Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Progressive fibrosis significantly correlates with hepatocellular carcinoma in patients with a sustained virological response

Hepatocellular carcinoma develops even in some patients who achieve a sustained virological response following treatment for hepatitis C virus infection. This study investigated the relationship between changes in fibrosis, as assessed by sequential biopsies, and development of hepatocellular carcinoma in patients who achieved a sustained virological response for hepatitis C virus.
The cardiovascular system in growth hormone excess and growth hormone deficiency

The clinical conditions associated with GH excess and GH deficiency (GHD) are known to be associated with an increased risk for the cardiovascular morbidity and mortality, suggesting that either an excess or a deficiency in GH and/or IGF-I is deleterious for cardiovascular system. In patients with acromegaly, chronic GH and IGF-I excess commonly causes a specific cardiomyopathy characterized by a concentric cardiac hypertrophy associated with diastolic dysfunction and, in later stages, with systolic dysfunction ending in heart failure if GH/IGF-I excess is not controlled. Abnormalities of cardiac rhythm and anomalies of cardiac valves can also occur. Moreover, the increased prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors, such as hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and insulin resistance, as well as dyslipidemia, confer an increased risk for vascular atherosclerosis. Successful control of the disease is accompanied by a decrease of the cardiac mass and improvement of cardiac function and an improvement in cardiovascular risk factors. In patients with hypopituitarism, GHD has been considered the under-lying factor of the increased mortality when appropriate standard replacement of the pituitary hormones deficiencies is given. Either childhood-onset or adulthood-onset GHD are characterized by a cluster of abnormalities associated with an increased cardiovascular risk, including altered body composition, unfavorable lipid profile, insulin resistance, endothelial dysfunction and vascular atherosclerosis, a decrease in cardiac mass together with an impairment of systolic function mainly after exercise. Treatment with recombinant GH in patients with GHD is followed by an improvement of the cardiovascular risk factors and an increase in cardiac mass together with an improvement in cardiac performance. In conclusion, acromegaly and GHD are associated with an increased risk for cardiovascular morbidity and mortality, but the control of GH/IGF-I secretion reverses cardiovascular abnormalities and restores the normal life expectancy.
Antennal structure and oviposition behavior of the Plutella xylostella specialist parasitoid: Cotesia plutellae

Although several species of the genus Cotesia are used in biological control programs against insect caterpillars throughout the world, little is known of their oviposition behavior. We describe here the types and distribution of antennal sensilla in Cotesia plutellae, a larval parasitoid of Plutella xylostella, and we analyze its oviposition behavior. Seven types of sensilla were found on both males and females. Only sensilla trichodea type II, with a putative contact chemoreceptive function, was significantly more abundant in females than in males, and its morphology and position on antennomeres were linked to the antennation behavior used by females during host search. We conclude that gustatory stimulus following antennal contact is probably the key stimulus inducing oviposition behavior. The sensilla type assumed to be implied in oviposition behavior was present in C. plutellae but not in two closely related species (C. glomerata and C. rubecula), which is discussed. Microsc. Res. Tech. 68:36–44, 2005. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Internalizing and externalizing behaviour problems in childhood contribute to the development of anorexia and bulimia nervosa-a study comparing sister pairs.

OBJECTIVE We wanted to clarify whether there is any clinically relevant behavioural psychopathology in patients before onset of an eating disorder (ED) compared with their healthy sisters and if there are differences in behavioural problems between the ED subtypes anorexia nervosa-restricting type (AN-R) and EDs with bulimic behaviour. METHOD Behavioural psychopathology was examined by parental report using the Child Behaviour Checklist retrospectively in 83 sister pairs discordant for an ED (37 with AN-R and 46 with bulimic EDs) by means of conditional logistic regression. RESULTS Participants who later developed an ED had significantly higher internalizing and externalizing behavioural abnormality scores before onset of the ED than their unaffected sisters. Conditional logistic regression revealed significantly higher internalizing behaviour scores in AN-R and significantly higher internalizing and externalizing scores in the bulimic disorders. DISCUSSION Internalizing problems (anxiety, depression and somatization) preceded the development of AN, whereas both internalizing and externalizing behaviour problems (aggressive and delinquent behaviour) preceded bulimic disorders.
A Comparison of Attitudes Toward Prisoners of Religious and Non-Religious College Students in Hong Kong

While there have been numerous studies on the religious, namely, Christians’, attitudes toward punishment, less attention has been devoted to the religious attitudes toward prisoners. This study aims to examine and compare religious affiliation and spirituality with respect to attitudes toward prisoners. Respondents were comprised of a sample of college students in Hong Kong divided into three groups: Buddhists, Christians, and those self-identified as non-religious. Both Christians and Buddhists displayed more positive attitudes toward prisoners with respect to perceived bad character and perception of negative interaction compared with the non-religious. Likewise, Christians and Buddhists exhibited more positive attitudes toward prisoners with respect to empathy and perception that prisoners are normal compared with the non-religious. Spirituality, however, moderated these relationships as spirituality interacted with religious affiliation to produce more negative attitudes toward prisoners. Possible implications are discussed.
AN ANALYSIS OF COHESION OF EXPOSITION TEXTS: AN INDONESIAN CONTEXT

The paper reports on the results of a study aiming to investigate the cohesion of exposition texts written by eleventh graders of a school in Bandung, West Java, Indonesia. The study used a qualitative case study research design, especially text analysis, involving 32 students. In the interest of space, the paper will present the data obtained from six texts written by 6 students, representing low, mid, and high achievers. The texts were analyzed using systemic functional linguistics (SFL), especially in terms of schematic structure and linguistic features, especially those contributing to the cohesion of the texts, such as Theme progression and cohesive devices. The results show that all texts show students’ grasp and understanding of the schematic structure of an exposition, including thesis, argument, and restatement of the thesis. All texts also successfully use the zig-zag and the Theme reiteration patterns, which indicate the students’ emerging capacity to create a text with cohesion at the clause level. However, only texts written by high achievers employ the multiple Theme pattern, indicating the students’ emerging capacity to create a text with better sense of connectedness, unity, and flow of information at the global level. High achiever texts also employ discourse features which allow the reader to predict how the text will unfold and guide them to a line of understanding of a text as a whole. Moreover, in terms of cohesive devices, all texts use some simple cohesive devices—reference, lexical cohesion, and conjunction. It should be mentioned that all texts are rudimentary with some inappropriate word choices and grammatical problems. This suggests that the students still needed more guidance and time to do research on the topic in focus, to go through the process of writing as professional do, to allow them to create a better text with more elaboration and characteristics of written language with consistency and accuracy. It is recommended that further research on different perspectives and foci of analysis of different text types using systemic functional linguistics, with more representative samples, and studies on the teaching of writing be conducted.
Collective labor supply with children and non-participation: Evidence from Mexico

We extend the collective model of household behavior to consider both public consumption (expenditures on children), as well as non-participation in the labor market. Identification of individual preferences and the sharing rule derived by observing each individual’s labor supply and the total expenditure on the public good rest on the existence of a distribution factor and on the existence and uniqueness of individual reservation wages at which both members are indifferent as to whether a member participates or not. Using a sample of Mexican nuclear families, collective rationality is not rejected. No evidence is found that empowering mothers is more beneficial for children than empowering fathers.
Local recurrence of colorectal cancer: The problem, mechanisms, management and adjuvant therapy

Local recurrence of colorectal cancer after ‘curative’ surgery is a major clinical problem. Typically, 50–70 per cent of patients presenting to a surgical clinic will undergo apparently curative surgery for disease and of these about 10–25 per cent will develop local recurrence, in either the tumour bed or bowel wall. The wide differences in local recurrence rate both between and within institutions is probably caused by variation in surgical technique. The main causes of local recurrence are inadequate excision of the primary tumour or the draining lymph nodes, and intraoperative tumour cell implantation. The most significant single factor prognostic of local recurrence is Dukes' tumour stage. Other important factors include tumour grade and fixity, level of the tumour in the rectum, blood and lymphatic vessel invasion inadvertent perforation of the tumour during resection, and the surgeon's experience. The prognosis of patients with local recurrence is poor. Prevention of recurrence by adequate surgery and adjuvant therapy as well as its early detection offer the best prospect of improving results.
Crises, Private Capital Flows and Financial Instability in Emerging Asia

Asia was faced with a sudden and sharp crisis in 2008-2009, the proximate cause of which was reversals in foreign capital flows, not unlike the regional crisis a decade ago. How different has this boom and bust cycle of international capital flows been from the previous one? The paper examines the balance of payments dynamics in emerging Asia to understand the magnitude and types of private capital flows to and from the region between 1990 and 2008. Attention is paid to both the crises periods of 1997-1998 as well as 2007-2008 along with the patterns of capital flows pre and post Asian crisis. While the region’s capital reversals in 1997-1998 were due to “other investments,” i.e. short-term bank lending, those in 2008-2009 were largely due to portfolio flows. It is not surprising that these two components are often referred to as “mobile capital” and are seen by many as a source of financial instability in comparison to foreign direct investment (FDI) which is viewed as a more stable form of external finance. However, such a conclusion needs to be tempered somewhat in view of the fact that a greater share of FDI inflows has been in the form of mergers and acquisitions (M&As) as opposed to Greenfield. The paper also discusses selected policy issues relating to liquidity and reserve adequacy, regional cooperation, exchange rate coordination and financial stability.
Oxidative Damage to Proteins, Lipids, and DNA in Cortical Brain Regions from Patients with Dementia with Lewy Bodies

Abstract: Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) forms the second most common pathological subgroup of dementia after Alzheimer's disease. The present study compares the levels of oxidative damage to proteins, lipids, and DNA bases in cortical brain areas from patients with DLB with levels in matched control tissues. Overall, there was a trend for protein carbonyl levels to be increased in all areas, but a significant difference was found only in the parietal and temporal lobes. No differences were observed in the levels of lipid peroxidation. Measurement of products of damage to DNA bases showed increased levels of thymine glycol, 8‐hydroxyguanine, 2,6‐diamino‐4‐hydroxy‐5‐formamidopyrimidine, 5‐hydroxycytosine, 5‐hydroxyuracil, 5‐hydroxymethyluracil, and xanthine. Xanthine levels were increased in the DLB group in the parietal, occipital, and temporal lobes, indicating that peroxynitrite or other deaminating species may be involved. The finding of increased protein carbonyls and increased DNA base products in cortical regions from DLB patients indicates that oxidative stress may play a role in DLB.
Anti‐platelet and Anti‐DNA IgM in waldenström macroglobulinemia and ITP

We describe a monoclonal IgM that was purified from the serum of a patient with Waldenstrom macroglobulinemia and thrombocytopenia. The binding and idiotypic characteristics of the patient's macroglobulin were similar to those of a human monoclonal IgM secreted by a hybridoma established from peripheal blood lymphocytes of a patient with systemic lupus erythematosus and immune thrombocytepenia.
An Empirical Investigation into the Key Drivers of Economic Performance in the CEMAC Zone: A Panel Corrected Standard Errors Approach

The economic performance of CEMAC countries is severely poor, when compared to other communities of the same region. It is on the bases of this background, that this paper purports to empirically investigate the potential key drivers of economic performance in the CEMAC zone. Specifically, the study attempts to scrutinise the effect of: (a) educational expenditure, (b) gross physical capital formation, (c) public health expenditures, and (d) private health expenditure on economic performance. To ascertain these objectives, data is sourced from the World Bank Development Indicators (WDI) of 2017 and used is made of both descriptive and inferential statistics. The Panel-corrected standard errors (PCSE) regression model was employed to test the objectives, due to its capacity to produce appropriate standard error estimates with very insignificant loss of efficiency. The empirical findings, among others suggested that, all forms of investments included in the model, significantly influenced the economic performance of countries in the CEMAC sub-region. Specifically, the results showed that educational expenditure and gross physical capital formation positively influence economic performance in the CEMAC zone. Intriguingly, public and private health expenditures negatively influence economic performance in the said zone. The policy implications of these findings suggest that, emphasis should be laid on increasing investment on government’s educational expenditure and gross physical capital formation in the CEMAC zone, if economic performance must be revived.
Impaired Generation of CD8+ Thymocytes in Ets-1-Deficient Mice1

The Ets family of transcription factors function as key regulators of multiple aspects of immune cell development and function. To date, Ets-1 has been implicated in regulating early stages of thymic maturation and lymphocyte function and homeostasis. This report describes a novel role for Ets-1 in supporting later stages of thymic selection, in that positive selection of MHC class I-restricted CD4+CD8+ double-positive thymocytes is markedly inhibited in mice expressing a hypomorphic allele of Ets-1. This effect is thymocyte intrinsic, as Ets-1 mutant thymocytes fail to efficiently generate CD8+ single-positive thymocytes in mixed bone marrow chimeric backgrounds. Although peripheral CD8+ T cells are present in Ets-1 mutant mice, both CD4+ and CD8+ subsets contain an elevated proportion of cells with an effector memory (CD62L−CD44+) phenotype. In addition, while thymic expression of Thy1 is relatively normal, peripheral T cells isolated from Ets-1 mutant mice display a striking loss of Thy1 expression. These data identify Ets-1 as a key transcription factor regulating thymocyte positive selection and lineage commitment of MHC class I-restricted thymocytes.
The enzyme CD38 (a NAD glycohydrolase, EC 3.2.2.5) is necessary for the development of diet‐induced obesity

Obesity is one of the major health problems of our times. Elucidating the signaling mechanisms by which high‐fat caloric diet induces obesity is critical for the understanding of this condition and for the development of therapeutic strategies for its treatment. Here, we demonstrate a novel role for protein CD38 as a regulator of body weight during a high‐fat diet. CD38 is a ubiquitous enzyme that catalyzes the synthesis of second messengers and has been implicated in the regulation of a wide variety of signaling pathways. We report that CD38‐deficient mice are pro‐tected against high‐fat diet‐induced obesity owing to enhanced energy expenditure. In fact, calorimetric studies indicate that CD38‐deficient animals have a higher metabolic rate compared to control mice. Analysis of the mechanism revealed that this resistance to diet‐induced obesity is mediated at least in part via a NAD‐dependent activation of SIRT‐PGC1α axis, a well‐established cascade, involved in the regulation of mito‐chondrial biogenesis and energy homeostasis. Thus, together these results identify a novel pathway regulating body weight and clearly show that CD38 is a nearly obligatory component of the cellular cascade that led to diet‐induced obesity. —Barbosa, M. T. P., Soares, S. M. , Novak, C. M. , Sinclair, D. , Levine, J. A. , Aksoy, P., Chini, E. N. The enzyme CD38 (a NAD glycohydrolase, EC 3.2.2.5) is necessary for the development of diet‐induced obesity. FASEB J. 21, 3629–3639 (2007)
Board # 55: Outcomes and Case Studies of Undergraduate Student Participation in Research

Dr. Sheng-Jen (”Tony”) Hsieh is a Professor in the Dwight Look College of Engineering at Texas A&M University. He holds a joint appointment with the Department of Engineering Technology and the Department of Mechanical Engineering. His research interests include engineering education, cognitive task analysis, automation, robotics and control, intelligent manufacturing system design, and micro/nano manufacturing. He is also the Director of the Rockwell Automation laboratory at Texas A&M University, a state-of-the-art facility for education and research in the areas of automation, control, and automated system integration.
Formal and Informal Long-Term Care in the Community: Interlocking or Incoherent Systems?

Abstract Help with activities of daily living for people in the community is provided through formal services (public and private) and informal (often unpaid) care. This paper investigates how these systems interlock and who is at risk of unmet need. It begins by mapping differences between OECD countries in the balance between formal and informal care, before giving a detailed breakdown for the UK. New analysis of UK Family Resources Survey data for 2012/13 and 2013/14 suggests high levels of unmet need. We investigate who receives formal and informal care, and who receives neither, among the working-age and older populations. We find that while informal care fills some gaps left by the lack of availability of formal services (and vice versa), not all older or working-age disabled people are protected in these ways. Adults living alone and those with high but not the highest levels of difficulty are most likely to have unmet need. Means-tested public entitlements ameliorate but do not remove the increased risk among people in low-income households. The paper concludes that public policy needs to integrate its support for formal and informal modes of care, with particular attention to those groups most at risk of unmet need.
On the Failure to Reach the Optimal Government Debt Ceiling

We develop a government debt management model to study the optimal debt ceiling when the ability of the government to generate primary surpluses to reduce the debt ratio is limited. We succeed in finding a solution for the optimal debt ceiling. We study the conditions under which a country is not able to reduce its debt ratio to reach its optimal debt ceiling, even in the long run. In addition, this model with bounded intervention is consistent with the fact that, in reality, countries that succeed in reducing their debt ratio do not do so immediately, but over some period of time. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first theoretical model on the debt ceiling that accounts for bounded interventions.
Characterizing Hospice Discharge Patterns in a Nationally Representative Sample of the Elderly, 1993-2000

The aim of this study is to identify the prevalence and correlates of individuals discharged alive from hospice in the Medicare program to determine whether the current hospice benefit matches the needs of dying patients. Using a nationally representative sample of age-eligible Medicare beneficiaries who died from 1993 to 2000, the use of hospice and other Medicare-financed care was analyzed during the last year of life for different groups of hospice users. It was found that 84.5% (n = 1029) of hospice users initiate and use it continuously until death; 15.5% of hospice users are discharged alive, with some later reinitiating hospice. The main difference between continuous hospice users and those discharged alive is the time survived after initial hospice use (those discharged alive live longer). After controlling for survival time, costs per day survived are similar for all groups. This study suggests several motivations for being discharged alive that are worthy of more research.
Simultaneous measurement of partial discharges using IEC60270 and radio-frequency techniques

Partial discharge (PD) measurement is an established condition monitoring technique used to facilitate the detection of incipient faults in high voltage electrical insulation systems such as gas-insulated switchgear and power transformers. By simultaneously recording partial discharge using both the IEC60270 'apparent charge' measurement technique and the more recent Radio Frequency method, which measures the energy radiated from the discharge, it is thought that more information can be gained about the nature of the PD source. Combined measurement has been carried out on various common PD source topologies recreated under laboratory conditions using PD test cells in a range of insulating media including SF6, oil and epoxy resin. Test cell geometries include floating electrodes, free particles and protrusions. By plotting apparent charge against the energy of the RF signal for a large number of PD pulses, the relationship between the two techniques can be quantified for a given test configuration. It has been found that the correlation between the two techniques produces characteristic patterns specific to each defect type. It is envisioned that combined RF/IEC measurements will contribute to a more widespread acceptance of the RF technique in terms of its ability to quantify PD severity by relating the RF energy to the more widely accepted IEC60270 pC level.
Circulating human papillomavirus DNA as a marker for disease extent and recurrence among patients with oropharyngeal cancer

Circulating Epstein‐Barr virus DNA is a predictor of disease recurrence in patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma. Circulating human papillomavirus (HPV) DNA has been detected in the sera of some patients with HPV‐positive squamous cell carcinoma of the oropharynx (OPC). The goal of the current study was to determine whether pretreatment serum HPV DNA is a useful biomarker for disease recurrence in patients with HPV‐positive OPC.