Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Associations of fibrinogen and C-reactive protein with prevalent and incident coronary heart disease are attenuated by adjustment for confounding factors

Summary A cross sectional and prospective analysis of 3,745 British women aged 60–79 years at baseline was undertaken. Among these women there were 570 prevalent cases of coronary heart disease (CHD) and 151 new cases among 12,641 person-years of follow up of women who were free of CHD at baseline. Both fibrinogen and CRP were associated with indicators of socioeconomic position in childhood and adulthood and there was a cumulative effect of socioeconomic position from across the life course. The age-adjusted odds ratio (95% confidence interval) of prevalent CHD for a 1 unit (1 g/L) increase in fibrinogen was 1.29 (1.12, 1.49); with full adjustment for all potential confounding factors this attenuated to 1.09 (0.93, 1.28). The hazards ratio for incident CHD among those free of disease at baseline was 1.28 (1.00, 1.64); with full adjustment for all potential confounding factors this attenuated to 1.09 (0.84, 1.44). Similar effects of adjustment for confounding factors were seen for the associations between CRP and both prevalent and incident CHD. By contrast, the strong positive association between smoking (an established causal risk factor for CHD) and CHD was not attenuated by adjustment for life course socioeconomic position or other risk factors. We conclude that fibrinogen and CRP predict CHD but may not be causally related to it.
Building brand relationship for restaurants

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to examine the role of other customers in explaining customers’ relation with a brand. A conceptual model, which incorporates other customers along with atmospherics, food quality and service quality, is proposed to better understand how customers form their brand preference for fine dining restaurants.Design/methodology/approachA quantitative research methodology, using structural equation modeling, was adopted to understand the role of other customers along with other restaurant attributes. Data were collected from the customers of fine dining restaurants resulting in 324 usable surveys.FindingsThe findings supported the sequential link for: restaurant experience attributes – brand relationship and brand preference. While all restaurant attributes except other customers explain the satisfaction of customers, only service quality and other customers played a significant role in forming the brand image in the minds of restaurant guests. Overall, this study acknowledged the importance of both other customers and employees in fine dining restaurants’ branding.Research limitations/implicationsThe results suggest that customers in servicescape have a significant role in creating a successful brand image for restaurants. Moreover, service quality is also key to achieve a unique image, thereby suggesting that employees could be a source of differentiation and competitive advantage by managing their brand related behaviors.Originality/valueThis research was one of the first to study the role of other customers in restaurant service experience along with other attributes to assess customers’ brand relation and brand preference for fine dining restaurants.
Family needs assessment in cerebral palsy clinic.

PURPOSE The dual purpose of this study was to identify areas of need as perceived by parents of children with cerebral palsy in three domains and to evaluate internal reliability of the Family Needs Assessment Tool (FNAT). DESIGN AND METHODS The FNAT was distributed to parents and includes a demographic survey and three subscales: service, information, and obstacles to care. RESULTS Parents identified services as their greatest need, followed by information and then obstacles to care. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS The FNAT may be utilized to evaluate parental perceptions of needs, and provide clinicians with information for program planning and assessing needs central to providing quality care.
Liposomal co-delivered oleanolic acid attenuates doxorubicin-induced multi-organ toxicity in hepatocellular carcinoma

Doxorubicin in combination with other cytotoxic drugs has clinical advantages. However, doxorubicin-induced cardiotoxicity negatively impacts clinical utility and outcomes. Cardiotoxicity can result from increased oxidative stress or from a local cytochrome P450 mediated increase in 20-hydroxy-5, 8, 11, 14-eicosatetraenoic acid (20-HETE). Oleanolic acid (OA) is a natural pentacyclic triterpenoid with free radical scavenging, cardioprotective, and P450-mediated cyclooxygenase-upregulating properties. We investigated co-delivery of liposomal OA and doxorubicin in a HepG2 model of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). OA attenuated the cardiotoxicity induced by doxorubicin without compromising its anticancer activity. Apoptosis assays revealed that co-delivery of DOX and OA produced a synergistic anticancer effect. However, the drugs had antagonistic effects on cardiomyocytes. Female BALB/c nude mice treated with OA- and DOX-loaded liposomes (ODLs) exhibited reduced tumor growth, stable body weight, and stable organ indices. Reduced 20-HETE production suggested ODLs had limited cardiotoxicity. No changes in biochemical or histopathological markers were observed in mice treated with ODLs. Tailored co-delivery of OA and DOX may thus be an effective therapeutic strategy for treating HCC.
Growth at Risk: Concept and Application in IMF Country Surveillance

The growth-at-risk (GaR) framework links current macrofinancial conditions to the distribution of future growth. Its main strength is its ability to assess the entire distribution of future GDP growth (in contrast to point forecasts), quantify macrofinancial risks in terms of growth, and monitor the evolution of risks to economic activity over time. By using GaR analysis, policymakers can quantify the likelihood of risk scenarios, which would serve as a basis for preemptive action. This paper offers practical guidance on how to conduct GaR analysis and draws lessons from country case studies. It also discusses an Excel-based GaR tool developed to support the IMF’s bilateral surveillance efforts.
Dual requirement in yeast DNA mismatch repair for MLH1 and PMS1, two homologs of the bacterial mutL gene

We have identified a new Saccharomyces cerevisiae gene, MLH1 (mutL homolog), that encodes a predicted protein product with sequence similarity to DNA mismatch repair proteins of bacteria (MutL and HexB) and S. cerevisiae yeast (PMS1). Disruption of the MLH1 gene results in elevated spontaneous mutation rates during vegetative growth as measured by forward mutation to canavanine resistance and reversion of the hom3-10 allele. Additionally, the mlh1 delta mutant displays a dramatic increase in the instability of simple sequence repeats, i.e., (GT)n (M. Strand, T. A. Prolla, R. M. Liskay, and T. D. Petes, Nature [London] 365:274-276, 1993). Meiotic studies indicate that disruption of the MLH1 gene in diploid strains causes increased spore lethality, presumably due to the accumulation of recessive lethal mutations, and increased postmeiotic segregation at each of four loci, the latter being indicative of inefficient repair of heteroduplex DNA generated during genetic recombination. mlh1 delta mutants, which should represent the null phenotype, show the same mutator and meiotic phenotypes as isogenic pms1 delta mutants. Interestingly, mutator and meiotic phenotypes of the mlh1 delta pms1 delta double mutant are indistinguishable from those of the mlh1 delta and pms1 delta single mutants. On the basis of our data, we suggest that in contrast to Escherichia coli, there are two MutL/HexB-like proteins in S. cerevisiae and that each is a required component of the same DNA mismatch repair pathway.
Longitudinal Correlates of Sluggish Cognitive Tempo and ADHD-Inattention Symptom Dimensions with Spanish Children

The objective was to examine the longitudinal correlates of sluggish cognitive tempo (SCT) and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)-Inattention (IN) dimensions with mothers’ and fathers’ ratings of Spanish children. Mothers and fathers rated SCT, ADHD-IN, ADHD-hyperactivity/impulsivity (HI), oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), depression, academic impairment, and social impairment on 3 occasions (twice in first-grade year [6-week separation] and once in the second-grade year [12 months after the first assessment]) in Spanish children (758, 746, and 718 children at the 3 time-points with approximately 55% boys). The results showed that (a) higher levels of SCT from earlier assessments predicted higher levels of depression, academic impairment, and social impairment at Assessment 3 after controlling for ADHD-IN at earlier assessments; (b) higher levels of ADHD-IN from earlier assessments predicted higher levels of depression, academic impairment, and social impairment at Assessment 3 after controlling for SCT at earlier assessments; (c) higher levels of ADHD-IN from earlier assessments predicted higher levels of ADHD-HI and ODD at Assessment 3 after controlling for SCT from earlier assessments; and (d) higher levels of SCT from earlier assessments either showed no unique relationship with ADHD-HI and ODD or predicted lower levels of ADHD-HI and ODD at Assessment 3 after controlling for ADHD-IN from earlier assessments. Initial evidence is provided of SCT's unique longitudinal relationships with depression and academic/social impairment and different longitudinal relationships with ADHD-HI and ODD relative to ADHD-IN, thus adding to a growing body of research underscoring the importance of SCT as distinct from ADHD-IN.
Functional magnetic resonance imaging shows cortical activation on sensory stimulation of an osseointegrated prosthetic thumb

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to study the cortical integration of an osseointegrated prosthetic thumb that had been attached to the amputee's hand 13 years ago. We found that tactile stimuli applied to the prosthesis activated the primary somatosensory cortex on both sides.
Glycoproteins and Their Relationship to Human Disease

Glycoproteins are proteins that carry N- and O-glycosidically-linked carbohydrate chains of complex structures and functions. N-glycan chains are assembled in the endoplasmic reticulum and the Golgi by a controlled sequence of glycosyltransferase and glycosidase processing reactions involving dolichol intermediates. The assembly of O-glycans occurs in the Golgi and does not involve dolichol. For most reactions, families of glycosyltransferases exist; the expression of the individual enzymes within a family is often subject to complex regulation. The biosynthesis of N- and O-glycan is controlled at the level of gene expression, mRNA, enzyme protein activity and localization, and through substrate and cofactor concentrations at the site of synthesis. This complex regulation results in many hundreds of structures, the range of which varies in different species, cell types, tissue types, states of development and differentiation. In diseased cells, the relative proportions of these structures are often characteristically different from normal, and may be useful for the assessment of the stage of the disease and for diagnosis. Knowledge of disease-specific glycoprotein structures and their functions may be used therapeutically, in immunotherapy, in blocking cell adhesion or interfering with other binding or biological processes. Recently, some of the mechanisms underlying glycoprotein alterations in disease have been elucidated. This opens the possibility of an active interference in the disease process. The functions of glycans in diseased cells will become more clear with the tools of molecular biology and transgenic animal models.
Genetic signature of population fragmentation varies with mobility in seven bird species of a fragmented Kenyan cloud forest

Habitat fragmentation can restrict geneflow, reduce neighbourhood effective population size, and increase genetic drift and inbreeding in small, isolated habitat remnants. The extent to which habitat fragmentation leads to population fragmentation, however, differs among landscapes and taxa. Commonly, researchers use information on the current status of a species to predict population effects of habitat fragmentation. Such methods, however, do not convey information on species‐specific responses to fragmentation. Here, we compare levels of past population differentiation, estimated from microsatellite genotypes, with contemporary dispersal rates, estimated from multi‐strata capture–recapture models, to infer changes in mobility over time in seven sympatric, forest‐dependent bird species of a Kenyan cloud forest archipelago. Overall, populations of sedentary species were more strongly differentiated and clustered compared to those of vagile ones, while geographical patterning suggested an important role of landscape structure in shaping genetic variation. However, five of seven species with broadly similar levels of genetic differentiation nevertheless differed substantially in their current dispersal rates. We conclude that post‐fragmentation levels of vagility, without reference to past population connectivity, may not be the best predictor of how forest fragmentation affects the life history of forest‐dependent species. As effective conservation strategies often hinge on accurate prediction of shifts in ecological and genetic relationships among populations, conservation practices based solely upon current population abundances or movements may, in the long term, prove to be inadequate.
Use of radiesse in combination with restylane for facial augmentation.

OBJECTIVES To report the long-term results of 72 consecutive patients treated with Radiesse (BioForm Inc, Franksville, Wis) and 29 patients treated with Radiesse and Restylane (Q-Medical, Uppsala, Sweden) and to share recommendations based on our experience. METHODS A total of 72 patients were treated with Radiesse between October 2003 and December 2004. Of these patients, 29 also received Restylane for facial augmentation. Forty-six Radiesse-treated and 15 Radiesse and Restylane-treated patients completed questionnaires detailing their experience with the procedure, postoperative sequelae, overall satisfaction, and satisfaction at each site treated. RESULTS On a 10-point scale, the overall satisfaction with Radiesse averaged 7.6, and 30 patients (65%) would recommend this procedure to others. Of the 72 patients, 2 (3%) reported persistent nodules, and both required removal of a small amount of the material. The overall satisfaction with the Radiesse and Restylane-combined treatment averaged 8.1, and 12 patients (79%) would recommend this procedure to others. No patients reported persistent nodules. CONCLUSIONS The use of Radiesse and Restylane in combination is an excellent option for facial enhancement. With long-term experience, complications in the lip area with Radiesse treatment are now avoided with the use of Restylane. In contrast to patients treated with Radiesse alone, the combination treatment group in this study tended to have greater immediate and overall satisfaction scores and was more likely to recommend the combination procedure to others.
SAR Images Retrieval Based on Semantic Classification and Region-Based Similarity Measure for Earth Observation

Based on the semantic categorization and region-based similarity measure, a novel synthetic aperture radar (SAR) image retrieval method is proposed in this paper, which is inspired by the existing content-based image retrieval (CBIR) techniques and is oriented toward the Earth observation (EO). First, due to the large sizes of SAR images, new method semantically classifies the land covers in the patch level rather than the pixel level by the classic semisupervised learning (SSL), which could reduce the workload of selecting the representative image patch and decrease the searching space in the similarity calculation component. Furthermore, to overcome the inevitable classification error, our method provides an error recovery scheme, preventing the errors produced in categorization to contaminate the retrieval results. Third, the similarity between two patches is calculated by the improved integrated region matching (IIRM) measure based on the region-based similarity measure, which fails to meet the expectation in SAR images. The proposed method can be embedded into any EO mining systems to help them complete the EO missions. After comparing the method presented in this paper to others, it is evident that our method performs more effectively than others from the CBIR aspect.
Use of Home Care Services by Elderly Chinese Immigrants

ABSTRACT Using the Anderson Service model, this study examined the level and predictors of using selected home care services by elderly Chinese immigrants in Canada. Data from 1,537 randomly selected Chinese immigrants aged 65 years and older were used. Only 5.2% of participants reported using home care services. Being older, living alone, having a post-secondary education, immigrating from Hong Kong or Southeast Asia, having a higher level of agreement with Chinese health beliefs, higher social support, and poorer physical and mental health were predictors for home care service use among elderly Chinese. The probability of using homecare services lessens with increased self-rated financial adequacy. These findings point to the need for service providers to address the gap in use of home care between elderly Chinese immigrants and overall elderly Canadians through promoting appropriate use of home care among elderly Chinese immigrants.
Language constructs for transactional memory

Building concurrent shared-memory data structures is a notoriously difficult problem, and so the widespread move to multi-core and multi-processor hardware has led to increasing interest in language constructs that may make concurrent programming easier. One technique that has been studied widely is the use of atomic blocks built over transactional memory (TM): the programmer marks a section of code as atomic, and the language implementation speculatively executes it using transactions. Transactions can run in parallel so long as they access different data. In this talk I'll introduce some of the challenges that I've seen in building robust implementations of this idea. What are the language design choices that exist? What language features can be used inside atomic blocks, and where can atomic blocks occur? Which uses of atomic blocks should be considered correct, and which uses should be considered "racy"? What are the likely impacts of different design choices on performance? What are the impacts on flexibility for the language implementer, and what are the impacts on flexibility to the programmer using these constructs? I'll argue that one way of trying to resolve these questions is to be rigorous about keeping the ideas of atomic blocks and TM separate; in practice they've often been conflated (not least in languages that I've worked on). I'll argue that, when thinking about atomic blocks, we should keep a wide range of possible implementations in mind (for example, TM, lock inference, or simply control over pre-emption). Similarly, when thinking about TM, we should recognize that it can be exposed to programmers through a wide range of abstractions and language constructs.
Anthropometric factors in relation to different tumor biological subgroups of postmenopausal breast cancer

Overweight and obesity is associated with an increased risk of postmenopausal breast cancer. However, less is known about the impact of anthropometric factors on tumor pathology and biology. A Swedish population‐based prospective cohort study of 9,685 postmenopausal women not using hormonal replacement therapy (HRT) were followed for an average of 10.3 years during which 305 incident breast cancer cases were diagnosed. Invasive and sufficient tumor material was available in 248 cases. Pathological reevaluation of histological type and grade was conducted. Using a tissue microarray (TMA), the tumor expression of Ki67, HER2, ERα, ERβ, PgR, cyclin D1 and p27 was evaluated. Six anthropometric factors: height, weight, body mass index (BMI), waist‐ and hip circumference and body fat percentage were categorized by quartiles of baseline anthropometric measurements, and relative risks were calculated using multivariate Cox regression models. Invasive breast cancer incidence was increased for women in the higher quartiles of all anthropometric measurements. Height was positively associated with Grade I and ERα‐positive tumors. Women in the highest quartiles of weight, BMI, waist‐ and hip circumference and body fat percentage were all associated with tumors of ductal type, Grade II, low Ki67 index, HER2 negativity and low expression of the oncogene cyclin D1. Obesity was further associated with tumors expressing ERα and PgR but interestingly not ERβ. This study confirmed previously described associations between overweight/obesity and increased risk of postmenopausal breast cancer. Furthermore, obesity was associated with tumors expressing several markers corresponding with low malignancy. © 2008 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Survival from head and neck cancer in Mumbai (Bombay), India

Head and neck cancers, among the 10 most frequent cancers in the world, are common in regions with a high prevalence of tobacco and alcohol habits. They account for one‐fourth of male and one‐tenth of female cancers in India. The authors report and discuss the survival from these cancers in Mumbai (Bombay), India.
Dietary patterns and suicide in Japanese adults: The Japan Public Health Center-based Prospective Study

Background Although dietary patterns have been linked to depression, a frequently observed precondition for suicide, no study has yet examined the association between dietary patterns and suicide risk. Aims To prospectively investigate the association between dietary patterns and death from suicide. Method Participants were 40 752 men and 48 285 women who took part in the second survey of the Japan Public Health Center-based Prospective Study (1995–1998). Dietary patterns were derived from principal component analysis of the consumption of 134 food and beverage items ascertained by a food frequency questionnaire. Hazard ratios of suicide from the fourth year of follow-up to December 2005 were calculated. Results Among both men and women, a ‘prudent’ dietary pattern characterised by a high intake of vegetables, fruits, potatoes, soy products, mushrooms, seaweed and fish was associated with a decreased risk of suicide. The multivariable-adjusted hazard ratio of suicide for the highest v. lowest quartiles of the dietary pattern score was 0.46 (95% CI 0.28–0.75) (P for trend, 0.005). Other dietary patterns (Westernised and traditional Japanese) were not associated with suicide risk. Conclusions Our findings suggest that a prudent dietary pattern may be associated with a decreased risk of death from suicide.