Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Adenosine deaminase activity in normal pregnancy and pregnancy associated disorders

Abstract Adenosine deaminase (ADA) is an enzyme of purine salvage pathway and has two important isoenzymes ADA1 and ADA2. The activity of ADA has been changed in diseases characterized by altered cell-mediated immunity. It was observed that total serum ADA activity was decreased during normal pregnancy compared with non-pregnant women. However, total serum ADA activity and serum ADA2 activity was increased in hyperemesis gravidarum and pre-eclampsia in pregnant women. Less information is available regarding role of ADA in abortions (recurrent and missed) and anembryonic pregnancies. Here, we review the activity of ADA and its isoenzymes. Despite these findings, it will be interesting to know whether activity of ADA will be same if ADA is estimated throughout the pregnancy and in pregnancy related complications from early first trimester to third trimester, as all studies until now were carried out at a particular stage of pregnancy.
Antipersistence in German stock returns

Persistence of stock returns is an extensively studied and discussed theme in the analysis of financial markets. Antipersistence is usually attributed to volatilities. However, not only volatilities but also stock returns can exhibit antipersistence. Antipersistent noise has a somewhat rougher appearance than Gaussian noise. Heuristically spoken, price movements are more likely followed by movements in the opposite direction than in the same direction. The pertaining integrated process exhibits a smaller range – prices seem to stay in the vicinity of the initial value. We apply a widely used test based upon the modified R/S-Method by Lo [1991] to daily returns of 21 German stocks from 1960 to 2008. Combining this test with the concept of moving windows by Carbone et al. [2004], we are able to determine periods of antipersistence for some of the series under examination. Our results suggest that antipersistence can be found for stocks and periods where extraordinary corporate actions such as mergers & acquisitions or financial distress are present. These effects should be properly accounted for when choosing and designing models for inference.
Evaluating Goodness-of-Fit Indexes for Testing Measurement Invariance

Measurement invariance is usually tested using Multigroup Confirmatory Factor Analysis, which examines the change in the goodness-of-fit index (GFI) when cross-group constraints are imposed on a measurement model. Although many studies have examined the properties of GFI as indicators of overall model fit for single-group data, there have been none to date that examine how GFIs change when between-group constraints are added to a measurement model. The lack of a consensus about what constitutes significant GFI differences places limits on measurement invariance testing. We examine 20 GFIs based on the minimum fit function. A simulation under the two-group situation was used to examine changes in the GFIs (ΔGFIs) when invariance constraints were added. Based on the results, we recommend using Δcomparative fit index, ΔGamma hat, and ΔMcDonald's Noncentrality Index to evaluate measurement invariance. These three ΔGFIs are independent of both model complexity and sample size, and are not correlated with the overall fit measures. We propose critical values of these ΔGFIs that indicate measurement invariance.
Characterization of recombinant prolidase from Lactococcus lactis– changes in substrate specificity by metal cations, and allosteric behavior of the peptidase

The Lactococcus lactis NRRL B‐1821 prolidase gene was cloned and overexpressed in Escherichia coli. Under suboptimum growth conditions, recombinant soluble and active prolidase was produced; in contrast, inclusion bodies were formed under conditions preferred for cell growth. Recombinant prolidase retained more than half its full activity between 30 and 60 °C, and was completely inactivated after 30 min at 70 °C. CD analysis confirmed that prolidase was inactivated at 67 °C. The enzyme was active under weak alkali to weak acidic conditions, and showed maximum activity at pH 7.0. Although these characteristics are similar to those for other reported prolidases, this prolidase was distinctive for two kinetic characteristics. Firstly, different substrate specificity was observed for its two preferred metal cations, zinc and manganese: Leu‐Pro was preferred with zinc, whereas Arg‐Pro was preferred with manganese. Secondly, the enzyme showed an allosteric response to changes in substrate concentrations, with Hill constants of 1.53 for Leu‐Pro and 1.57 for Arg‐Pro. Molecular modeling of this prolidase suggests that these unique characteristics may be attributed to a loop structure near the active site.
Human paraoxonase 1 gene polymorphisms and the risk of coronary heart disease: a community-based study.

Published data on the association between paraoxonase1 (PON1) polymorphisms and coronary heart disease (CHD) have yielded controversial results. The objective of this study was to determine the possible relationship between the two human PON1 amino acid variants, the Leu55Met and the Gln192Arg polymorphism, and the risk of CHD in a community-dwelling cohort of European ancestry. PON1 genotypes of 152 women and 151 men out of 1,998 randomly selected individuals aged 44-75 years were determined by polymerase chain reaction-based restriction enzyme digestion. Study participants underwent cardiological examination including a structured clinical interview, resting ECG, exercise testing and echocardiography. The diagnosis of CHD was based on history and/or appropriate findings during cardiac examination. Evidence for CHD was found in 43 (14.2%) study participants. The Leu/Leu (LL), Leu/Met (LM) and Met/Met (MM) genotypes at position 55 were noted in 131 (43.2%), 128 (42.2%) and 44 (14.5%) subjects; the Gln/Gln (QQ), Gln/Arg (QR) and Arg/Arg (RR) genotypes at codon 192 occurred in 167 (55.1%), 118 (38.9%) and 18 (5.9%) individuals, respectively. Homozygosity for the 55L-allele was significantly associated with CHD (p = 0.02), while the Gln192Arg polymorphism had no effect (p = 0.16). Logistic regression analysis demonstrated age (odds ratio 1.06/year), smoking (odds ratio 2.86), HDL cholesterol (odds ratio 0.94/mg/dl) and the paraoxonase LL genotype (odds ratio 2.25) to be significant predictors of CHD. These data suggest that the paraoxonase LL genotype at position 55 may present a risk factor for CHD.
Evaluation of the appropriateness of dosing, indication and safety of rivaroxaban in a community hospital

For over 50 years, warfarin was the only oral anticoagulant approved in the United States. In 2011, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved rivaroxaban. Since its introduction, rivaroxaban has served as an alternative to warfarin to minimize drug interactions and avoid drug monitoring. The objective of this study was to evaluate the appropriateness of rivaroxaban dosing, indication and safety in a community hospital and to identify areas for improvement in its use.
Superselective ophthalmic artery fibrinolytic therapy for the treatment of central retinal vein occlusion

AIM To study the effect of superselective ophthalmic artery fibrinolysis as a treatment for central retinal vein occlusion (CRVO). METHODS Retrospective, university based single centre study. The charts of 26 eyes of 26 patients treated were reviewed. Among the 26 patients, there were nine cases of combined artery and vein occlusion, three cases of combined cilioretinal artery and CRVO, and 14 cases of classic CRVO. Complete preoperative and postoperative ophthalmological examination and fluorescein angiography were performed in all cases. The therapeutic procedure comprised the infusion of urokinase through a microcatheter into the ostium of the ophthalmic artery, via a femoral artery approach. The main outcome measure was the improvement in visual acuity 48 hours after the procedure. RESULTS Six eyes of six patients exhibited significant improvement in visual acuity immediately after the fibrinolysis procedure. Among them, four had a initial funduscopic appearance suggestive of combined occlusion of the central retinal artery (CRAO) and vein. For these patients, the visual benefit was maintained in the long term. Intravitreal haemorrhage occurred in two patients. There were no extraocular complications linked to the procedure. CONCLUSIONS Selective ophthalmic artery infusion of urokinase was followed by improvement in VA in six out of 26 cases of CRVO. Eyes with combined CRAO and CRVO with recent visual loss appeared to be the most responsive. This treatment did not prevent the occurrence of ischaemia in the failure cases. The efficacy of in situ fibrinolysis for treatment of CRVO needs to be further evaluated in a controlled study.
Two-Stage Prosthetic Breast Reconstruction Using AlloDerm Including Outcomes of Different Timings of Radiotherapy

Background: The authors compared the outcomes of two-stage, acellular dermal matrix (AlloDerm)-assisted prosthetic breast reconstruction including different timings of radiotherapy. Methods: A review of two-stage, AlloDerm-assisted, prosthetic breast reconstructions from 2004 to 2010 was performed. All data were recorded prospectively and the study population was stratified by the timing of radiotherapy. Complications were analyzed following first- and second-stage reconstruction. The Spear-Baker classification of capsular contracture was modified for irradiated devices. Reconstructive failure was defined as nonelective removal of a breast prosthesis. Results: AlloDerm-assisted prosthetic reconstruction was performed in 289 women (428 breasts). After first-stage reconstruction, clinically significant capsular contracture rates (grade III/IV) were higher in the radiation therapy during expansion group and in the radiation therapy before mastectomy group compared with the no–radiation therapy group. Three hundred fifty-three breasts (85.9 percent) successfully underwent second-stage reconstruction, with a median follow-up of 15.2 months. Of those 353 breasts, clinically significant capsular contracture (grade III/IV) was highest in the radiation therapy during expansion group. More often than in the other groups, the radiation therapy during expansion group failed two-stage reconstruction and required flaps in addition or as replacement. Conclusions: In AlloDerm-assisted prosthetic breast reconstruction, irradiated devices demonstrated higher rates of clinically significant capsular contracture following the first stage. These rates declined considerably on completion of reconstruction, with prostheses irradiated during expansion still having the highest frequency of clinically significant capsular contracture. With the follow-up reported, irradiated devices failed breast reconstruction less frequently and required autologous tissue less often than has been historically reported without acellular dermal matrix. CLINICAL QUESTION/LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Therapeutic, III.
Unveiling Contacts within Macromolecular Assemblies by Solving Minimum Weight Connectivity Inference (MWC) Problems*

Consider a set of oligomers listing the subunits involved in subcomplexes of a macromolecular assembly, obtained e.g. using native mass spectrometry or affinity purification. Given these oligomers, connectivity inference (CI) consists of finding the most plausible contacts between these subunits, and minimum connectivity inference (MCI) is the variant consisting of finding a set of contacts of smallest cardinality. MCI problems avoid speculating on the total number of contacts but yield a subset of all contacts and do not allow exploiting a priori information on the likelihood of individual contacts. In this context, we present two novel algorithms, MILP-W and MILP-WB. The former solves the minimum weight connectivity inference (MWCI), an optimization problem whose criterion mixes the number of contacts and their likelihood. The latter uses the former in a bootstrap fashion to improve the sensitivity and the specificity of solution sets. Experiments on three systems (yeast exosome, yeast proteasome lid, human eIF3), for which reference contacts are known (crystal structure, cryo electron microscopy, cross-linking), show that our algorithms predict contacts with high specificity and sensitivity, yielding a very significant improvement over previous work, typically a twofold increase in sensitivity. The software accompanying this paper is made available and should prove of ubiquitous interest whenever connectivity inference from oligomers is faced.
Learning about categories in the absence of memory.

A fundamental question about memory and cognition concerns how information is acquired about categories and concepts as the result of encounters with specific instances. We describe a profoundly amnesic patient (E.P.) who cannot learn and remember specific instances--i.e., he has no detectable declarative memory. Yet after inspecting a series of 40 training stimuli, he was normal at classifying novel stimuli according to whether they did or did not belong to the same category as the training stimuli. In contrast, he was unable to recognize a single stimulus after it was presented 40 times in succession. These findings demonstrate that the ability to classify novel items, after experience with other items in the same category, is a separate and parallel memory function of the brain, independent of the limbic and diencephalic structures essential for remembering individual stimulus items (declarative memory). Category-level knowledge can be acquired implicitly by cumulating information from multiple training examples in the absence of detectable conscious memory for the examples themselves.
EIRO CAR on “SMEs in the crisis: Employment, Industrial Relations and Local Partnership

In Belgium, SMEs account for over 70% of GDP and are the most profitable in the EU. Most of them are family businesses. Many SMEs in Belgium are still fighting against the outcomes of the economic crisis. The anti-crisis measures adopted by the Belgian government in 2009 proved their utility and their legitimacy especially in SMEs which remain very fragile. The negociation of a new two-year intersectoral agreement which has been started during the second half of 2010 should the opportunity to reinforce support to SMEs.
Health and Retirement Decisions: An Update of the Literature

This paper surveys the relation between the labor supply and the health of the elderly, based on major studies conducted earlier and new literature. Most of the empirical literature on the topic is drawn from American data, although new European datasets have enabled analysis in several EU countries. The paper complements previous surveys in that it includes recent European results and overviews most of the latest developments in micro-modelling issues. The quest for unbiased estimates of the effect of health on retirement is characterized by several challenges. One important challenge is the endogenous character of the relationship between health and retirement. A second challenge concerns the reporting bias to which certain health measures may be prone. The empirical literature surveyed suggests that poor health reduces the capacity to work and has a substantial impact on labor force participation. The exact magnitude, however, is sensitive to both the choice of health measures and the identification assumptions. For that reason a comparison of health effects between different studies is difficult. Nevertheless, what has been proven is that the old assumption that objective health measures are superior to subjective health measures needs to be applied with caution.
Note on Attacking Object Detectors with Adversarial Stickers

Deep learning has proven to be a powerful tool for computer vision and has seen widespread adoption for numerous tasks. However, deep learning algorithms are known to be vulnerable to adversarial examples. These adversarial inputs are created such that, when provided to a deep learning algorithm, they are very likely to be mislabeled. This can be problematic when deep learning is used to assist in safety critical decisions. Recent research has shown that classifiers can be attacked by physical adversarial examples under various physical conditions. Given the fact that state-of-the-art objection detection algorithms are harder to be fooled by the same set of adversarial examples, here we show that these detectors can also be attacked by physical adversarial examples. In this note, we briefly show both static and dynamic test results. We design an algorithm that produces physical adversarial inputs, which can fool the YOLO object detector and can also attack Faster-RCNN with relatively high success rate based on transferability. Furthermore, our algorithm can compress the size of the adversarial inputs to stickers that, when attached to the targeted object, result in the detector either mislabeling or not detecting the object a high percentage of the time. This note provides a small set of results. Our upcoming paper will contain a thorough evaluation on other object detectors, and will present the algorithm.
NILAI PERUSAHAAN DALAM KAITANNYA DENGAN ARUS KAS BEBAS DAN PERTUMBUHAN PERUSAHAAN (Studi pada Perusahaan Manufaktur yang Terdaftar di Bursa Efek Indonesia)

The objective of this research is to examine the influence of free cash flow and firms growth both simultaneously and partially toward firms value. The research was conducted on listed companies from the manufacturing sector at the Indonesia Stock Exchange in 2008-2010. Based on the objective of this research, this research uses verificative research or hypotesis testing research by using census method. The target population in this research are manufacturing companies that have complete data for all variables studied. Based on the criteria mentioned, there are 111 firms-years (observations) that fulfill the population criteria during the three years of observation. The sources of data are secondary data obtained from financial statements that have been audited and share market price. All data are obtained from official website of Indonesia Stock Exchange ( www.idx.co.id ). Data are collected by using balanced panel data and analyzed by using multiple regression analysis. The results of this research show that: (1) simultaneously, free cash flow and firms growth have influence towards firms value, (2) partially, free cash flow and firms growth has positive influence towards firms value. Keywords: Free cash flow, Firms growth, Firms value
Role of the 807 C/T Polymorphism of the α2 Gene in Platelet GP Ia Collagen Receptor Expression and Function

Summary The variability of the platelet GP Ia/IIa density has been associated with the 807 C/T polymorphism (Phe 224) of the GP Ia gene in American Caucasian population. We have investigated the genotype and allelic frequencies of this polymorphism in Spanish Caucasians. The T allele was found in 35% of the 284 blood donors analyzed. We confirmed in 159 healthy subjects a significant association between the 807 C/T polymorphism and the platelet GP Ia density. The T allele correlated with high number of GP Ia molecules on platelet surface. In addition, we observed a similar association of this polymorphism with the expression of this protein in other blood cell types. The platelet responsiveness to collagen was determined by “in vitro” analysis of the platelet activation and aggregation response. We found no significant differences in these functional platelet parameters according to the 807 C/T genotype. Finally, results from 3 case/control studies involving 302 consecutive patients (101 with coronary heart disease, 104 with cerebrovascular disease and 97 with deep venous thrombosis) determined that the 807 C/T polymorphism of the GP Ia gene does not represent a risk factor for arterial or venous thrombosis.
The prevalence of postoperative pain and flare-up in single- and multiple-visit endodontic treatment: a systematic review.

AIM The aim of this systematic review was to assess the evidence regarding postoperative pain and flare-up of single- or multiple-visit root canal treatment. METHODOLOGY CENTRAL, MEDLINE and EMBASE databases were searched. Reference lists from identified articles were scanned. A forward search was undertaken on the authors of the identified articles. Papers that had cited these articles were also identified through Science Citation Index to identify potentially relevant subsequent primary research. REVIEW METHODS The included clinical studies compared the prevalence/severity of postoperative pain or flare-up in single- and multiple-visit root canal treatment. Data in those studies were extracted independently. RESULTS Sixteen studies fitted the inclusion criteria in the review, with sample size varying from 60 to 1012 cases. The prevalence of postoperative pain ranged from 3% to 58%. The heterogeneity amongst included studies was far too great to conduct meta-analysis and yield meaningful results. CONCLUSION Compelling evidence indicating a significantly different prevalence of postoperative pain/flare-up of either single- or multiple-visit root canal treatment is lacking.
Disruption of morphine‐conditioned place preference by a δ2‐opioid receptor antagonist: study of μ‐opioid and δ‐opioid receptor expression at the synapse

The addictive properties of morphine limit its clinical use. Learned associations that develop between the abused opiate and the environment in which it is consumed are engendered through Pavlovian conditioning processes. Disruption of the learned associations between the opiate and environmental cues may be a therapeutic approach to prevent morphine dependence. Although a role for the δ‐opioid receptor in the regulation of the rewarding properties of morphine has already been shown, in this study we further characterized the role of the δ‐opioid receptor in morphine‐induced conditioned responses by examining the effect of a selective δ2‐opioid receptor antagonist (naltriben), using a conditioned place preference paradigm in rats. Additionally, we used a subcellular fractionation technique to analyze the synaptic localization of μ‐opioid and δ‐opioid receptors in the hippocampus, in order to examine the molecular mechanisms that may underlie this morphine‐induced conditioned behavior. Our data show that the administration of 1 mg/kg naltriben (but not 0.1 mg/kg) prior to morphine was able to block morphine‐induced conditioned place preference. Interestingly, this naltriben‐induced disruption of morphine conditioned place preference was associated with a significant increase in the expression of the δ‐opioid receptor dimer at the postsynaptic density. In addition, we also observed that morphine conditioned place preference was associated with an increase in the expression of the μ‐opoid receptor in the total homogenate. Overall, these results suggest that modulation of the δ‐opioid receptor expression and its synaptic localization may constitute a viable therapeutic approach to disrupt morphine‐induced conditioned responses.
M&A Portfolios and Market Returns

M&A activity and the returns of targets and acquirers may provide information about both the companies involved and the overall market conditions. This paper shows evidence that a number of M&A related measurements, such as the number of live deals or the beta of a portfolio of cash targets, may provide predictive information about future returns of the S&P index. It also describes portfolios of M&A targets or acquirers constructed while taking into account risk management constraints, including concentration risk, amount invested, or leverage, as well as deal characteristics and potential competing bids or term improvements, and explores how the performance of these portfolios changes as these constraints are modified.