness in facilitating prolonged intrauterine egg retention in squamates. Future studies should also consider the hypothesis that the length of intrauterine retention might directly depend on the extent of maternal–fetal chemical communication through the eggshell barrier. J. Morphol. 252:255–262, 2002. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Low-Complexity, Efficient 9/7 Wavelet Filters VLSI Implementation

This brief proposes a novel low-complexity, efficient 9/7 wavelet filters VLSI architecture for image compression applications. The performance of a hardware implementation of the 9/7 filter bank depends on the accuracy of coefficients representation. The aim of this work is to show that great complexity reduction with excellent performance can be achieved going through the derivation of the 9/7 taps values
Carriage of Vibrio species by shrimps harvested from the coastal waters of South West Cameroon.

OBJECTIVES To determine the prevalence of Vibrio spp in unprocessed shrimps and their susceptibility to antibiotics. DESIGN A prospective study of Vibrio spp associated with shrimps harvested from the coastal waters of South West Cameroon. SETTING A laboratory based study at the Department of Life Sciences, University of Buea. Two hundred and thirty six shrimps harvested from the coastal towns of Limbe and Tiko, Cameroon, were examined for the prevalence of Vibrio spp using standard microbiologic procedures. The antibiotic sensitivity of isolates was determined using the Kirby-Bauer disc diffusion technique. RESULTS Of the 236 shrimps examined, 73 (30.9%) were contaminated with Vibrio spp. Further, a total of 125 Vibrio strains were isolated from the contaminated shrimps. Of this number, 33 (26.4%) were V. cholerae, 55 (44%) V. parahaemolyticus, 34 (27.2%) V. alginolyticus and three (2.4%) V. vulnificus. Antibiotic susceptibility generally ranged from 68.8% for polymyxin B to 99.2% for gentamycin. Multiple resistant strains were noted, especially with V. parahaemolyticus and V. alginolyticus CONCLUSION Shrimps maintain a reservoir of potential Vibrio spp in the coastal area of South West Cameroon. This finding is of epidemiologic and clinical significance.
A mathematical model for adaptive prediction of environmental changes by microorganisms

Survival in natural habitats selects for microorganisms that are well-adapted to a wide range of conditions. Recent studies revealed that cells evolved innovative response strategies that extend beyond merely sensing a given stimulus and responding to it on encounter. A diversity of microorganisms, including Escherichia coli, Vibrio cholerae, and several yeast species, were shown to use a predictive regulation strategy that uses the appearance of one stimulus as a cue for the likely arrival of a subsequent one. A better understanding of such a predictive strategy requires elucidating the interplay between key biological and environmental forces. Here, we describe a mathematical framework to address this challenge. We base this framework on experimental systems featuring early preparation to either a stress or an exposure to improvement in the growth medium. Our model calculates the fitness advantage originating under each regulation strategy in a given habitat. We conclude that, although a predictive response strategy might by advantageous under some ecologies, its costs might exceed the benefit in others. The combined theoretical–experimental treatment presented here helps assess the potential of natural ecologies to support a predictive behavior.
Broad Iron Lines in Active Galactic Nuclei

An intrinsically narrow line emitted by an accretion disk around a black hole appears broadened and skewed as a result of the Doppler effect and gravitational redshift. The fluorescent iron line in the X‐ray band at 6.4–6.9 keV is the strongest such line and is seen in the X‐ray spectrum of many active galactic nuclei and, in particular, Seyfert galaxies. It is an important diagnostic with which to study the geometry and other properties of the accretion flow very close to the central black hole. The broad iron line indicates the presence of a standard thin accretion disk in those objects, often seen at low inclination. The broad iron line has opened up strong gravitational effects around black holes to observational study with wide‐reaching consequences for both astrophysics and physics.
Advanced material modelling in numerical simulation of primary acetabular press-fit cup stability

Primary stability of artificial acetabular cups, used for total hip arthroplasty, is required for the subsequent osteointegration and good long-term clinical results of the implant. Although closed-cell polymer foams represent an adequate bone substitute in experimental studies investigating primary stability, correct numerical modelling of this material depends on the parameter selection. Material parameters necessary for crushable foam plasticity behaviour were originated from numerical simulations matched with experimental tests of the polymethacrylimide raw material. Experimental primary stability tests of acetabular press-fit cups consisting of static shell assembly with consecutively pull-out and lever-out testing were subsequently simulated using finite element analysis. Identified and optimised parameters allowed the accurate numerical reproduction of the raw material tests. Correlation between experimental tests and the numerical simulation of primary implant stability depended on the value of interference fit. However, the validated material model provides the opportunity for subsequent parametric numerical studies.
Corporate social responsibility and SME's competitiveness

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is both a core and emerging issue in management. Recently, many contributions were developed by scholars and practitioners to better understand the phenomenon and its practical relevance for the corporations. However, defining the phenomenon and the specific characteristics it assumes particular to individual corporations is challenging. Moreover, it is directly linked to the perceptions and values of managerial personal, the specific characteristics of the business, and the size of the corporations. Many contributions have been developed to investigate the relationship between the CSR and the corporate social performance (CSP) of the corporations but inconsistent results were found and very little is known about the phenomenon inside the small and medium sized firms (Spence, 1999, 2007; Thompson and Smith, 1991). This paper tries to investigate this research problem following an empirical approach based on direct interviews to the CEOs of Italian small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) which developed successful CSR strategies.