Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Estrogen regulates stemness and senescence of bone marrow stromal cells to prevent osteoporosis via ERβ‐SATB2 pathway

Decline of pluripotency in bone marrow stromal cells (BMSCs) associated with estrogen deficiency leads to a bone formation defect in osteoporosis. Special AT‐rich sequence binding protein 2 (SATB2) is crucial for maintaining stemness and osteogenic differentiation of BMSCs. However, whether SATB2 is involved in estrogen‐deficiency associated‐osteoporosis is largely unknown. In this study, we found that estrogen mediated pluripotency and senescence of BMSCs, primarily through estrogen receptor beta (ERβ). BMSCs from the OVX rats displayed increased senescence and weaker SATB2 expression, stemness, and osteogenic differentiation, while estrogen could rescue these phenotypes. Inhibition of ERβ or ERα confirmed that SATB2 was associated with ERβ in estrogen‐mediated pluripotency and senescence of BMSCs. Furthermore, estrogen mediated the upregulation of SATB2 through the induction of ERβ binding to estrogen response elements (ERE) located at −488 of the SATB2 gene. SATB2 overexpression alleviated senescence and enhanced stemness and osteogenic differentiation of OVX‐BMSCs. SATB2‐modified BMSCs transplantation could prevent trabecular bone loss in an ovariectomized rat model. Collectively, our study revealed the role of SATB2 in stemness, senescence, and osteogenesis of OVX‐BMSCs. These results indicate that estrogen prevents osteoporosis by promoting stemness and osteogenesis, and inhibiting senescence of BMSCs through an ERβ‐SATB2 pathway. Therefore, SATB2 is a novel anti‐osteoporosis target gene.
Separate and Unequal: The Effect of Unequal Access to Employment-Based Health Insurance on Same-Sex and Unmarried Different-Sex Couples

Employers’ health insurance coverage for legal spouses places unmarried couples at a disadvantage for obtaining coverage. Data from the Current Population Survey confirm that people with same-sex or different-sex unmarried partners are two to three times more likely to be uninsured than married people, even after controlling for factors influencing coverage. Universal partner coverage would cut that uninsured rate by as much as 50%. Employers offering domestic partner benefits would see a small enrollment increase: 0.1%–0.3% for gay and lesbian partners and 1.3%– 1.8% for heterosexual partners. We find no evidence of adverse selection. (JEL J32, J38, J71) I. INTRODUCTION For most nonelderly people in the United States, health insurance and access to health care derive from one’s own or a family member’s employment. As a matter of customary compensation practice, many employers offer employment-based health insurance to spouses of employees. Gay, lesbian, or bisexual (GLB) people are at a significant disadvantage in this route to health insurance, however, because they cannot legally marry in the United States and are unable to claim benefits for a same-sex domestic partner from most employers. Employees who have a differentsex unmarried partner are at a similar disadvantage with respect to employment benefits, although they have the option of marrying. This article assesses the consequences of compensation inequality for GLB people’s insurance status and for people with different-sex unmarried partners, as well as the impact of more equitable policies on those individuals and their employers. Although the health insurance issue plays a central role in debates about the appropriate legal status of samesex couples, we link questions about benefits for same-sex partners to unmarried differentsex partners because the two kinds of couples have been linked ethically, politically, and institutionally in the debate about employer benefits. Because 80% of nonelderly insured people in the United States receive coverage through their own employment or through the employment-based health insurance of a family member (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2002), the exclusion of domestic partners makes unmarried couples and their children likely to lack insurance at a rate higher than the 14% U.S. average for the nonelderly (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2002). No study has yet established how much access to health insurance is limited because of the structure of employee benefits, but three reports suggest that rates of being uninsured may be significantly higher for GLB people, in particular. One study pooled data from seven nonrandom surveys of lesbian and bisexual women and
CLINICAL INVESTIGATION Head and Neck BORON NEUTRON CAPTURE THERAPY IN THE TREATMENT OF LOCALLY RECURRED HEAD AND NECK CANCER

LEENA KANKAANRANTA, M.D.,* TIINA SEPPÄLÄ, PH.D.,yz HANNA KOIVUNORO, M.SCI.,yz KAUKO SAARILAHTI, M.D.,* TIMO ATULA, M.D.,x JUHANI COLLAN, M.D.,* EERO SALLI, PH.D.,k MIKA KORTESNIEMI, PH.D.,k JOUNI UUSI-SIMOLA, M.SCI.,yk ANTTI MÄKITIE, M.D.,x MARKO SEPPÄNEN, M.D.,{ HEIKKI MINN, M.D., PETRI KOTILUOTO, M.SCI.,** IIRO AUTERINEN, M.SCI.,** SAULI SAVOLAINEN, PH.D.,yk MAURI KOURI, M.D.,* AND HEIKKI JOENSUU, M.D.*
Interfunctional Coordination of Service Offering Provided by Manufacturers

The aim of the paper is to identify relationship between interfunctional coordination (IFC) and customer services. This is the first empirical research in this area. Electronic components manufactures and electric equipment manufacturers realized the research in the Czech Republic. Manufacturers comply with the Czech industry classification CZ-NACE 26 and CZ-NACE 27. The segments are extremely important for the Czech industry nowadays, especially because of many companies being subcontractors for the car industry and mechanical engineering. The questionnaire in the form of the Likert scale was prepared to gather information about customer services. The respondents were usually directors or managers, e.g. employees with high competence and knowledge of the customer services in this particular market. Total of 60 SME were included in the survey. The data were collected from February to November 2014. Spearman coefficient test was used to verify the relation between IFC and customer services. The main findings show: (1) Significant relationship exists between IFC and the development of new products and services according to customer needs; (2) Partly significant relationship exist between IFC and the quality of provided products and customer services in manufacturing; (3) No significant relationship exists between IFC and the special service offers for VIP customers. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.5755/j01.ee. 27.5. 14300
The effects of raloxifene on tibia histomorphometry in ovariectomized rats.

Tissue-specific estrogen agonists may be useful in protecting against osteoporosis and the increased risk of coronary heart disease in postmenopausal women with minimal undesired effects on reproductive tissues. The actions of the mixed estrogen agonist/antagonist raloxifene on selected estrogen target tissues were determined in ovariectomized (OVX) rats immediately postovariectomy. Five groups of 75-day-old Sprague-Dawley rats were studied; baseline controls, sham-operated controls, OVX controls, OVX animals treated with estrogen (0.1 mg 17 alpha-ethynyl estradiol/kg.day), and OVX animals treated with raloxifene (3 mg/kg.day). Fluorochrome labels were given on days 1, 28, and 34. The baseline controls were killed on day 2, and the remaining groups on day 35. Ovariectomy increased tibial longitudinal growth rate as well as measurements related to radial growth and cancellous bone turnover. Ovariectomy decreased cancellous bone area and uterine weight, and increased serum cholesterol, bone elongation, and radial bone growth. Estrogen treatment prevented these changes in OVX rats. Raloxifene prevented cancellous osteopenia as well as the changes in radial bone growth, bone resorption, and blood cholesterol, but was less effective in reducing cancellous bone formation and did not prevent uterine atrophy. These findings suggest that raloxifene is a target-specific, mixed estrogen agonist/antagonist. At the concentration studied, raloxifene had potent estrogenic activity on bone resorption and serum cholesterol, a lesser effect on bone formation, and minimal activity on uterine wet weight.
Incidence and determinants of moderate COPD (GOLD II) in male smokers aged 40-65 years: 5-year follow up.

BACKGROUND Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a major health problem with an estimated prevalence of 10-15% among smokers. The incidence of moderate COPD, as defined by the Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD), is largely unknown. AIM To determine the cumulative incidence of moderate COPD (forced expiratory volume in 1 second/forced vital capacity ratio [FEV1/FVC] <0.7 and FEV1 <80% predicted) and its association with patient characteristics in a cohort of male smokers. DESIGN Prospective cohort study. SETTING The city of IJsselstein, a small town in the Netherlands. METHOD Smokers aged 40-65 years who were registered with local GPs, participated in a study to identify undetected COPD. Baseline measurements were taken in 1998 of 399 smokers with normal spirometry (n = 292) or mild COPD (FEV1/FVC <0.7 and FEV1 >or=80% predicted, n = 107) and follow-up measurements were conducted in 2003. RESULTS After a mean follow-up of 5.2 years, 33 participants developed moderate COPD (GOLD II). This showed an estimated cumulative incidence of 8.3% (95% CI = 5.8 to 11.4) and a mean annual incidence of 1.6%. No participant developed severe airflow obstruction. The risk of developing moderate COPD in smokers with baseline mild COPD (GOLD I) was five times higher than in those with baseline normal spirometry (one in five versus one in 25). CONCLUSIONS In a cohort of middle-aged male smokers, the estimated cumulative incidence of moderate COPD (GOLD II) over 5 years was relatively high (8.3%). Age, childhood smoking, cough, and one or more GP contacts for lower respiratory tract problems were independently associated with incident moderate COPD.
A Unification and Generalization of Exact Distributed First-Order Methods

Recently, there has been significant progress in the development of distributed first-order methods. In particular, Shi et al. (2015) on the one hand and Qu and Li (2017) and Nedic et al. (2016) on the other hand propose two different types of methods that are designed from very different perspectives. They achieve both exact and linear convergence when a constant step size is used—a favorable feature that was not achievable by most prior methods. In this paper, we unify, generalize, and improve convergence speed of the methods by Shi et al. (2015), Qu and Li (2017), and Nedic et al. (2016), when the underlying network is static and undirected. We first carry out a unifying primal-dual analysis that sheds light on how these methods compare. The analysis reveals that a major difference between the methods is on how the primal error affects the dual error along iterations. We, then, capitalize on the insights from the analysis to derive a novel method that can reduce the negative effect of the primal error on the dual error. We establish for the proposed generalized method global R-linear convergence rate under strongly convex costs with Lipschitz continuous gradients.
Ruminal Digestibility and Quality of Silage Conserved via Fermentation by Lactobacilli

© 2013 Takahashi et al., licensee InTech. This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Ruminal Digestibility and Quality of Silage Conserved via Fermentation by Lactobacilli
Preventing Osteoporosis

Abstract As the prevalence of osteoporosis increases, the medical community has recognized the importance of prevention. Although at one time the diagnosis of osteoporosis was made on the basis of bone fracture, the use of bone mineral density (BMD) techniques is becoming more widespread. Before using BMD to diagnose, many practitioners will assess the likelihood of osteoporosis development through assessment of risk factors. Certain risk factors cannot be changed, such as genetic predisposition, ethnicity, or gender. Those risk factors that are potentially modifiable include estrogen deficiency, current smoking, physical inactivity, alcoholism, and poor calcium intake. Why each of these factors are believed to increase risk is discussed, as well as recommendations for optimal behavior in each area. Several clinical practice guidelines for the prevention of osteoporosis are compared.
Linear transceiver design for full-duplex multi-user MIMO system

We focus on a full-duplex multi-user MIMO system where the base station (BS) serves multiple uplink and downlink users simultaneously. Both the BS and the mobile stations (MSs) are equipped with multiple antennas. The performance of the system is limited by the self-interference at the base station and the interference caused by the uplink users on the downlink users. To address this issue, we propose to jointly design the beamformers of the BS and MSs. An optimization problem is formulated to maximize the weighted sum data rate subject to maximum power constraints. Although the problem is non-convex, it can be solved via iterative minimization of weighted sum mean square error (MSE), and a stationary point of the problem can be obtained. Strategies to choose uplink and downlink users and to determine initial point for the optimization problem are also proposed. Simulation results show that the weighted sum data rate achieved by full-duplex system is substantially higher than that achieved by baseline half-duplex systems.
Surgical Treatment of the Sigmoid Volvulus

Abstract Sigmoid volvulus is not an uncommon cause of intestinal obstruction. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the clinical features and surgical treatment methods in patients with sigmoid volvulus. Thirty-two patients operated on between January 1991 and October 2002 were reviewed retrospectively. The demographic data of the patients, clinical features, preoperative radiological and operative findings, type of surgical procedure performed, postoperative complications, mortality and duration of hospital stay (DHS) after surgery were reviewed. There were 21 male (66%), 11 female patients (34%) and their age ranged from 61 to 87 years with a median of 73.5 ± 8.38 years. Most frequent clinical features were abdominal pain, distension and constipation. The correct preoperative diagnosis was made in 44% (14/32) of cases. Surgical treatment consisted of sigmoidectomy with primary anastomosis (R&A) (n = 9, 28%), sigmoidectomy with colostomy (R&C) (n = 16, 50%), and detorsion with sigmoidopexy (D&P) (n = 7, 22%). Concomittant diseases were more frequent in R&C group (n = 14, 87%) and this was statistically significant as compared to R&A (n = 4, 44%) (P = 0.03). Postoperative complication rate in R&C group was more frequent and DHS longer but the difference between treatment groups was not significant statistically. Two recurrences were observed in D&P group. Sigmoidectomy should be the basic principle in management of sigmoid volvulus and primary anastomosis can be performed safely in selected patients without increasing morbidity and DHS.
Blind Focusing of Electromagnetic Fields in Hyperthermia Exploiting Target Contrast Variations

This paper suggests a novel approach to the blind focusing of the electromagnetic field for microwave hyperthermia. The idea is to induce a contrast variation in the target and to exploit this variation for the synthesis of the excitations of the antenna array employed for the focusing, by performing a differential scattering measurement. In particular, the excitation vector is set as the right singular vector associated with the largest singular value of the differential scattering matrix, obtained as difference of two scattering matrixes measured by the antenna array itself before and after the contrast change. As a result, the approach is computationally effective and totally blind, not requiring any a priori knowledge of the electric and geometric features of the region hosting the target, as well as of its spatial position with respect to the antenna array.
TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT AND ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE-MODERATING ROLE OF MANAGERIAL COMPETENCIES

The present study empirically examines the impact of total quality management (TQM) practices on organizational performance (OP), and the moderating role of managerial competencies (MC) on relationship of TQM practices and OP. Primary data has been collected from a convenience sample of 250 managers working in services organizations. Statistical tests of correlation, factor analysis, and regression have been used in the data analysis. The results indicate that TQM practices predict OP, and that MC does moderate TQM and performance relationship within services context in Pakistan. The findings provide useful insight to the strategic decision makers to use TQM as organizational strategy for competitive advantage. The results offer opportunity to human resources practitioners to accord priority to enhancing managerial competencies to boost performance.
The Search Continues: Looking for Predictive Biomarkers for Response to Mammalian Target of Rapamycin Inhibition in Endometrial Cancer

Objective PI3K/mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) pathway aberrations occur in 40% to 80% of endometrial cancer. Prior studies suggest KRAS mutations are associated with resistance to mTOR inhibitors in solid tumors. The objective of this study was to determine if biomarker expression in the PI3K/mTOR pathway or KRAS mutations would predict response to therapy with everolimus, an mTOR inhibitor. Methods Specimens from a phase II study of everolimus in recurrent endometrioid endometrial cancer were utilized. The primary end point was clinical benefit rate (CBR: objective response and nonprogression at 20 weeks). Correlative studies evaluating PTEN expression and phospho-S6 ribosomal protein (pS6rp) status by immunohistochemistry and KRAS mutational analysis were performed. Results Six of 28 evaluable patients achieved prolonged stable disease (SD) at 20 weeks (CBR, 21%). Loss of PTEN expression did not predict CBR (P = 0.62) with a positive predictive value (PPV) of 0.13. Five (83%) of 6 patients with SD maintained PTEN expression. Neither pS6rp expression (P = 0.65) nor KRAS mutation (P = 0.99) predicted CBR; the PPV was 0.14 for each. Eighty percent (4/5) of those with SD were KRAS wild type. Combined analysis of pS6rp expression and KRAS mutation provided 100% PPV (95% confidence interval, 39.6%–100%), suggesting no chance of CBR for these individuals with 100% specificity (95% confidence interval, 46.3%–100%). Conclusions S6rp phosphorylation, loss of PTEN expression, and presence of KRAS mutations alone did not correlate with CBR. However, positive pS6rp staining combined with KRAS mutation performed with 100% PPV and specificity to predict nonresponse. Identifying patients who will not benefit from mTOR inhibitors can direct therapy and reduce exposure to agents that add toxicity without clinical benefit.
A temperature‐sensitive cell cycle mutant of the BHK cell line

A temperature‐sensitive growth mutant derived from the BHK 21 cell Line, ts AF8, was found to have greatly reduced DNA synthesis at the nonpermissive temperature. This reduction is mainly due to a decrease in the frequency of cells synthesizing DNA. Upon shift up, ts AF8 becomes blocked in the G1 phase of the cell cycle. The cells acquire elevated cAMP levels and a unimodal distribution of DNA content, equivalent to that of G1 cells at the permissive temperature, Ts AF8 cells blocked at the G1/S boundary with hydroxyurea will enter S when shifted to the nonpermissive temperature. On the other hand, ts AF8 cells arrested m G1 by serum deprivation and shifted to the nonpermissive temperature at the moment of serum addition do not enter S, while those synchronized by isoleucine deprivation and shifted at the time of isoleucine addition will enter S. These data suggest that the cycle arrest point of the ts AF8 mutation is located in G1 between the blocks induced by serum starvation and isoleucine deprivation.
Unreliability of commercial anti‐MAG antibody and ganglioside assays

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Immunoglobulin classes of antibody-forming cells in mice. I. Localized hemolysis-in-agar plaque-forming cells belonging to five immunoglobulin classes.

Spleen cell suspensions from mice that had been immunized with an optimal dose of sheep erythrocytes were assayed by a replicate plating technique capable of detecting and separately differentiating plaque-forming cells (PFC) producing IgM and/or γ1 hemolysin. The mice were tested 5 1/2 days after immunization when γ1 PFC were first detectable in significant numbers; approximately equal to the number of IgM PFC. Only 2% to 4% of the PFC examined could be considered as producing IgM and γ1 hemolysin simultaneously. These results are inconsistent with the theory that the rapid appearance of a large number of IgG-PFC between day 4 and day 51/2 is the result of antibody-producing cells switching from IgM to IgG production.