Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Clinical Utility of the Mood and Anxiety Symptom Questionnaire in a Chinese Sample of Patients With Pancreatic Cancer

A review of the literature indicates a higher prevalence of depression and anxiety in patients with pancreatic carcinoma compared with nonclinical populations. The aims of this study were to evaluate the tripartite model for assessing symptoms of depression and anxiety and develop a Chinese version of the Mood and Anxiety Symptoms Questionnaire–Short Form (MASQ-SF) in patients with pancreatic cancer. The final sample consisted of 1,029 patients with pancreatic cancer. In line with our hypothesis, results of confirmatory factor analysis suggest that the three factors identified fit the hypothesized tripartite model well. The Chinese version of the MASQ-SF also exhibited high internal consistency. Reliability of the three scales was excellent with all scores greater than . 79. Cronbach's alpha for the total MASQ-SF was . 88. The 1-month test–retest reliability was . 80. Correlation coefficients among the three subscales ranged from . 36 to . 75. Thus, the Chinese version of the MASQ-SF exhibited high levels of reliability and validity, indicating that the Chinese version of the MASQ-SF is appropriate for assessing symptoms of depression and anxiety in patients with pancreatic cancer. The use of this instrument may help researchers to better measure depression and anxiety in patients with pancreatic cancer and consequently develop appropriate prevention and treatment interventions.
An Empirical Test of the Relational View in the Context of Corporate Venture Capital

Research summary This study focuses on Dyer and Singh's (1998) relational view in the context of corporate venture capital (CVC) investors and their portfolio companies, who mutually strive for interorganizational rent generation. Aiming to better understand this relational rent-generation process, our article entirely operationalizes and refines Dyer and Singh's (1998) model. While our findings attest strong explanatory power to the original model in the context of CVC investment relationships, they suggest the existence of additional relationships between the constructs of the relational view. Specifically, we identified relation-specific assets as well as knowledge-sharing routines as mediators between complementary resources and capabilities and relational rent. Managerial summary In this article, the relational view as an existing theory on interorganizational relationships is applied and tested using quantitative data in the context of corporate venture capital (CVC) investments. Our analysis confirms that relation-specific assets and knowledge-sharing routines, as well as complementary resources and capabilities, lead to relational rent. This is supernormal profit creation for both CVC investors and portfolio companies. The relationships are, however, not as straightforward as the original theory suggests, with complementary resources and capabilities being antecedents for knowledge-sharing routines and relation-specific assets which, subsequently, lead to the desired rent. Counterintuitively, informal self-enforcing governance mechanisms (trust) appear to foster relationship satisfaction, but not necessarily create relational rent or immediate tangible benefits. Copyright © 2016 Strategic Management Society
Cloning and characterization of a glycerol‐3‐phosphate dehydrogenase (NAD+) gene from the halotolerant yeast Pichia farinosa

In this study, a novel glycerol‐3‐phosphate dehydrogenase (NAD+) (EC1.1.1.8) gene (PfGPD) was cloned from halotolerant yeast Pichia farinosa, using degenerate reverse transcription (RT)–PCR and rapid amplification of cDNA ends (RACE) methods. The full‐length cDNA of the PfGPD gene is 1403 bp, which has an open reading frame (ORF) encoding 370 amino acids. PfGPD is conserved with other glycerol‐3‐phosphate dehydrogenase genes and presents a single copy in the P. farinosa genome. Transcriptional analysis revealed that PfGPD gene expression level was high after 2 h induction in a hyperosmotic environment containing 2 M NaCl and returned to normal within 6 h. These results suggest that the PfGPD gene is induced by salt stress. Yeast complementation experiment indicated that PfGPD complements gpd1 mutation in S. cerevisiae. The Accession No. for PfGPD in GenBank is EF601986. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Transcriptional regulation of claudin‐18 via specific protein kinase C signaling pathways and modification of DNA methylation in human pancreatic cancer cells

Since claudin‐18 (Cldn18) is overexpressed in precursor lesion PanIN and pancreatic duct carcinoma, it serves as a diagnostic marker and a target of immunotherapy. The stomach isoform of Cldn18, Cldn18a2 is regulated via a PKC/MAPK/AP‐1‐dependent pathway in PKC activator 12‐O‐tetradecanoylphorbol 13‐acetate (TPA)‐stimulated gastric cancer cells. However, little is known about how Cldn18 is regulated, not only in pancreatic duct carcinoma but also in normal human pancreatic duct epithelial cells (HPDE cells). In the present study, four pancreatic cancer cell lines, HPAF‐II, HPAC, PANC‐1 and BXPC3, and hTERT‐HPDE cells in which the hTERT gene was introduced into HPDE cells in primary culture, were treated with TPA. In all human pancreatic cancer cell lines and hTERT‐HPDE cells, Cldn18 mRNA indicated as Cldn18a2 was markedly induced by TPA and in well‐ or moderately differentiated human pancreatic cancer cells HPAF‐II and HPAC and hTERT‐HPDE cells, the protein was also strongly increased. The upregulation of Cldn18 by TPA in human pancreatic cancer cell lines was prevented by inhibitors of PKCδ, PKCε, and PKCα, whereas the upregulation of Cldn18 by TPA in hTERT‐HPDE cells was prevented by inhibitors of PKCδ, PKCθ, and PKCα. Furthermore, a CpG island was identified within the coding sequence of the Cldn18 gene and treatment with the demethylating agent 5‐azadeoxycytidine enhanced upregulation of Cldn18 by TPA in HPAF‐II and HPAC, but not hTERT‐HPDE cells. Our findings suggest that in human pancreatic cancer cells, Cldn18 is primarily regulated at the transcriptional level via specific PKC signaling pathways and modified by DNA methylation. J. Cell. Biochem. 112: 1761–1772, 2011. © 2011 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
The Demographic Deficit

There has been a slowdown in growth in the world's largest economies. One argument is that this slowdown represents a permanent shift in potential output because the innovations available to us in the future will not lead to the productivity growth that we have experienced in the recent past. An alternative argument, the Secular Stagnation hypothesis - is that the slower growth reflects a shortfall of aggregate demand at current interest rates. In this view the real natural rate of interest has declined and the real interest rate required to equate savings and investment at full employment is negative. One important issue that both explanations must confront is accounting for the differences in slowdown across the major developed economies. Differences in TFP growth turn out to play a minor role. The largest contributions to the differences in GDP growth are demographic factors: population growth, labor market participation, average number of hours worked, and capital intensity. Accounting for the historical differences gives a laboratory to project future growth rates given population forecasts.
MARRIAGE GAP IN CHRISTIANS AND MUSLIMS

Summary For modern Western societies with a regime of monogamy, it has recently been demonstrated that the socioeconomic status of men is positively associated with being or having been married. This study aims to compare marriage patterns (if a person has been married at least once) for cultures with a tradition of monogamy and polygyny. As no worldwide data on polygyny exist, religion was used as a proxy for monogamy (Christians) vs polygyny (Muslims). The analyses were based on 2000–2011 census data from 39 countries worldwide for 52,339,594 men and women, controlling for sex, sex ratio, age, education, migration within the last 5 years and employment. Overall, a higher proportion of Muslims were married compared with Christians, but the difference in the fraction of married men compared with married women at a certain age (the ‘marriage gap’) was much more pronounced in Muslims than in Christians, i.e. compared with Christians, a substantially higher proportion of Muslim women than men were married up to the age of approximately 31 years. As expected for a tradition of polygyny, the results indicate that the socioeconomic threshold for entering marriage is higher for Muslim than Christian men, and Muslim women in particular face a negative effect of socioeconomic status on the probability of ever being married. The large ‘marriage gap’ at a certain age in Muslim societies leads to high numbers of married women and unmarried young men, and may put such polygenic societies under pressure.
Fine tuning the immune response with PI3K

Summary: The phosphoinositide 3‐kinase (PI3K) family of lipid kinases regulates diverse aspects of lymphocyte behavior. This review discusses how genetic and pharmacological tools have yielded an increasingly detailed understanding of how PI3K enzymes function at different stages of lymphocyte development and activation. Following antigen receptor engagement, activated PI3K generates 3‐phosphorylated inositol lipid products that serve as membrane targeting signals for numerous proteins involved in the assembly of multiprotein complexes, termed signalosomes, and immune synapse formation. In B cells, class IA PI3K is the dominant subgroup whose loss causes profound defects in development and antigen responsiveness. In T cells, both class IA and IB PI3K contribute to development and immune function. PI3K also regulates both chemokine responsiveness and antigen‐driven changes in lymphocyte trafficking. PI3K modulates the function not only of effector T cells, but also regulatory T cells; these disparate functions culminate in unexpected autoimmune phenotypes in mice with PI3K‐deficient T cells. Thus, PI3K signaling is not a simple switch to promote cellular activation, but rather an intricate web of interactions that must be properly balanced to ensure appropriate cellular responses and maintain immune homeostasis. Defining these complexities remains a challenge for pharmaceutical development of PI3K inhibitors to combat inflammation and autoimmunity.
Hierarchical sliding mode control of a spherical robot driven by Omni wheels

The hierarchical sliding mode control (HSMC) has been proposed to achieve the position control of a spherical robot driven by Omni wheels. The two-direction movement can be accomplished by the cross type arrangement of driving wheels. Based on the two-layer architecture of HSMC and the Lyapunov stability theorem, the equivalent control of each subsystem is deduced, and then the total control law is derived. The original state dependent switching scheme of the HSMC will cause the failure of position control. So it has been modified as a positive constant without any switching to achieve the position control.
Exploratory analysis of associations between individual lifestyles and heart rate variability -based recovery during sleep

Sleep is the most important period for recovering from daily stress and load. Assessment of the stress recovery during sleep is therefore, an important metric for care and quality of life. Heart rate variability (HRV) is a non-invasive marker of autonomic nervous system (ANS) activity, and HRV-based methods can be used to assess physiological recovery, characterized by parasympathetic domination of the ANS. HRV is affected by multiple factors of which some are unmodifiable (such as age and gender) but many are related to daily lifestyle choices (e.g. alcohol consumption, physical activity, sleeping times). The purpose of this study was to investigate the association of these aforementioned factors on HRV-based recovery during sleep on a large sample. Variable importance measures yielded by random forest were used for identifying the most relevant predictors of sleep-time recovery. The results emphasize the disturbing effects of alcohol consumption on sleep-time recovery. Good physical fitness is associated to good recovery, but acute physical activity seems to challenge or delay the recovery process for the next night. Longer sleeping time enables more recovery minutes, but the proportion of recovery (i.e. recovery efficiency) seems to peak around 7.0-7.25 hours of sleep.
Long-term prediction for autumn flood season in Danjiangkou Reservoir basin based on OSR-BP neural network

A new method, called OSR-BP neural network, for long-term runoff prediction is put forward in this thesis. In order to eliminate input multi-collinearity and phenomenon of overfitting of the neural network, optimal subset regression (OSR) and BackPropagation(BP) neural network is coupled to an integrated, meanwhile, the training and testing error is comprehensively considered to determine the best condition of stop training. On this basis, runoff in September and October in Danjiangkou Reservoir, is simulated from 1956 to 2000, and is predicted from 2001 to 2008 by using of OSR-BP neural network. The result shows that the stability of model is favorable and accuracy is satisfactory whether simulation or prediction, especially for forecasting the characteristics of drought and flood year.
Radial vibration of the MEMS disk considering its mounting and electrodes form

The method of the thin piezoceramic MEMS disk resonator with asymmetric electrodes and supported to the substrate with mounting that has a circular segment form radial oscillation calculation is given in this paper. The zero approximation asymmetric radial vibration of the disk was simulated for case of four beam mounting and tree asymmetric electrodes.
Preference for wheat straw by lambs conditioned with intraruminal infusions of starch

We hypothesized that feed preference depends on the interplay between flavour and postingestive effects, and we tested two predictions based on this hypothesis: (1) lambs acquire preferences for poorly nutritious feeds paired with starch; and (2) preferences persist when starch is no longer administered. Twenty lambs were randomly allocated to two groups and conditioned as follows: on odd-numbered days, lambs in group 1 received onion-flavoured wheat straw and lambs in group 2 received oregano-flavoured wheat straw. On even-numbered days, the flavours were switched and starch (2-5-9.4% of the digestible energy received/d) was infused into the rumen of aU animals during straw consumption. Four periods of 8 d of conditioning were performed and on the 9th day of each period all animals were offered a choice between onion- and oregano-flavoured straw. After conditioning, starch administration was suspended and lambs were offered onion- and oregano- flavoured straw at weekly intervals for 8 weeks (extinction). Lambs strongly preferred the flavoured straw paired with starch, and this preference persisted during extinction. Thus, these results suggest that the postingestive effects of energy play an important role in the development of feed preferences of ruminants
Mechanical ventilation in patients with hemispheric ischemic stroke

ObjectiveWhether stroke patients should be ventilated mechanically is still a contentious issue, because their outcome is very poor. We wanted to investigate how often mechanical ventilation is indicated in patients with hemispheric ischemic stroke as well as the outcome of these patients and the factors by which outcome is influenced. DesignProspective case series. SettingUniversity hospital, neurocritical care unit. SubjectsSubjects were 218 patients who met the following inclusion criteria: age 18–85 yrs, acute hemispheric ischemic infarction, clinical examination, and computed tomography within 6 hrs after the onset of symptoms. InterventionsMechanical ventilation was instituted with one or more of the following conditions: deterioration of consciousness with the inability to protect the airway; Pao2 of <60; Pco2 of >60 mm Hg; breath rate of >40 breaths/min; and left heart insufficiency with definitive or impending pulmonary edema. Measurements and Main ResultsMechanical ventilation was indicated for 52 (24%) of the 218 patients: in 47 (90%) patients because of deterioration of consciousness, and in five (10%) patients because of heart insufficiency and/or pneumonia. In a logistic regression model, the history of hypertension and a size of infarction exceeding two thirds of the middle cerebral artery territory were independent variables for the application of mechanical ventilation. After 3 months, 42 (81%) of these 52 patients had died. The most common cause of death was fatal midbrain herniation caused by complete middle cerebral artery infarction. Patients who survived had a good-to-fair outcome. ConclusionsNew therapeutic strategies (e.g., hemicraniectomy) must be developed to reduce mortality and improve the outcome for this subgroup of ischemic stroke patients. Mechanical ventilation is and will remain a crucial element within such new concepts.
British Indian carers of stroke survivors experience higher levels of anxiety and depression than White British carers: findings of a prospective observational study

Carers of stroke survivors face significant burdens, and increased carer strain has negative implications for both the stroke survivor and the carer. There are limited data on carer strain in the British Indian UK population. In a prospective cohort of White British and British Indian stroke survivors and their carers, we report the incidence of carer strain in each ethnicgroup, describe patient and carer characteristics, and identify predictors of increased carer strain. Forty-nine participants and their carers were of White British origin and 24 of Indian ethnic origin, whose first language was Gujarati or Punjabi.Multidimensional outcome measures were used to assess the physical and cognitive function in stroke survivors at one month and 3–6 months (final follow-up) from stroke onset. Levels of carer strain were assessed at the same time points using the Carer Strain Index and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale. Statistical significance for difference in patient and carer characteristics between White British and British Indian groups was assessed. Logistic regression models were used to identify predictors of carer strain. British Indian stroke survivors had poorer scores on cognitive assessment (Mini Mental State Examination median 21, IQR 10.5–26.5 in British Indian, versus median 28.5, IQR 20–30, p=0.001) at one month. British Indian carers were younger, and reported higher levels of anxiety and depression at one month (medianHospital Anxiety and Depression Scale subscore depression 3.5 in White British, versus 7 in British Indian, P=0.002, median hospital anxiety and depression score total 10, versus 14, P=0.012). Twenty-four percent of all carers showed evidence of elevated carer strain (CSI>6) at one month, and 30% at final follow-up. There were no differences in levels of carer strain between the two ethnic groups. These findings will inform future research, and in turn, may help to guide population-targeted interventions aimed at reducing carer strain.
Cardiovascular responses in apnoeic asphyxia: role of arterial chemoreceptors and the modification of their effects by a pulmonary vagal inflation reflex

1. In the spontaneously breathing anaesthetized dog, the systemic circulation was perfused at constant blood flow; there was no pulmonary blood flow and the systemic arterial blood PO2 and PCO2 were controlled independently by an extracorporeal isolated pump‐perfused donor lung preparation. The carotid and aortic bodies were separately perfused at constant pressure with blood of the same composition as perfused the systemic circulation.
Market valuation perspectives for photovoltaic systems

Sandia National Laboratories, working with Energy Sense Finance developed the proof-ofconcept PV Value® tool in 2011 to provide real estate appraisers a tool that can be used to develop the market value and fair market value of a solar photovoltaic system. PV Value® moved from a proof-of-concept spreadsheet to a commercial web-based tool developed and operated exclusively by Energy Sense Finance in June 2014. This paper presents the results of a survey aimed at different user categories in order to measure how the tool is being used in the marketplace as well as elicit information that can be used to improve the tool’s effectiveness.
Peripheral refractive changes associated with myopia progression.

PURPOSE To evaluate the changes in peripheral refraction profiles associated with myopia progression and treatment modalities used in the Cambridge Anti-Myopia Study. METHODS one hundred and seventy-seven myopes in the age range of 14 to 22 years were enrolled in the study. The mean spherical equivalent refractive error was 3.12 1.87 diopters (D) and the refractive error of each participant was corrected with contact lenses. The participants were randomly assigned to one of four treatment groups, which included: altered spherical aberration and vision training, altered spherical aberration only, vision training only, and control. Peripheral refractive error was measured using an open field autorefractor in the central 60° of the retina in 10° steps. The refractive error was measured using cycloplegic autorefraction. Two-year refractive progression data and initial peripheral refraction measurements were available in 113 participants. Measurements of peripheral refraction and cycloplegic refraction were obtained at three visits over 2 years in 12-month intervals for 92 participants. RESULTS All subjects showed a relative peripheral hyperopia, especially in the nasal retina. A limited magnitude of myopia progression of -0.34 ± 0.36 D over 2 years was found in each of the four groups on average. There were no significant differences in the rate of progression between any of the treatment groups (P > 0.05). Initial peripheral J45 astigmatic refractive error at 20° and 30° in the nasal retina was weakly correlated with progression of myopia over 2 years (r = -0.27, P = 0.004 and r = -0.20, P = 0.040, respectively; n = 113). The change in spherical equivalent peripheral refractive error at 30° nasal retina over time was also significantly correlated with progression of myopia especially at 24 months (r = -0.24, P = 0.017, n = 92). CONCLUSIONS Relative peripheral hyperopia is associated with myopia. Myopia progression may be weakly linked to changes in the peripheral refraction profiles in the nasal retina. However, a causative link between peripheral refractive error and myopia progression could not be established.