Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of pioglitazone on fasting and postprandial levels of lipid and hemostatic variables in overweight non‐diabetic patients with coronary artery disease

Summary. Objectives: To evaluate the effects of pioglitazone on insulin sensitivity and levels of biomarkers associated with thrombotic risk in overweight and obese, non‐diabetic subjects with coronary artery disease. Background: Little information is available regarding the effects of thiazolidinediones in the absence of diabetes. Further, although postprandial hyperlipemia is a risk factor for cardiovascular diseases, there is limited information about the postprandial effects. Methods: Twenty overweight and obese, non‐diabetic patients with coronary artery disease were enrolled in a randomized, placebo‐controlled, double‐blind study. Subjects were on atorvastatin for the duration of the study and received either placebo or pioglitazone (45 mg day−1) for 12 weeks and then crossed over to the alternative therapy for an additional 12 weeks. Insulin sensitivity, fasting and postprandial levels of lipid, hemostatic, and inflammatory variables were measured, and endothelial function was assessed. Results: Insulin sensitivity improved from 0.03 μmol kg−1·min pm−1 on placebo to 0.04 on pioglitazone (P = 0.0002), and there were decreases in fasting levels of factor (F) VII:C (102 ± 17% to 92 ± 18%, P = 0.001), FVII:Ag (68 ± 12% to 60 ± 14%, P = 0.01) and in von Willebrand factor (VWF) (174 ± 94% to 142 ± 69%, P = 0.01). Pioglitazone lowered postprandial levels of FVII:Ag, FVII:C, plasminogen activator inhibitor‐1, VWF, and triglycerides, and increased high‐density lipoproteins (+9%, P = 0.02). Conclusions: Pioglitazone improves insulin sensitivity and favorably modifies fasting and postprandial lipid, hemostatic and inflammatory markers of the metabolic syndrome in overweight and obese non‐diabetic patients with coronary artery disease.
Children and young people with intellectual disability in residential childcare: Prevalence of mental health disorders and therapeutic interventions

Children with intellectual disability are more likely to suffer abuse and neglect. Therefore, they are over-represented among children in childcare interventions, particularly in residential childcare. The main goal of this article was to explore the correlates of mental health diseases in a sample of 169 children (6–18 years old) in residential care with intellectual disability compared with a group of 625 children, also in residential care but without disability. Results show that the prevalence of intellectual disability in residential childcare in Spain is about 19%, which is significant due to their special needs. In addition to this disability, they have a higher frequency of clinical problems in the scales of withdrawal-depression, thought problems, attention problems and, above all, social problems than do their peers in residential care. They are also referred more frequently to therapeutic services, in particular to psychiatric intervention and they receive more pharmacological treatments.
Universal application of intraoperative lymphatic mapping and sentinel lymphadenectomy in solid neoplasms.

PURPOSE Regional lymph node involvement is the most important prognostic indicator in patients with solid tumors. Conventional lymph node dissection has not been shown to affect survival and is often associated with considerable morbidity. Intraoperative lymphatic mapping and sentinel lymph node dissection were therefore designed as a minimally invasive alternative to routine elective lymph node dissection in patients with primary cutaneous melanoma. This study examined whether introperative lymphatic mapping and sentinel lymph node dissection were accurate in staging patients with other solid malignancies. PATIENTS AND METHODS Between 1985 and 1998, 107 patients with breast cancer, 17 with thyroid tumors, 14 with gastrointestinal/gynecologic cancers, six with Merkel cell cancers, and five with squamous cell carcinomas of the head and neck have undergone mapping and sentinel lymph node dissection at the John Wayne Cancer Institute. RESULTS The sentinel node was identified in 96% of patients (98% melanoma). In 36% of patients the sentinel node was the only tumor-positive node (71% melanoma). Eighteen percent of sentinel nodes were negative by hematoxylin and eosin staining but were positive by immunohistochemical staining (15% melanoma). CONCLUSION These data suggest that many solid neoplasms have a primary lymphatic channel and lymph node to which it drains. Although sentinel lymph node dissection has been popularized in melanoma therapy, we have found it feasible for treatment of other solid malignancies. This technique may ultimately replace conventional dissection with more accurate staging.
Contrasting patterns of comprehension for superordinate, basic-level, and subordinate names in semantic dementia and aphasic stroke patients

It is well established that patients with semantic memory impairment show a relative sparing of general superordinate information as compared with more detailed item-specific information. The objective of the current study was to examine whether or not this superordinate superiority effect is also reliably observed in individuals with stroke. The participants were 3 patients with a diagnosis of semantic dementia (SD) and 4 left middle cerebral artery stroke patients. In the first experiment, participants were administered a series of spoken-word–picture matching tasks, in which picture identity was probed under two conditions: item name (e.g., goose, beetle, shark, hedgehog) and superordinate name (e.g., bird, insect, fish, mammal). The SD patients showed the predicted pattern of performance, identifying stimuli significantly more accurately by their superordinate term than by their specific name. By contrast, the stroke patients showed the reverse pattern of inferior performance in the superordinate condition in all versions of the experimental task. In a second experiment comparing comprehension of basic-level names (e.g., dog, bird, fish) and subordinate-level names (e.g., Dalmatian, sparrow, trout), stroke patients also showed a reversal of the normal basic-level effect, showing less accurate comprehension of basic-level names. The pattern of results documented among the stroke patients cannot be accommodated obviously or readily by existing models of conceptual knowledge. These contrasting abilities of SD patients, stroke patients, and normal healthy participants to process subordinate, basic-level, and superordinate names are considered in relation to disorders of executive processing and taxonomic categorization.
The response of long-term yields to negative interest rates: evidence from Switzerland

This paper studies the transmission of changes in short-term interest rates to longer-term government bond yields when interest rates are at very low levels or negative. We focus on Switzerland, where short-term interest rates have been at zero since late 2008 and negative since the beginning of 2015. The expectations hypothesis of the term structure implies that as nominal interest rates approach their lower bound, the eﬀect of short-term rates on longer-term yields should decline, and positive short rate changes should have larger absolute eﬀects than negative short rate changes. Contrary to studies of other countries, we ﬁnd no evidence for a decline in the eﬀect of short rate changes for the low-interest rate period using Swiss data. However, we do ﬁnd evidence for the predicted asymmetric eﬀect for positive and negative short rate changes during the period when short-term rates are close to zero. This asymmetry normalized again after the introduction of negative interest rates.
The Forgotten Half of Finance: Working-class Saving in Late Nineteenth-century New Jersey

Abstract Saving is essential to the health of economies and households, yet relatively little scholarship investigates saving behaviors among the urban working class in the nineteenth century. This chapter uses five surveys of industrial workers in 1880s New Jersey, an analysis of which reveals sophisticated saving behaviors consistent with life-cycle and precautionary theories. The mean saving rate was between 8% and 12% of annual income. Younger households saved less than older households. Householders with longer expected careers, on average, saved less. Life insurance and fraternal societies were the most popular saving vehicles, but workers also used savings banks and building and loan associations, alone and in combination.
Combined Vitamin C and E supplementation for Preeclampsia: No Significant Effect But Significant Heterogeneity?

it is very likely to be a case control rather than a randomized controlled trial. Considering that results from observational studies are not high-quality evidence and are prone to biases, mainly because of the failure to adjust for potential confounding factors, possibly in this trial the effect of vitamin supplementation on the incidence of preeclampsia may be flawed. Finally, a feasible explanation may be a local literature bias, known as a “reverse tower of Babel bias,” which has been previously reported (7). In certain cases locally produced and published literature is spuriously statistically significant (7,8), and this may be the case with these two trials. In conclusion, sources of bias must always be indentified in meta-analyses and statistical heterogeneity must be interpreted with caution. Nikolaos P. Polyzos, Spyridon Tzioras, Davide Mauri Panhellenic Association for Continual Medical Research (PACMeR), Sections of Obstetrics and Gynaecology and Public Health,
The Design Logic of New Business Models: Unveiling Cognitive Foundations of Managerial Reasoning

Despite the importance of managerial reasoning in designing business models to handle exogenous change, little is known about its cognitive foundations. We address this gap with a comparative analysis of how managers rethink business model configurations to provide value in the emerging collaborative consumption economy. As customer behaviors shift from owning to sharing possessions, they challenge firms’ established business model logics. Using data from in‐depth interviews with managers from 22 sharing ventures, we find six cognitive processes to influence reasoning in new business model design. Furthermore, we find that these processes fall into distinctive dimensions of dominant and emerging logics. Ultimately, they combine into a design logic that explains how managerial reasoning results in conceptually different value creation and value capture configurations. Overall, our findings provide insights for theorizing business model design, and they enhance understanding of the foundations of managerial cognition in innovation contexts.
Avian Reovirus Major μ-Class Outer Capsid Protein Influences Efficiency of Productive Macrophage Infection in a Virus Strain-Specific Manner

ABSTRACT We determined that the highly pathogenic avian reovirus strain 176 (ARV-176) possesses an enhanced ability to establish productive infections in HD-11 avian macrophages compared to avian fibroblasts. Conversely, the weakly pathogenic strain ARV-138 shows no such macrophagotropic tendency. The macrophage infection capability of the two viruses did not reflect differences in the ability to either induce or inhibit nitric oxide production. Moderate increases in the ARV-138 multiplicity of infection resulted in a concomitant increase in macrophage infection, and under such conditions the kinetics and extent of the ARV-138 replication cycle were equivalent to those of the highly infectious ARV-176 strain. These results indicated that both viruses are apparently equally capable of replicating in an infected macrophage, but they differ in the ability to establish productive infections in these cells. Using a genetic reassortant approach, we determined that the macrophagotropic property of ARV-176 reflects a post-receptor-binding step in the virus replication cycle and that the ARV-176 M2 genome segment is required for efficient infection of HD-11 cells. The M2 genome segment encodes the major μ-class outer capsid protein (μB) of the virus, which is involved in virus entry and transcriptase activation, suggesting that a host-specific influence on ARV entry and/or uncoating may affect the likelihood of the virus establishing a productive infection in a macrophage cell.
Influence of Toll‐Like Receptor Gene Polymorphisms to Tuberculosis Susceptibility in Humans

Tuberculosis (TB) is caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tb), and it remains one of the major bacterial infections worldwide. Innate immunity is an important arm of antimycobacterial host defence mechanism that senses various pathogen‐associated molecular patterns (PAMP) of microbes by a variety of pattern recognition receptors (PRRs). As per the recent discovery, Toll‐like receptors (TLRs) play a crucial role in the recognition of M. tb, this immune activation occurs only in the presence of functional TLRs. Variants of TLRs may influence their expression, function and alters the recognition or signalling mechanism, which leads to the disease susceptibility. Hence, the identification of mutations in these receptors could be used as a marker to screen the individuals who are at risk. In this review, we discuss TLR SNPs and their signalling mechanism to understand the susceptibility to TB for better therapeutic approaches.
Verbal memory decline after temporal epilepsy surgery?

Objective: To assess the long-term effects of temporal lobe epilepsy surgery on verbal memory. Methods: We assessed verbal memory performance as measured by a verbal learning test (“15 Words Test,” a Dutch adaptation of Rey's Auditory Verbal Learning Test) before surgery and at three specific times after surgery: 6 months, 2 years, and 6 years in 85 patients (34 left temporal lobe [LTL] vs. 51 right temporal lobe [RTL]). An amygdalo-hippocampectomy and a neocortical temporal resection between 2.5 and 8 cm were carried out in all patients. Results: LTL patients showed an ongoing memory decline for consolidation and acquisition of verbal material (both 2/3 SDs) for up to 2 years after surgery. RTL patients at first showed a gain in both memory acquisition and consolidation, which vanished in the long term. Breaking the group up into a mesiotemporal (MTS) group and a non-MTS group showed clear differences. The group with pure MTS showed an overall lower verbal memory performance than the group without pure MTS, in the LTL group more pronounced than in the RTL group. After surgery, both pathology groups showed an ongoing decline for up to 2 years, but the degree of decline was greater for the LTL patients with MTS compared with the non-MTS group. Becoming and remaining seizure-free after surgery does not result in a better performance in the long term. Predictors of postoperative verbal memory performance at 6 years after surgery were side of surgery, preoperative memory score, and age. Conclusions: The results provide evidence for a dynamic decline of verbal memory functions up to 2 years after left temporal lobectomy, which then levels off.
Depression in End‐Stage Renal Disease: Current Advances and Research

Depression or the presence of significant depressive symptoms remains common in patients with end‐stage renal disease (ESRD). It is thought that 20–30% of ESRD patients have significant depressive symptoms, although there are issues surrounding the assessment of depression among patients with physical illness. Screening tools may be useful in this setting to identify patients with low affect, accompanied by formal diagnostic approaches which are important to consider following a positive screen. Recent evidence highlights the impact of depression upon mortality, and its association with non‐adherence and immune parameters, work that supports past investigations. Further studies are required to better our understanding of the mechanisms behind depression in patients with ESRD identifying both psychological and clinical antecedents. A focus on the treatment of depression is now critical given the evidence that depression impacts upon outcome in ESRD. Antidepressants seem effective, but the prevalence of negative side effect profiles and drug–drug interactions suggest a role for psychotherapeutic approaches. Of these, cognitive behavioral therapy shows real promise.
Late gadolinium enhancement confined to the right ventricular insertion points in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy: an intermediate stage phenotype?

AIMS To investigate whether hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) patients with late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) confined to the right ventricular insertion points (RVIP) differ phenotypically from patients without LGE or intramural LGE in the left ventricle (LV). METHODS AND RESULTS Sixty-two HCM patients underwent cardiac magnetic resonance for quantification of LGE (% LV mass) and were classified as group (i) no-LGE (n = 18), group (ii) LGE-RVIP (n = 19), and group (iii) intramural LGE (n = 25). All patients also underwent vasodilator N-13 ammonia PET to quantify myocardial blood flow (MBF) and myocardial flow reserve (MFR), and echocardiography to measure longitudinal LV strain. LGE extent (17 ± 11% vs. 4 ± 4% vs. 0%; P < 0.001) and LV thickness (21.7 ± 3.4 vs. 18.8 ± 3.9 vs. 16.3 ± 2.8 mm; P < 0.001) were significantly greater in group 3, intermediate in group 2, and lower in group 1. In contrast, stress MBF (1.62 ± 0.44 vs. 1.90 ± 0.37 vs. 2.22 ± 0.48 mL/min/g; P < 0.001); MFR (1.92 ± 0.47 vs. 2.15 ± 0.52 vs. 2.71 ± 0.52; P < 0.001), and longitudinal LV strain (-11.4 ± 3.8 vs. -12.6 ± 3.2 vs. -14.4 ± 4.1%; P = 0.04) were lower in group 3, intermediate in group 2, and higher in group 1. CONCLUSIONS From an imaging viewpoint, patients with LGE confined to only the RVIP appear to represent an intermediate-stage phenotype between patients with no LGE and intramural LGE in the LV.
Using Telerehabilitation to Identify Home Modification Needs

Teleconferencing technology has great potential for providing cost-effective in-home assessment for home modification services from anywhere to anyone in need. Despite its enormous potential, the use of this technology as a means to deliver these specific services had not been investigated. This project investigated the use of televideo technology to provide remote home assessment services to patients prior to discharge so that they could function as independently as possible in their own homes after being discharged from a specialty clinic. Specifically, an assessment protocol that could be implemented using video-conferencing technology was developed and feasibility of the remote assessment process was determined by validating it against the standard of practice, an in-home assessment by a home modifications specialist. Independent in-home and remote home assessments were completed by two occupational therapists who specialize in home modifications. The results were compared for agreement in identification of specific accessibility problems in and quantitative measurements of the home. The remote assessment correctly identified a total of 51 of the 59 problems (86.4%) identified by the in-home assessment and only identified five problems (8.9%) that were not identified by the on-site assessment. In addition, 54 of 60 (90%) of the quantitative measurements from the remote assessment matched those from the in-home assessment. Findings suggest that remote telerehabilitation assessments have the potential to enable specialists to diagnose potential accessibility problems in home environments and prescribe appropriate modifications regardless of the location of the client, home, or specialist.
Outcomes after radical hysterectomy according to tumor size divided by 2-cm interval in patients with early cervical cancer.

BACKGROUND this study investigated the outcomes after radical hysterectomy according to tumor size divided by 2-cm interval in patients with International Federation of Obstetrics and Gynecology stage IA2-IIA cervical cancer. PATIENTS AND METHODS a total of 1415 patients were eligible for participation in the study and were retrospectively analyzed. Patients were divided into four groups according to tumor size (i.e. ≤ 2, 2-4, 4-6 and >6 cm). The relationships between tumor size and other clinicopathologic risk factors, the probability of adjuvant therapy, survival parameters, recurrence-free survival (RFS) and overall survival (OS) were analyzed. RESULTS the incidence of intermediate- and high-risk factors gradually increased with increasing tumor size. Adjuvant therapy was required in 13.6%, 34.0%, 56.7% and 92.9% of patients with tumor sizes of ≤ 2, 2-4, 4-6 and >6 cm, respectively (P < 0.001). The risks of recurrence and death gradually increased with increasing tumor size, after adjusting for other significant prognostic factors in multivariate analysis (P < 0.001 and < 0.001, respectively). Even in patients with no intermediate- or high-risk factors, tumor size was a significant predictor of RFS and OS (P < 0.001 and < 0.001, respectively). Immediate surgical parameters did not significantly differ according to tumor size. CONCLUSIONS tumor size divided by a 2-cm interval was an independent prognostic factor and correlated well with other risk factors and with the need for adjuvant therapy.
Model-based measurement of food portion size for image-based dietary assessment using 3D/2D registration

Dietary assessment is important in health maintenance and intervention in many chronic conditions, such as obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. However, there is currently a lack of convenient methods for measuring the volume of food (portion size) in real-life settings. We present a computational method to estimate food volume from a single photographic image of food contained on a typical dining plate. First, we calculate the food location with respect to a 3D camera coordinate system using the plate as a scale reference. Then, the food is segmented automatically from the background in the image. Adaptive thresholding and snake modeling are implemented based on several image features, such as color contrast, regional color homogeneity and curve bending degree. Next, a 3D model representing the general shape of the food (e.g., a cylinder, a sphere, etc) is selected from a pre-constructed shape model library. The position, orientation and scale of the selected shape model are determined by registering the projected 3D model and the food contour in the image, where the properties of the reference are used as constraints. Experimental results using various realistically shaped foods with known volumes demonstrated satisfactory performance of our image-based food volume measurement method even if the 3D geometric surface of the food is not completely represented in the input image.