Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Dihydropyridine calcium-channel blockers for antihypertensive treatment in older patients--evidence from the Systolic Hypertension in Europe Trial.

OBJECTIVE The Syst-Eur study investigated whether active antihypertensive treatment could reduce cardiovascular complications in elderly patients with isolated systolic hypertension. DESIGN Randomised, placebo-controlled, double-blind outcome trial. SETTING Hypertension clinics or general practitioners' surgeries in 198 centres in 23 Western and Eastern European countries. SUBJECTS Patients aged > or = 60 years with sitting systolic blood pressure (BP) 160-219 mmHg and sitting diastolic BP < 95 mmHg during run-in phase. METHODS AND RESULTS Four thousand, six hundred and ninety-five patients were randomly assigned to active treatment (N = 2,398), i.e. nitrendipine, with the possible addition of enalapril and hydrochlorothiazide, or to matching placebos (N = 2,297). In the intention-to-treat analysis, the between-group difference in blood pressure (BP) amounted to 10.1/4.5 mmHg (P < 0.001). Active treatment reduced the incidence of fatal and non-fatal stroke (primary endpoint) by 42% (P = 0.003). On active treatment all cardiac endpoints decreased by 26% (P = 0.03) and all cardiovascular endpoints by 31% (P < 0.001). Cardiovascular mortality was slightly lower on active treatment (-27%, P = 0.07), but all-cause mortality was not influenced (-14%, P = 0.22). For total (P = 0.009) and cardiovascular mortality (P = 0.09), the benefit of antihypertensive treatment weakened with advancing age, and for total mortality it decreased with lower systolic BP at entry (P = 0.05). The benefits of active treatment were not independently related to sex or to the presence of cardiovascular complications at entry. The antihypertensive regimen was more effective in patients with diabetes than in those without diabetes at entry. Further analyses also suggested benefit in patients who were taking nitrendipine as the sole therapy. The per-protocol analysis largely confirmed the intention-to-treat results. Active treatment reduced all strokes by 44% (P = 0.004), all cardiac endpoints by 26% (P = 0.05) and all cardiovascular endpoints by 32% (P < 0.001). Total mortality was reduced by 26% (P = 0.05), but a similar reduction in cardiovascular mortality did not reach statistical significance in this analysis. Compared with placebo, active treatment also reduced the incidence of dementia by 50%. CONCLUSION Stepwise antihypertensive drug treatment, starting with the dihydropiridine calcium-channel blocker nitrendipine, improves prognosis in elderly patients with isolated systolic hypertension.
Isolation of bovine spermatogonial cells and co-culture with prepubertal sertoli cells in the presence of colony stimulating factor-1

BACKGROUND: Spermatogonial stem cells (SSCs) are in- frequent self-renewing cells among the type A spermatogonia within the seminiferous tubules and are the basis of spermato- genesis in mammalian testis. An adequate number of SSCs is a primary requirement for the study of their behavior, regulation, and further biomanipulation. OBJECTIVES: In this paper, we studied the development of the primary co-cultures of type A spermato- gonia and prepubertal bovine sertoli cells in the presence of Colony Stimulating Factor 1 (CSF1), a potential contributor in the SSC niche. METHODS: The effect of different concentrations of CSF1 (0, 10, 50 and 100 ng/mL) on the colonization activity of spermato- gonial cells was assessed 4, 7 and 11 days after the beginning of the culture by counting the total number of colonies and measuring their area in each group of the present experiment. Immunofluorescent staining against OCT4 and vimentin led to the confirmation of the nature of both the SSCs and sertoli cells. RESULTS: Results showed that the total number of colonies from day 4 to 11 increased significantly in all groups, independent of CSF1 concentration. In addition, the total number and total area of colonies were higher (not significant) in 10 and 50 ng/mL CSF1 treatments than the control and 100 ng/mL CSF1 groups in all the three evaluations during the experiment. However, this difference was only significant (p<0.05) between the total area of colonies in the control and 10 ng/mLCSF1 groups at day 4 of co-culture. CONCLUSIONS: It was concluded that CSF1 can be a suitable growth factor for improving SSCs coloniz- ation in vitro, particularly during the first days of culture where accompanying sertoli cells still have not proliferated sufficiently to support the propagating spermatogonial cells.
5Gb/s phase tracking clock recovery with new line coding in 0.35u CMOS process

This paper presents 5Gb/s serial link transceiver. Input symbol rate is 6.25Gs/s. in each 10 symbols 2 symbol are used for line coding hence data rate is 5Gb/s. Transmitter uses 2-PAM signaling and pre-emphasis technique for compensation of channel low-pass characteristics and reduction of inter symbol interference (ISI). To achieve high data rate without speed critical logic on chip, the data are multiplexed when transmission, with 10∶1 multiplexer. Hence input clock frequency reduced to 625 MHz. This parallelism is performed by using multiple phases that are tapped from a PLL and provides 10 clocks, each have 160ps delay rather than previous clock. With using line switching technique for multiplexing, the die- area was decreased. With different line coding, transmitter area and power consumption are decreased. Besides line equalization is relaxed. By using this line coding, a new architecture for clock data recovery (CDR) was presented that consumes low power and has good jitter characteristics. Besides receiver uses very accurate frequency acquisition architecture. Transceiver consumes 755mw power with 3.3v power supply and in worse condition, sampling clock in receiver, has 28.5ps jitter. The circuit was implemented in 0.35u CMOS process.
Negative loop electrosurgical cone biopsy finding following a biopsy diagnosis of high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion: frequency and clinical significance.

CONTEXT Loop electrosurgical excision procedure (LEEP) is a therapeutic option following biopsy diagnosis of high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion (HSIL). Most LEEPs will confirm the HSIL biopsy diagnosis but a number of them will not. Such negative findings suggest the possibility of an incorrect biopsy diagnosis, removal of the lesion by biopsy, or insufficient LEEP sampling. OBJECTIVE To determine the frequency of negative LEEP findings following HSIL biopsies and better understand the clinical significance of negative LEEP findings. DESIGN The Department of Pathology's records were searched for all patients undergoing LEEP excision who had prior cervical biopsies and subsequent clinical follow-up. RESULTS Three hundred seventy-eight women were found who had index biopsies, subsequent LEEPs, and clinical follow-up averaging 25.8 months. Three hundred six women had HSIL on biopsy with 223 (73%) showing HSIL on LEEP. Seventy-three (24%) LEEPs in women with HSIL index biopsy results yielded negative findings or disclosed low-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion (LSIL). Twenty-nine of 223 patients (13%) with an HSIL result both on biopsies and LEEPs had HSIL on biopsy and/or excisional clinical follow-up. Seven of 73 patients (10%) with positive (HSIL) biopsy results but negative LEEP findings or LSIL had HSIL on biopsy and/or excisional follow-up. CONCLUSIONS Twenty-four percent of patients with HSIL on biopsy had negative findings or LSIL on LEEP. There is no statistical difference in development of HSIL after LEEP for those with positive biopsy and positive LEEP results (13%) versus positive biopsy and negative LEEP results (10%). The occurrence of a negative LEEP finding following a positive biopsy finding was frequent (24%) and does not portend a different clinical follow-up from a positive biopsy and positive LEEP result.
Carrier frequency and frequency rate-of-change estimators with preamble-postamble pilot symbol distribution

Digital burst-mode transmission is ordinary in a few wireless communications systems such as satellite time-division multiple access (TDMA) and terrestrial mobile cellular radio. In those situations the received carrier may be affected by non-negligible Doppler shift and Doppler rate due to relative motion between transmitter and receiver. This contribution is concerned with the introduction of new enhanced-accuracy and low-complexity carrier Doppler shift and Doppler rate estimators which exploit the presence of (known) pilot symbols in the burst. In particular, we consider a special burst format encompassing two groups of consecutive pilot symbols placed at the beginning (preamble) and at the end (postamble) of each packet. The performance of the proposed estimation schemes is assessed by analysis and by simulation, and is compared to the relevant Cramer-Rao bounds. The particular pilot arrangement is shown to provide enhanced estimation accuracy at low signal to noise ratio as compared to conventional (preamble-only) estimation.
Brief presence of varicella-zoster vral DNA in mononuclear cells during relapses of multiple sclerosis.

BACKGROUND A possible viral cause for multiple sclerosis (MS) has long been suspected. A progressive increase in MS has been reported in Mexico during the past 20 years; a conspicuous antecedent of varicella infection during childhood has been the most relevant finding in the medical history of patients with MS. OBJECTIVE To investigate the possible participation of varicella-zoster virus (VZV) in the etiopathogenesis of MS. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PATIENTS We searched, by polymerase chain reaction (PCR), for VZV DNA in peripheral mononuclear cells of 82 patients with relapsing-remitting MS. Additionally, genes gD from herpes simplex viruses 1 and 2 were sought by PCR, as well as IgG and IgM serum antibodies to VZV. RESULTS Viral DNA from the genes open reading frame (ORF)31, ORF62, ORF63, and ORF67 of VZV was found in mononuclear cells from 13 (87%) of 15 patients with MS who were tested during acute relapse. All patients who were tested during remission (n = 67) were negative for the DNA, including patients who were initially positive and were tested again after 2 months of remission. All control patients with a comprehensive variety of neurologic diseases (n = 100) and healthy controls (n = 20) also tested negative. All subjects were negative for herpes simplex viruses 1 and 2 DNA, and no differences were found in serum antibodies to VZV. CONCLUSIONS The finding of genes of VZV in peripheral mononuclear cells, restricted to a brief period during clinical relapse of MS, suggests either its participation in the etiopathogenesis of MS or an epiphenomenon of viral activation simultaneous with the relapse of MS.
A tale of two lakes: a multi‐proxy comparison of Lateglacial and Holocene environmental change in Cappadocia, Turkey

Individual palaeoenvironmental records represent a combination of regional‐scale (e.g. climatic) and site‐specific local factors. Here we compare multiple climate proxies from two nearby maar lake records, assuming that common signals are due to regional‐scale forcing. A new core sequence from Nar Lake in Turkey is dated by varves and U–Th to the last 13.8 ka. Markedly dry periods during the Lateglacial stadial, at 4.3–3.7 and at 3.2–2.6 ka BP, are associated with peaks in Mg/dolomite, positive δ18O, elevated diatom‐inferred electrical conductivity, an absence of laminated sediments and low Quercus/chenopod ratios. Wet phases occurred during the early–mid Holocene and 1.5–0.6 ka BP, characterized by negative δ18O, calcite precipitation, high Ca/Sr ratios, a high percentage of planktonic diatoms, laminated sediments and high Quercus/chenopod ratios. Comparison with the record from nearby Eski Acıgöl shows good overall correspondence for many proxies, especially for δ18O. Differences are related to basin infilling and lake ontogeny at Eski Acıgöl, which consequently fails to register climatic changes during the last 2 ka, and to increased flux of lithogenic elements into Nar Lake during the last 2.6 ka, not primarily climatic in origin. In attempting to separate a regional signal from site‐specific ‘noise’, two lakes may therefore be better than one.
Persuasive Systems Design features in Promoting Medication Management for consumers

Medication safety continues to be a growing concern in the healthcare industry. Providing medication information to consumers and supporting selfmanagement would help to reduce medication errors and to increase medication adherence. This paper reviews the persuasive systems design features used in current medication management applications for consumers. A database search was conducted to identify relevant articles, which were then reviewed using the Persuasive Systems Design model as a framework for analysis. The results highlighted the applicability of these features for the medication management information systems available to consumers. Primary task support and Dialogue support categories were highly cited in the articles. System credibility support category was moderately cited and the Social support category was cited least in the reviewed articles. Tailoring, monitoring and reminder features have been considered more than the other features in previous studies.
Presumptive Routing for Multihop Wireless Systems

High-data-rate cellular systems, such as 1xEvolution-data only (1xEV-DO), can provide data at high rates to users, but generally, these high rates will only be available to users with good links from the base station (BS). Using multihop, where a relay can receive and retransmit a signal to the destination, has the potential to improve the data rates for users with poor links from the BS. In this paper, we propose a method for implementing two-hop relaying on the downlink of a high-data-rate system. Unlike conventional routing algorithms, our method (called presumptive routing) exploits multiuser diversity by selecting the target user after the relay has been selected. This means that the interference experienced by a user does not have to be predicted because it can be determined through the use of pilot signals. The signaling overhead is not much greater than that of conventional high-data-rate systems. We give results for the performance of presumptive routing and compare these to those of single-hop and ideal two-hop systems.
In vivo evaluation of photoreceptor mosaic in early onset large colloid drusen using adaptive optics

remained at 20 ⁄150 OD with an open FTMH and new findings of mild exudates in the peripheral nasal retina. This resolved spontaneously after 3 months without further cryotherapy. Themacular hole closed at 6 years following the last PPV without further intervention confirmed by OCT (Fig. 2), with visual acuity improving to 20 ⁄ 60. To our knowledge, this is the longest documented case of delayed full-thickness macular hole closure following surgery in the literature. Whilst retrospective review of the case notes suggests initial macular hole closure and subsequent reopening following both vitrectomies, we do not have confirmatory imaging. The development of recurrent peripheral exudates following PPV is consistent with mildly active Coats’ disease. We theorize that peripheral disease, albeit relatively mild, contributed to delayed macular hole closure, which may relate to its mechanical (Smiddy & Flynn 2004) and biochemical effects including mild macular oedema that occurs in up to 37% of eyes with macular holes (Shields et al. 2001).
Obsessive-compulsive disorder in children and adolescents: a review of the past 10 years.

OBJECTIVE To review the literature on pediatric obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) from the perspective of information relevant to American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology recertification in child and adolescent psychiatry. METHOD The clinical and research literatures were systematically searched or articles that address the diagnosis and treatment of pediatric OCD. RESULTS Drawing from the literature and their own clinical experience, the authors note that (1) OCD is a common neuropsychiatric disorder; (2) comorbidity is common, especially with tic, attention-deficit, anxiety, and affective disorders; (3) OCD following group A beta-hemolytic streptococcal infection may define an autoimmune sub-grouping calling for immunomodulatory treatments; and (4) OCD-specific cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy with a serotonin reuptake inhibitor define the psychotherapeutic and pharmacotherapeutic treatments of choice, respectively. CONCLUSION Child psychiatrists should be familiar with the differential diagnosis and treatment of OCD.
Ceftriaxone- and N-acetylcysteine-induced brain tolerance to ischemia: Influence on glutamate levels in focal cerebral ischemia

One of the major players in the pathophysiology of cerebral ischemia is disrupted homeostasis of glutamatergic neurotransmission, resulting in elevated extracellular glutamate (Glu) concentrations and excitotoxicity-related cell death. In the brain, Glu concentrations are regulated by Glu transporters, including Glu transporter-1 (GLT-1) and cystine/Glu antiporter (system xc-). Modulation of these transporters by administration of ceftriaxone (CEF, 200 mg/kg, i.p.) or N-acetylcysteine (NAC, 150 mg/kg, i.p.) for 5 days before focal cerebral ischemia may induce brain tolerance to ischemia by significantly limiting stroke-related damage and normalizing Glu concentrations. In the present study, focal cerebral ischemia was induced by 90-minute middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO). We compared the effects of CEF and NAC pretreatment on Glu concentrations in extracellular fluid and cellular-specific expression of GLT-1 and xCT with the effects of two reference preconditioning methods, namely, ischemic preconditioning and chemical preconditioning in rats. Both CEF and NAC significantly reduced Glu levels in the frontal cortex and hippocampus during focal cerebral ischemia, and this decrease was comparable with the Glu level achieved with the reference preconditioning strategies. The results of immunofluorescence staining of GLT-1 and xCT on astrocytes, neurons and microglia accounted for the observed changes in extracellular Glu levels to a certain extent. Briefly, after MCAO, the expression of GLT-1 on astrocytes decreased, but pretreatment with CEF seemed to prevent this downregulation. In addition, every intervention used in this study seemed to reduce xCT expression on astrocytes and neurons. The results of this study indicate that modulation of Glu transporter expression may restore Glu homeostasis. Moreover, our results suggest that CEF and NAC may induce brain tolerance to ischemia by influencing GLT-1 and system xc- expression levels. These transporters are presumably good targets for the development of novel therapies for brain ischemia.
Vasodilatative and Vasoconstrictive Effects of Angiography Contrast Media

During angiography contrast media (CM) induce changes in vessel tone. The pathophysiological reasons for this are poorly understood. In this short review the anatomical structures and physiological factors involved in vessel tone are described, and previous and recent findings in vitro and in vivo concerning the effect of CM on vessel tone are discussed. Although multifactorial, the main effect seems to result from a direct action of the CM on the vessel wall. For a particular CM formulation, the effect is due to a combination of its osmolality, molecular properties as well as electrolyte content. In vitro experiments performed in iso-osmolar solutions of pure CM suggest that CM interfere with the cellular mechanisms controlling intracellular calcium. When injected intravascularly, CM may cause either vasodilatation or vasoconstriction. Vasodilatation is the most frequent effect when a CM is injected into a vessel while vasoconstriction is relatively uncommon. Both vasodilatation and vasoconstriction can be caused by all types of CM.
Part-of-Speech Tagging for Twitter with Adversarial Neural Networks

In this work, we study the problem of part-of-speech tagging for Tweets. In contrast to newswire articles, Tweets are usually informal and contain numerous out-of-vocabulary words. Moreover, there is a lack of large scale labeled datasets for this domain. To tackle these challenges, we propose a novel neural network to make use of out-of-domain labeled data, unlabeled in-domain data, and labeled in-domain data. Inspired by adversarial neural networks, the proposed method tries to learn common features through adversarial discriminator. In addition, we hypothesize that domain-specific features of target domain should be preserved in some degree. Hence, the proposed method adopts a sequence-to-sequence autoencoder to perform this task. Experimental results on three different datasets show that our method achieves better performance than state-of-the-art methods.
PHOTON CORRELATION AND STATISTICS OF SPONTANEOUS PARAMETRIC DOWN-CONVERSION PUMPED BY BLUE LED IN LiIO 3 CRYSTAL

We report on the measurement of photon coincidence and photon number statistics of the spontaneous parametric down-converted radiation excited by incoherent pump. A high ratio of photon coincidences in case of multimode acquisition suggests that the present technique may find application in quantum experiments. Experimental and numerical simulation results confirmed that the coincidence ratio in a photon counting experiment is tightly coupled to the coherence of the pump beam. An experiment on verification of statistical properties of the down-converted radiation allowed us to evaluate the afterpulse generation probability of the photon counters.
Clinico‐pathologic studies in dementia

We compared neuropsychological findings in 28 longitudinally evaluated elderly subjects with their postmortem neuropathology, including senile plaque and neurofibrillary tangle counts from standardized sections. Nine of the subjects were not demented when evaluated just prior to their death. Numerous cortical senile plaques and other changes of Alzheimer's disease (AD) occurred in six of nine nondemented old-old subjects. Five of these six subjects had shown decline on yearly neuropsychological tests but their cognitive impairment was too mild to meet clinical criteria for dementia. Whereas cortical senile plaque count did not distinguish well between demented and nondemented subjects, every subject with numerous cortical neurofibrillary tangles was demented. The nondemented subjects with Alzheimer pathology may have had “preclinical” AD, or numerous cortical plaques may occur in some elderly subjects who would never develop clinical dementia.
Incremental value of cardiac magnetic resonance imaging in the differential diagnosis of acute coronary syndrome in a young man.

A 21-year-old male was admitted with recurrent chest pain, dyspnoea, and elevated levels of cardiac enzymes (troponin T 0.22 µg/L). The patient had a history of periodic amphetamine abuse. One week before the admission, he had an episode of fever (39°C), chills, and diarrhoea. ECG showed normal sinus rhythm without ST-T segment abnormalities. Invasive coronary angiography demonstrated no evidence of atherosclerotic disease. However, an abnormal origin of the right coronary artery (RCA) …
Signal transduction pathways leading to the production of IL‐8 by human monocytes are differentially regulated by dexamethasone

Previous studies have shown that IL‐8 gene expression is enhanced by various stimuli, which induce different signal transduction pathways. A lipopolysaccharide (LPS)‐induced pathway has been reported to be inhibited by glucocorticoids in monocytes. We have now examined the effect of dexamethasone on the LPS‐induced and other signal transduction pathways leading to the production of IL‐8 by human monocytes. Dexamethasone Inhibited the production of IL‐8 stimulated with a cyclic adenosine monophosphate analog or LPS. In contrast, dexamethasone had no significant effect on a phorbol ester (PMA)‐stimulated IL‐8 production. These results suggest that the signal transduction pathways leading to the production of IL‐8 by human monocytes are differentially regulated by dexamethasone.