Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
High blood pressure in US diabetic veterans with normal renal function: a plea for the design of a more powerful and conclusive outcome trial.

M ost patients with diabetes have high blood pressure (BP). Naturally thereof, a relationship between BP and impairment in glucose control would be expected – that is, with higher BP there is higher glucose level, and with higher glucose there is higher BP. This relationship between BP and blood glucose has been known for at least 40 years when Leren et al. [1] in 1975 reported rather strong positive correlations between blood glucose and SBP (r1⁄4 0.21) as well as with DBP (r1⁄4 0.11) in a healthy population of Caucasian men (n1⁄4 14 816) aged 40–49 years living in the city of Oslo. Intercorrelations between body weight, triglycerides, BP, and blood glucose had in the 1970s been observed in several large epidemiological surveys performed in parallel in Denmark, Finland, and Sweden. However, the association between BP and glucose received little or no attention until 1998. Then the results appeared from the treatment of hypertension in patients with diabetes in the Hypertension Optimal Treatment study [2] and the United Kingdom Prospective Diabetes Study (UKPDS) [3], and the interest and attentiveness for hypertension in patients with diabetes escalated. Large outcome trials have been carried out in patients with diabetes and hypertension [4,5], and other outcome trials in hypertensive patients [6,7] have been enriched with large subgroups of patients with diabetes. Today it is mostly a question of how low BP should be lowered in patients with diabetes to optimally protect against cardiovascular and renal disease [5]; though a well designed trial with proper statistical power is yet to be carried out. In this issue of Journal of Hypertension, Gosmanov et al. [8] report from studies of 891 670 United States (US) diabetic African-American and Caucasian mostly elderly veteran
Adverse drug reactions among inpatients in a north Indian referral hospital.

BACKGROUND Monitoring spontaneous adverse drug reactions is one of the epidemiological methods for assessing the safety of drugs in a hospital setting. METHODS Data on adverse drug reactions (ADRs) were collected over a 3-year period among inpatients in a north Indian referral hospital using the spontaneous ADR monitoring system. RESULTS A total of 317 ADRs were reported. Cutaneous reactions (38.8%) and gastrointestinal disturbances (28.4%) made up a large proportion of reported ADRs. Antimicrobial agents, including those used for antituberculosis therapy, were responsible for 47.3% of the events. Radiocontrast dyes, and antineoplastic and psychoactive agents were the other important drugs causing ADRs. No age- or sex-related differences were found in the overall rate of ADRs, though toxic epidermal necrolysis was more frequent in the elderly. CONCLUSION The pattern of ADRs and drugs involved were largely similar to those reported in the western literature.
The β-fibrinogen -455G/A gene polymorphism and the risk of ischaemic stroke in a Polish population.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Ischaemic stroke is considered to be multifactorial and interactions between environmental and genetic factors play an important role. Although vascular risk factors are well known, the genetic ones are still undiscovered. In the present study, we assessed the significance of the β-fibrinogen -455G/A gene polymorphism and the risk of ischaemic stroke in a Polish population. MATERIAL AND METHODS 426 ischaemic stroke patients classified according to stroke aetiologies (small vessel disease, large vessel disease or cardioembolic stroke) and 234 controls were included in the study. The association of the β-fibrinogen genotypes with ischaemic stroke was tested using logistic regression analysis under dominant, recessive or additive models of inheritance. RESULTS The allele and genotype distributions of the β-fibrinogen -455G/A gene polymorphism did not differ significantly between patients and controls (patients: G - 75%, GG - 56.6%, GA - 36.8%, AA - 6.6%; controls: G - 73.7%, GG - 57.3%, GA - 32.9%, AA - 9.8%; p > 0.05, χ2). In addition, logistic regression analysis adjusted for the known risk factors, i.e. hypertension, ischaemic heart disease, myocardial infarction, hypercholesterolaemia, diabetes mellitus and smoking, did not show a role of the studied polymorphism in ischaemic stroke. CONCLUSIONS The β-fibrinogen -455G/A gene polymorphism is not a risk factor for ischaemic stroke in a Polish population.
Study on Cadmium Resistant-Bacteria Isolated from Hospital Wastewaters

In hospital, a variety of substances are in use for medical purposes as diagnostics and researches. Among them, heavy metals which are not biodegradable by chemical reactions have bioaccumulation properties. Cadmium is a toxic pollutant that enters hospital wastewaters by different ways. However, isolated bacteria from hospital effluents have high resistance to antimicrobial agents and therefore the ability to uptake cadmium and other metals. So, their use is recommended for wastewater bioremediation. In this study, twelve cadmium-resistant bacteria were isolated from hospital wastewaters and identified. The cadmium-resistant isolates characterized include both Gram-negative [75%] and Gram-positive [25%]. The Minimum Inhibitory Concentration of hospital wastewaters isolates was determined in solid media and was ranged from 250 to 950 micrograms/milliliters. All the isolates showed co-resistance to zinc and mercury. They were also antibiotic resistant and tolerated up a significant concentration of NaCl. The cadmium-resistant species Klebsiella pneumoniae and Pseudomonas aeruginosa were the most resistant to cadmium. The species Klebsiella pneumonia also resists to the highest concentrations of zinc and mercury. The results of toxicity tests on Vibrio fischeri, showed that the DI50 [15 min] as low as 0.07 carried away 50% luminescence inhibition.
Is the course of panic disorder the same in women and men?

OBJECTIVE Panic disorder with or without agoraphobia has a chronic relapsing course. Factors associated with poor outcome include early onset of illness and phobic avoidance. Several, but not all, authors have found a worse clinical course for women. Using observational, longitudinal data from the Harvard/Brown Anxiety Disorders Research Program, the authors analyzed remission and symptom recurrence rates in panic patients with respect to sex. METHOD Male and female patients (N = 412) in an episode of panic with or without agoraphobia were assessed by structured interview and prospectively followed for up to 5 years. Data on remission, symptom recurrence, and comorbid psychiatric conditions for each sex were compared. RESULTS There were no significant differences between men and women in panic symptoms or level of severity at baseline. Women were more likely to have panic with agoraphobia (85% versus 75%), while men were more likely to have uncomplicated panic (25% versus 15%). The rates of remission for panic with or without agoraphobia at 5 years were equivalent in men and women (39%). Of the subjects who achieved remission, 25% of the women and 15% of the men reexperienced symptoms by 6 months. Recurrence of panic symptoms continued to be higher in women (82%) than men (51%) during the follow-up period and was not influenced by concurrent agoraphobia. CONCLUSIONS This study extends previous findings by showing that not only are women more likely to have panic with concurrent agoraphobia, but they are more likely than men to suffer a recurrence of panic symptoms after remission of panic.
How much can evolved characters tell us about the tree that generated them?

In this paper we review some recent results that shed light on a fundamental question in molecular systematics: how much phylogenetic `signal' can we expect from characters that have evolved under some Markov process? There are many sides to this question and we begin by describing some explicit bounds on the probability of correctly reconstructing an ancestral state from the states observed at the tips. We show how this bound sets upper limits on the probability of tree reconstruction from aligned sequences, and we provide some new extensions that allow site-to-site rate variation or a covarion mechanism. We then explore the relationship between the number of sites required for accurate tree reconstruction and other model parameters - such as the number of species, and substitution probabilities, and we describe a phase transition that occurs when substitution probabilities exceed a critical value. In the remainder of this paper we turn to models of character evolution where the state space is assumed to be either infinite or very large. These models have some relevance to certain types of genomic data (such as gene order) and here we again investigate how many characters are required for accurate tree reconstruction.
Efficient mobile networking for tactical radios

The characteristics of a Mobile Tactical Network (MTN) operating in the VHF/UHF military radio band are investigated by applying an analytical model, radio measurement data and tactical mobility scenarios. The network node degree, connectivity, distribution of hop count, etc. are studied. Based on the identified properties, major networking schemes are evaluated for their applicability. Exploiting their inherent features, a neighborhood based networking strategy is proposed for MTNs.
Blood cysts of the cardiac valves of calves and cattle.

The incidence of blood-filled cysts in the valvular cusps of a large series of calf and cattle hearts has been investigated and the results have been compared with previous reports. Two distinct types of cyst were discovered. One variety is common, being small, often multiple, unilocular, and situated at the closing edge of the valves. The other type is comparatively rare and is large and solitary. It lies near the base of the valve and is multilocular. The possible aetiology of these different lesions is evaluated.
Functional MRI of working memory in paediatric head injury

A case study examining the recovery of a 9 year old boy who sustained a severe head injury is reported. The subject sustained damage to the left parietal-occipital and right frontal-parietal regions. Structural and functional imaging and cognitive data were collected at the time of injury and 1 year post-injury. Cognitive assessment revealed improvement over time. Functional imaging at the time of injury revealed minimal activation in the right posterior temporal region. Imaging 1 year post-injury revealed increased activation in the right pre-frontal cortex, bilateral pre-motor cortex and bilateral posterior parietal cortex. This activation pattern is consistent with the performance of unaffected individuals on working memory tasks. These findings differ from those in the adult literature and suggest an alternative pattern of recovery of function in children.
Specific impairment of functional connectivity between language regions in former early preterms

Very preterm (PT) birth (≤32 weeks of gestation) carries a high risk for an adverse neurodevelopmental outcome. In recent years, the importance of neurocognitive deficits in the language domain has been increasingly recognized, which can be well‐characterized using neuropsychological testing and noninvasive imaging approaches. We compared former early PT born children and adolescents (PT, n = 29, 20M) and typically developing children (TD, n = 19, 7M), using conventional fMRI group analyses as well as functional connectivity analyses. We found only small regions with significantly different group activation (PT > TD) but significantly stronger connectivity between superior temporal lobe (STL) language regions in TD participants. There were also significant differences in local and global network efficiency (TD > PT). Surprisingly, there was a stronger connectivity of STL regions with non‐STL regions both intrahemispherically and interhemispherically in PT participants, suggesting the coexistence of reduced and increased connectivity in the language network of former PTs. Very similar results were obtained when using task‐based versus resting state functional connectivity approaches. Finally, lateralization of functional connectivity correlated with verbal comprehension abilities, suggesting that a more bilateral language comprehension representation is associated with better performance. Our results underline the importance of interhemispheric crosstalk for language comprehension. Hum Brain Mapp 35:3372–3384, 2014. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
The Momentum Gap and Return Predictability

The formation period return difference between past winners and losers, which I call the momentum gap, negatively predicts momentum profits. I document this for the U.S. stock market and find consistent results across 21 major international markets. A one-standard-deviation increase in the momentum gap predicts a 1.25$\%$ decrease in the monthly momentum return after controlling for existing predictors. This predictability extends up to 5 years for static momentum portfolios, consistent with time-varying investor biases. Following the simple real-time strategy of investing in momentum only when the momentum gap is below the 80th percentile delivers a Sharpe ratio of 0.78.
A comparative retrospective study of immediately loaded implants in postextraction sites versus healed sites: results after 6 to 7 years in the maxilla.

PURPOSE Immediate loading has become an emerging technique because it has been shown to be a successful, time-saving procedure. Recently, immediate loading has been performed simultaneously with implant placement into fresh extraction sockets; excellent results have been achieved, but few reports are available with a long-term follow-up. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the difference in success rates in the maxilla between postextraction implants and implants placed in healed sites, both of which were immediately loaded, after a long-term follow-up. MATERIALS AND METHODS Between October 2001 and February 2003, 239 implants were inserted in 81 consecutively operated patients and immediately loaded; 138 implants were placed in fresh postextraction sites (57.7%) and 101 implants were placed in healed sites (42.3%). Two different implant systems were used in this study. Each implant was loaded within 72 hours of placement (60.3% at the time of surgery, 6.3% after 24 hours, 30.1% after 48 hours, and 3.3% after 72 hours). Preestablished success criteria were used to evaluate the success rate of the implants. RESULTS The mean follow-up was 6.7 years (range: 6.0 to 7.3 years). Only 8 of the 239 implants failed, for an overall success rate of 96.6%. Six of the failed implants were inserted in postextraction sites, and 2 had been placed in healed sites; the success rates were 95.7% and 98.0%, respectively. Statistical analysis revealed no significant differences between postextraction and healed sites. CONCLUSIONS Immediate loading of immediate postextraction sites results in an implant success rate that is broadly comparable to that seen for implants placed in healed sites. Moreover, this procedure can provide predictable and favorable results in many different clinical conditions and for a long term.
An algorithm for dynamic data distribution

The replication scheme of a distributed database determines how many replicas of each object are created, and to which processors these replicas are allocated. This scheme critically affects the performance of a distributed system, since reading an object locally is less costly than reading it from a remote processor. Therefore in a read-intensive network a widely distributed replication is mandated. On the other hand, an update of an object is usually written to all, or a majority of the replicas, and therefore in a write-intensive network a narrowly distributed replication is mandated. In other words, the optimal replication scheme depends on the read-write pattern for each object. The authors propose a practical algorithm, called dynamic-data-allocation (DDA), that changes the replication scheme of an object (i.e. the processors which store a replica of the object) dynamically as the read-write pattern of the object changes in the network. They assume that the changes in the read-write pattern are not known a priori. <<ETX>>
Modulatory effects of static magnetic fields on blood pressure in rabbits

Acute effects of locally applied static magnetic fields (SMF) on pharmacologically altered blood pressure (BP) in a central artery of the ear lobe of a conscious rabbit were evaluated. Hypotensive and vasodilator actions were induced by a Ca2+ channel blocker, nicardipine (NIC). Hypertensive and vasoconstrictive actions were induced by a nitric oxide synthase (NOS) inhibitor, Nω‐nitro‐L‐arginine methyl ester (L‐NAME). The hemodynamic changes in the artery exposed to SMF were measured continuously and analyzed by penetrating microphotoelectric plethysmography (MPPG). Concurrently, BP changes in a central artery contralateral to that of the exposed ear lobe were monitored. SMF intensity was 1 mT and the duration of exposure was 30 min. A total of 180 experimental trials were carried out in 34 healthy adult male rabbits weighing 2.6–3.8 kg. Six experimental procedures were chosen at random: (1) sham exposure without pharmacological treatment; (2) SMF exposure alone; (3) decreased BP induced by a single intravenous (iv) bolus injection of NIC (100 μM/kg) without SMF exposure; (4) decreased BP induced by injection of NIC with SMF exposure; (5) increased BP induced by a constant iv infusion of L‐NAME (10 mM/kg/h) without SMF exposure; (6) increased BP induced by infusion of L‐NAME with SMF exposure. The results demonstrated that SMF significantly reduced the vasodilatation with enhanced vasomotion and antagonized the reduction of BP via NIC‐blocked Ca2+ channels in vascular smooth muscle cells. In addition, SMF significantly attenuated the vasoconstriction and suppressed the elevation of BP via NOS inhibition in vascular endothelial cells and/or central nervous system neurons. These results suggest that these modulatory effects of SMF on BP might, in part, involve a feedback control system for alteration in NOS activity in conjunction with modulation of Ca2+ dynamics. Bioelectromagnetics 22:408–418, 2001. © 2001 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
A MONOCLONAL ANTIBODY POOL FOR ROUTINE IMMUNOHISTOCHEMICAL DETECTION OF HUMAN RESPIRATORY SYNCYTIAL VIRUS ANTIGENS IN FORMALIN‐FIXED, PARAFFIN‐EMBEDDED TISSUE

Four monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) with specificities for epitopes on human respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) proteins preserved after formalin fixation and paraffin embedding were identified in fixed and embedded virus‐infected HEp‐2 cell pellets. The MAbs bound epitopes on the fusion protein, the nucleoprotein, the phosphoprotein, and the M2 protein of the virus. Following high‐temperature antigen unmasking, immunohistochemical staining revealed RSV antigens in the lungs of five of seven children who died with confirmed RSV infection and in none of nine children who died for other reasons, with no evidence of RSV infection. Staining was cytoplasmic, granular, and confined to epithelial cells. Intense staining was seen at the apex of ciliated bronchial and bronchiolar epithelial cells in all five positive cases. In one case, of pneumonitis, infected pneumocytes were present in the alveoli and in several cases, CD68‐positive, cytokeratin‐negative alveolar macrophages stained for viral antigens. These antibodies may prove useful in studies of the pathogenesis of RSV infection. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Nanowires With Promise for Photovoltaics

Solar energy harvesting for electricity production is regarded as a fully credible future energy source: plentiful and without serious environmental concerns. The breakthrough for solar energy technology implementation has, however, been hampered by two issues: the conversion efficiency of light into electricity and the solar panel production cost. The use of III-V nanowires (NWs) in photovoltaics allows to respond to both these demands. They offer efficient light absorption and significant cost reduction. These low-dimensional structures can be grown epitaxially in dense NW arrays directly on silicon wafers, which are abundant and cheaper than the germanium substrates used for triple-junction solar cells today. For planar structures, lattice matching poses a strong restriction on growth. III-V NWs offer to create highly efficient multijunction devices, since multiple materials can be combined to match the solar spectrum without the need of tightly controlled lattice matching. At the same time, less material is required for NW-based solar cells than for planar-based architecture. This approach has potential to reach more than 50% in efficiency. Here, we describe our work on NW tandem solar cells, aiming toward two junctions absorbing different parts of the solar spectrum, connected in series via a tunnel diode.
Culex restuans (Diptera: Culicidae) Relative Abundance and Vector Competence for West Nile Virus

Abstract The abundance and vector competence of Culex restuans Theobald and Culex pipiens L. were compared to determine the relative importance of these species as West Nile virus (WNV) vectors in the northeastern United States. Abundance was estimated from egg raft collections at 12 sites in Albany, Suffolk, and Richmond counties, New York, during July, August, and September 2002 and 2003. Cx. restuans was more abundant than Cx. pipiens in both urban and rural areas, comprising 86% of 1,623 egg rafts collected. Vector competence for WNV was estimated after feeding on an artificial bloodmeal and in vitro transmission assays. The vector competence of the two species for WNV was similar, but the dynamics of infection seems to be mosquito species dependent. These findings suggest an important role for Cx. restuans in WNV transmission cycles in New York.
A Comparative Experimental Study of the Organization of Arterial and Venous Thrombi

Organization of a venous thrombus proceeds much faster than that of an arterial thrombus. Two different double-ligation procedures were used for study of the time sequence of thrombus organization by the vascularized (in situ) and devascularized (dissected) walls of the external jugular vein and common carotid artery in 21 mongrel dogs. Blood in the ligated segments of the in situ veins remained mostly fluid. In these segments, intimal hyperplasia was observed after 4 weeks with apparent preservation of an endothelial lining. However, in the dissected veins, the trapped blood rapidly thrombosed. Remarkable cell proliferation quickly occurred in these dissected walls with rapid invasion of the thrombus to achieve complete organization by 4 weeks. In contrast, a thrombus formed in the ligated segments of all arteries, whether in situ or dissected, and organization was much slower, requiring about 4 months for completion. Full-wall viability was maintained in 100% of the in situ veins and in 95% of the devascularized veins, but inner wall viability was lost in 30% of the in situ arteries and in 95% of the devascularized arteries.
Delayed onset of malignant hyperthermia without creatine kinase elevation in a geriatric, ryanodine receptor type 1 gene compound heterozygous patient.

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