Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Neoadjuvant chemotherapy plus cystectomy compared with cystectomy alone for locally advanced bladder cancer.

BACKGROUND Despite aggressive local therapy, patients with locally advanced bladder cancer are at significant risk for metastases. We evaluated the ability of neoadjuvant chemotherapy to improve the outcome in patients with locally advanced bladder cancer who were treated with radical cystectomy. METHODS Patients were enrolled if they had muscle-invasive bladder cancer (stage T2 to T4a) and were to be treated with radical cystectomy. They were stratified according to age (less than 65 years vs. 65 years or older) and stage (superficial muscle invasion vs. more extensive disease) and were randomly assigned to radical cystectomy alone or three cycles of methotrexate, vinblastine, doxorubicin, and cisplatin followed by radical cystectomy. RESULTS We enrolled 317 patients over an 11-year period, 10 of whom were found to be ineligible; thus, 154 were assigned to receive surgery alone and 153 to receive combination therapy. According to an intention-to-treat analysis, the median survival among patients assigned to surgery alone was 46 months, as compared with 77 months among patients assigned to combination therapy (P=0.06 by a two-sided stratified log-rank test). In both groups, improved survival was associated with the absence of residual cancer in the cystectomy specimen. Significantly more patients in the combination-therapy group had no residual disease than patients in the cystectomy group (38 percent vs. 15 percent, P<0.001). CONCLUSIONS As compared with radical cystectomy alone, the use of neoadjuvant methotrexate, vinblastine, doxorubicin, and cisplatin followed by radical cystectomy increases the likelihood of eliminating residual cancer in the cystectomy specimen and is associated with improved survival among patients with locally advanced bladder cancer.
A detailed mutational analysis of Vmw110, a trans‐acting transcriptional activator encoded by herpes simplex virus type 1.

Viral genes expressed during infection of tissue culture cells by herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV‐1) can be divided into three broad temporal groups called immediate‐early (IE), early and late. Prior expression of IE gene products is required before later classes of genes can be transcribed. Using cloned copies of viral genes in plasmid vectors, it has been shown that the products of IE genes 1 and 3 (Vmw110 and Vmw175) can activate transcription from both viral and cellular promoters in short‐term transfection assays. The effects of these two IE gene products are markedly synergistic in HeLa cells; the activation observed with both genes present is about 20 times that observed with Vmw175 alone. The mechanism of this activation and the properties of the IE proteins that are required are not well understood. This paper describes the construction of a large number of in‐frame insertion and deletion mutations in a plasmid‐encoded copy of IE gene 1. The ability of the mutant Vmw110 polypeptides to activate gene expression (in the presence of Vmw175) from the HSV‐1 glycoprotein gD promoter linked to the chloramphenicol acetyl transferase gene was studied. The results show that the structural integrity of at least five regions of the polypeptide are important for its function in the presence of Vmw175.
Predicting coronary heart disease from minor symptoms and electrocardiographic findings.

Many coronary heart disease (CHD) deaths and many attacks of myocardial infarction seem clinically to occur as unheralded catastrophes. This is sur prising, considering that pathologically such events are preceded by years of progressive atherosclerosis and ischaemia. The present study estimates the frequency with which minor symptoms and electro cardiographic changes may occur in the years before these major 'unexpected' illnesses.
A numerical study of breaking waves

This numerical study explores the physical processes involved in breaking waves. The two-dimensional, incompressible, unsteady Navier–Stokes equations are solved in sufficiently refined grids to capture viscous and capillary effects. The immiscible interface, characterized by a jump in density and viscosity, is embedded in the domain and a hybrid front tracking/capturing method is used to characterize the moving interface of this multiphase flow. A parametric study is conducted to assess the role of surface tension, Reynolds number, density, and viscosity on the breaking process, as well as their role in the vorticity redistribution and energy dissipation beneath the surface.
Serum levels of cancer biomarkers in diabetic and non-diabetic proteinuric patients: a preliminary study

Abstract Background: Cancer biomarkers (CBs) can be used in early detection of several cancers as well as in detection of recurrence and following response to treatment. We aimed to investigate the levels of CBs in proteinuric patients with primary glomerular disease (PGD) and diabetes mellitus, and compare them with healthy controls. Methods: One hundred and two patients with untreated PGD, 62 proteinuric patients with diabetic nephropathy, and 84 healthy controls were enrolled. Levels of cancer antigen 125 (CA 125), cancer antigen 15–3 (CA 15–3), carcinoembriogenic antigen (CEA), α-fetoprotein (AFP), total prostate specific antigen (TPSA), free prostate specific antigen (FPSA) and carbohydrate antigen 19–9 (CA 19–9) were measured. Results: Compared to healthy controls, levels of CA 125, CA 15–3 and CA 19–9 were higher in patients with PGD and diabetic patients (all p<0.05), while levels of TPSA, FPSA, AFP and CEA were lower (all p<0.05). There was no correlation between levels of cancer biomarkers and serum fibrinogen and serum amyloid A protein levels (all p>0.05). Both urinary protein excretion rate and serum albumin levels were correlated with all CBs (all p<0.05). Conclusions: CBs levels seem to be changed in different proteinuric patients. This condition should be kept in mind when evaluating CBs levels in proteinuric patients.
Associations Between Diabetic Retinopathy and Plasma Levels of High-sensitive C-reactive Protein or Von Willebrand Factor in Long-term Type 1 Diabetic Patients

Purpose: To evaluate high-sensitive C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) and von Willebrand factor as possible plasma markers of diabetic retinopathy in a population-based cohort of type 1 diabetic patients. Materials and Methods: This was a cross-sectional study of 201 type 1 diabetic patients from a population-based cohort from Fyn County, Denmark. Plasma levels of hs-CRP and von Willebrand factor antigen were measured and related to the level of diabetic retinopathy (DR) as evaluated by dilated nine-field 45 degree monoscopic fundus photos captured by Topcon TRC-NWS6 and graded according to the Early Treatment Diabetic Retinopathy Study (ETDRS) adaptation of the modified Airlie House classification of DR. Results: Median age and duration of diabetes were 58.7 and 43 years, respectively. Median levels (10th–90th percentile) of hs-CRP and von Willebrand factor antigen were 1.31 mg/l (0.37–13.3 mg/l) and 1.27 IU/ml (0.79–2.07 IU/ml), respectively. No or minimal DR (ETDRS-levels 10–20) was found in 16.4%, mild DR (ETDRS-level 35) in 19.4%, moderate DR (ETDRS-levels 43–47) in 11.0%, and 53.2% had proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR) corresponding to ETDRS-level 60 or more. In an age- and sex-adjusted model, patients in the highest quartile of hs-CRP were more likely to have PDR than patients in the lowest quartile (odds ratio: 2.59; 95% confidence interval: 1.09–6.12). However, this was no longer statistically significant in a multivariate model. Von Willebrand factor was not associated with PDR in any model. Conclusions: Even though patients with higher levels of hs-CRP were more likely to have PDR in an age- and sex-adjusted model, this was no longer statistically significant in a multivariate model. This indicates the importance of other risk factors like duration of diabetes, glycemic regulation, and smoking. We did not find any association between von Willebrand factor and diabetic retinopathy.
Reproductive performance of Holstein cows treated with prostaglandin F2a, gonadotropin releasing hormone, and recombinant bovine Somatotropin

The objective of this study was to examine the effects of presynchronization and recombinant bovine somatotropin (rbST) on conception rates following a timed insemination (TAI) protocol in lactating dairy cows. A further objective included the evaluation of the efficacy of the Early Conception Factor (ECF) test kit. Recombinant bST may offer some benefit when used in conjunction with estrus synchronization and TAI. Presynchronization treatment consisted of two injections of PGF2α given 14 d apart, with the second dose administered 14 d prior to the initiation of a TAI protocol. A total of 216 lactating Holstein cows were presynchronized with PGF2α and then received GnRH (100μg) at 67 ± 7 d post partum (PP), administration of PGF2α (25 mg) 7 d later, another GnRH (100μg) administration 2 d after PGF2α, and were inseminated 8-18h later (OvSynch). First service conception rate (CR) was determined by rectal palpation at 42 ± 7 d after artificial insemination (AI). Treated cows (n=113) received rbST 67 ± 7 d PP whereas control cows (n = 113) were presynchronized without rbST. The cycling status of all cows was determined by paired milk P4 levels at 53 and 67 ± 7 d PP. No differences (P > 0.10) in conception rate were observed between control and rbST treated cows (44.7 and 40.7% respectively), nor was there any interaction of cyclicity and rbST. Milk samples were collected 7 d following AI for use in ECF test kit evaluation. Samples were stored at -20oC (n=216) and at 5oC (n=113) until assayed. Test results for frozen and refrigerated samples were compared to conception rates determined by rectal palpation at 42 ± 7 d after AI. The rate of false positive and negative results for frozen milk samples were 36.1 and 14.8% respectively, and 40.7 and 7.1% for refrigerated milk samples. Treatment with rbST at the time of the first GnRH injection of an OvSynch protocol did not significantly alter first service conception rates. Additionally, an acceptable 92.9% accuracy of the ECF test for the detection of open cows 7 d after AI using milk samples stored at 5oC was obtained.
Crumpling of Microstrip Antenna Array

The performance of a 2 × 2 microstrip patch array under crumpling conditions is presented. The antenna array was manufactured on textile material, and three cases of crumpling resembling real applications are discussed. The performance of the individual patch elements correlate with the overall performance of the array. Frequency shifts of up to 6% are measured for the array when crumpled, the boresight gain is reduced by up to 6 dB with significant changes in directivity and efficiency, up to 20%. The overall efficiency for the textile array increases for crumpling in one plane but falls in the other.
Non‐adherence to treatment of chronic wounds: patient versus professional perspectives

The reasons for the non‐adherence to treatment for wound healing are complex and fall into unintentional and intentional categories. This study explored intentional and unintentional non‐adherence to treatment from patient/carer and health care professional perspectives. Patients with wounds receiving ALLEVYN Life dressings (n = 20) and patients not receiving ALLEVYN Life dressings who were deemed to be non‐adherent to treatment regimes (n = 6) took part in semi‐structured interviews to explore their experiences of living with a wound, treatment and intentional and unintentional non‐adherence. Three focus groups of health care professionals explored issues surrounding non‐adherence to treatment regimes. Groups included nurses and doctors (n = 25). We found that relationships between participants and health care professionals varied in character across the groups. All participants expressed reasons for both intentional and unintentional adherence. Many reasons for intentional non‐adherence are related to comfort and working the regime around patients' lives. Health care professionals considered the most common form of non‐adherence to be unintentional. However, patients describe the most common form of non‐adherence as being intentional. The relationship between patients and health care professionals varied in character between the groups. Discrepancies between professional and patient perspectives need to be reconciled and addressed to improve adherence to treatment regimes.
Text-Based Twitter User Geolocation Prediction

Geographical location is vital to geospatial applications like local search and event detection. In this paper, we investigate and improve on the task of text-based geolocation prediction of Twitter users. Previous studies on this topic have typically assumed that geographical references (e.g., gazetteer terms, dialectal words) in a text are indicative of its author's location. However, these references are often buried in informal, ungrammatical, and multilingual data, and are therefore non-trivial to identify and exploit. We present an integrated geolocation prediction framework and investigate what factors impact on prediction accuracy. First, we evaluate a range of feature selection methods to obtain "location indicative words". We then evaluate the impact of nongeotagged tweets, language, and user-declared metadata on geolocation prediction. In addition, we evaluate the impact of temporal variance on model generalisation, and discuss how users differ in terms of their geolocatability. We achieve state-of-the-art results for the text-based Twitter user geolocation task, and also provide the most extensive exploration of the task to date. Our findings provide valuable insights into the design of robust, practical text-based geolocation prediction systems.
A chopper and auto-zero offset-stabilized CMOS instrumentation amplifier

This paper describes a CMOS instrumentation amplifier with a noise density of 42nV/νHz and 640kHz GBW at 325µA supply current. It achieves 2. 5µV input offset voltage, 130dB CMRR, and 114dB PSRR by the combined use of chopping, auto-zeroing and a current-feedback topology.
Mandatory IFRS Reporting Around the World: Early Evidence on the Economic Consequences

ABSTRACT This paper examines the economic consequences of mandatory International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) reporting around the world. We analyze the effects on market liquidity, cost of capital, and Tobin's "q" in 26 countries using a large sample of firms that are mandated to adopt IFRS. We find that, on average, market liquidity increases around the time of the introduction of IFRS. We also document a decrease in firms' cost of capital and an increase in equity valuations, but only if we account for the possibility that the effects occur prior to the official adoption date. Partitioning our sample, we find that the capital-market benefits occur "only" in countries where firms have incentives to be transparent and where legal enforcement is strong, underscoring the central importance of firms' reporting incentives and countries' enforcement regimes for the quality of financial reporting. Comparing mandatory and voluntary adopters, we find that the capital market effects are most pronounced for firms that voluntarily switch to IFRS, both in the year when they switch and again later, when IFRS become mandatory. While the former result is likely due to self-selection, the latter result cautions us to attribute the capital-market effects for mandatory adopters solely or even primarily to the IFRS mandate. Many adopting countries make concurrent efforts to improve enforcement and governance regimes, which likely play into our findings. Consistent with this interpretation, the estimated liquidity improvements are smaller in magnitude when we analyze them on a monthly basis, which is more likely to isolate IFRS reporting effects. Copyright (c), University of Chicago on behalf of the Institute of Professional Accounting, 2008.
In defence of situational morality: genetic, dispositional and situational determinants of children’s donating to charity

In this paper we argue that moral behaviour is largely situation‐specific. Genetic make‐up, neurobiological factors, attachment security and rearing experiences have only limited influence on individual differences in moral performance. Moral behaviour does not develop in a linear and cumulative fashion and individual morality is not stable across time and situations. To illustrate our position we present two studies on children’s willingness to donate their money to a charity (UNICEF) as a prime example of pro‐social behaviour. In two samples of seven‐year‐old children we found no evidence for a role of attachment, temperament or parenting. Using a twin design we did not find any evidence for a genetic component either. The most striking finding in both studies was that very few children were inclined to donate any money after viewing a promotional UNICEF film about children suffering from poverty. Only after gentle probing by an experimenter were most children willing to donate some of their money. The situation appeared to be a much more powerful determinant of donating behaviour than any other factor. These findings are discussed in the broader context of evidence for situational canalisation of moral behaviour. We conclude that moral competence may be a universal human characteristic, but that it takes a situation with specific demand‐characteristics to translate this competence into actual prosocial performance.
A field test for the detection of antibodies to human immunodeficiency virus types 1 and 2 in serum or plasma

In response to the need for simple and rapid tests for infectious diseases, we have devised a test for antibodies to human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) and HIV-2 which resembles many contemporary strip-style pregnancy tests in format and ease of use. The test was evaluated with 2,928 serum specimens (1,541 reactive and 1,387 nonreactive) collected and tested at a Mexico City hospital clinic and was compared with a laboratory assay (Abbott) performed simultaneously. The sensitivity and specificity of the test using these serum specimens were 99.68 and 99.71%, respectively (before the code of the blinded study was broken). This compares with 100% sensitivity and 97.55% specificity with the laboratory assay (specificity upon reassay after the code was broken, 99.21%). In a survey of HIV-2 specimens, reactive (positive) specimens were detected in 51 of 51 cases. The test was examined with 21 commercially available (HIV-1) seroconversion panels. The performance of the test was comparable to that of a group of Food and Drug Administration-approved (antibody-based) HIV tests. Simple and rapid methods of detecting infectious disease are needed. The authors therefore developed a test for antibodies to HIV-1 and HIV-2 which resembles many contemporary strip-style pregnancy tests in both format and ease of use. The test was evaluated with 1541 reactive and 1387 nonreactive serum specimens collected and tested at a Mexico City hospital clinic. A laboratory assay was performed simultaneously. The sensitivity and specificity of the test using these serum specimens were 99.68% and 99.71%, respectively. The laboratory assay was 100% sensitive and 97.55% specific. All reactive HIV-2 specimens were detected. The test was examined with 21 commercially available HIV-1 seroconversion panels. The performance of the authors' test was comparable to that of a group of Food and Drug Administration approved HIV tests.
Comparison of the acoustic stimulation test with nonstress test. A randomized, controlled clinical trial.

The nonstress test (NST) is a helpful adjunct in the management of high-risk pregnancies. It has high predictability and a low false-negative rate but unfortunately has fairly high false-positive results. Attempts have been made to find a suitable stimulant to help decrease nonreactive results as well as to shorten the duration of testing: the recently introduced fetal acoustic stimulation test (AST) may have such attributes. This prospective, randomized clinical trial was carried out to assess the new test. A total of 1,300 individual tests were performed on high-risk pregnancies. Cases were randomized to receive either the AST or NST. All tracings were interpreted blindly by an independent perinatologist. The incidence of nonreactive tests was 6.8% in the AST group and 13.8% in the NST group (P < .001). There was a significant reduction in the time needed for a reactive test to occur. It can be concluded, therefore, that AST offers a greater advantage over NST by lowering both the incidence of nonreactive tests and testing time, thereby resulting in less of a need for the contraction stress test and biophysical profile.
Tizanidine Versus Baclofen in the Treatment of Spasticity in Patients with Multiple Sclerosis

ABSTRACT: Tizanidine (Sirdalud) was compared to baclofen (Lioresal) in a randomized, double-blind, cross-over trial. Each medication was introduced over a three week titration period and then maintained at the highest tolerated dose for five weeks. The two treatment phases were separated by a one week drug withdrawal and a two week washout period. Sixty-six patients entered the trial and forty-eight completed both treatment phases. At the end of the trial, neurologists and physiotherapists thought that baclofen was superior on the basis of perceived efficacy and tolerance (p≤0.05). Although the efficacy of tizanidine or baclofen was judged as good to excellent by 24 and 39% of patients respectively, this difference was not statistically significant. Muscle weakness was the most common adverse effect. This was significantly more troublesome in patients treated with baclofen. Somnolence and xerostomia were more common in patients treated with tizanidine. Both baclofen and tizanidine appear to be useful adjuncts in the treatment of spasticity in patients with multiple sclerosis. Preference of either drug is tempered principally by side-effects.
Existence of Stepanov-like Square-mean Pseudo Almost Automorphic Solutions to Nonautonomous Stochastic Functional Evolution Equations

We introduce the concept of bi-square-mean almost automorphic functions and Stepanov-like square-mean pseudo almost automorphic functions for stochastic processes. Using the results, we also study the existence and uniqueness theorems for Stepanov-like square-mean pseudo almost automorphic mild solutions to a class of nonautonomous stochastic functional evolution equations in a real separable Hilbert space. Finally, an application involving a stochastic parabolic system is considered.
Neural Regulation Of Renal Blood Flow: A Re‐Examination

1. The importance of renal sympathetic nerve activity (RSNA) in the regulation of renal function is well established. However, it is less clear how the renal vasculature responds to the different mean levels and patterns of RSNA. While many studies have indicated that small to moderate changes in RSNA preferentially regulate renin secretion or sodium excretion and only large changes in RSNA regulate renal blood flow (RBF), other experimental evidence suggests that small changes in RSNA can influence RBF