Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
In Vitro Effects of Argatroban, Lepirudin, Bivalirudin, and Danaparoid on Fibrin Gel Permeability

In the ﬁbrin gel permeability assay, ﬁbrin formation depends on thrombin generated endogenously, giving greater physiological relevance. The present study evaluated the effects of three direct thrombin inhibitors (argatroban, bivalirudin, and lepirudin) and one indirect factor Xa inhibitor (danaparoid) on ﬁbrin gel permeability. Fibrin gels were prepared by adding tissue factor, phospholipids, and CaCl 2 to normal plasma mixed with one of the inhibitors. The permeability constant (Ks) was determined through ﬂow measurements. At concentrations corresponding to plasma levels during antithrombotic therapy, argatroban, bivalirudin, and danaparoid led to similar increases in Ks, by 320 to 370% of the control; in contrast, almost no effect on Ks could be detected for lepirudin. At concentrations above the ‘‘plasma-like’’ levels, the dose–response curve for lepirudin was noticeably steep, whereas those for the other drugs were shallow. This study suggests that argatroban, bivalirudin, and danaparoid have comparable potential to inhibit thrombin or Xa and the consequent coagulation, rendering the ﬁbrin network permeable. The lack of inﬂuence on ﬁbrin gel permeability by lepirudin at the ‘‘plasma-like’’ levels may contradict the antithrombotic effect observed in therapy, but the sharp dose–response curve shown at higher drug concentrations corresponds with reports of bleeding complications from lepirudin with overdosages.
Measurement of Portal Pressure and Its Role in the Management of Chronic Liver Disease

Portal hypertension is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in liver cirrhosis. This article provides a background on the most important aspects of the evaluation of portal hypertension in patients with chronic liver diseases, with special attention to the measurement of portal pressure by hepatic vein catheterization. The rationale, technique, applications, costs, and limitations of measurements of the hepatic venous pressure gradient are thoroughly reviewed. Emerging, noninvasive methodologies for the evaluation of the patient with portal hypertension are also discussed.
Liver Transplantation: The Current Situation

Over the years, an improving liver transplant (LT) survival rate (1-and 5-year survival of 83% and 75%, respectively) has been instrumental in establishing transplant surgery as a durable therapy for all forms of end-stage liver disease and for some malignant conditions. The success of such treatment has resulted in a progressively increasing demand for liver transplantation. However, at the same time the availability of donor organs has diminished, resulting in the number of potential recipients for liver transplantation exceeding organ supply. Several strategies have been explored with the aim to increase access to liver transplantation, including: obtaining organs from non-heart-beating donors and live donors, and splitting and using livers from expanded donor criteria. This article discusses the utility of the mentioned techniques along with other strategies (e.g., Model for End-Sage Liver Disease [MELD] score), as well as the evolution of indications, contraindications, and postoperative care.
Mycobacterial Infections in the Elderly

In 2008, elderly subjects accounted for more than 262,000 cases of smear-positive tuberculosis worldwide, reaching the highest age-adjusted rates in some regions. Elders are at a greater risk for reactivation of latent tuberculosis or acquisition of new infection, especially if they live in long-term care facilities or are smokers. Once overt clinical tuberculosis appears, they are at increased risk of hospitalization and death. Pulmonary tuberculosis presentation may be atypical in elderly people, as they tend to have lower prevalence of fever, sweating, or hemoptysis, and their chest x-rays show less cavities and more lower lung ﬁeld involvement. Compared with younger patients, tuberculous elders seem to have lower frequency of positive PPD, but differences in sputum smear positivity are not clear. Regimen recommended for treating new cases of pulmonary tuberculosis is not different from other age groups: a two-month bactericidal phase with daily oral administration of isoniazid, rifampin, pyrazinamide, and ethambutol, and a continuation phase with isoniazid and rifampin daily during four months, though some variations are allowed. Directly observed strategy is highly recommended in the initial phase. Elders with pulmonary tuberculosis may require longer time to become smear negative and seem to have worse outcomes than younger patients.
Validity and accuracy of posterior distributions in Bayesian statistics

In this thesis I investigate the validity and the accuracy properties of the posterior quantiles in Bayesian statistics when replacing the parametric likelihood with the Cressie-Read empirical likelihoods based on a set of unbiased M-estimating equations. At first order I study the validity of the empirical posterior distribution derived from the pseudo-likelihood constructed with profiled weights and estimated at a minimum distance from the empirical distribution in the Cressie-Read family of divergences, indexed by γ. The bias in coverage of the resulting empirical posterior quantile is inversely proportional to the asymptotic efficiency of the estimator corresponding to the set of M-estimating functions. By comparing different members of the Cressie-Read family of empirical likelihoods for models in the exponential family, I establish a hierarchy in the accuracy of the quantile function of the empirical posterior distribution depending on the index parameter γ.
Platelet Function and Response to Aspirin: Gender-Specific Features and Implications for Female Thrombotic Risk and Management

This article reviews gender-speciﬁc differences in platelet function and response to aspirin. In contrast with men, women under 65 years of age do not beneﬁt from aspirin therapy in primary prevention of coronary artery disease. Furthermore, the overall mortality after myocardial infarction is higher among women, which cannot simply be explained by age or individual treatment. Platelets play a central role in thrombo-ischemic events leading to myocardial infarction and ischemic stroke. Gender differences in platelet reactivity and ‘‘aspirin resistance’’ have been reported. Several studies using female platelets have shown increased platelet reactivity at baseline and a less effective inhibition of platelet aggregation by aspirin. The mechanisms underlying these differences are still to be elucidated, but inﬂuences of female sex hormones may play an important role. As a consequence, inhibition of platelet aggregation in women treated with aspirin may be insufﬁcient, and female patients might beneﬁt from higher maintenance dosages or the use of alternative antiplatelet medications. A potential future role of pharmacogenomics and laboratory monitoring of antiplatelet medications in predicting individual responsiveness is likely. Overall, primary prevention of myocardial infarction in women should be correlated with the individual risk score of the female patient. More studies focused on women are needed to optimize gender-speciﬁc therapy and, therefore, to improve clinical outcomes in women with atherosclerosis.
Thrombotic Complications of Erythropoiesis-Stimulating Agents

The synthesis of erythropoiesis-stimulating agents (ESAs), especially recombinant human erythropoietin, has provided a new therapeutic option for the treatment of patients with various forms of anemia, including that of chronic renal disease, malignancy, hematologic disorders, prematurity, and acquired immune deﬁciency syndrome. These agents are effective in improving the hematologic response and reducing the need for red blood cells transfusion, and they also appear to have a positive effect on some health-related quality-of-life indicators. The incidence of side effects and survival, however, remains highly uncertain, and several studies have recently highlighted the problem of an increased trend of tumor progression, mortality and thrombotic complications, especially venous thromboembolism, in patients undergoing therapy with ESAs. Speciﬁcally, the biological background underlying the prothrombotic effects of ESAs is multifaceted (polycythemia/ hyperviscosity syndrome, hypertension, thrombocytosis, platelet hyperactivity, activation of blood coagulation) and context dependent, and it most likely requires the presence of additional prothrombotic factors. Nevertheless, this clinical and biological evidence supports the hypothesis that therapy with ESAs might not be ultimately beneﬁcial or advantageous in patients with anemia of chronic disorders, and these drugs should not be routinely used as an alternative to blood transfusion unless future studies afﬁrm safety and clinical beneﬁts within these populations.
The Human Fetal Adrenal Gland, Corticotropin-Releasing Hormone, and Parturition

Labor initiation is a complex process that remains to be fully elucidated. An area of active research involves the study of the different mechanisms that may lead to successful signaling for parturition. This review focuses on the fetal-derived signals that lead to the initiation of labor. These signals may also play a role in preterm labor when activated prematurely. Studying these signals may prove important in the prediction, diagnosis, and possible intervention in preterm labor.
A fixed point approach towards stability of delay differential equations with applications to neural networks

This thesis studies asymptotic behavior and stability of determinsitic and stochastic delay differential equations. The approach used in this thesis is based on fixed point theory, which does not resort to any Liapunov function or Liapunov functional. The main contribution of this thesis is to study the approach using fixed point theory in a systematic way and to unify recent results in the literature by considering some general classes of equations. The equation we considered is a combination of time dependent delays, distributed delays, impulses and stochastic perturbations. In addition, an application to stochastic delayed neural networks is investigated. The results in this thesis extend and improve some exist results in the literature in some ways. Examples are discussed in each chapter to illustrate our main results.
Psoriasis and Atherothrombotic Diseases: Disease-Specific and Non–Disease-Specific Risk Factors

Psoriasis is a chronic inﬂammatory, immune-mediated skin disease affecting 2 to 3% of the general population and may cause signiﬁcant quality-of-life impairment. Psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis are associated with increased atherothrombotic diseases, including myocardial infarction, deep venous thrombosis, and reduced life span. Both disease-speciﬁc and non–disease-speciﬁc risk factors are likely to fuel one another in deleterious vicious circles. Disease-speciﬁc risk factors are those that are a direct consequence of psoriasis inﬂammation and include hyperhomocysteinemia, elevated C-reactive protein, elevated blood inﬂammatory cytokines, and platelet hyper-activity. Non–disease-speciﬁc risk factors include insulin resistance/diabetes, obesity, dyslipidemia, hypertension, metabolic syndrome, and habitual tobacco smoking. The presence of cardio-metabolic comorbidities has also relevant implication in the therapy and global approach to patients with psoriasis. Traditional systemic antipsoriatic agents frequently negatively affect cardio-metabolic comorbidities and may have important interactions with drugs commonly used by psoriasis patients. Thus, patients with psoriasis should be treated effectively and encouraged to aggressively correct their modiﬁable cardiovascular risk factors.
Stroke as a Complication of Medical Disease

This article focuses on the medical diseases that not only lead to cerebrovascular complications, but at times initially manifest as cerebral infarction. Speciﬁcally, I examine the relationships between stroke and various medical diseases (inﬂammatory disease, migraine and other vasoconstrictive disorders, congenital heart disease, connective tissue disorders, infectious disease, malignancy, and polycystic kidney disease). Many of these conditions may cause cerebrovascular ischemia via nonatherosclerotic mechanisms. Understanding these relationships between stroke and medical disease will allow the reader to better recognize etiologic relationships, and thereby reach more accurate diagnoses.
Influences of the Visual and Olfactory Systems on Reproduction

The female mammalian reproductive cycle results from the intricate interplay of hormones released from the hypothalamus, pituitary, and ovary. Pulsa tile secretion of gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) from the hypothalamus stimulates the secre tion of the two gonadotropins, luteinizing hormone (LH) and follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH). The gonadotropins work in concert to stimulate ovarian folliculogenesis and steroidogenesis, culminating in follicular maturation and ovulation. The feedback actions of ovarian steroids on both the hypothala mus and pituitary are of paramount importance in the events surrounding ovulation. Estrogen feed back inhibition of FSH secretion is important for maturation of the selected follicle and atresia of the remaining cohort of follicles. In the late follicular phase, increasing concentrations of circulating estro gen induce the preovulatory surge of LH and FSH, resulting in final oocyte maturation and ovulation.
Congenital Prothrombin Deficiency

Prothrombin deﬁciency is among the rarest inherited coagulation disorders, with a prevalence of (cid:1) 1:2,000,000. Two main phenotypes can be distinguished: (1) hypopro-thrombinemia (type I deﬁciency), characterized by concomitantly low levels of activity and antigen; and (2) dysprothrombinemia (type II deﬁciency), characterized by the normal or near-normal synthesis of a dysfunctional protein. In some cases, hypoprothrombinemia associated with dysprothrombinemia was also described in compound heterozygous defects. No living patient with undetectable plasma prothrombin has been reported to date. Prothrombin is encoded by a gene of (cid:1) 21 kb located on chromosome 11 and containing 14 exons. Forty different mutations have been identiﬁed and characterized in prothrombin deﬁciency. Many of them surround the catalytic site, whereas another ‘‘hot spot’’ is localized in the recognition domain called anion binding exosite I, also called ﬁbrinogen recognition site. Recently, mutations were identiﬁed also in the Na þ -binding loop and in the light A-chain of thrombin. Most hypoprothrombinemia-associated mutations are missense, but there are also nonsense mutations leading to stop codons and one single nucleotide deletion. Finally, the main aspects of clinical manifestations and therapy of congenital prothrombin deﬁciency are presented and discussed.
Endometrial Decidualization: Of Mice and Men

In murine and human pregnancies, embryos implant by attaching to the luminal epithelium and invading into the stroma of the endometrium. Under the inﬂuence of the steroid hormones estrogen and progesterone, the stromal cells surrounding the implanting embryo undergo a remarkable transformation event. This process, known as decidualization, is an essential prerequisite for implantation. It comprises morphogenetic, biochemical, and vascular changes driven by the estrogen and progesterone receptors. The development of mutant mouse models lacking these receptors has ﬁrmly established the necessity of steroid signaling for decidualization. Genomic proﬁling of mouse and human endometrium has uncovered a complex yet highly conserved network of steroid-regulated genes that supports decidualization. To advance our understanding of the mechanisms regulating implantation and better address the clinical challenges of infertility and endometrial diseases such as endometriosis, it is important to integrate the information gained from the mouse and human models.
Autonomic Regulation of Blood Pressure in Menopause

A large body of evidence indicates a major inﬂuence of sex hormones, particularly estrogen, on autonomic regulation of blood pressure (BP). The sympathetic nervous system is now widely recognized as a major regulator of BP homeostasis and contributor to pathogenesis of hypertension in humans. Menopause is accompanied by an accelerated age-related rise in sympathetic nerve activity (SNA). Mechanisms underlying sympathetic activation in menopause are unknown but may be related to impaired central modulation of baroreﬂex function or direct inhibitory inﬂuence of estrogen on SNA. Menopause is also accompanied by enhanced a -adrenergic peripheral vasoconstriction both at rest and during exercise. In ovariectomized rats, reduced nitric oxide release from the skeletal muscle caused by estrogen deﬁciency contributes to augmented sympathetic vasoconstriction during muscle contraction. The alteration in central autonomic regulation coupled with enhanced vascular adrenergic sensitivity may be responsible for elevation in resting BP and exaggerated pressor responses to exercise and mental stress in postmenopausal women.
Lungs in Hemoglobinopathies, Erythrocyte Disorders, and Hemorrhagic Diatheses

The erythropoietic system plays a major role in tissue oxygenation because the erythrocytes are the primary carriers of oxygen in the form of oxyhemoglobin. Therefore, clinical entities such as abnormal hemoglobins, polycythemia, anemia, and signiﬁcant changes in blood volume frequently produce alterations in various respiratory functions. The pulmonary manifestations can vary from mild respiratory illness to life-threatening emergencies with high mortality rates. Among the hemoglobinopathies, sickle cell disease is clinically the most important and commonly associated with serious pulmonary consequences, including acute chest syndrome, pneumonia, infarction due to in situ thrombosis, bone marrow fat embolism of pulmonary vasculature, bone marrow infarction, pulmonary hypertension, and other abnormalities. Hemoglobinopathies with high and low afﬁnity for oxygen and other abnormal hemoglobinopathies occasionally cause clinically signiﬁcant respiratory complications by interfering with normal tissue oxygenation. Acquired meth-emoglobinemia can cause alarming cyanosis and medical emergency. Erythrocyte disorders are associated with pulmonary complications, including pulmonary hypertension, alveolar ﬁbrosis, and pulmonary dysfunction. Coagulation disorders, both the inherited and acquired types, have the potential to affect the respiratory system in the form of hemorrhage from the airways, lung parenchyma, or pulmonary hypertension. The following paragraphs describe the common pulmonary complications and manifestations associated with hemoglobinopathies, erythrocyte disorders, and coagulation abnormalities.
Metabolic Implications of Menopause

The incidence of metabolic syndrome increases substantially during perimeno-pause and early menopause. Postmenopausal women are at a higher risk of hypertension, proatherogenic lipid changes, diabetes, and severe cardiovascular disease as compared with their premenopausal counterparts. Whether or not menopause has a causative contribution to the deteriorating metabolic proﬁle that is independent of chronological aging has been a subject of many studies. Menopausal transition is associated with signiﬁcant weight gain (2 to 2.5 kg over 3 years on average), which is not dissimilar to that in premenopausal women of like age. Concomitantly, there is an increase in abdominal adiposity and a decrease in energy expenditure, phenomena that have been postulated to explain the higher risk of metabolic syndrome and increases in cholesterol and triglycerides. Hypertension and diabetes become more prevalent with age and should be timely diagnosed and treated. Lifestyle changes including moderately decreased caloric intake and aerobic exercise could prevent proatherogenic changes and weight gain observed with aging. Accurate prediction of cardiovascular risk in midlife women is essential to help identify the subset of women who are likely to beneﬁt from intensive management of metabolic risk factors. This review focuses on metabolic changes associated with menopausal transition, speciﬁcally alterations in weight, waist circumference, body fat distribution, energy expenditure, and circulating biomarkers including adipokines.
Expanded Criteria for Hepatocellular Carcinoma: Down-Staging with a View to Liver Transplantation-Yes

In patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) exceeding conventional Milan criteria (one lesion (cid:1) 5 cm or two or three lesions (cid:1) 3 cm) for orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT), down-staging of the tumor before OLT presents an unique and intriguing perspective on tumor biology and expanded criteria for OLT. According to the University of California, San Francisco protocol, the eligibility criteria for down-staging included one lesion (cid:1) 8 cm, two or three lesions each (cid:1) 5 cm with total tumor diameter (cid:1) 8 cm, or four or ﬁve lesions each (cid:1) 3 cm with total tumor diameter (cid:1) 8 cm. In the majority of these patients, successful down-staging using well-deﬁned endpoints could be achieved prior to OLT, without resulting in post-transplantation HCC recurrence. The promise of down-staging warrants consideration of a uniﬁed policy granting patients with HCC that has been successfully down-staged the same priority listing for OLT as those meeting conventional criteria.
N-metrics for Multiple Graph Alignment

The work of Ioannidis et al. 2018 introduces a family of distances between two graphs that provides tractable graph alignment strategies. Importantly, the alignment scores produced by this family satisfy the properties of metrics, which is very useful in several learning tasks. In this paper, we generalize this work to compare n graphs by introducing a family of distances, which is an n-metric, i.e., an extension of a metric to n elements that includes a generalization of the triangle inequality. Our new family of distances, includes the ones in the work of Ioannidis et al. 2018 as a special case, and can produce tractable alignments between multiple graphs.
A Review of Select Alternative Treatment Approaches for Acquired Neurogenic Disorders: Relaxation Therapy and Acupuncture

Despite increasing consumer utilization of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) and growing evidence of its positive effects on certain physical (e.g., chronic pain, insomnia) and psychiatric (e.g., anxiety) disorders, few empirical investigations have explored using CAM to treat neurogenic disorders of communication or cognition. Accordingly, to spur clinical and research interest in CAM, we review two forms of CAM, relaxation therapy and acupuncture, that have been used to address the needs of patients with neurogenic cognitive or communicative disorders. For each technique, we describe general therapy procedures, summarize and critique the extant research, and delineate areas in need of further empirical investigation.
Comparative analysis of ferroelectric quad-FinFET with and without Si3N4 spacer on analog/RF, linearity performance and digital inverter application with temperature variation

Abstract The article presents a comparative study on the performance of a ferroelectric quad-FinFET (Fe-QFinFET) with and without the implementation of Si3N4 spacer for different temperature variations by integrating the temperature-dependent Landau-coefficients into the 3D TCAD simulator. The drain current enhances in the subthreshold region while it decreases in the superthreshold region as the temperature is increased. The analog/RF parameters are enhanced at lower temperatures with the spacer dielectric. However, the Fe-QFinFET with spacer have incurred an expense in the form of a substantially high gate capacitance. A digital inverter is used to analyse the circuit performance of the Fe-QFinFET.