Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Pharmacological Therapy of Osteoporosis: What ’ s New?

: Osteoporosis and fragility fractures are relevant health issues because of their impact in terms of morbidity, mortality, and socioeconomic burden. Despite this alarming scenario, both underdiagnosis and undertreatment are common features of osteoporotic patients, particularly those who have already sustained a fragility fracture. Pharmacotherapy of osteoporosis is the main treatment option for these patients because of strong evidence about the ef ﬁ cacy of available drugs targeting bone metabolism. However, several issues can interfere with the effectiveness of anti-osteoporotic drugs in clinical practice, such as lack of awareness of both healthcare providers and patients, poor adherence to therapy, and safety in long-term treatment. Therefore, new therapeutic strategies have been proposed to overcome these problems, such as sequential therapy or emerging molecules mainly targeting the stimulation of bone formation. In particular, abaloparatide has been demonstrated to reduce major nonvertebral fracture risk compared with both placebo and teriparatide, although the European Medicines Agency (EMA) refused the marketing authorization because the bene ﬁ ts of this drug did not outweigh its risks. On the other side, EMA has recently approved romosozumab, a monoclonal antibody directed against sclerostin and the only available therapeutic option targeting Wnt signaling, as both bone-forming and antiresorptive intervention to treat osteoporosis and fragility fractures.
In Vitro Antibacterial Potential of Melia azedarach Crude Leaf Extracts Against Some Human Pathogenic Bacterial Strains

The emphasis of this paper is upon the sensitivity of the crude leaf extracts of Melia azedarach against some of the hospital isolated human pathogenic bacterial strains. Five plant extracts (Petrol, Benzene, Methanol, Ethyl acetate and Aqueous) under five different concentrations (1mg/ml, 2mg/ml, 5mg/ml, 10mg/ml and 15mg/ml) were tested by the Disk diffusion method. Methanol, Ethyl acetate and Aqueous extracts of the plant showed significant inhibition against bacteria tested. A comparison was made among the sensitivity demonstrated by the leaf extracts and known medicinal and
Successful Conservative Management of Acute Appendicitis in a Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Patient

Appendectomy is the gold standard of treatment for acute appendicitis; however, recent evidence suggests conservative management with intravenous antibiotics may provide similar outcomes and can be used as an alternative in selected patients. Performing appendectomy in acute appendicitis patients with 2019 novel Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) is challenging, as it involves considerable operative risks for the patients and risks for health care professionals (HCPs) exposed to COVID-19. Medical management eliminates the morbidity and mortality associated with surgery but involves significant risks of treatment failures that, in turn, may lead to perforation, peritonitis, and death. We are reporting a case of a middle-aged man with multiple co-morbidities, who was diagnosed with COVID-19 and acute appendicitis. Our patient received intravenous antibiotics for seven days with a significant improvement in symptoms. Our case report illustrates the implementation of successful conservative treatment for acute appendicitis in COVID-19 patients.
Productivity and Wage Spillovers from FDI in Thailand: Evidence from Plant-level Analysis

This paper examines productivity and wage spillovers from Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Thai manufacturing, using a cross-sectional data from Industrial census 2007. Spillovers are examined at 2-digit and 4-digit industry level by spillover variables, foreign employment share and foreign output share. We find that increases in foreign participation lead to increases in labor productivity and average wages of domestic firms. The impact of FDI is also analyzed conditionally by plant size, location and form of organization and at regional level. The results suggest that foreign plants are more productive and pay higher wages than domestic plants in the whole sample but not for every industry. Caution is made regarding estimation based only on one spillover variable and at one industry level since results can be changed due to differences in research design and the quality of data. JEL classification: F21, F23, D24
Tissue Distribution of Hirsutine and Hirsuteine in Mice by Ultrahigh-Performance Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry

Hirsutine and hirsuteine were two alkaloid monomers extracted from the traditional Chinese medicine Uncaria rhynchophylla, which have pharmacological effects such as antihypertension, anti-infection, and heart protection. An ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry was established for the determination of hirsutine and hirsuteine in tissues (liver, kidney, heart, spleen, brain, and lung), and their absorption, distribution, and metabolism were studied for providing information on its pharmacological mechanism. UPLC BEH C18 column (2.1 mm × 100 mm, 1.7 μm) was used for chromatographic separation. The mobile phase was acetonitrile-0.1% formic acid, with a gradient elution, and the total run time was 4 min. Electrospray was used in the positive ion mode, and the multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) mode was for quantification. The acetonitrile precipitation method was used to remove protein-treated mouse plasma and tissue homogenate samples. In the concentration range of 2–5000 ng/g, hirsutine and hirsuteine in tissues showed good linearity (r > 0.995), and the lower limit of quantification was 2 ng/g. In the plasma and liver tissues, the interday and intraday precision of hirsutine and hirsuteine was less than 15%, the accuracy was between 90.9% and 110.1%, and the average recovery was better than 73.0%. The matrix effect was between 86.2% and 104.7%. The results showed that the precision, accuracy, recovery, and matrix effects meet the requirements for the study on the distribution of hirsutine and hirsuteine. After intraperitoneal administration of 10 mg/kg hirsutine and hirsuteine in mice, the distribution levels were highest in liver and kidney tissues, followed by the spleen and lung. Hirsutine and hirsuteine were low in brain tissue, but had obvious distribution, suggesting that they may pass through the blood-brain barrier.
EXAMINING THE USE BEHAVIOUR OF AUGMENTED REALITY TECHNOLOGY THROUGH MARLCARDIO: ADAPTING THE UTAUT MODEL

Augmented reality (AR) is one type of learning process that can be applied through mobile learning known as mobile augmented reality. AR offers an innovative learning space through an active interaction of superimposing digital contents into the real context to enhance learning experiences. Previous studies have found that AR in education is able to lead students to achieve higher levels of engagement in the learning process. In contrast, the potential of AR in education has not been explored intensively. Therefore, this article is to look into factors that might influence pre-service teachers' use behaviour of Mobile Augmented Reality Learning Cardiovascular (MARLCardio). A self-designed MARLCardio app has been used as an experimental instrument in collecting data. The influencing factors towards use behaviour of MARLCardio are performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence and facilitating conditions. This study is a part of an on-going research. In this study, a total of 75 respondents used MARLCardio app before answering a survey questionnaire. The respondents were pre-service teachers at one public university in Malaysia. All data from the questionnaire were analysed using multiple regression analysis. As a result of this investigation, findings showed that effort expectancy is the dominant factor in determining the use behaviour of MARLCardio. Interestingly, performance expectancy did not show any significant relationship. KEYWORDS: Augmented Reality, Mobile Augmented Reality, UTAUT Model, Technology Adoption Model, Use Behaviour
Assessing Impacts of Plant Stoichiometric Traits on Terrestrial Ecosystem Carbon Accumulation Using the E3SM Land Model

Carbon (C) enters into the terrestrial ecosystems via photosynthesis and cycles through the system together with other essential nutrients (i.e., nitrogen [N] and phosphorus [P]). Such a strong coupling of C, N, and P leads to the theoretical prediction that limited nutrient availability will limit photosynthesis rate, plant growth, and future terrestrial C dynamics. However, the lack of reliable information about plant tissue stoichiometric constraints remains a challenge for quantifying nutrient limitations on projected global C cycling. In this study, we harmonized observed plant tissue C:N:P stoichiometry from more than 6,000 plant species with the commonly used plant functional type framework in global land models. Using observed C:N:P stoichiometry and the flexibility of these ratios as emergent plant traits, we show that observationally constrained fixed plant stoichiometry does not improve model estimates of present‐day C dynamics compared with unconstrained stoichiometry. However, adopting stoichiometric flexibility significantly improves model predictions of C fluxes and stocks. The 21st century simulations with RCP8.5 CO2 concentrations show that stoichiometric flexibility, rather than baseline stoichiometric ratios, is the dominant controller of plant productivity and ecosystem C accumulation in modeled responses to CO2 fertilization. The enhanced nutrient limitations and plant P use efficiency mainly explain this result. This study is consistent with the previous consensus that nutrient availability will limit xfuture land carbon sequestration but challenges the idea that imbalances between C and nutrient supplies and fixed stoichiometry limit future land C sinks. We show here that it is necessary to represent nutrient stoichiometric flexibility in models to accurately project future terrestrial ecosystem carbon sequestration.
Metabolic effects of feeding supplemental tallow to lactating Nili-Ravi buffalo.

Four early lactating Nili-Ravi buffaloes were fed four experimental diets containing 0, 2, 4 and 6% tallow in an experiment conducted in a 4x4 Latin Square design to study the effect of feeding different levels of tallow on nutrient intake, digestibility, rumen fermentation and blood metabolites. The intakes of DM, OM, CP, ADF and NDF decreased (P<0.01) but intakes of EE (P<0.01) increased with increasing level of tallow in the diets. The intakes of NEL and DE did not decrease with the reduction of DM intake. Digestibility of DM, OM, ADF and NDF improved in buffaloes fed diets containing 2 and 4% tallow but beyond 4% it tended to decline significantly. Digestion coefficients of CP did not differ, while that of EE improved (P<0.01) from 68.2 to 74.5%. Rumen pH did not differ significantly (P>0.05) but acetate content decreased significantly (P<0.01) as the level of dietary tallow increased, whereas, propionate molar percentages increased (P<0.01) with increasing level of tallow in the diets. However, butyrate contents were not statistically different among different treatment groups. Acetate to propionate ratio decreased linearly (P<0.05) with increasing level of tallow in the diets. Blood pH and concentration of glucose did not vary significantly but cholesterol, triglycerides and total lipids increased (P<0.01) as the level of tallow increased in the diets. These results suggest that tallow up to 4% of diet dry matter is a suitable fat supplement as an energy source for lactating Pakistani Nili-Ravi buffaloes.
Security Analysts and Capital Market Anomalies

Abstract We examine the value and efficiency of analyst recommendations through the lens of capital market anomalies. We find that analysts do not fully use the information in anomaly signals when making recommendations. Analysts tend to give more favorable consensus recommendations to stocks classified as overvalued and, more important, these stocks subsequently tend to have particularly negative abnormal returns. Analysts whose recommendations are better aligned with anomaly signals are more skilled and elicit stronger recommendation announcement returns. Our findings suggest that analysts’ biased recommendations could be a source of market friction that impedes the efficient correction of mispricing.
Characterization of a human renal organic anion transporter

The renal excretion of organic anions, including a variety of endogenous substances, xenobiotics and their metabolites, involves an organic anion transport system with multiple specificity. The well characterized basolateral uptake step of this process involves the organic anion transporter 1 (OAT1), recently cloned from the rat, mouse and flounder, which mediates the uptake of an organic anion in exchange for an intracellular dicarboxylate. This study represents the first reported cloning of a human OAT1 homologue, hROAT1, which was cloned via a degenerate PCR-based approach. The hROAT1 reading frame encodes a 550 amino acid protein with a calculated molecular mass of 60 kDa, and has significant homology to previously cloned OAT1 homologues. To enable heterologous expression in the Xenopus laevis oocyte system, an hROAT1 expression clone was constructed by subcloning the hROAT1 reading frame between the 5' and 3' UTRs of the flounder sodium dicarboxylate cotransporter, fNaDC-3. Expressed in Xenopus laevis oocytes, hROAT1 mediated the uptake of p-aminohippurate (PAH), the model substrate for this system. This uptake had an approximate Km of 10 µM, and was inhibited by probenecid, dicarboxylates including the probable physiological exchange partner a-ketoglutarate, and the loop diuretics bumetanide and furosemide. Uptake also showed chloride dependence, characteristic of the basolateral organic anion/dicarboxylate exchange in renal systems. Mutation of two amino acids, Lys382 and Arg466, positions positively charged in all OATs and negatively charged or neutral in the related organic cation transporters (OCTs), abrogated transport function. Deletion of exons 9 and 10 also resulted in a non-functional transporter. Deletion of exon 10 alone, which contains a consensus site for phosphorylation by casein kinase II, increased transport by approximately two-fold. A second member of the OAT family, hOAT2, was also cloned from the human kidney. The hOAT2 cDNA encodes a protein of 541 amino acids, with high homology to the previously identified rat OAT2. The sequences of hOAT2 and hNLT, a second human OAT2 homologue cloned from the liver, are identical apart from exon 10, which is completely divergent and contains alternate protein kinase consensus sites. hOAT2 and hNLT appear to represent tissue-specific transcripts from the same gene. The observed effect on hROAT-mediated transport of deleting exon 10, and the apparent tissue-specific expression of the tenth exon of hOAT2 suggest an as yet unexplored role for exon 10 in the regulation of these transporters.
Ensemble Deep Learning for Diabetic Retinopathy Detection Using Optical Coherence Tomography Angiography

Purpose To evaluate the role of ensemble learning techniques with deep learning in classifying diabetic retinopathy (DR) in optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) images and their corresponding co-registered structural images. Methods A total of 463 volumes from 380 eyes were acquired using the 3 × 3-mm OCTA protocol on the Zeiss Plex Elite system. Enface images of the superficial and deep capillary plexus were exported from both the optical coherence tomography and OCTA data. Component neural networks were constructed using single data-types and fine-tuned using VGG19, ResNet50, and DenseNet architectures pretrained on ImageNet weights. These networks were then ensembled using majority soft voting and stacking techniques. Results were compared with a classifier using manually engineered features. Class activation maps (CAMs) were created using the original CAM algorithm and Grad-CAM. Results The networks trained with the VGG19 architecture outperformed the networks trained on deeper architectures. Ensemble networks constructed using the four fine-tuned VGG19 architectures achieved accuracies of 0.92 and 0.90 for the majority soft voting and stacking methods respectively. Both ensemble methods outperformed the highest single data-type network and the network trained on hand-crafted features. Grad-CAM was shown to more accurately highlight areas of disease. Conclusions Ensemble learning increases the predictive accuracy of CNNs for classifying referable DR on OCTA datasets. Translational Relevance Because the diagnostic accuracy of OCTA images is shown to be greater than the manually extracted features currently used in the literature, the proposed methods may be beneficial toward developing clinically valuable solutions for DR diagnoses.
The Tragedy of ‘The Tragedy of the Commons’ – Hardin vs. the Property Rights Theorists

Garrett Hardin’s “The Tragedy of the Commons” (Hardin, 1968) is widely influential but fundamentally incorrect. Hardin characterizes the commons problem as arising from the exercise of free will in a world with limited carrying capacity. Hardin’s solutions to this problem emphasize coercive policies, including traditional command-and-control environmental and natural resource regulations. In contrast, the property rights literature that preceded Hardin – especially Gordon (1954), Scott (1955), Coase (1960), and Demsetz (1967) – shows that the commons problem arises from non-exclusive use rights. Non-exclusivity is part of a broader class of restrictions on private ownership, any of which fosters dissipative rent seeking. The property rights literature focuses on value creation rather than just the physical exhaustion of the commonly owned resource. It is therefore more general, and highlights solutions that are less coercive and dissipative, than the more widely known views espoused by Hardin.
Capital Structure, Profitability, Firm Size and Corporate Tax Avoidance: Evidence from Indonesia Palm Oil Companies

This study aims to provide empirical evidence about the effect of capital structure, profitability and firm size on coporate tax avoidance. The dependent variable used in this study was tax avoidance proxied by the effective tax rate (ETR), and the independent variable was capital structure (DER), profitability (ROA), and firm size. The population in this study were palm oil companies listed on the Indonesian Stock Exchange for the period 2007-2018. The samples consist of 4 palm oil companies by using purposive sampling method. The analysis technique used in this research was multiple linier regression analysis. The result shows that capital structure and profitability have positive effect on tax avoidance, while firm size have no effect on tax avoidance.
Prognostic and Clinicopathological Value of the Expression of FOXC2 & YKL-40 in Carcinoma of the Breast, an Immunohistochemical Study

Background: Breast cancer is considered the commonest and the most fatal female cancer worldwide. There is to an urgent need for discovering recent therapies to identify patient prognosis and improve treatment strategies. Fork-head Box C2 (FOXC2) is a transcription factor which is a key regulator of cancer stem cells (CSC) properties and epithelial mesenchymal transition (EMT) e.g. cancer initiation, metastatic capacity, and resistance to chemotherapy. FOXC2 roles in CSCs properties and EMT regulation in breast cancer needs detailed studies. YKL-40 is known as chitinase-3-like-1 belongs to a family of mammalian proteins that have an amino acid sequence which is similar to the 18-glycosyl hydrolase bacterial chitinases group. Recent studies have found aberrant YKL-40 elevated expression in cancer of various organs, so it may be used as a recent prognostic biomarker for patients with breast cancer. Former researchers have assessed the expression of FOXC2 & YKL-40 separately in cancer patients and relations to prognosis of patients; however, no studies assessed them together in breast cancer patients and the previous results were inconclusive. Accordingly, our study aimed at evaluation of immunohistochemical expressions of FOXC2 & YKL-40 in carcinoma of the breast in a trial to clarify the relation among their expressions, clinicopathological parameters and recurrence of the disease after successive therapy and patients’ prognosis. Methods: we have evaluated expressions of FOXC2 & YKL-40 in sections from 50 paraffin blocks of carcinoma of the breast using immunohistochemistry. We followed up our patients for 3 years for assessment of recurrence of the disease after successive therapy and survival rates. We analyzed the relationship between their combined expression clinicopathological and prognostic parameters. Results: high FOXC2 expression was associated with older age of the patient (p = 0.002), negative ER (p = 0.009), & PR (p = 0.008), positive HER2neu (p = 0.02), aggressive molecular subtype, higher grade of the tumor (p = 0.03), high incidence of distant metastasis (p = 0.011), high incidence of lymph node metastasis, higher KI labeling index, advanced stage, (p < 0.001). high YKL-40 expression was positively correlated with older age of the patient (p = 0.002), negative ER (p = 0.03), & PR (p = 0.04), positive HER2neu (p = 0.02), higher grade of the tumor (p = 0.003), high incidence of distant metastasis (p = 0.04), higher KI labeling index, aggressive molecular subtype, advanced stage, high incidence of lymph node metastasis (p < 0.001). We have found that patients with FOXC2 and YKL-40 overexpression have higher incidence of recurrence of the disease after therapy, poor RFS& OS rates (p < 0.001). Conclusion: Higher expression levels of FOXC2 & YKL-40 are markers of poor prognosis in breast cancer.
‘Not just men in grey suits’: an Accounting, Finance and Business Massive Open Online Course

In 2014, ICAEW asked the University of Leeds (UoL) to co-develop an accounting and finance massive open online course (MOOC), ‘The Importance of Money in Business’. The target audience was pre-university and undergraduate students. This article explains the development process, structure and pedagogies, and analyses learner characteristics, behaviour and feedback using a range of data. It builds on prior literature and a research programme at UoL (Elston and Morris, 2015; Morris, Hotchkiss & Swinnerton, 2015; Swinnerton, Hotchkiss, Morris & Pickering, 2017a; Swinnerton, Hotchkiss & Morris, 2017b), which has developed and delivered more than 30 FutureLearn MOOCs across a range of subjects. The development process took 15 months to develop a four week course, and included a range of resources and activities including animated video, interactive exercises and quizzes. Over 18,000 people enrolled on two runs of the course. This article contributes to the literature by providing insights into the development and delivery of the course, its learners, their preferences and behaviours while taking the course, which will assist others embarking on MOOC or online learning development.