Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Quantification of Three-Dimensional Vertebral Rotations in Scoliosis: What Are the True Values?

Study Design. The aim of 1 his study Is to quantity cliffs run ces between three dimensional rotations in space and their calculated values, either on two-dimensional projections (radiographs or computed tomographic scans) or three-ctimensicnal calculations using various mathematical procedures. Objective. To use a vertebral model to quantify differences between three-dimensional rotations and their calculated values, using two-dimensional projections or various three-dimensional mathematical procedures. Methods. A specific program allowed us to move a geometric vertebral model in space using given values and sequences of lateral, sagittal, and axial rotations. Differences in positions due to differen t sequences were visualized and quantified. Differences due to rotation around global or vertebral axes were considered. Results. For rotations of about 10º, differences are about 2º between three-dimensional and projected angles. Differences increase when combined rotations are large, as generally occurs in a scoliotic spine. They reach 16º for lateral and sagittal rotations of 30º. Conclusion. Axial rotation measured on transverse projection is misleading for vertebrae rotated in space. Moreover, dealing with large three-dimensional rotations is meaningful only if the used mathematical convention is given.
Comorbid Illness in Women With Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: A Test of the Single Syndrome Hypothesis

Objective Evidence of comorbidity among unexplained illness syndromes raises the possibility that all are variants of a single functional disorder, leading some to suggest that separate case definitions for chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), fibromyalgia (FM), and multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS) may be unnecessary. Our objective was to determine whether discrete diagnostic labels provide useful information about physical functioning, symptom severity, and risk of psychiatric illness. Methods The sample consisted of 163 consecutive female referrals with CFS enrolled at a tertiary clinic. Each participant was retrospectively assigned to one of four groups: CFS only, CFS/FM, CFS/MCS, and CFS/FM/MCS. At enrollment, participants gave their history, underwent a physical examination and a standardized psychiatric interview (Diagnostic Interview Schedule), and answered self-report questionnaires. Results Additional unexplained syndromes were prevalent: 37% met criteria for FM, and 33% met criteria for MCS. With the exception of FM-related pain and disability, there were few differences between the CFS only and CFS with comorbid illness groups. Patients with additional illness were more likely to have major depression and a higher risk of psychiatric morbidity compared with patients in the CFS only group (p < .01). Rates of lifetime depression increased from 27.4% in the CFS only group to 52.3% in the CFS/FM group, 45.2% in the CFS/MCS group, and 69.2% in the CFS/FM/MCS group. Conclusions The prevalence of comorbid illness in the present CFS sample and the failure to find widespread differences in symptom severity can be seen as support for the single syndrome hypothesis. On the other hand, the existence of discrete syndromes could not be ruled out because of reliable differences between CFS and CFS/FM. Increasing comorbidity was associated with a corresponding increase in risk of major depression.
Calpain-10 Haplotype Combination and Association With Gestational Diabetes Mellitus

OBJECTIVE: Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) is a frequent complication of pregnancy. Epidemiologic and pathophysiologic data suggest a close link of this disease to non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus. Within the calpain-10 gene various single-nucleotide polymorphisms have been identified that increased the risk for non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus. Therefore, we examined single-nucleotide exchanges of this gene in women with GDM. METHODS: A total of 875 unselected women were prospectively screened for GDM. Eighty women of this population, 40 patients with an abnormal oral glucose tolerance test and 40 normal controls, were randomly selected. DNA samples isolated from sera of the control and study groups were analyzed with respect to single-nucleotide polymorphisms of the calpain-10 gene at positions 43, 19, and 63 using polymerase chain reaction amplification and restriction analysis. RESULTS: Women with GDM were more likely to be homozygous for the allele 1 of single-nucleotide polymorphism 63 (P = .02 by χ2 test). With respect to single-nucleotide polymorphisms 19 and 43, no significant differences in allele distribution were detected between controls and women with GDM. When comparing the different haplotypes for calpain-10 (single-nucleotide polymorphisms 43, 19, and 63), all women with the haplotype combination 121/221 (n = 8) had gestational diabetes (P = .005 by Fisher exact test). CONCLUSION: Our results indicate that the haplotype 121/221 of the calpain-10 gene may be associated with disturbances of glucose metabolism during pregnancy. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: II-1
A Dual Approach to Evaluating the Agricultural Productivity of Fruit Farms in Emilia-Romagna

Productivity analysis is a frequent topic on the agenda for many researchers, whose efforts are focused on establishing adequate measurement criteria and then applying them to specific case studies. Based on accountancy micro-data for 2000 to 2009 for a group of fruit-growing farms, the purpose of this study was to verify the similarity between two methods of productivity measurement: the total factor productivity (TFP) index and the Malmquist index. The results broadly confirm the substantial congruence of the two indices and show an increase in the productivity of fruit farms in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy. However, the results should be carefully interpreted, since the productivity fluctuations during the decade suggest that this kind of analysis should be conducted using medium to long-term time-series data. Furthermore, the TFP index seems to be generally higher than the Malmquist index, implying that these measures are suitable for an overview of trends rather than exact measures of productivity.
Parathyroid hormone-related protein for the treatment of postmenopausal osteoporosis: defining the maximal tolerable dose.

CONTEXT PTH is the only approved skeletal anabolic agent for the treatment of human osteoporosis. Unlike PTH, which is a mixed anabolic and catabolic agent, PTHrP displays features suggesting that it may be a pure anabolic agent when intermittently administered. The full dose range of PTHrP is unknown. OBJECTIVES The primary objective of the study was to define the complete therapeutic window and dose-limiting toxicities of PTHrP. The secondary objective was to determine whether PTHrP retains a pure anabolic profile at the highest usable doses. DESIGN This was a single-blinded, two-part, dose-escalating clinical trial. SETTING The study was conducted in a university academic setting. PATIENTS OR OTHER PARTICIPANTS Participants included 41 healthy postmenopausal women between the ages of 45 and 75 yr. INTERVENTION INTERVENTIONs included PTHrP(1-36) or placebo in a dose-escalating design for 3 wk. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Safety measures (hypercalcemia, nausea, vomiting, hemodynamics, flushing, miscellaneous) and bone turnover markers were measured. RESULTS Intermittent PTHrP was administered safely and without serious adverse events in subjects receiving 500 and 625 microg/d for 3 wk. Subjects receiving 750 microg/d developed mild hypercalcemia. Bone turnover markers suggested that even at the highest doses, daily sc PTHrP may not activate bone resorption, i.e. may be purely anabolic. Interestingly, when hypercalcemia occurred, it may have resulted not from bone resorption but from activation of intestinal calcium absorption by 1,25 dihydroxyvitamin D. CONCLUSIONS In doses as high as 750 microg/d, in contrast to PTH, intermittently administered PTHrP appears to act as a pure skeletal anabolic agent. Surprisingly, PTHrP in the high doses studied activates 1,25 dihydroxyvitamin D production. Dosing information obtained herein can be used to design a longer term head-to-head comparative efficacy trial of PTHrP vs. PTH.
The impact of cancer and quality of life for post‐treatment non‐Hodgkin lymphoma survivors

Objective: Recent work suggests that perceptions of the impact of cancer on survivors' lives are associated with physical and mental health and quality of life (QOL) outcomes. This study examines the association between the Impact of Cancer Version 2 Scales (IOCv2) and these outcomes in a large sample of survivors of adult non‐Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL).
Motivation, participation and performance in physical education: A self-determination approach.

Introduction: Within the academic field there has been given increasing attention to motivation in physical education (PE). In the current study a Self-Determination Theory (SDT) model was tested in which (1) perceived autonomy support from teachers were hypothesized to be positively associated with students’ needs satisfaction, (2) which was expected to be positively associated with autonomous motivation and (3) negatively associated with amotivation. Further, (4) autonomous motivation was hypothesized to positively predict both a) participation and b) grades in Physical Education (PE), whereas (5) amotivation was expected to predict both these outcomes negatively. Method: The analyses were based on a survey conducted in 2013 on two high schools in Hordaland County in Norway. The total sample was 204 students in junior high school. Bivariate correlation and linear regression analyses were performed in SPSS version 21. Results: Both bivariate correlations and linear multiple regression models supported the hypotheses in the SDT model. Discussion: The results are discussed in relation to SDT and previous research conducted in physical education. Results underlines the importance of teachers interpersonal style as this influences students motivation, mediated through satisfaction of the need for competence, autonomy and relatedness. Motivation is of interest as it correlates to participation and grade in PE. As motivation has been proven to be associated with student leisure time physical activity and their lifelong enjoyment for being physical active it is of importance to study. Specially attention should be paid to those students who is amotivated in PE as this seems to be associated with absence from PE and as mentioned their LTPA.
A Service-oriented Scalable Dictionary in MPI

In this paper we present a distributed, in-memory, message passing implementation of a dynamic ordered dictionary structure. The structure is based on a distributed fine-grain implementation of a skip list that can scale across a cluster of multicore machines. We present a service-oriented approach to the design of distributed data structures in MPI where the skip list elements are active processes that have control over the list operations. Our implementation makes use of the unique features of Fine-Grain MPI and introduces new algorithms and techniques to achieve scalable performance on a cluster of multicore machines. We introduce shortcuts, a mechanism that is used for service discovery, as an optimisation technique to trade-off consistency semantics with performance. Our implementation includes a novel skip list based range query operation. Range-queries are implemented in a way that parallelises the operation and takes advantage of the recursive properties of the skip list structure. We report the performance of the skip list on a medium sized cluster with two hundred cores and show that it achieves scalable performance.
Inter-Firm Similarity and Influence in the Latent Space of Business Strategy: A Textspatial Modeling Approach

Firm strategy is widely recognized as a key determinant of firm performance. But firm strategy is an intangible quantity whose measurement, modeling and analysis have proven to be a challenge. Since firms most often express and communicate firm strategy in descriptive terms and in textual form, we develop and demonstrate an objective and scalable approach to measure and analyze the impact of stated firm strategy on firm performance, within a generalized linear model framework. We do so by (i) invoking text analysis procedures to tokenize and extract strategic content from raw text data, (ii) using latent space models to transform similarities and differences in firms' strategic vocabulary into firm locations in a large-dimensional latent, strategy space, and (iii) drawing upon procedures in spatial econometrics for estimation, inference and interpretation. Specifically, we invoke a class of spatial autoregressive models applied to large-dimensional latent spaces. We label our approach textspatial modeling. We implement our approach on data from the Fortune 1000 public US firms and find a statistically significant performance differential across firms attributable to elements of firm strategy.
Exercise metabolism in Duchenne muscular dystrophy: a biochemical and [31P]-nuclear magnetic resonance study of mdx mice

Intracellular pH, ratios of phosphocreatine (PCr) to ATP and PCr to inorganic phosphate (Pi) as well as isometric tension were measured during 1 Hz sciatic nerve stimulation and during recovery in the calf muscles of mdx (a model of Duchenne muscular dystrophy) and control mice. Tension did not decline significantly in either strain. The ratio of PCr/(PCr + Pi) was significantly reduced in mdx as against control muscle during exercise and recovery, but the ratio of PCr/ATP and the half-time for PCr recovery were similar in both strains. A reduction in the maximal activities of succinate dehydrogenase and succinate-cytochrome c reductase suggests that mitochondrial metabolism may be impaired. The similarity in PCr recovery times suggests that the muscle has adapted, making any impairment of oxidative metabolism negligible in the intact system. The rate of pH recovery is prolonged in mdx muscle and provides strong evidence for a decline in the capacity of dystrophic muscle to extrude proton equivalents. These data are compared with a previous study which used 10 Hz stimulation and also observed a slow pH recovery. The slow pH recovery could be explained by an elevation in intracellular sodium.
Effect of CQ-amine ratio on the degree of conversion in resin monomers with binary and ternary photoinitiation systems

Objectives: This study evaluated the effect of camphorquinone (CQ)-amine ratio on the C=C double bond conversion of resins with binary and ternary photoinitiation systems. Materials and Methods: Two monomer mixtures (37.5 Bis-GMA/37.5 Bis- EMA/25 TEGDMA) with binary systems (CQ/DMAEMA in weight ratio, group A [0.5/1.0] and B [1.0/0.5]) and four mixtures with ternary system (CQ/OPPI/DMAEMA, group C [0.1/1.0/0.1], D [0.1/1.0/ 0.2], E [0.2/1.0/0.1] and F [0.2/1.0/0.2]) were tested: 1 : 2 or 2 : 1 CQ-amine ratio in binary system, while 1 : 1 ratio was added in ternary system. The monomer mixture was cured for 5, 20, 40, and 300 sec with a Demetron 400 curing unit (Demetron). After each exposure time, degree of conversion (DC) was estimated using Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectrophotometer (Nicolet 520, Nicolet Instrument Corp.). The results were analyzed by ANOVA followed by Scheffe test, with p = 0.05 as the level of significance. Results: DC (%) was expressed in the order of curing time (5, 20, 40, and 300 sec). Group A (, , , ); Group B (, , , ); Group C (, , , ); Group D (, , , ); Group E (, , , ); Group F (, , , ). Conclusion: All the monomers with ternary photoinitiation system showed higher DC than the ones with binary system, until 40 sec. Concerning about the effect of CQ-amine ratio on the DC, group A converted into polymer more than group B in binary system. However, there was no significant difference among groups with ternary system, except group C when cured for 5 sec only.
A 9b, 1.12ps resolution 2.5b/stage pipelined time-to-digital converter in 65nm CMOS using time-register

This paper presents a 2.5b/stage pipelined time-to-digital converter (TDC). For pipelined operation, a novel time-register is proposed which is capable of storing and adding time information with a clock signal. Together with a time-amplifier, a 9-bit synchronous pipelined TDC is implemented which consists of three 2.5b stages and a 3b flash TDC. A prototype chip fabricated in 65nm CMOS achieves 1.12ps of time resolution at 250Msps while consuming 15.4mW, which results in the best FoM among the state-of-the-art TDCs.
A blessing in disguise: Transposable elements are more than parasites

Transposable elements (TEs) are various DNA fragments inserted throughout genomes, which are able to move or duplicate themselves. Recent advances in genomics have placed them back at the center of genome dynamics. One of the emerging observations, especially in plants, is the importance of interactions between TEs and genes to generate or to participate in relevant functions essential for development, adaptation and/or life cycle. A recent publication illustrates the influence of TEs epigenetic control on the expression of a neighboring gene crucial for reproduction. Different reports lately showed that a fundamental mechanism such as imprinting is likely to be closely linked to the dynamics of TEs epigenetic control. Here we discuss and bring together these and others recent findings, to underline that the cis-vicinity or the trans-relation between TEs and genes could bring unexpected but positive outcomes.
Sex-related differences in methods of and reasons for suicide in Turkey between 1990 and 2010

Objective To analyse suicides occurring in Turkey between 1990 and 2010 according to sex, age, reason and method. Methods Data concerning suicides occurring in Turkey between 1990 and 2010 were obtained from annual records published by the Turkish Statistical Institute. Data were analysed according to sex, age, reason for suicide and suicide method. Results The crude suicide rate was 2.42 per 100 000 population in 1990 and 4.02 per 100 000 population in 2010. The highest number of suicides was seen in those aged 15–24 years. In this age group, the number of suicides in females was significantly higher than in males. The most common suicide method in Turkey was hanging. Men used firearms more frequently than women. All the reasons for suicide occurred in a higher number of males than females; however, the difference between males and females was more significant for economic problems, relationship problems and educational failure. The leading reason for suicide in females was relationship problems. Conclusion Detecting population subgroups with a high suicide risk and obtaining regional demographic data are of great importance for future studies on suicide prevention.
Detection of paternally inherited fetal point mutations for beta-thalassemia using size-fractionated cell-free DNA in maternal plasma.

CONTEXT Currently, fetal point mutations cannot be reliably analyzed from circulatory fetal DNA in maternal plasma, due to the predominance of maternal DNA sequences. However, analysis of circulatory fetal DNA sequences in maternal plasma have been shown to selectively enrich for fetal DNA molecules on the basis of a smaller molecular size than maternal DNA. OBJECTIVE To examine the prenatal analysis of 4 common beta-thalassemia point mutations: IVSI-1, IVSI-6, IVSI-110, and codon 39. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PATIENTS A total of 32 maternal blood samples were collected at 10 to 12 weeks of gestation (mean, 10.7 weeks) between February 15, 2003, and February 25, 2004, in Bari, Italy, from women with risk for beta-thalassemia in their newborns immediately prior to chorionic villous sampling. Samples in which the father and mother did not carry the same mutation were examined. Circulatory DNA was size-fractionated by gel electrophoresis and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplified with a peptide-nucleic-acid clamp, which suppresses amplification of the normal maternal allele. Presence of the paternal mutant allele was detected by allele-specific real-time PCR. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE Detection of paternally inherited beta-globin gene point mutations. RESULTS Presence or absence of the paternal mutant allele was correctly determined in 6 (86%) of 7 cases with the IVSI-1 mutation, 4 (100%) of 4 with the IVSI-6 mutation, 5 (100%) of 5 with the IVSI-110 mutation, and 13 (81%) of 16 with the codon 39 mutation. One false-positive test result was scored for the IVSI-1 mutation. Two cases with the codon 39 mutation were classified as uncertain and 1 case was excluded due to lack of a diagnostic test result at the time of analysis. These results yielded an overall sensitivity of 100% and specificity of 93.8%, with classified cases removed. CONCLUSION Our recently described technique of the size-fractionation of circulatory DNA in maternal plasma may be potentially useful for the noninvasive prenatal determination of fetal point mutations.
A Worksite Vegan Nutrition Program Is Well-Accepted and Improves Health-Related Quality of Life and Work Productivity

Background/Aims: Vegetarian and vegan diets are effective in preventing and treating several chronic diseases. However, their acceptability outside a clinical trial setting has not been extensively studied. The aim of this study was to determine the acceptability of a worksite vegan nutrition program and its effects on health-related quality of life and work productivity. Methods: Employees of a major insurance corporation with a body mass index ≧25 kg/m2 and/or a previous diagnosis of type 2 diabetes received either weekly group instruction on a low-fat vegan diet (n = 68) or received no diet instruction (n = 45) for 22 weeks. Results: The vegan group reported improvements in general health (p = 0.002), physical functioning (p = 0.001), mental health (p = 0.03), vitality (p = 0.004), and overall diet satisfaction (p < 0.001) compared with the control group. The vegan group also reported a decrease in food costs (p = 0.003), and increased difficulty finding foods when eating out (p = 0.04) compared with the control group. The vegan group reported a 40–46% decrease in health-related productivity impairments at work (p = 0.03) and in regular daily activities (p = 0.004). Conclusions: A worksite vegan nutrition program is well-accepted and can be implemented by employers to improve the health, quality of life, and work productivity of employees.