Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Repeated influenza vaccination for preventing severe and fatal influenza infection in older adults: a multicentre case–control study

BACKGROUND: The effectiveness of repeated vaccination for influenza to prevent severe cases remains unclear. We evaluated the effectiveness of influenza vaccination on preventing admissions to hospital for influenza and reducing disease severity. METHODS: We conducted a case–control study in 20 hospitals in Spain during the 2013/14 and 2014/15 influenza seasons. Community-dwelling adults aged 65 years or older who were admitted to hospital for laboratory-confirmed influenza were matched with inpatient controls by sex, age, hospital and admission date. The effectiveness of vaccination in the current and 3 previous seasons in preventing influenza was estimated for inpatients with nonsevere influenza and for those with severe influenza who were admitted to intensive care units (ICUs) or who died. RESULTS: We enrolled 130 inpatients with severe and 598 with nonsevere influenza who were matched to 333 and 1493 controls, respectively. Compared with patients who were unvaccinated in the current and 3 previous seasons, adjusted effectiveness of influenza vaccination in the current and any previous season was 31% (95% confidence interval [CI] 13%–46%) in preventing admission to hospital for nonsevere influenza, 74% (95% CI 42%–88%) in preventing admissions to ICU and 70% (95% CI 34%–87%) in preventing death. Vaccination in the current season only had no significant effect on cases of severe influenza. Among inpatients with influenza, vaccination in the current and any previous season reduced the risk of severe outcomes (adjusted odds ratio 0.45, 95% CI 0.26–0.76). INTERPRETATION: Among older adults, repeated vaccination for influenza was twice as effective in preventing severe influenza compared with nonsevere influenza in patients who were admitted to hospital, which is attributable to the combination of the number of admissions to hospital for influenza that were prevented and reduced disease severity. These results reinforce recommendations for annual vaccination for influenza in older adults.
Severe hyperparathyroidism with bone abnormalities and metastatic calcification in rats with adenine-induced uraemia.

BACKGROUND Marked parathyroid hyperplasia with bone diseases and vascular calcification are unsolved issues in dialysis patients. In this study, we made azotemic model rats by adenine feeding and analyzed the development and progression of the abnormalities. METHODS Renal failure was induced in 8-week-old male Wistar rats by feeding 0.75% adenine-containing diet for 6 weeks. Serum parameters, parathyroid hyperplasia, bone changes and metastatic calcification were examined at 2, 4 and 6 weeks. RESULTS Progressive increase of serum creatinine and inorganic phosphate, and decreased levels of serum calcium and 1,25(OH)2D3 were confirmed. Markedly enlarged parathyroid glands and extremely high PTH levels were observed in all adenine-fed rats compared with the control (PTH: 199.3+/-58.0 vs 10.5+/-3.0 pmol/l, P<0.01, respectively, at 6 weeks). In cortical bone of the femur, the morphometric parameters showed increased bone resorption with increased fibrosis, whereas in the trabecular bone, bone resorption decreased and bone volume increased with a larger amount of osteoid compared with the control. Metastatic calcification in aorta, coronary artery and other soft tissues were also found in adenine-fed rats. CONCLUSIONS Uraemic rats made by adenine diet developed severe abnormalities of calcium metabolism in a relatively short period and therefore they may serve as a useful model for the analysis of parathyroid hyperplasia and vascular calcification in chronic renal failure.
Xenopus Cold-inducible RNA-binding Protein 2 Interacts with ElrA, the Xenopus Homolog of HuR, and Inhibits Deadenylation of Specific mRNAs*

Xenopus cold-inducible RNA-binding protein 2 (xCIRP2) is a major cytoplasmic RNA-binding protein in oocytes. In this study, we identify another RNA-binding protein ElrA, the Xenopus homolog of HuR, as an interacting protein of xCIRP2 by yeast two-hybrid screening. As ElrA stabilizes the RNA body in the in vitro mRNA stability system, we examine the role of xCIRP2 in the stabilization of mRNA and find that xCIRP2 inhibits deadenylation of AU-rich element-containing mRNA. These results suggest that xCIRP2 and ElrA may be involved in the regulation of mRNA stability at different steps. By immunoprecipitation with anti-xCIRP2 antibody, we find that xCIRP2 interacts with several mRNAs including mRNA encoding the centrosomal kinase Nek2B in oocytes. xCIRP2 also inhibits deadenylation of the mRNA substrate containing the 3′-untranslated region of Nek2B mRNA in the in vitro system. Our results suggest that xCIRP2 associates with specific mRNAs and can regulate the length of poly(A) tail in Xenopus oocytes.
An Analysis of the House GOP Tax Plan

This paper analyzes the House GOP tax reform blueprint, which would significantly reduce marginal tax rates, increase standard deduction amounts, repeal personal exemptions and most itemized deductions, and convert business taxation into a destinationbased cash flow consumption tax. Taxes would drop at all income levels in 2017, but the highest-income households would gain the most. Federal revenues would fall by $3.1 trillion over the first decade (static) and $3.0 trillion after accounting for macroeconomic feedback effects. Including added interest costs, the federal debt would rise by at least $3.6 trillion over the first decade and by as much as $9.2 trillion by the end of the second ten years. *We are grateful to Lily Batchelder, Howard Gleckman, Robert Greenstein, Eric Toder, and Roberton Williams for helpful comments on earlier drafts. Yifan Zhang prepared the draft for publication and Devlan O’Connor edited it. The authors are solely responsible for any errors. The views expressed do not reflect the views of the House GOP or those who kindly reviewed drafts. This is an expanded and updated version of a paper posted on the Tax Policy Center website on September 16, 2016. The findings and conclusions contained within are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect positions or policies of the Tax Policy Center or its funders. 258 COLUMBIA JOURNAL OF TAX LAW [Vol.8:257
Analysis and Design of Distributed Space-Time Trellis Code With Asynchronous Amplify-and-Forward Relaying

In this paper, we study the asynchronous cooperative diversity schemes employing the amplify-and-forward (AF) protocols over the frequency-selective channel. We consider three time-division-multiple-access (TDMA) based cooperation protocols and derive the corresponding pairwise error probabilities (PEP). From our analysis, it is seen that of the paths from the source to relays and from relays to the destination, those with smaller diversity order result in the bottleneck for the overall system performance. We propose a new type of the distributed space-time trellis code (DSTTC) that can achieve full diversity for the asynchronous transmission by utilizing a specifically designed generator matrix. The optimal DSTTCs with the minimum memory order are found by the exhaustive computer search. Finally, various numerical examples are provided to corroborate the analytical studies.
Skeletal Metastasis in Patients with Gastric Cancer

To clarify metastatic patterns, and histologic and radiologic features in skeletal metastases from gastric cancer, 48 patients were retrospectively analyzed. The mean age of the patients at the time of diagnosis of gastric cancer was 59 years. In 31 patients with a history of the radical surgery, the mean interval between surgery and diagnosis of skeletal metastasis was 14 months. The mean duration between diagnosis of skeletal metastasis and death was 60 days. Scintigraphic assessment showed that solitary osseous lesions were found in four patients, whereas the remaining 44 had multiple skeletal lesions. In 28 patients with bone-only metastases with absence of visceral metastases, a higher incidence of thoracolumbar metastases at the level nearest the stomach was found. The incidence of skeletal metastasis in each histologic type was intestinal in 19 and diffuse in 29. Radiologic examination revealed that the ratio between the presence and the absence of osteosclerosis was 1:2. Osteosclerosis was seen in three of 19 patients with intestinal type metastasis, whereas with the diffuse type 13 of 29 patients had osteosclerosis.
TPD52 represents a survival factor in ERBB2‐amplified breast cancer cells

TPD52 and ERBB2 co‐expression has been persistently reported in human breast cancer and animal models of this disease, but the significance of this is unknown. We identified significant positive associations between relative TPD52 and ERBB2 transcript levels in human diagnostic breast cancer samples, and maximal TPD52 expression in the hormone receptor (HR)‐ and ERBB2‐positive sub‐group. High‐level TPD52 expression was associated with significantly reduced metastasis‐free survival, within the overall cohort (log rank test, P = 8.6 × 10−4, n = 375) where this was an independent predictor of metastasis‐free survival (hazard ratio, 2.69, 95% confidence interval 1.59–4.54, P = 2.2 × 10−4, n = 359), and the HR‐ and ERBB2‐positive sub‐group (log rank test, P = 0.035, n = 47). Transient TPD52 knock‐down in the ERBB2‐amplified breast cancer cell lines SK‐BR‐3 and BT‐474 produced significant apoptosis, both singly and in combination with transient ERBB2 knock‐down. Unlike ERBB2 knock‐down, transient TPD52 knock‐down produced no reduction in pAKT levels in SK‐BR‐3 or BT‐474 cells. We then derived multiple SK‐BR‐3 cell lines in which TPD52 levels were stably reduced, and measured significant inverse correlations between pERBB2 and TPD52 levels in viable TPD52‐depleted and control cell lines, all of which showed similar proliferative capacities. Our results therefore identify TPD52 as a survival factor in ERBB2‐amplified breast cancer cells, and suggest complementary cellular functions for TPD52 and ERBB2. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
An A Contrario Approach for Change Detection in 3D Multimodal Images: Application to Multiple Sclerosis in MRI

Estimating significant changes between two images remains a challenging problem in medical image processing. This paper proposes a non-parametric region based method to detect significant changes in 3D multimodal Magnetic Resonance (MR) sequences. The proposed approach relies on an a contrario model which defines significant changes as events with very low probability. We adapt the a contrario framework to deal with multimodal images from which are extracted measures related to intensity and volume changes. Two fusion rules are carefully designed to handle a set of decision thresholds and a set of image measures. The final decision is taken using multiple testing procedures. The efficiency of the algorithm is demonstrated in the context of multiple sclerosis (MS) lesion analysis over time in multimodal MR sequences. We evaluate the proposed method on synthetic images using the Brainweb simulator. Finally, promising results on multimodal sequences on clinical data are presented.
Corporate Disclosure and Cultural Values: A Test for Multinational Corporations

The last five centuries have witnessed an increased power and spread of multinational corporations around the globe. This was coupled an increased calls for enhancing transparency and disclosure for this very important sector in the world economy. This paper aims to examine the influence of cultural values on reporting and disclosure practices of multinational corporations by utilizing the transparency index developed by Transparency International and examining the effect of Hofstede's six cultural values on the level of disclosure by multinational corporations. In addition to testing traditional cultural values' effect on disclosure, this study is the first, in accounting realm, to include the cultural dimension of indulgence. A hierarchical regression analysis is used to test the relationship between cultural values and the level of disclosure for the largest 122 multinational company operating in 23 countries. The transparency index developed by Transparency International in 2014 is used as a measure for the level of disclosure by multinational corporations. The independent variables were the cultural-dimensions scores measured Hofstede. The disclosure score for multinational corporations is regressed against the six cultural dimensions of power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism, masculinity, long-term orientation, and indulgence. To account for the possible effect of the firm's size, as a possible intervening variable, a second statistical model was developed that includes the firm's size, measured by the total assets, was developed and tested. The main conclusion drawn is that to a varying extent, national culture has an effect on the level of disclosure by multinational corporations. Consistent with predicted direction, the cultural dimension of power distance is negatively associated with the level of disclosure by multinational corporations. However, contrary to what is expected in literature, uncertainty avoidance was found to be positively related, while masculinity is negatively related to the level of disclosure and transparency of multinational corporations. The study also finds that individualism, long-term ordination, and the new cultural dimension introduced by Hofstede, indulgence, are not significantly related to the level of disclosure by multinational corporations. The implications of such findings for multinational corporations' mangers include the recognition that they should not view the need to disclose information from the same cultural lenses and, therefore, more voluntary disclosure shall be provided.
Histomorphometric analysis of implant anchorage for 3 types of dental implants following 6 months of healing in baboon jaws.

In an effort to better understand the supporting anatomy for unloaded endosseous dental implants, this study focused on the histomorphometric analysis of 3 different types of implants placed into non-human primate jaws and allowed to heal for 6 months. This report describes data from 24 screw-type dental implants placed in edentulated (2 months healing time) posterior arches of 4 adult female baboons. Three different implants were placed and allowed to heal for 6 months prior to processing for evaluation: commercially pure titanium (n = 8), titanium alloy (n = 8), and titanium plasma-sprayed (n = 8). Circumferential bone-implant interface sampling from 6 regions along the entire length of each implant was obtained for evaluation of percent bone-implant contact (%BIC) and percent bone area (%BA), within 3 mm of the implant. Data were collected (reliability of 1.6% for both parameters) and analyzed by an observer blinded to implant material using IMAGE analysis software for differences between jaws, implant biomaterials, and jaw/biomaterial (analysis of variance, pairwise comparison using least squares method with Bonferroni adjustment). The results indicated that the overall mean %BIC was 55.8 and mean %BA was 48.1. Maxillary and mandibular differences for both parameters were statistically significantly different: %BIC in maxilla 50.8, in mandible 60.8; %BA in maxilla 43.6, in mandible 52.6 (both significant at the P < .05 level). The biomaterial analyses revealed no significant differences between the different implants for %BIC or %BA. The trend observed--that mandibular values were greater than maxillary values for the overall jaw comparisons--was found to be consistent at the jaw/biomaterial level, although the small sample size limited statistical power. These data, along with data from a previous 3-month study, provide insight into baseline supporting anatomy for dental implants.
Effects of different weight loss intervention programmes in health clubs – an observational multicenter study

Abstract This study aimed at comparing the effectiveness of three lifestyle intervention programmes in health clubs “exercise only” (E), “exercise plus nutritional counselling” (E + NC), and “exercise plus weight loss program” (E + WLP) on weight loss under real-life conditions. An observational multicenter study including 788 overweight/obese new customers of 95 health clubs in Germany was performed. Participants chose E (n = 512, 38 ± 14 year, BMI 30.4 ± 4.7 kg/m2), E + NC (n = 179, 42 ± 14 year, BMI 31.7 ± 4.5 kg/m2), or E + WLP (n = 97, 40 ± 11 year, BMI 31.6 ± 5.1 kg/m2). Anthropometric data, energy expenditure, and energy intake were assessed at baseline and after 3 months. All groups significantly reduced body weight (E: −1.5 ± 2.9 kg, E + NC: −3.4 ± 3.6 kg, E + WLP: −5.5 ± 4.3 kg, p < .001 within and between groups) and body fat (E: −1.2 ± 2.4%, E + NC: −2.0 ± 2.4%, E + WLP: −3.1 ± 2.5%, p < .001 within and between groups). However, only E + WLP achieved a clinically significant weight loss of −5.9 ± 3.9%. Exercise energy expenditure increased and energy intake decreased significantly in all groups (p < .001), but to different extents. This investigation suggests that under field conditions exercise plus dietary interventions are more effective for weight loss than exercise alone. The benefits of E + WLP emphasize that interventions even performed by health clubs may elicit clinically relevant weight loss in overweight and obese new customers and can therefore be recommended.
Effect of breastfeeding on head circumference of children from impoverished communities.

OBJECTIVE This study investigated the effect of exclusive breastfeeding on head circumference (HC) among children living in impoverished communities. SUBJECTS AND METHODS A cross-sectional study was conducted among children 12-60 months old from the 39 quilombos located in the State of Alagoas, Brazil. HC deficit was defined by a z-score of less than -2 from the median (based on the 2006 World Health Organization growth standards). Prevalence ratio and 95% confidence interval (95% CI) were estimated using Poisson regression with robust adjustment of the variance, and estimates were adjusted for possible confounders (anthropometric, socioeconomic, demographic, and health-related variables). RESULTS We evaluated 725 children (365 boys and 360 girls). The prevalence of HC deficit was 13.3% among those children who were exclusively breastfed for less than 30 days, 10.6% among those exclusively breastfed for 30-119 days, and 5.8% among those who were exclusively breastfed for 120 days or more. Even after controlling for possible confounding variables, exclusive breastfeeding for ≥4 months decreased the risk of HC deficit (prevalence ratio, 0.48; 95% CI 0.24, 0.99). CONCLUSIONS Exclusive breastfeeding for ≥4 months was associated with a larger HC in children exposed to great social vulnerability in impoverished communities.
Serum acute phase protein concentrations in dogs with hyperadrenocorticism with and without concurrent inflammatory conditions.

BACKGROUND Acute phase proteins (APPs) are promising markers of inflammation in dogs, because they are more sensitive than WBC counts in detecting clinical and subclinical inflammation. Endogenous corticosteroids can mask an acute phase response and make it more difficult to identify underlying inflammatory disease. OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to evaluate the acute phase protein response in dogs with spontaneous hyperadrenocorticism (HAC) with and without concurrent inflammatory conditions. METHODS Serum concentrations of C-reactive protein (CRP), haptoglobin (Hp), fibrinogen, and albumin were measured in 44 healthy adult dogs and 39 dogs with HAC; the HAC group was further divided into dogs with and without concurrent infection/inflammation. A fourth group of dogs with severe sepsis and without HAC was compared with the dogs with HAC and severe sepsis. RESULTS Dogs with uncomplicated HAC had significantly higher Hp and fibrinogen concentrations compared with healthy control dogs (P<.001). Dogs with HAC and severe inflammatory disease also had significantly higher CRP and lower albumin concentrations than control dogs and dogs with HAC without concurrent inflammation. Dogs with sepsis but without HAC had significantly higher CRP concentrations than dogs with HAC and sepsis. CONCLUSIONS Dogs with HAC had increases in the moderate APPs (Hp and fibrinogen), and no significant changes in CRP and albumin compared with healthy dogs. Although concurrent HAC appeared to blunt the CRP response in dogs with sepsis, increased serum CRP concentration in dogs with HAC is likely indicative of severe concurrent inflammation.
Frailty Models for Familial Risk With Application to Breast Cancer

In evaluating familial risk for disease we have two main statistical tasks: assessing the probability of carrying an inherited genetic mutation conferring higher risk, and predicting the absolute risk of developing diseases over time for those individuals whose mutation status is known. Despite substantial progress, much remains unknown about the role of genetic and environmental risk factors, about the sources of variation in risk among families that carry high-risk mutations, and about the sources of familial aggregation beyond major Mendelian effects. These sources of heterogeneity contribute substantial variation in risk across families. In this article we present simple and efficient methods for accounting for this variation in familial risk assessment. Our methods are based on frailty models. We implemented them in the context of generalizing Mendelian models of cancer risk, and compared our approaches to others that do not consider heterogeneity across families. Our extensive simulation study demonstrates that when predicting the risk of developing a disease over time conditional on carrier status, accounting for heterogeneity results in a substantial improvement in the area under the curve of the receiver operating characteristic. On the other hand, the improvement for carriership probability estimation is more limited. We illustrate the utility of the proposed approach through the analysis of BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers in the Washington Ashkenazi Kin-Cohort Study of Breast Cancer. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.
Contrasting Metabolic Effects of Antihypertensive Agents

Hypertension often coexists with hyperlipidemia, insulin resistance, and glucose intolerance, a comorbidity known as metabolic syndrome X. Different antihypertensives have mixed effects on these associated abnormalities. We compared three antihypertensives in the spontaneously hypertensive obese rat model of syndrome X. Moxonidine (4 mg/kg), an imidazoline and α2-adrenergic agonist, α-methyldopa (200 mg/kg), an α2-adrenergic agonist, or the vasodilator hydralazine (10 mg/kg) was given orally for 15 d. All three agents lowered blood pressure equally. Moxonidine significantly reduced fasting plasma insulin, glucagon, cholesterol, triglycerides, and free fatty acids (FFA) compared with untreated controls. In contrast, syndrome X markers were not affected by α-methyldopa treatment, and hydralazine reduced only glucagon and FFA. Relative to untreated controls, moxonidine improved glucose tolerance as shown by reduced glucose area under the curve (AUC) (13.6 ± 2.4 versus 42.5 ± 9.9 g · min/dl). Insulin AUC was increased (7.4 ± 0.9 versus 3.9 ± 1.8 μg · min/ml) as was the plasma C-peptide response to the glucose load. In contrast, α-methyldopa and hydralazine worsened glucose tolerance (68 ± 26 and 110 ± 21 g · min/ml, respectively) and significantly reduced insulin AUC (2.5 ± 0.8 and –2.3 ± 1.0 μg · min/ml, respectively) compared with controls. Moxonidine reduced but α-methyldopa and hydralazine elevated glucagon levels after the glucose load. Contrary to the “hemodynamic hypothesis” for the metabolic actions of antihypertensives, which predicts roughly equal benefits, only moxonidine had a positive impact on comorbidities. This unique action suggests a role for direct stimulation of imidazoline receptors.