Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Comorbidity of respiratory and cardiovascular diseases among the elderly residing close to mine dumps in South Africa: A cross-sectional study.

BACKGROUND Pollution arising from mine dumps in South Africa (SA) has been a source of concern to nearby communities. OBJECTIVES To investigate whether comorbidity of respiratory and cardiovascular diseases among elderly persons (≥55 years) was associated with proximity to mine dumps. METHODS Elderly persons in communities 1 - 2 km (exposed) and ≥5 km (unexposed) from five preselected mine dumps in Gauteng and North West provinces in SA were included in a cross-sectional study. RESULTS Exposed elderly persons had a significantly higher prevalence of cardiovascular and respiratory diseases than those who were unexposed. Multiple logistic regression analysis indicated that living close to mine dumps was significantly associated with asthma + hyper- tension (odds ratio (OR) 1.67; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.22 - 2.28), asthma + pneumonia (OR 1.86; 95% CI 1.14 - 3.04), emphysema + arrhythmia (OR 1.38; 95% CI 1.07 - 1.77), emphysema + myocardial infarction (OR 2.01; 95% CI 1.73 - 2.54), emphysema + pneumonia (OR 3.36; 95% CI 1.41 - 7.98), hypertension + myocardial infarction (OR 1.60; 95% CI 1.04 - 2.44) and hypertension + pneumonia (OR 1.34; 95% CI 1.05 - 1.93). CONCLUSION Detrimental associations between comorbidity of the health outcomes and proximity to mine dumps were observed among the elderly in SA.
International Comparative Analysis of Appliance Efficiency Standards & Labeling Programs: Implications for China

E RNEST O RLANDO L AWRENCE B ERKELEY N ATIONAL L ABORATORY International Comparative Analysis of Appliance Efficiency Standards & Labeling Programs: Implications for China Nan Zhou, Nina Zheng, David Fridley and John Romankiewicz China Energy Group Environmental Energy Technologies Division Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Preprint version of paper for conference proceedings, ACEEE Summer Study on Energy Efficiency in Buildings, Pacific Grove, California, August 12-17, 2012. June 2012 This work was supported by the China Sustainable Energy Program of the Energy Foundation and Collaborative Labeling and Appliance Standards Program through the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231 .
In vivo and in vitro measurement of brain phosphodiesterase 4 in rats after antidepressant administration

Based largely on in vitro measurements, the mechanism of several antidepressant treatments is thought to involve upregulation of 3′‐5′‐cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) signal transduction cascade and a corresponding increase in phosphodiesterase (PDE) 4, the enzyme that metabolizes cAMP. To assess the in vivo status of PDE4, rats were chronically treated with imipramine and then studied with: (1) in vivo positron emission tomography (PET) measurement of (R)‐[11C]rolipram binding, (2) in vitro measurement of [3H]rolipram binding in brain homogenates, and (3) Western blotting for protein levels of PDE4 isoforms. Imipramine administration caused no significant change in Bmax/Kd, for both in vivo measurements with (R)‐[11C]rolipram and in vitro measurements with [3H]rolipram in frontal cortex, hippocampus, and diencephalon. None of 10 isoforms of PDE4A, B, and D measured with immunoblots of frontal cortex and hippocampus showed a significant change. In summary, using relatively large brain regions for both in vivo imaging and in vitro measures of radiolabeled ligand binding and protein levels, chronic imipramine treatment via continuous mini‐pump administration caused no significant change in PDE4 levels. Most, but not all, prior in vitro studies have found increased PDE4 levels after antidepressant administration. The current results raise questions about the in vivo effects of antidepressant treatment on PDE4 and on other potentially important experimental factors (e.g., continuous infusion vs. intermittent injection of antidepressant) in large brain areas. However, the results do not deny possibility of changes in discrete areas, which were not studied in the current study applying PET. Synapse 61:78–86, 2007. Published 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Hormonal regulation of estrogen receptor messenger ribonucleic acid in T47Dco and MCF-7 breast cancer cells.

Using a combination of hormone-binding assays, immunologic techniques, and mRNA hybridizations we have measured the estrogen receptor (ER) content and studied the hormonal regulation of ER mRNA in one estrogen responsive and one estrogen unresponsive breast cancer cell line, MCF-7 and T47Dco, respectively. Estradiol binding could be detected in cytosol from MCF-7 cells but not in T47Dco cells. However, when measured by an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, T47Dco cells were found to contain approximately 15 fmol ER/mg cytosolic protein or 10% of the ER content in MCF-7 cells. Immunologically reactive ER in T47Dco cells was indistinguishable in size (approximately equal to 68 KD) from the ER in MCF-7 cells, as shown by Western blotting using a monoclonal antihuman ER antibody. Quantification of ER mRNA in MCF-7 and T47Dco cells indicated that T47Dco cells contained approximately 50% of the ER mRNA levels found in MCF-7 cells. This basal level of ER mRNA in T47Dco cells was not decreased by estradiol treatment, as opposed to in MCF-7 cells where estradiol caused 40-60% decrease in the ER mRNA expression. Also, estradiol did not increase the progesterone receptor (PR) mRNA levels in T47Dco cells whereas in MCF-7 cells an approximately 5-fold increase of the PR mRNA levels occurred after estradiol treatment. However, incubation of the cells with the synthetic progestin R5020 decreased the ER mRNA levels to approximately the same degree in both cell lines. In conclusion, we have shown that estrogen down-regulates ER mRNA and up-regulates PR mRNA in MCF-7 cells. Neither of these estrogenic effects were seen in T47Dco cells. It appears that the steroid-resistance in T47Dco cells does not occur as a consequence of a complete absence of ER mRNA or protein. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Effects of luteolin and luteolin-morphine co-administration on acute and chronic pain and sciatic nerve ligated-induced neuropathy in mice

Abstract Background Neuropathic pain (NP) is a common condition accompanied by nerve injury. To date, there is no definite treatment approved for this disorder. In addition, many drugs that are used for NP cause adverse reactions. Luteolin is a naturally occurring flavonoid with diverse pharmacological properties such as anti-inflammatory, antioxidant and anticancer. We sought to investigate luteolin effects on chronic, acute and neuropathic pain as well as its potential to increase morphine anti-nociceptive effects in mice. Methods Albino mice (20–25 g) were randomly divided into 14 groups (n=7) including morphine 1 mg/kg body weight +luteolin (5 mg/kg body weight), morphine (9 mg/kg body weight, i.p.), luteolin (2.5, 5 and 10 mg/kg body weight), imipramine 40 mg/kg body weight and normal saline (NS) (0.9 %) as vehicle and subjected to hot plate test. Formalin test was done in the following groups: NS, diclofenac sodium (10 mg/kg body weight, i.p.), morphine (9 mg/kg body weight, i.p.) and luteolin (2.5, 5 and 10 mg/kg body weight). Results Administration of luteolin single dose (5 and 10 mg/kg body weight) significantly reduced neuropathic pain (p<0.05$\rm{p}<0.05$) in comparison to negative control. Anti-nociceptive effects of luteolin were comparable to imipramine as the standard positive control (p<0.001$\rm{p}<0.001$). Co-administration of luteolin and morphine potentiated morphine 1 mg/kg body weight painkilling effects (p<0.001$\rm{p}<0.001$). Conclusions Our results showed that luteolin alone reduces neuropathic pain. Furthermore, when co-administered with morphine 1 mg/kg body weight, luteolin potentiates morphine effects. Therefore, luteolin-morphine co-administration might be a valuable alternative for the conventional treatment.
Kidney development and the fetal programming of adult disease

Recent evidence, from both epidemiological and animal experimental studies, suggest that the very first environment, the intrauterine, is extremely important in determining the future health of the individual. Genetic and ‘lifestyle’ factors impinge on, and can exacerbate, a ‘programming’ effect of an adverse fetal environment. In this review, we present compelling evidence to suggest that one of the major organs affected by an unfavourable prenatal environment is the kidney. Many of the factors that can affect fetal renal development (i.e. exposure to excess glucocorticoids, insufficient vitamin A, protein/calorie malnutrition (in rats) and alterations in the intrarenal renin angiotensinogen system), also produce hypertension in the adult animal. When nephron number is compromised during kidney development, maladaptive functional changes occur and can lead, eventually, to hypertension and/or renal disease. Surprisingly, it is during the very earliest stages of kidney development that the vulnerability to these effects occurs. BioEssays 25:212–220, 2003. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Internationalisation and diversification of Indian academic careers

This paper examines the major patterns and drivers of interlinked geographical and career mobilities of Indian-born researchers and scientists. Based on a global survey of 4,600 Indian researchers and 40 in-depth interviews, this study provides evidence on the internationalisation of careers and the diversification of destinations of Indian-born academics. Our survey indicates that about a third of all Indian researchers have some international study or professional experience at some stage of their career. Prime destinations are still the US, Canada, and the UK, but outside these ‘academic core’ destinations some new European and East Asian destinations are emerging and are expected to play a more prominent role in the future. Mobility of Indian researchers is mainly driven by an intrinsic motivation to internationalise their scientific careers, but has also to do with the status quo of the research environment in India. Moving abroad enables researchers to acquire expertise in a field of research that is not sufficiently developed back home, and provides exposure to research facilities and personnel deemed better and more qualified than those back home. In this respect, international study and work experience are often perceived of as providing professional merits which are instrumental in career progression upon return to India. This happens through the acquisition of tangible – specialisation, access to new networks and funding – and immaterial resources: ‘know-how’, quality and reputation of degrees and work experience, new managerial skills. This study also sheds some light on the role of destination countries’ immigration policies, which seems to play a minor role in the mobility decisions of Indian scientists. However, even if researchers do not really take migration policies into account in their decision making process, we cannot conclude that their international mobility is barrier-free. Immigration policies and rights to work may affect the mobility of scientists rather indirectly by influencing the recruitment decisions of employers and departments in destination countries, without the candidates themselves being aware of these criteria.
Effects of skin blood flow and temperature on bioelectric impedance after exercise.

To examine the effects of increased skin blood flow (BFsk) and skin temperature (Tsk) on bioelectric impedance (BIA), 30 young males participated as subjects. All subjects underwent the following measurements: 1) BFsk and Tsk for the chest, biceps, thigh, and calf; 2) body composition using the BIA prediction equations and underwater weighting (UW); and 3) triceps skinfold (SFtri) thickness. After the baseline studies (M1) the subjects exercised for 30 min at approximately 83% of maximal heart rate. The above measurements were repeated immediately after exercise (M2), and at 1-h recovery from exercise (M3). Repeated measures ANOVA showed that mean Tsk and BFsk, and for the four measured sites were significantly increased from M1 to M2 (P < 0.05) and decreased from M2 to M3 (P < 0.05). These changes did not affect BIA measurement for resistance (R) and reactance between M1 and M2 (P > 0.05), and between M2 and M3 (P > 0.05). With regression analysis the following independent variables were identified as strong contributing factors for predicting fat-free mass (FFM): 1) SFtri and total body water for M1 and M3; and 2) WT, SFtri, and Tsk of the chest for M2. Two FFM equations have little multicolinearity (M1 and M2), e.g., they have low root mean square errors (< or = 2.6 kg), very high values for R2 (> or = 0.94), and relatively low values for coefficient of variations (< or = 5.65%). Differences (P < 0.05) were observed between the UW method and the Lukasi equation for estimating FFM for M1 and M3, but not for M2. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Take me to my leader

Although ethical leadership by formal nurse leaders is critical to enhancing ethical health-care practice, research has shown that many nurses feel unsupported by their leaders. In this article, we consider the limited attention directed toward ethical leadership of formal nurse leaders and how our own research on ethical nurse leadership compares to other research in this field. In searching Nursing Ethics since its inception 20 years ago, we found only a dozen articles that directly addressed this topic. We then reviewed nurses’ professional codes of ethics in Canada and found significant retractions of ethical guidelines for formal nurse leaders’ ethical responsibilities over the past decade. We began to seek explanations of why this is so and offer some recommendations for the study and enhancement of ethics for formal nurse leadership.
Psychological issues in voluntary hospice care.

BACKGROUND Hospices require a multidisciplinary team of health workers to ensure that patients receive appropriate palliative care. One way to tackle this challenge has been to rely increasingly on volunteer carers. Recruiting and retaining volunteers requires some understanding of the psychological challenges (thoughts, emotions and actions) associated with voluntary care. AIM This study examined the psychological experiences of volunteer carers in a UK hospice. METHODS The study employed a qualitative design. Nine voluntary careers in one UK hospice were interviewed about their experiences using a largely unstructured interview format. Data were analysed using a grounded theory protocol. FINDINGS Five major themes emerged: motivation to volunteer, volunteering skills, psychological support and holistic care, positive perceptions of the hospice, and performance hindrances. The skills theme (reflecting abilities acquired from previous experience) was especially prominent. Overall, a model emerged suggesting that volunteers experience cognitive-affective-behavioural challenges involving themselves, patients and the work environment. Self-related challenges seem especially prominent. Implications for nursing care are considered.
Reconstructing Open Source Software Ecosystems: Finding Structure in Digital Traces

We report on the computational reconstruction of 273 open source software ecosystems, consisting of 41,388 artifacts and couplings between them, extracted from digital traces of 34.4 million software artifacts. We argue that digital traces are a new kind of data source, and propose ‘exploratory data loops’ to exploit the benefits of digital trace data in early stages of a research program. We apply this schema to systematically assess data quality, inform sample selection, and detect patterns. Empirically, we show that highly distributed networks are unlikely to follow a hierarchically modular structure, despite popular belief. As is shown visually with two examples, very distinct structures can emerge from autonomous behavior. The results indicate that different, yet similarly effective, strategies may exist to organize for distributed innovation in digital ecosystems. The paper is concluded by outlining how follow-up work will harness the reconstructed ecosystems for detecting behavioral patterns in distributed networks.
Scientists' attitudes toward a dialogue with the public: a study using "science cafes"

Currently, science is developing rapidly and its influence on society is more significant than ever. This is all the more reason for today's scientists to interact with the general public. To design effective science communication activities, we must understand scientists' motivations and barriers to publicly communicating science. In this study, we interviewed 19 early-career scientists who had participated in science cafes in Japan. From these interviews, we identified five factors leading to their reluctance to participate in science cafes: 1) troublesome or time- consuming; 2) pressure to be an appropriate science representative; 3) outside the scope of their work; 4) could not perceive any benefit; and 5) apprehension about dialogue with the public. Among these factors, apprehension about dialogue may be the clearest reflection of the scientists' underlying feelings about this form of communication and an indicator of more intrinsic barriers to engaging in science cafes.
Discrimination of Bladder Disorders in Female Lower Urinary Tract Symptoms on Ultrasonographic Cystourethrography

Objective. To evaluate morphologic features of bladder disorders in female lower urinary tract symptoms using ultrasonographic cystourethrography and to elucidate the anatomic association of these morphologic characteristics. Methods. Ultrasonographic cystourethrography was performed in 1049 women with lower urinary tract symptoms and 1 single urodynamic diagnosis, including 764 patients with genuine stress incontinence, 190 with detrusor instability, and 95 with a hypersensitive bladder. Thirty‐six women with no lower urinary tract symptoms served as control subjects. Ultrasonographic assessment included measurement of the bladder neck position at rest and during stress and observation of the development of bladder neck funneling and cystocele during the Valsalva maneuver. Results. Hypersensitive bladder and control groups had a significantly higher bladder neck position at rest and during stress, a lesser rotational angle of the bladder neck, a lower prevalence of bladder neck funneling and cystocele formation, and lesser mean bladder wall thickness than the other diagnostic groups. In the study groups, age, parity, and menopause may have effects on the cystourethrographic parameters except rotational angle and funneling of the bladder neck. With control of the confounding factors, bladder wall thickness at the trigone and dome was negatively correlated with the resting bladder neck angle (P = .006 and 0.019, respectively). Bladder wall thickness at the dome was positively associated with the rotational angle of the bladder neck (P = .022). Funneling of the bladder neck and development of cystocele during stress were positively associated with the resting and straining bladder neck angles as well as the rotational angle of the bladder neck. Conclusions. Ultrasonographic manifestation of a hypersensitive bladder is significantly different from that of genuine stress incontinence and detrusor instability.
Risk assessment for biochemical recurrence prior to radical prostatectomy: Significant enhancement contributed by human glandular kallikrein 2 (hK2) and free prostate specific antigen (PSA) in men with moderate PSA‐elevation in serum

Most models to predict biochemical recurrence (BCR) of prostate cancer use pretreatment serum prostate‐specific antigen (PSA), clinical stage and prostate biopsy Gleason grade. We investigated whether human glandular kallikrein 2 (hK2) and free prostate‐specific antigen (fPSA) measured in pretreatment serum enhance prediction. We retrospectively measured total PSA (tPSA), fPSA and hK2 in preoperative serum samples from 461 men with localized prostate cancer treated with radical prostatectomy between 1999 and 2001. We developed a regression model to predict BCR using preoperative tPSA, clinical stage and biopsy Gleason grade. We then compared the predictive accuracy of this “base” model with a model with fPSA and hK2 as additional predictors. BCR was observed in 90 patients (20%), including 48 patients with a pretreatment tPSA ≤ 14 ng/ml (13%), and 28 patients (10%) with a pretreatment tPSA ≤ 10 ng/ml. Overall, the predictive accuracy of the base model (bootstrap‐corrected concordance index of 0.813) was not improved after the addition of fPSA or hK2 (0.818). However, for men with moderate tPSA‐elevation (tPSA ≤ 10 ng/ml), addition of fPSA and hK2 data increased predictive accuracy (from a base model concordance index of 0.756–0.815, p = 0.005). The improvement in accuracy was not sensitive to the threshold for “moderately elevated” PSA. For patients with a moderate tPSA‐elevation (tPSA ≤ 10 ng/ml), which closely corresponds to concurrent disease demographics, BCR‐prediction was enhanced when fPSA and hK2 were added to the conventional model. Measurements of fPSA and hK2 improve on our ability to counsel patients prior to treatment as to their risk of BCR. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Multiple Hotspot Mutations Scanning by Single Droplet Digital PCR.

BACKGROUND Progress in the liquid biopsy field, combined with the development of droplet digital PCR (ddPCR), has enabled noninvasive monitoring of mutations with high detection accuracy. However, current assays detect a restricted number of mutations per reaction. ddPCR is a recognized method for detecting alterations previously characterized in tumor tissues, but its use as a discovery tool when the mutation is unknown a priori remains limited. METHODS We established 2 ddPCR assays detecting all genomic alterations within KRAS exon 2 and EGFR exon 19 mutation hotspots, which are of clinical importance in colorectal and lung cancer, with use of a unique pair of TaqMan® oligoprobes. The KRAS assay scanned for the 7 most common mutations in codons 12/13 but also all other mutations found in that region. The EGFR assay screened for all in-frame deletions of exon 19, which are frequent EGFR-activating events. RESULTS The KRAS and EGFR assays were highly specific and both reached a limit of detection of <0.1% in mutant allele frequency. We further validated their performance on multiple plasma and formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded tumor samples harboring a panel of different KRAS or EGFR mutations. CONCLUSIONS This method presents the advantage of detecting a higher number of mutations with single-reaction ddPCRs while consuming a minimum of patient sample. This is particularly useful in the context of liquid biopsy because the amount of circulating tumor DNA is often low. This method should be useful as a discovery tool when the tumor tissue is unavailable or to monitor disease during therapy.