Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Limited usefulness of the PFA-100™ for the monitoring of ADP receptor antagonists–in vitro experience

Abstract We have evaluated the usefulness of the PFA-100™ system (collagen/ADP and collagen/epinephrine cartridges) to assess the in vitro effects of a few platelet function inhibitors: Aspisol® (60 μg/ml), 4-[4-[4-(aminoiminomethyl]-1-piperazinyl]-1-piperidineactetic acid, hydrochloride trihydrate (GR144053F, fibrinogen receptor antagonist, 100 nM), adenosine-3′,5′-diphosphate (A3P5P, P2Y1 ADP receptor antagonist, 500 μM) and Bis[(adenosine-5′-O-phosphorodithioyl) methylene]-phosphinic acid (APTMPA, P2Y12 ADP receptor antagonist, 500 μM) on platelet function, as compared with the other commonly used diagnostic technique, a whole blood electrical aggregometry (20 μM ADP-or 0.5 mM arachidonic acid). The in vitro studies were carried out on a group of 38 subjects. Whereas all the examined platelet antagonists and inhibitors almost completely blocked the 20 mM ADP-or 0.5 mM arachidonic acid-induced (in the case of acetylsalicylic acid) whole blood aggregation, only two inhibitors (Aspisol® and GR144053F) remained effective in a significant prolongation of the PFA-100™ occlusion time. Otherwise, using the PFA-100™ system we were not able to detect the inhibitory actions of ADP receptor antagonists–P2Y1 and P2Y12. Our findings point to a limited usefulness of the PFA-100™ system for the monitoring of the effectiveness of ADP receptor antagonists. The outcomes of this study show that platelet aggregometry in whole blood is characterised by the highest sensitivity in the monitoring of the investigated blood platelet inhibitors.
Risk for Adjacent Segment and Same Segment Reoperation After Surgery for Lumbar Stenosis: A Subgroup Analysis of the Spine Patient Outcomes Research Trial (SPORT)

Study Design. Subgroup analysis of a prospective, randomized database. Summary of Background Data. Reoperation due to recurrence of index level pathology or adjacent segment disease is a common clinical problem. Despite multiple studies on the incidence of reoperation, there have been few comparative studies establishing risk factors for reoperation after spinal stenosis surgery. The hypothesis of this subgroup analysis was that lumbar fusion or particular patient characteristics, such as obesity, would render patients with lumbar stenosis more susceptible to reoperation at the index or adjacent levels. Methods. The study population combined the randomized and observational cohorts enrolled in Spine Patient Outcomes Research Trial for treatment of spinal stenosis. The surgically treated patients were stratified according to those who had reoperation (n = 54) or no reoperation (n = 359). Outcome measures were assessed at baseline, 1 year, 2 years, 3 years, and 4 years. The difference in improvement between those who had reoperation and those who did not was determined at each follow-up period. Results. Of the 413 patients who underwent surgical treatment of spinal stenosis, 54 (13%) underwent a reoperation within 4 years. At baseline, there were no significant differences in demographic characteristics or clinical outcome scores between reoperation and nonreoperation groups. Furthermore, between groups there were no differences in the severity of symptoms, obesity, physical examination signs, levels of stenosis, location of stenosis, stenosis severity, levels of fusion, levels of laminectomy, levels decompressed, operation time, and intraoperative or postoperative complications. There was an increased percentage of patients with duration of symptoms greater than 12 months in the reoperation group (56% reoperation vs. 36% no reoperation, P < 0.008). At final follow-up, there was significantly less improvement in the outcome of the reoperation group in MOS 36-item Short-Form Health Survey physical function (14.4 vs. 22.6, P < 0.05), Oswestry Disability Index (−12.4 vs. −21.1, P < 0.01), and Sciatica Bothersomeness Index (−5 vs. −8.1, P < 0.006). Conclusion. Lumbar fusion and instrumentation were not associated with increased rate of reoperation at index or adjacent levels compared with nonfusion techniques. The only specific risk factor for reoperation after treatment of spinal stenosis was duration of pretreatment symptoms more than 12 months. The overall incidence of reoperations for spinal stenosis surgery was 13%, and reoperations were equally distributed between index and adjacent lumbar levels. Reoperation may be related to the natural history of spinal degenerative disease.
Classifying Response Behaviors in Web-based Surveys

While traditional survey literature has addressed three possible response behaviors (unit nonresponse, item nonresponse, and complete response), Web surveys can capture data about a respondent's answering process. Based on this data, at least seven response patterns are observable. This paper describes these seven response patterns in a typology of response behaviors.
Essays on trade, multi-product plants, manufacturing performance and labor market

The evolution and impact of North-North and North-South trade have been among the main areas of research in the literature of international trade. But how trade shocks emanating from a low-wage southern country affect the manufacturing sector of other low-wage countries has been little researched. In particular, there is a lack of evidence on firm-level adjustment to low-wage trade shock in a low-wage developing country context. The main objective of the thesis is to fill this gap in the literature by empirically examining the impact of import competition shock from China on the evolution of manufacturing sector in India. This thesis combines plant level data from the Annual Survey of Industries (ASI) 1998-2009 with the product level trade data from UN Comtrade database. The thesis contains two main chapters –chapter 2, which explores the impact of a sharp rise in Chinese import exposure on overall plant performance and product reallocation dynamics within-plant, and chapter 3. The latter dwells on wage inequality and employment within-plant. Chapter 2 finds that increased import competition from China following its WTO accession leads to improvements in revenue productivity and a reduction of product scope at the plant-level. A 10 percentage point increase in Chinese import exposure leads to a 3.7 percent increase in large plants’ total-factor productivity. The same amount of increase in exposure to Chinese imports leads to a one percent decrease in the number of products produced by the plant. Plant product-level analysis suggests that the impact on selection of products is not symmetric. Plants drop the product in which Chinese import exposure is higher; however, the closer the product is to the core competence of the plant, the less likely it is to be dropped. Although import competition from high-wage countries has no statistically significant impact on plant performance or product scope, plant product-level adjustment shows that import competition shocks from both high-wage countries and China have a similar impact on the selection of products within a plant. Chapter 3 finds that the rise in import competition from China leads to a general increase in within-plant wage inequality between skilled and unskilled workers in large plants. But the overall pattern is driven by much greater adjustment in flexible labor markets or states that have employer friendly industrial relation regulation, while no significant adjustment is evident in the inflexible market. I find that a 10 percentage point increase in Chinese import exposure leads to a 1.35 percent increase in skill premium in the sample of large plants, whereas the same change leads to a 2.65 percent increase in skill premium in the flexible market. It is also observed that increase in import competition from China causes a downsizing of low-productivity plants through employment destruction, and an expansion of high-productivity plants via employment creation. Again, the reallocation of employment is only evident in the flexible labor market.
A 600µA 32 kHz input 960 MHz output CP-PLL with 530ps integrated jitter in 28nm FD-SOI process

This paper presents a 32kHz input and 960MHz output low-power charge-pump phase-locked loop (CP-PLL) with a novel loop-filter resistor noise reduction technique and reverse sub-threshold leakage compensated source switched charge pump. The resistor noise reduction technique involves no additional active component / power overhead and hence, more beneficial than existing solutions. The PLL with minimum analog supply voltage of 1.62V and minimum digital supply voltage of 0.65V; with die area of 0.15mm2 is designed and fabricated in 28nm STMicroelectronics FDSOI process. The silicon measurement results have been included. Performance includes an integrated jitter of 530ps, reference spur of -65dBc and current consumption of 600μA.
Cognitive-behavioral treatment of rheumatoid arthritis pain: maintaining treatment gains.

OBJECTIVE This paper critically reviews research studies examining the long-term effects of cognitive-behavioral therapy interventions for managing pain in rheumatoid arthritis patients. METHODS AND RESULTS The first section of the paper evaluates long-term results obtained in studies of cognitive-behavioral therapy, arthritis education interventions, and combined cognitive-behavioral therapy-arthritis education interventions. These studies show that although some rheumatoid arthritis patients are able to maintain initial improvements in pain and disability, other rheumatoid arthritis patients do not. In the second section of this review, a cognitive-behavioral model of maintenance of pain coping skills is presented. This model may be useful in increasing our understanding of the relapse process and in planning interventions to enhance and prolong cognitive-behavioral therapy treatment gains. The final section of this paper addresses important future directions for research. The need for empirical studies of relapse and maintenance processes is underscored. CONCLUSIONS Controlled studies are needed to test the utility of new cognitive-behavioral interventions designed to enhance the long-term maintenance of treatment gains in RA patients. We suggest that a focus on issues of relapse and maintenance may be just as important for medical and surgical interventions for rheumatoid arthritis pain, as it is for cognitive-behavioral therapy interventions.
The reliance on unclaimed cadavers for anatomical teaching by medical schools in Africa

The study of gross Anatomy through the use of cadaveric dissections in medical schools is an essential part of the comprehensive learning of human Anatomy, and unsurprisingly, 90% of the surveyed medical schools in Africa used cadaveric dissections. Donated cadavers now make up 80% of the total cadavers in North American medical schools and all the cadavers used for dissection in the United Kingdom are donated. Because the sources of cadavers used in Africa are not clearly known, a questionnaire to gather information on cadavers used at medical schools was designed from the relevant literature and was sent by electronic mail to 123 Anatomy lecturers in 23 African countries (48 medical schools). Fourteen lecturers from 14 medical schools in ten countries responded to the questionnaires. The results indicate that, in most countries, the cadavers are unclaimed bodies from the hospitals and prisons, and the bodies of dead bandits. In South Africa and Zimbabwe, the donations are mostly from the white community, and medical school in the Islamic country of Libya is importing cadavers from India. The lack of knowledge about body donation programes and firmly held cultural and religious burial traditions may explain the lack of bequests from black communities. The use of unclaimed bodies may disproportionally affect people who were homeless and poor, criminals, people with fewer social links, and social outcasts. The Anatomy lecturers felt that there should be broader national awareness programes for body donations, although the benefits of this could take decades to materialize. Anat Sci Educ, 2010. © 2010 American Association of Anatomists.
Ascertainment Bias in Turner Syndrome: New Insights From Girls Who Were Diagnosed Incidentally in Prenatal Life

Objective. To evaluate differences in phenotype and other clinical features between patients who have Turner syndrome diagnosed incidentally (on the basis of a prenatal karyotype performed for reasons unrelated to suspicion of Turner syndrome, eg, advanced maternal age) or traditionally (on the basis of either a prenatal karyotype performed for abnormal ultrasound findings or a postnatal karyotype performed for clinical findings suggesting Turner syndrome). Methods. Analysis was performed on baseline data from 88 girls, aged 9 months to 4 years, who were randomized into a multicenter growth hormone intervention trial. Baseline information included a detailed medical history (especially of cardiac and renal anomalies), examination for presence of phenotypic features characteristic of Turner syndrome, length or height (depending on age) expressed as a standard deviation score, and weight standard deviation score. Patients were classified to either the “incidental” (N = 16) or the “traditional” (N = 72) diagnosis group as described above. Results. The incidental group had significantly fewer total phenotypic features of Turner syndrome than the traditional group (3.6 ± 2.9 vs 6.7 ± 2.9). When subgrouped by karyotype, the proportion of patients who manifested phenotypic features was greatest in patients with a 45,X nonmosaic karyotype, lowest in the patients with 45,X/46,XX mosaicism, and intermediate in those with “other” karyotypes. Fewer congenital cardiac defects were observed in the incidental group (31%) compared with the traditional group (64%), but there was no difference between the groups in the prevalence of renal defects. Karyotype distribution differed significantly between the traditional and incidental groups: 74% versus 19% had the nonmosaic 45,X karyotype in the traditional group and 7% versus 56% had the mosaic 45,X/46,XX karyotype. Conclusions. Patients whose Turner syndrome was diagnosed incidentally had significantly fewer phenotypic features and cardiac defects, as well as a greater proportion of mosaic karyotypes, compared with patients whose Turner syndrome was diagnosed clinically. These results support the theory that significant ascertainment bias exists in our understanding Turner syndrome, with important implications for prenatal counseling.
High power, medium voltage, modular active power filtering system

The paper presents the concept of 2 MVA, medium voltage active power filtering system. The system is modular, thus provides full scalability. All the power modules of the system share a special, unified topology of 3rd order LCL passive circuit, which together with predictive control provides very high filtering effectiveness and, at the same time, zero current ripples. This paper contains preliminary simulations. The full power, MV system is currently being applied.
Nonrandomized trial of weight loss with orlistat, nutrition education, diet, and exercise in obese patients with CKD: 2-year follow-up.

BACKGROUND Obesity increases the comorbidity-adjusted relative risk of developing end-stage renal disease. Body mass index (BMI) > 30 kg/m(2) was a contraindication for transplant in our renal unit until 2008. STUDY DESIGN Open-label prospective nonrandomized intervention. SETTING & PARTICIPANTS All men and women aged 18-75 years with chronic kidney disease (CKD) and BMI > 30 or > 28 kg/m(2) with diabetes, hypertension, or dyslipidemia and otherwise suitable for kidney transplant if on dialysis therapy were eligible to enroll in the weight-management program. 64 patients were referred; 44 agreed to participate in the intervention group and 20 did not wish to take part and constitute the usual-care group. INTERVENTION 24-month weight-management program that included a low-fat renal-specific diet, exercise, and orlistat, 120 mg, 3 times daily. OUTCOMES Body weight, blood pressure (BP), kidney transplant wait listing. MEASUREMENTS Body weight, BP, estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR; calculated using the 4-variable Modification of Diet in Renal Disease [MDRD] Study equation). RESULTS 32 patients (73%) in the weight-management program group completed the follow-up evaluation. Baseline mean BMI was 35.7 +/- 4.5 (SD) kg/m(2) in the weight-management program group and 34.1 +/- 4.2 kg/m(2) in the usual-care group. 12 (38%) patients in the weight-management program and 9 (45%) in usual care had stages 3-4 CKD, with the remainder in stage 5 CKD on dialysis therapy. There were no differences in body weight, BP, or eGFR between groups at baseline. After 24 months, mean body weight was 94.6 +/- 16.1 kg in the weight-management program group versus 101.0 +/- 26.8 kg in the usual-care group (P < 0.001), and eGFR was 43 mL/min in the weight-management program group versus 18 mL/min in the usual-care group (P < 0.001). 9 of 26 (35%) otherwise eligible patients in the weight-management program and 1 of 18 (6%) patients in usual care were accepted for kidney transplant listing, with 3 transplants performed in the weight-management program group and 1 in the usual-care group. LIMITATIONS Nonrandomized trial, small number of participants. CONCLUSIONS The weight-management program group showed significant weight loss and weight-loss maintenance in obese patients with CKD and potentially enables obese patients with CKD to undergo kidney transplant.
Leakage properties of photonic crystal fibers.

An analysis of the con.nement losses in photonic crystal fibers due to the finite numbers of air holes is performed by means of the finite element method. The high flexibility of the numerical method allows us to consider fibers with regular lattices, like the triangular and the honeycomb ones, and circular holes, but also fibers with more complicated cross sections like the cobweb fiber. Numerical results show that by increasing the number of air hole rings the attenuation constant decreases. This dependence is very strong for triangular and cobweb fibers, whereas it is very weak for the honeycomb one.
Assessment of pedophilia using hemodynamic brain response to sexual stimuli.

CONTEXT Accurately assessing sexual preference is important in the treatment of child sex offenders. Phallometry is the standard method to identify sexual preference; however, this measure has been criticized for its intrusiveness and limited reliability. OBJECTIVE To evaluate whether spatial response pattern to sexual stimuli as revealed by a change in the blood oxygen level-dependent signal facilitates the identification of pedophiles. DESIGN During functional magnetic resonance imaging, pedophilic and nonpedophilic participants were briefly exposed to same- and opposite-sex images of nude children and adults. We calculated differences in blood oxygen level-dependent signals to child and adult sexual stimuli for each participant. The corresponding contrast images were entered into a group analysis to calculate whole-brain difference maps between groups. We calculated an expression value that corresponded to the group result for each participant. These expression values were submitted to 2 different classification algorithms: Fisher linear discriminant analysis and κ -nearest neighbor analysis. This classification procedure was cross-validated using the leave-one-out method. SETTING Section of Sexual Medicine, Medical School, Christian Albrechts University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany. PARTICIPANTS We recruited 24 participants with pedophilia who were sexually attracted to either prepubescent girls (n = 11) or prepubescent boys (n = 13) and 32 healthy male controls who were sexually attracted to either adult women (n = 18) or adult men (n = 14). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Sensitivity and specificity scores of the 2 classification algorithms. RESULTS The highest classification accuracy was achieved by Fisher linear discriminant analysis, which showed a mean accuracy of 95% (100% specificity, 88% sensitivity). CONCLUSIONS Functional brain response patterns to sexual stimuli contain sufficient information to identify pedophiles with high accuracy. The automatic classification of these patterns is a promising objective tool to clinically diagnose pedophilia.
Return of chloroquine antimalarial efficacy in Malawi.

BACKGROUND In 1993, Malawi became the first country in Africa to replace chloroquine with the combination of sulfadoxine and pyrimethamine for the treatment of malaria. At that time, the clinical efficacy of chloroquine was less than 50%. The molecular marker of chloroquine-resistant falciparum malaria subsequently declined in prevalence and was undetectable by 2001, suggesting that chloroquine might once again be effective in Malawi. METHODS We conducted a randomized clinical trial involving 210 children with uncomplicated Plasmodium falciparum malaria in Blantyre, Malawi. The children were treated with either chloroquine or sulfadoxine\#8211;pyrimethamine and followed for 28 days to assess the antimalarial efficacy of the drug. RESULTS In analyses conducted according to the study protocol, treatment failure occurred in 1 of 80 participants assigned to chloroquine, as compared with 71 of 87 participants assigned to sulfadoxine\#8211;pyrimethamine. The cumulative efficacy of chloroquine was 99% (95% confidence interval [CI], 93 to 100), and the efficacy of sulfadoxine\#8211;pyrimethamine was 21% (95% CI, 13 to 30). Among children treated with chloroquine, the mean time to parasite clearance was 2.6 days (95% CI, 2.5 to 2.8) and the mean time to the resolution of fever was 10.3 hours (95% CI, 8.1 to 12.6). No unexpected adverse events related to the study drugs occurred. CONCLUSIONS Chloroquine is again an efficacious treatment for malaria, 12 years after it was withdrawn from use in Malawi. (ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT00125489 [ClinicalTrials.gov].).
From centralized education to innovation: Cultural shifts in Kuwait’s education system

Abstract This study focuses on the historical and cultural contexts surrounding Kuwait’s education system and the government’s efforts to develop an entrepreneurial mindset. Primary and secondary sources and research in policy borrowing provide context to the problem of systemic change of an education system in a country that is trying to prepare its youth with the knowledge and skills necessary to succeed in the 21st century. The commitment to improvement is evident, but the question is whether the political, professional, and popular determination is enough to implement the changes into the system and internalize them for sustainable reform. A case can be made that repeated efforts at policy borrowing that resulted in failure to internalize reforms can be used as the impetus for real and sustainable change.
On the Performance of NOMA-Based Cooperative Relaying Systems Over Rician Fading Channels

Non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) is a promising technique for the fifth generation (5G) wireless communications. As users with good channel conditions can serve as relays to enhance the system performance by using successive interference cancellation (SIC), the integration of NOMA and cooperative relaying has recently attracted increasing interests. In this paper, a NOMA-based cooperative relaying system is studied, and an analytical framework is developed to evaluate its performance. Specifically, the performance of NOMA over Rician fading channels is studied, and the exact expression of the average achievable rate is derived. Moreover, we also propose an approximation method to calculate the achievable rate by using the Gauss–Chebyshev Integration. Numerical results confirm that our derived analytical results match well with the Monte Carlo simulations.