Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Measuring hope: Standardization of the Czech version of the Adult Dispositional Hope Scale in healthy adults.

OBJECTIVES Hope is an important factor that influences mental state of individuals and efficacy of systematic and supportive psychotherapy. The goal of the study was to translate the Adult Dispositional Hope Scale (ADHS) to Czech, evaluate its psychometric properties and create norms to interpret the scale scores. METHODS The scale consists of twelve items. Four items assess the ability of pathway thinking, four items measure agency, and the remaining four items are fillers that are not interpreted. There were 394 adult participants with negative psychiatric history who completed the ADHS and BDI-II. Their mean age was 27.1±11.7 years, most of them were women (n=303; 76.9%). RESULTS There was no significant relationship between age or sex and hope. Reliability was analyzed by Cronbach alpha (α=0.82) and the split-half method (Spearman-Brown coefficient = 0.81). The factor structure of the scale was approved by the results of exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, except the ninth item that similarly saturated both subscales. The ADHS moderately negatively correlated with BDI-II. Norms were created for the scores of the entire scale and both subscales. CONCLUSION The Czech version of the Adult Dispositional Hope Scale shows adequate psychometric properties.
An Assessment of the Value of Intraperitoneal Meperidine for Analgesia Postlaparoscopic Tubal Ligation

Patients undergoing laparoscopic procedures may experience postoperative pain. The intraperitoneal (IP) administration of drugs is controversial but has proven effective in some studies for the relief of postoperative pain. However, some investigators have not been able to confirm the analgesic efficacy of IP local anesthetics. The administration of IP opioids for the relief of postoperative pain has received little attention. At the end of laparoscopic tubal ligation, 100 patients received 80 mL of 0.125% bupivacaine with 1:200,000 epinephrine IP and 50 mg of meperidine either IP or IM. Postoperative pain scores were measured at rest and with movement. Pain scores were significantly lower in the group receiving the IP meperidine both at rest (P < 0.01) and with movement (P < 0.05). We conclude that the combination of intraperitoneal bupivacaine and intraperitoneal meperidine was better than the combination of IP bupivacaine and IM meperidine for postoperative analgesia in patients undergoing laparoscopic tubal ligation. Implications The combination of bupivacaine and meperidine delivered to the intraperitoneal cavity proved superior to equivalent doses of intraperitoneal bupivacaine and IM meperidine for postoperative pain relief in patients undergoing laparoscopic tubal ligation. Intraperitoneal delivery of analgesia proved effective in this study and merits further study and more widespread use.
Coffee and caffeine consumption and depression: A meta-analysis of observational studies

Objective: The results from observation studies on the relationship between coffee intake and risk of depression and the relationship between caffeine consumption and depression remain controversial. We conducted a meta-analysis with a dose–response analysis to quantitatively summarize the evidence about the association between coffee and caffeine intakes and risk of depression. Method: Relevant articles were identified by researching PubMed, Web of Science, China National Knowledge Infrastructure and WANFANG DATA in English or Chinese from 1 January 1980 to 1 May 2015. Case-control, cohort or cross-sectional studies evaluating coffee or caffeine consumption and depression were included. A random-effects model was used to combine study-specific relative risk and 95% confidence interval. Dose–response relationship was assessed by restricted cubic spline functions. Results: Data were obtained from 11 observation articles; 330,677 participants from seven studies in seven articles were included in the coffee-depression analysis, while 38,223 participants from eight studies in seven articles were involved in the caffeine-depression analysis. Compared with the lowest level consumption, the pooled relative risk (95% confidence interval) for coffee-depression and caffeine-depression was 0.757 [0.624, 0.917] and 0.721 [0.522, 0.997], respectively. For dose–response analysis, evidence of a linear association was found between coffee consumption and depression, and the risk of depression decreased by 8% (relative risk = 0.92, 95% confidence interval = [0.87, 0.97], p = 0.002) for each cup/day increment in coffee intake; a nonlinear association was found between caffeine consumption and depression, the risk of depression decreased faster and the association became significant when the caffeine consumption was above 68 mg/day and below 509 mg/day. Conclusions: Coffee and caffeine consumption were significantly associated with decreased risk of depression.
Some Contributions of Integrated Assessment Models of Global Climate Change

This article reviews the use of integrated assessment models (IAMs) in climate policy and research at the global scale. Two different types of IAMs are discussed. First, there are models that focus on climate change mitigation options and climate change impacts in some detail without necessarily valuing or aggregating all possible impacts into a single measure of projected climate damages. Here they are called detailed process (DP) IAMs. A second class of IAMs are much more highly aggregated and focus on calculating carbon emissions trajectories and carbon prices that maximize global welfare. Here these models are referred to as aggregate benefit–cost analysis (BCA) IAMs. Early IAMs of both types were introduced about 30 years ago and by now have been applied to many important policy and research design issues. Continual advancements in physical and economic system understanding, modeling techniques, and computational power should continue to open up many additional opportunities for using these models to provide relevant information to decision makers. While the models can be improved in many areas, much of the uncertainty that exists reflects a lack of complete scientific understanding of the systems involved rather than limitations of one or another approach to model construction and use.
What to Do Here? What to Do There? The Effect of Change in Organization Size on Public Management

ABSTRACT For a long time, researchers have been interested in the consequences of creating larger public organizations. The outcomes of changes in the size of public organizations have been relatively widely studied; however, much less is known about the internal processes through which these outcomes are actually achieved. This article explores whether changes in organizational size affect public management. As endogeneity is an inherent problem when studying outcomes of organizational size, we apply a quasi-experimental design in order to establish the causal linkage between size and different elements of public management. We use unique survey data collected before and after a large reform that changed the size of most Danish municipalities. The results suggest that public management related to daily operations is generic and not affected by size, whereas public management related to overall tasks such as creating a vision, servicing the mayor, and maintaining external relations is positively affected by size changes.
Bone Marrow‐Derived Stem Cells Can Differentiate into Retinal Cells in Injured Rat Retina

It has recently been shown that bone marrow cells can differentiate into various lineage cells including neural cells in vitro and in vivo. We therefore examined whether bone marrow stem cells can differentiate into retinal neural cells in adult rats. PKH‐67‐labeled stem cell‐enriched bone marrow cells (BMCs) were injected into the vitreous space of eyes in which the retinas had been mechanically injured using a hooked needle. Two weeks after the injection of these cells, immunohistochemical examinations were carried out. The stem cell‐enriched BMCs had been incorporated and had differentiated into retinal neural cells in the injured retina. The stem cell‐enriched BMCs had accumulated mainly in the outer nuclear layer around the injured sites. The incorporated cells expressed glial fibrillary acidic protein, calbindin, rhodopsin, and vimentin. These results raise the possibility that stem cell‐enriched BMCs have the ability to differentiate into retinal neural cells, and that the injection of stem cell‐enriched BMCs into the retina would help repair damaged retinal cells.
ICD-9 CM Code 333.1 as an Identifier of Patients with Essential Tremor: A Study of the Positive Predictive Value of This Code

Background/Aims: Health outcomes research often uses administrative databases. Patients with the diseases of interest are identified using International Classification of Diseases (ICD-9 CM) codes. The utility of the code for essential tremor (ET), 333.1, remains untested. We determined the positive predictive value (PPV) of the code 333.1. Methods: Patients with the ICD-9 CM code 333.1 were identified from billing records at the Neurological Institute of New York. Their medical records were reviewed to determine whether they met Consensus Criteria for ET. Results: Of 964 patients who carried the code 333.1, only 472 met diagnostic criteria for ET (i.e. PPV = 49.0%). The additional use of ICD 9-CM codes for parkinsonism and dystonia (as exclusionary criteria) only marginally improved this value (57.8%). Common diagnoses among the false positives were Parkinson’s disease, dystonia, enhanced physiological tremor, drug-induced tremor, orthostatic tremor, and psychogenic tremor. Patients seen by general neurologists (vs. movement disorder specialists) were half as likely to meet diagnostic criteria for ET (34.6 vs. 51.9%, OR 0.50, 95% CI 0.23–0.70, p < 0.001). Conclusion: The code 333.1 performed poorly when attempting to identify ET cases. Given the very high prevalence of ET, a unique diagnostic code would seem to be in order.
Innovation and Inequality in a Small World

We present a multicountry theory of economic growth and R&D‐driven technological progress in which countries are connected by a network of knowledge exchange. Technological progress in any country depends on the state of technology in the countries it exchanges knowledge with. The diffusion of knowledge throughout the world explains a period of increasing world inequality, followed by decreasing relative inequality. Knowledge diffusion through a small world network produces an extraordinary diversity of country growth performances, including the overtaking of individual countries and the replacement of the technologically leading country in the course of world development.
Optimal management of colorectal liver metastases in older patients: a decision analysis.

BACKGROUND Comparative trials evaluating management strategies for colorectal cancer liver metastases (CLM) are lacking, especially for older patients. This study developed a decision-analytic model to quantify outcomes associated with treatment strategies for CLM in older patients. METHODS A Markov-decision model was built to examine the effect on life expectancy (LE) and quality-adjusted life expectancy (QALE) for best supportive care (BSC), systemic chemotherapy (SC), radiofrequency ablation (RFA) and hepatic resection (HR). The baseline patient cohort assumptions included healthy 70-year-old CLM patients after a primary cancer resection. Event and transition probabilities and utilities were derived from a literature review. Deterministic and probabilistic sensitivity analyses were performed on all study parameters. RESULTS In base case analysis, BSC, SC, RFA and HR yielded LEs of 11.9, 23.1, 34.8 and 37.0 months, and QALEs of 7.8, 13.2, 22.0 and 25.0 months, respectively. Model results were sensitive to age, comorbidity, length of model simulation and utility after HR. Probabilistic sensitivity analysis showed increasing preference for RFA over HR with increasing patient age. CONCLUSIONS HR may be optimal for healthy 70-year-old patients with CLM. In older patients with comorbidities, RFA may provide better LE and QALE. Treatment decisions in older cancer patients should account for patient age, comorbidities, local expertise and individual values.
T1N0 Triple Negative Breast Cancer: Risk of Recurrence and Adjuvant Chemotherapy

Abstract: Adjuvant treatment of T1N0 breast cancer (BC) has evolved in recent years with chemotherapy options dependent on tumor size and cellular characteristics. Our goal is to describe the difference in outcome between T1N0 triple negative (TriNeg) and estrogen/progesterone receptor positive/her2/neu‐negative BC. From our institute’s registry, we identified primary BC patients diagnosed from 1998 to 2005, estrogen/progesterone receptor negative (ER−/PR−)/her‐2/neu negative (her2−) (TriNeg = 110) and ER+/PR+/her2− (HR+/her2− = 919). Clinical diagnosis and treatment variables were chart abstracted. Vital and disease status were updated annually. Pearson chi‐squared tests were used for bivariate analysis. Hazard ratios were calculated using the Cox proportional hazards model. Average patient age was 59 years, range 23–93 years and average length of follow‐up was 4.22 years. T‐stage distribution for HR+/her2− patients was 9% T1a (>0.1, ≤0.5 cm), 34% T1b (>0.5 cm, ≤1 cm), 57% T1c (>1 cm, ≤2 cm) and for TriNeg, 6% T1a, 21% T1b, and 73% T1c. Sixty‐five per cent of T1b and 73% T1c TriNeg patients received chemotherapy versus 7% of T1b and 32% of T1c HR+/her2− patients with TriNeg patients more likely to receive doxorubicin/cyclophosphamide/paclitaxel combined therapy. Recurrence rates were the following, T1b: 8.7%, TriNeg (2/23) versus 0%, HR+/her2− (0/315) and T1c: 8.8%, TriNeg (7/80) versus 2.1%, HR+/her2− (11/523). Five year relapse‐free survival was 98% in the HR+/her2− group and 89% in the TriNeg group (log rank test = 27.77, p < 0.001). The hazard ratio for recurrence in the TriNeg group was 6.57 (95% CI = 2.34, 18.49) adjusted for age, tumor size, and adjuvant chemotherapy. Triple negative T1N0 patients have greater recurrence risk in spite of more aggressive therapy by both number treated and adjuvant chemotherapy type even in a low‐risk category. New treatment modalities specific for triple negative disease are urgently needed.
Translating Research into Practice: Are Physicians Following Evidence-Based Guidelines in the Treatment of Hypertension?

Despite the widespread availability of evidence-based guidelines for treating hypertension, recent evidence suggests that physicians may not be prescribing first-line drugs for their patients with high blood pressure. Using administrative claims data from 1998 through 2000, this study investigates whether drug treatment provided to 6,736 hypertensives in a privately insured, non-HMO population follows practice guidelines. The authors also examine physician and patient-related factors associated with guideline adherence in a subset of patients with newly diagnosed hypertension. Among members with high blood pressure alone, only 38 percent were on a diuretic, while less than a third were prescribed a beta-blocker, the JNC VI recommended first-line antihypertensives for essential hypertension. Approximately half of individuals with high blood pressure and certain comorbidities received non-first-line interventions. Such findings indicate the need to reconsider how guidelines are communicated and shared with medical practitioners and patients, particularly in light of the drug industry’s promotion of newer, more expensive drugs.
Single‐marker and two‐marker association tests for unphased case‐control genotype data, with a power comparison

In case‐control single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) data, the allele frequency, Hardy Weinberg Disequilibrium, and linkage disequilibrium (LD) contrast tests are three distinct sources of information about genetic association. While all three tests are typically developed in a retrospective context, we show that prospective logistic regression models may be developed that correspond conceptually to the retrospective tests. This approach provides a flexible framework for conducting a systematic series of association analyses using unphased genotype data and any number of covariates. For a single stage study, two single‐marker tests and four two‐marker tests are discussed. The true association models are derived and they allow us to understand why a model with only a linear term will generally fit well for a SNP in weak LD with a causal SNP, whatever the disease model, but not for a SNP in high LD with a non‐additive disease SNP. We investigate the power of the association tests using real LD parameters from chromosome 11 in the HapMap CEU population data. Among the single‐marker tests, the allelic test has on average the most power in the case of an additive disease, but for dominant, recessive, and heterozygote disadvantage diseases, the genotypic test has the most power. Among the four two‐marker tests, the Allelic‐LD contrast test, which incorporates linear terms for two markers and their interaction term, provides the most reliable power overall for the cases studied. Therefore, our result supports incorporating an interaction term as well as linear terms in multi‐marker tests. Genet. Epidemiol. 34:67–77, 2010. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Pallial origin of mitral cells in the olfactory bulbs of Xenopus

We used two developmental transcription factors, x-Eomes (T-box family) and x-Lhx5 (LIM-homeodomain family), to follow the origin and development of the olfactory bulbs in Xenopus. During embryonic and larval development, x-Eomes and x-Lhx5 were expressed in highly similar patterns, in the lateral and latero-ventral wall of the pallium. In adults, both markers were strongly and specifically expressed in mitral cells, i.e., in the projection neurons of the main and accessory olfactory bulbs. These results demonstrate the pallial origin of the olfactory projecting cells in Xenopus. Combined with previous results suggesting a subpallial origin for olfactory interneurons, these findings emphasize the dual origin of different neuronal populations in the bulbs of anamniotes, and suggest that this organization is a shared feature of tetrapods.
Anti-TGF-beta antibody blocks enamel matrix derivative-induced upregulation of p21WAF1/cip1 and prevents its inhibition of human oral epithelial cell proliferation.

We have previously demonstrated that porcine enamel matrix derivative (EMD) contains TGF-beta 1 (or a TGF-beta-like substance), and that EMD rapidly translocates smad2, which is an effector of the TGF-beta signaling pathway, into the nucleus and modulates the proliferation of both human gingival fibroblastic and oral epithelial cells in a cell type-specific manner. To investigate the involvement of TGF-beta in the growth modulatory action of EMD, two approaches have been used in the present study: i) a neutralizing anti-TGF-beta antibody to block EMD action, and ii) authentic porcine TGF-beta 1 to compare with EMD. Both in epithelial and fibroblastic cells, TGF-beta 1 closely mimicked EMD in nuclear accumulation of smad2, phosphorylation of MAP kinase family members, and consequent cell type-specific growth modulation. Anti-TGF-beta antibody, at levels which completely blocked TGF-beta 1-induced smad2 translocation, strongly blocked EMD-induced smad2 translocation. This antibody also blocked other actions of EMD in epithelial cells, i.e. p38-MAP kinase (p38-K) phosphorylation, p21WAF1/cip1 expression, and inhibition of DNA synthesis. In support of our previous proposal, these data suggest that TGF-beta 1 (or a TGF-beta-like substance), which is delivered as a principal bioactive factor in EMD, inhibits epithelial cell proliferation probably by a smad2-mediated, p21WAF1/cip1-dependent mechanism. However, the same neutralizing antibody failed to convincingly block EMD-induced fibroblastic proliferation, which suggests that EMD may contain additional unidentified mitogenic factor(s), which act in combination with TGF-beta to fully stimulate fibroblastic proliferation.
Gender Difference in the Association of Hyperuricemia with Chronic Kidney Disease in Southern China

Background: The effect of hyperuricemia on chronic kidney disease (CKD) is controversial, and little is known about gender as it relates to hyperuricemia and CKD. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study of 7,053 adults in the general Chinese population in Southern China using a multi-stage stratified sampling method. In which associations between hyperuricemia and indicators of CKD (defined by albuminuria (urinary albumin-to -creatinine ratio ≥ 30mg/g) or decreased modified MDRD equation estimated GFR (<60ml/min per 1.73m2) were tested using multivariate logistic regression. Results: After adjustment for potential confounders, hyperuricemia was associated with increased risk of reduced renal function and CKD but not albuminuria, with odds ratios (ORs) (95% CI) of 4.39 (3.38-5.70, P <0.001), 1.54 (1.31-1.82, P <0.001) and 0.96 (0.78-1.17, P =0.671), respectively. The interaction between gender and hyperuricemia with CKD was significant (P =0.010); and stratified analysis showed a stronger association of hyperuricemia with CKD in males (OR (95% CI): 2.04 (1.56-2.67), P <0.001) than in females (1.45 (1.17-1.80), P =0.001). Conclusions: We observed an independent association of hyperuricemia with CKD that was stronger in males, and this independent association in male might imply some gender specific mechanisms. These results should be confirmed in future prospective studies.
Lived experiences of Latino students in CTE high school programs: negotiating/developing identity, relationships, and future goals.

With projections over the next decade suggesting that two thirds of future jobs will require some college or advanced technical training, the United States’ ability to educate its students will determine its success in global economic competition. Latinos are increasingly an integral part of the labor market, as it has become the largest minority group in the country. The United States is contending with how to best educate and train the Latino workforce as research literature illustrates a trend of declining high school degree completion. Consequently, Latinos enter the workforce unprepared to attain higher paying jobs. Traditional vocational education has evolved over the past 20 years through education-reform initiatives. The approach of providing students with workforce entry-level skills has been supplanted by the wider perspective of career technical education (CTE), which incorporates increased academic preparation to enable a wider range of career choices. Through a Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis approach focusing on the lived experiences of Latinos involved in CTE, the data from the research question “What are the lived experiences of Latino students in CTE programs in Massachusetts, and how do these students make sense of their experiences in the context of their future aspirations” proposes new solutions to address Latino career readiness. By understanding students’ experiences through use of a social constructivist framework that listens to students’ own voices, stakeholders can provide targeted student support. Major findings from the study revealed the CTE learning environment requires reconsideration and CTE classrooms need to be more flexible to Social Constructivist principles.