Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cytotoxic effects and pulpal response caused by a mineral trioxide aggregate formulation and calcium hydroxide.

PURPOSE To evaluate the in vivo pulpal response after pulpotomy with different capping agents. In addition, the in vitro cytotoxic effects of both materials were assessed by applying them on culture of pulp cells. METHODS For the in vivo test, the coronal pulp of 28 teeth of dogs was mechanically removed and the root pulps were capped with the following dental materials: Group 1: Pro-Root MTA (PRMTA); and Group 2 (control): calcium hydroxide saline paste (CH). After 60 days, the animals were sacrificed and the teeth processed for histological analysis. In the in vitro test, experimental extracts obtained from both capping agents were applied on the cultured MDPC-23 odontoblast-like cells. RESULTS In the root pulps capped with PRMTA or CH, coagulation necrosis partially replaced by dystrophic calcification as well as tubular dentin matrix laid down by elongated pulp cells was observed. None or mild inflammatory response occurred beneath the capped pulpal wound. Regarding the pulpal response, PRMTA and CH presented no statistical difference. However, the teeth capped CH presented greater healthy pulp loss which resulted in convex shape of the hard barrier than PRMTA. When applied on the cultured cells, it was demonstrated that PRMTA and CH solutions decreased the cell metabolic activity by 9.9% and 29.4%, respectively. CH caused higher cytotoxic effects to the MDPC-23 cells as well as deeper healthy pulp tissue loss than PRMTA. However, similar sequence of healing occurred after pulpotomy with both dental materials.
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS AND FINANCE COLLEGE OF BUSINESS AND LAW UNIVERSITY OF CANTERBURY CHRISTCHURCH, NEW ZEALAND SRI Funds: Investor Demand, Exogenous Shocks and ESG Profiles

We provide evidence that investor demand for socially responsible or sustainable and responsible (SRI) mutual funds differs from that of conventional funds in that flows to SRI funds have shown greater growth and more persistence than flows to conventional funds. More importantly, using a differences-in-differences approach we provide evidence that these attributes appear to result from investors’ nonfinancial considerations. However, as these funds have become more mainstream, there has been convergence in investor resilience. We also find a high level of persistence in SRI funds’ ESG profiles, which are generally different from those of conventional funds, consistent with their charters.
The Veterans Affairs Learners’ Perceptions Survey: The Foundation for Educational Quality Improvement

Purpose The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) supports 8,700 resident positions nationally to enhance quality of care for veterans and to educate physicians. This study sought to establish a yearly quality indicator to identify and follow strengths and opportunities for improvement in VA clinical training programs. Method In March 2001, the VA Learners’ Perceptions Survey, a validated 57-item questionnaire, was mailed to 3,338 residents registered at 130 VA facilities. They were asked to rate their overall satisfaction with the VA clinical training experience and their satisfaction in four domains: faculty/preceptor, learning, working, and physical environments using a five-point Likert scale. Questionnaires were received from 1,775 residents (53.2%). A full analysis was conducted using 1,436 of these questionnaires, whose respondents were categorized in four training programs: medicine (n = 706), surgery (n = 291), subspecialty (n = 266), and psychiatry (n = 173). Results On a scale of 0 to 100, residents gave their clinical training experience an average score of 79. Eighty-four percent would have recommended VA training to peers, and 81% would have chosen VA training again. Overall, 87% were satisfied with their faculty/preceptors, 78% with the learning environment, and 67% with the working and physical environments. The survey was sensitive to differences in satisfaction among the trainee groups, with residents in internal medicine (IM) the least satisfied. Conclusion The VA Learners’ Perceptions Survey is the first validated survey to address comprehensive satisfaction issues in clinical training. The survey highlights strengths and opportunities for improvement in VA clinical training and is the first step toward improving education.
Reversibility of renal impairment in patients with multiple myeloma treated with bortezomib-based regimens: identification of predictive factors.

PURPOSE Renal impairment is a frequent complication of multiple myeloma (MM) and is associated with significant morbidity and increased early death rate. Bortezomib is active and well tolerated in patients with MM who present or develop renal impairment. PATIENTS AND METHODS We analyzed 46 consecutive patients who presented with renal impairment in order to evaluate the impact of bortezomib on the improvement of renal function and to identify predictive factors associated with renal response. All patients received bortezomib with dexamethasone with or without other agents. RESULTS Renal response was documented in 59% of patients within a median of 11 days (range, 8-41 days). Two of 9 patients who required dialysis became dialysis independent. A complete renal response (CRrenal) was documented in 30% of patients. Toxicities were similar to those seen in myeloma patients without renal failure who were treated with bortezomib-based regimens. Patients with light chain-only myeloma had a higher probability of achieving a renal response, and previously untreated patients had a higher probability for complete resolution of renal impairment, while light chain-only myeloma was independently associated with a shorter time to renal response. The degree of renal impairment was not predictive of the probability for renal response or CRrenal; however, in a subset of patients for whom cystatin C was available, a baseline cystatin C > 2 mg/L or cystatin C calculated estimated glomerular filtration rate < 30 mL/min were associated with a lower probability of CRrenal. CONCLUSION We conclude that bortezomib-based regimens may improve renal function in the majority of myeloma patients with renal impairment.
APOLIPOPROTEIN E AND LONGEVITY: THE ROTTERDAM STUDY

was detected, most of their patients required prednisone treatment after thymectomy. In fact, they showed the remission rate to be 40% in younger patients, but 8% in older patients. 5 Considering these observations together, we emphasize that the prognosis after thymectomy in older patients is not as good as in younger patients, and that their clinical features constitute a particular challenge in treating older patients with MG.
Hierarchical Attribute CNNs

Deep neural network algorithms are difficult to analyze because they lack structure allowing to understand the properties of underlying transforms and invariants. Multiscale Hierarchical Convolutional Networks are a theoretical class of structured deep convolutional networks that constitute a framework to understand neural network classification properties. However, a naive implementation of such networks is infeasible due to the exponential growth of parameters with depth, so their empirical properties remain to be studied. We introduce a subclass of them that overcomes this issue, called Hierarchical Attribute Convolutional Networks, where individual layers are indexed by progressively higherdimensional and increasingly invariant attributes. Each new layer is computed with multidimensional convolutions along spatial and attribute variables. The dimensionality is kept constant by averaging intermediate layers along attributes, allowing to control the size of the layers while reducing their parameters. This permits to train Hierarchical Attribute CNNs on CIFAR image databases where they obtain comparable accuracy to state of the art networks while having much fewer trainable parameters. We study some properties of the attributes learned from Cifar-10.
Effects of Irradiation on Growth and Differentiation-Related Gene Expression in Osteoblasts

Osteoblasts are bone-forming cells that are responsible for the production of bone extracellular matrix. Osteoradionecrosis is a complication of radiation therapy for carcinoma of the head and neck that occurs in 3% to 8.2% of irradiated patients. The irradiation effect on osteoblast differentiation has not been fully elucidated. The objective of our research was to elucidate the effects of radiation on the growth and differentiation-related gene expression in osteoblast in vitro. Three differentiation-related genes, alkaline phosphatase, type I collagen, and osteocalcin, were tested in our experiment. The results showed that radiation inhibited the proliferation of the osteoblasts in a dose-dependent manner and induced G2/M cell cycle arrest. Irradiation, 4 and 8 Gy, enhanced the differentiation-related gene expression of MC3T3-E1 cells 7 days after irradiation. However, the differentiation-related gene expression was decreased 21 days after irradiation in the 4- and 8-Gy groups. This work presents the dynamic phenotypic expression changes of osteoblastic cells after x-ray irradiation.
Autonomous Fault Emulation: A New FPGA-Based Acceleration System for Hardness Evaluation

The appearance of nanometer technologies has produced a significant increase of integrated circuit sensitivity to radiation, making the occurrence of soft errors much more frequent, not only in applications working in harsh environments, like aerospace circuits, but also for applications working at the earth surface. Therefore, hardened circuits are currently demanded in many applications where fault tolerance was not a concern in the very near past. To this purpose, efficient hardness evaluation solutions are required to deal with the increasing size and complexity of modern VLSI circuits. In this paper, a very fast and cost effective solution for SEU sensitivity evaluation is presented. The proposed approach uses FPGA emulation in an autonomous manner to fully exploit the FPGA emulation speed. Three different techniques to implement it are proposed and analyzed. Experimental results show that the proposed Autonomous Emulation approach can reach execution rates higher than one million faults per second, providing a performance improvement of two orders of magnitude with respect to previous approaches. These rates give way to consider very large fault injection campaigns that were not possible in the past
Cognitive Fit: An Empirical Study of Recursion and Iteration

A laboratory experiment was conducted to assess the basic theory and extensions to the theory for recursive tasks across programming languages. The experiment used 34 LISP and 48 PASCAL computer science students in two repeated measures designs. Findings of the study are reported and analyzed. The results strongly suggest that investigation of programming constructs should take place in the context of specific programming languages. Since a number of languages provide similar kinds of programming constructs, it is difficult for programmers to choose those implementations that best suit their needs. One way of encouraging the use of desirable constructs would be to develop languages adapted to certain types of tasks. Such an approach would inherently lead to cognitive fit and the attendant performance benefits would be realized. >
Contractility Patterns of Normal and Pathologically Changed Human Lymphatics

Abstract: Human leg lymphatics contract spontaneously, rhythmically propelling lymph. This intrinsic property regulates the fluid environment in the intercellular space in skin, connective tissue, and perivascular spaces. The pressures generated by lymphatic contractions constitute the main force for lymph flow. This mechanism is of utmost importance during night rest, anesthesia, and immobilization, as well as in those with damaged peripheral motor neurons. All supporting forces are only secondary to those created by spontaneous lymphatic contractions. The intrinsically regulated lymph flow depends on tissue fluid and lymph production rate. The transport capacity of lymphatics adjusts to the fluid load. Under physiological conditions, limb activity and position only slightly change lymph flow. In obstructive lymphedema, high lymph pressures can be observed. They are usually generated by leg muscle contraction, whereas the spontaneous contractility of lymphatics becomes ineffective in lymph transport because of low generated pressures and lymphatic valve insufficiency. The knowledge of lymph flow in normal and lymphedematou limbs will be useful in the derivation of rational treatments for lymphedema.
Unusual pericytic proliferation in a meningotheliomatous meningioma: an ultrastructural study.

Hemangiopericytomas are controversial tumors of the central nervous system and are regarded by many neuropathologists as variants of meningioma. A unique vascular change which may have bearing on this relationship was encountered in a sphenoid wing meningioma in a 93-year-old man. By light and electron microscopy, the tumor showed classical features of a meningotheliomatous meningioma. In addition, however, there was striking proliferation of small dark cells within vessel walls, extending into the parenchyma, and often dominating the picture. Ultrastructurally, the small cells, in contrast to the meningothelial cells, were totally invested by basal laminae, showed extensive pinocytosis, and subplasmalemmal condensations, i.e., pericytic features. The two cell populations, although intimately intermingled, maintained distinct features. This case may represent an expression of divergent mesodermal differentiation of meningeal cells, either as a unique vascular reactive change or alternatively as an early stage in the development of a hemangiopericytic tumor of the meninges.
Endothelins decrease the expression of aquaporins and plasma membrane water permeability in cultured rat astrocytes

Some of the aquaporins (AQPs), a family of water channel proteins, are expressed in astrocytes. The expression of astrocytic AQPs is altered after brain insults, such as ischemia and head trauma. However, little is known about the regulation of AQP expressions. Endothelins (ETs), which are vasoconstrictor peptides, regulate several pathophysiological responses of astrocytes. In this study, the effects of ETs on AQP expressions and plasma membrane water permeability were examined in cultured rat astrocytes. Determination of AQP mRNA copy numbers revealed that AQP1 and AQP4 were expressed prominently in cultured astrocytes. ET‐1 (100 nM) and Ala1,3,11,15‐ET‐1 (an ETB receptor agonist, 50 nM) decreased the AQP4 and AQP9 mRNA levels in cultured astrocytes, but the AQP1, ‐3, ‐5, and ‐8 mRNA levels remained unchanged. BQ788, an ETB receptor antagonist, reduced the effects of ET‐1 on astrocytic AQP mRNAs, whereas FR139317, an ETA antagonist, had no effect. Immunoblot analyses revealed that treatment with ET‐1 decreased the protein contents of AQP4 and AQP9 in both total cell lysates and plasma membrane fractions of cultured astrocytes. ET‐1 and Ala1,3,11,15‐ET‐1 decreased hypoosmolarity‐induced water influxes into cultured astrocytes. In the presence of 30 μM Hg2+, which inhibits water movement through AQP1 and AQP9, the hypoosmolarity‐induced water influxes were reduced. Phloretin, an inhibitor of AQP9, did not greatly affect the water influxes. The ET‐induced decreases in water influxes were obtained in the presence of Hg2+ and phloretin. These results suggest that ET is a factor that regulates AQP expressions and water permeability in astrocytes. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
The Effect of the Social Security Earnings Test on Male Labor Supply: New Evidence from Survey and Administrative Data

Despite numerous empirical studies, there is surprisingly little agreement about whether the Social Security earnings test affects male labor supply. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive analysis of the labor supply effects of the earnings test using longitudinal administrative earnings data and more commonly used survey data. We find that the response to the earnings test in survey data is obfuscated by measurement error and labor market rigidities. Accounting for these factors, our results suggest a consistent and substantial response to the earnings test, especially for younger men.
Intergroup Conflict And Cooperation: The Robbers Cave Experiment

Preface (1954) Preface (1961) Chapter 1. Integrating Field Work and Laboratory in Small Group Research Chapter 2. Approach, Hypotheses and General Design of the Study Chapter 3. Role of Staff, Subject Selection, Experimental Site Chapter 4. Experimental Formation of In-Groups Chapter 5. Intergroup Relations: Production of Negative Attitudes Toward the Out-Group Chapter 6. Intergroup Relations: Assessment of In-Group Functioning and Negative Attitudes Toward the Out-Group Chapter 7. Intergroup Relations: Reducing Friction (Stage 3) Chapter 8. Summary and Conclusions
Mild Sensory Stimulation Reestablishes Cortical Function during the Acute Phase of Ischemia

When delivered within 1 and in most cases 2 h of permanent middle cerebral artery occlusion (pMCAO), mild sensory stimulation (intermittent single whisker stimulation) was shown to be completely neuroprotective 24 h after pMCAO in a rodent model of ischemic stroke, according to assessment with multiple techniques (Lay et al., 2010). The acute effect of stimulation treatment on the ischemic cortex, however, has yet to be reported. Here we characterize cortical function and perfusion during the 120 min whisker stimulation period in four experimental groups with treatment initiated 0, 1, 2 (protected groups), or 3 h (unprotected group) post-pMCAO using multiple techniques. According to functional imaging, a gradual return of evoked whisker functional representation to baseline levels was initiated with treatment onset and completed within the treatment period. Evoked neuronal activity and reperfusion to the ischemic area also showed a gradual recovery in protected animals. Surprisingly, a similar recovery profile was observed in response to treatment in all protected animals, regardless of treatment onset time. Nonstimulated pMCAO control group data demonstrate that reperfusion is not spontaneous. This makes the complete protection observed in the majority of animals stimulated at 2 h post-pMCAO even more surprising, as these animals recovered despite having been in a severely ischemic state for two full hours. In summary, when delivered within a 2 h window post-pMCAO, whisker stimulation treatment initiated reperfusion and a gradual recovery of cortical function that was completed or nearly completed within the treatment period.
Transparent Semiconducting Oxide Technology for Touch Free Interactive Flexible Displays

Amorphous oxide semiconductor thin film transistors and sensors constitute fundamental building blocks for a new generation of applications ranging from interactive displays and imaging to future electronic systems that are unconstrained by form factor. This makes the quest for high mobility materials processed at low temperatures even more compelling, to enable the layering of circuits and systems on plastic and possibly even paper substrates. Transparency is also an attractive feature that enables seamless embedding of electronics for the immersive ambient. This paper reviews the current status of the ubiquitous oxide semiconductor technology for flexible and transparent interactive displays, along with demonstrated examples of continuous thin film and nanowire systems for the transistor and sensor. Issues related to photo-sensing and active matrix operation are discussed along with solutions addressing the problem of threshold voltage instability and its compensation for fast recovery, particularly after light stress. Physics-based compact models for expedient design and simulation of analog and digital circuits are reviewed along with examples of key system building blocks. Finally we attempt to conceptualize a thin film transistor (TFT)-based fully heterogeneously integrated and autonomous system that can be realized using a combination of oxide and other technological routes.
The population biology of fungal invasions

Fungal invasions are increasingly recognized as a significant component of global changes, threatening ecosystem health and damaging food production. Invasive fungi also provide excellent models to evaluate the generality of results based on other eukaryotes. We first consider here the reasons why fungal invasions have long been overlooked: they tend to be inconspicuous, and inappropriate methods have been used for species recognition. We then review the information available on the patterns and mechanisms of fungal invasions. We examine the biological features underlying invasion success of certain fungal species. We review population structure analyses, revealing native source populations and strengths of bottlenecks. We highlight the documented ecological and evolutionary changes in invaded regions, including adaptation to temperature, increased virulence, hybridization, shifts to clonality and association with novel hosts. We discuss how the huge census size of most fungi allows adaptation even in bottlenecked, clonal invaders. We also present new analyses of the invasion of the anther‐smut pathogen on white campion in North America, as a case study illustrating how an accurate knowledge of species limits and phylogeography of fungal populations can be used to decipher the origin of invasions. This case study shows that successful invasions can occur even when life history traits are particularly unfavourable to long‐distance dispersal and even with a strong bottleneck. We conclude that fungal invasions are valuable models to contribute to our view of biological invasions, in particular by providing insights into the traits as well as ecological and evolutionary processes allowing successful introductions.
Relationship between body composition and blood pressure in Bahraini adolescents

The objective of the present study was to examine the relationship between body composition and blood pressure (BP) in Bahraini adolescents. A sample of 504 Bahraini schoolchildren aged 12–17 years (249 boys and 255 girls) was selected using a multi-stage stratified sampling procedure. BP measurements were performed on the students. Anthropometric data including weight, height, waist circumference (WC), hip circumference, and triceps, subscapular and medial calf skinfold thicknesses were also collected. BMI, percentage body fat, waist:hip (WHR), and subscapular:triceps skinfold ratio were calculated. Mean systolic BP and mean diastolic BP were higher in males than in females. Weight and height in boys and weight only in girls were significantly associated with systolic BP independent of age or percentage fat. Nearly 14% of the adolescents were classified as having high BP. BMI and percentage body fat were significantly and positively associated with the risk of having high BP in the boys and girls. Adolescents with high WHR or WC, as indicators for central obesity, tended to have higher BP values. The results from the present study indicate that obesity influences the BP of Bahraini adolescents and that simple anthropometric measurements such as WHR and WC are useful in identifying children at risk of developing high BP. These findings together with the known tracking of BP from adolescence into adulthood underline the importance of establishing intervention programmes in order to prevent the development of childhood and adolescent obesity.