Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Retinal Vascular Features Associated with Risk of Branch Retinal Vein Occlusion

Abstract Purpose/aim: To identify retinal vascular features that precede the development of branch retinal vein occlusion (BRVO) by comparing case eyes and fellow eyes. Materials and methods: We identified 25 persons who attended an annual health screening program at Osaka Health Science Center, Osaka, Japan, and then developed BRVO in one eye between 1995 and 2009. We retrospectively reviewed retinal images of these subjects taken 1–5 years prior to the development of BRVO and compared the prevalence of retinal vascular features between case eyes and contralateral fellow eyes. Potential local retinal vascular features considered were (1) severe arterio-venous (AV) nicking, (2) a smaller angle at the crossing of the arteriole and venule, (3) double crossing, (4) crossing near venular bifurcation and (5) isolated retinopathy. The central retinal artery equivalent (CRAE), vein equivalent (CRVE) and AV ratio (CRAE divided by CRVE) were quantitatively estimated using a standardized imaging software (University of Wisconsin). Results: Compared to the fellow eye, severe AV nicking (39.1% versus 2.6%, <0.001), isolated retinopathy (47.8% versus 7.69%, p < 0.001) and a smaller angle at the crossing site (82.6% versus 46.2%, p = 0.005) were more prevalent in eyes with BRVO compared with fellow eyes. Case eyes had a significantly smaller AV ratio at 1–5 years prior to the development of BRVO compared with fellow eyes (0.68 versus 0.73, p = 0.03). Conclusions: In addition to severe AV nicking, a well-known sign linked to BRVO, this study identified two new potential retinal vascular features – isolated retinopathy and a smaller angle at the crossing site – associated with BRVO development. We also found that a discrepancy in the AV ratio between eyes (i.e. a smaller AV ratio than the fellow eye) can be a quantitative indicator of a higher BRVO risk. These findings warrant further validation in longitudinal studies.
The neural regulation of the kidney in hypertension and renal failure

What is the topic of this review? Reports that bilateral renal denervation in resistant hypertensive patients results in a long‐lasting reduction in blood pressure raise the question of the underlying mechanisms involved and how they may be deranged in pathophysiological states of hypertension and renal failure. What advances does it highlight? The renal sensory afferent nerves and efferent sympathetic nerves work together to exert an important control over extracellular fluid volume, hence the level at which blood pressure is set. This article emphasizes that both the afferent and the efferent renal innervation may contribute to the neural dysregulation of the kidney that occurs in chronic renal disease and resistant hypertension.
Simulation of Engine Exhaust Aftertreatment with CFD using Detailed Chemistry

A variety aftertreatment systems have been or are being developed to reduce emissions of NOx and other pollutants from auto and truck exhausts. In addition to three-way catalytic converters for automobiles, several catalytic technologies are also being devised to reduce emissions from Diesel-powered vehicles. These include selective catalytic reduction (SCR), lean NOX traps (LNT), and catalyzed soot filters (CSF). (Fig. 1) In the past, computational fluid mechanics (CFD) simulations of such devices have simplified the problem by introducing porous media descriptions of the catalyst monoliths and utilizing very simple descriptions of the catalysts' surface chemistry. (1,2)
Energy efficiency analysis for dynamic routing in optical transport networks

The energy efficiency in telecommunication networks is gaining more relevance as the Internet traffic is growing. The introduction of OFDM and dynamic operation opens new horizons in the operation of optical networks, improving the network flexibility and its efficiency. In this paper, we compare the performance in terms of energy efficiency of a flexible-grid OFDM-based solution with a fixed-grid WDM network in a dynamic scenario with time-varying connections. We highlight the benefits that the bandwidth elasticity and the flexibility of selecting different modulation formats can offer compared to the rigidity of the conventional networks.
The Evolution of Ukrainian Economy: New Trade Theory Evidence

As the experience of European transition countries shows, the opening-up of their economic systems for international competition and FDIs, deepening economic liberalization and integration, and on this basis, the realization of real convergence within the integration block lead to the increased role of New Trade Theory in explaining their international economic relations. The processes of Ukraine's economic liberalization and approximation of its level of economic development to that of the EU-members should stipulate for transition of Ukrainian economy onto the dimension which explains industrial and trade relations through the prism of the New Trade Theory postulates coupled with Traditional Trade Theory principles. This article explores the position of Ukraine in the intra-industry trade with its main trade partners and problems of measuring the homogeneity degree of Ukraine’s trade structure and the trade structures of its trade partners as well as its potential reciprocal demand within the regional EU and SEA integration blocks. The empirical analysis reveals that inasmuch as consumer preferences in Ukraine differ from those of its two SEA-partners (Russia and Kazakhstan), their disposition to intensify intra-regional trade relations with Ukraine in the future would be reduced. The SEA countries would rather prefer to expand their integrated export potential (for example, by forming big oligopolistic financial and industrial groups in the mining, metallurgy, heavy engineering, aircraft and space industries on the basis of intra-regional mergers and acquisitions, thus enjoying external economies of scale) and satisfy their individual importing wishes on the markets of third countries in compliance with the postulates of the Traditional Trade Theory. Nevertheless, it is believed that intra-industry trade of Ukraine would develop optimally under deepening of its industrial and trade relations with advanced industrial countries, which have objectively reached the highest level of international specialization and product differentiation. In view of the optimization of their reciprocal demand, advanced industrial countries would try to pull the Ukrainian economy towards European economic area in order to realize their trade and investment interests. FDIs turned Ukraine into an increasingly export-oriented economy due to homogenous products. At the same time, the influence of FDIs on Ukrainian imports of differentiated goods tends to decrease significantly. This means that there still is no effect of increasing complementarity between imports and FDIs, which – under condition of transition – is responsible for structural market changes, saturation of domestic market with differentiated products and as a result for development of intra-industry trade.
Anomalous Diffusion in a Trading Model

The result of the trading model by Chakrabarti et al. [1] is the wealth distribution with a mixed exponential and power law distribution. Based on the motivation of studying the dynamics behind the flow of money similar to work done by Brockmann [2, 3] we track the flow of money in this trading model to observe anomalous diffusion in the form of long waiting times and Levy Flights.
HYDROXYETHYL STARCH NORMALIZES PLATELET AND LEUKOCYTE ADHESION WITHIN PULMONARY MICROCIRCULATION DURING LPS-INDUCED ENDOTOXEMIA

Growing evidence supports substantial pathophysiological impact of platelets and their interactions on the development of septic lung failure. We developed a rat model of endotoxemia for direct in situ visualization of pulmonary microcirculation by in vivo fluorescence videomicroscopy. Male Sprague-Dawley rats were assigned to control, endotoxemia (Escherichia coli LPS, 15 mg/kg, i.v.), and fluid management for treatment of LPS-induced hypovolemia (Ringer lactate, hydroxyethyl starch [HES] 6%) groups (n = 7 each). Leukocytes were labeled in vivo by rhodamine, and 5 × 106 Calcein-AM-labeled nonactivated platelets were injected. Microcirculatory parameters (vessel diameter, ventilation-perfusion ratio) and adhesive characteristics of platelets and leukocytes (velocity, rolling, sticking) within the pulmonary microcirculation were quantified after endotoxin application under various regimens of fluid substitution for 60 min. A reduction of cell velocity and enhanced cell adhesion was seen in leukocytes and platelets (P < 0.05) after LPS injection. Fluid treatment with HES 6% resulted in a significant increase of platelet's velocity compared with the LPS group (442.86 ± 20.60 vs. 343.93 ± 11.17; P < 0.05), whereas Ringer lactate showed no beneficial effects. Similarly, HES 6% normalized LPS-induced platelet rolling and sticking as well as alterations in ventilation-perfusion ratio. Using direct visualization of the pulmonary microcirculation, we observed that platelet and leukocyte interactions are enhanced in the lung during LPS endotoxemia. Fluid therapy with HES 6% seems to have restorative effects on these cellular functions within the pulmonary microcirculation.
Effects of the use of unreliable surrogate variables on the validity of epidemiologic research studies.

When certain key factors of interest in epidemiologic research studies cannot be measured directly, epidemiologists often turn to the use of surrogate variables. The potential bias in making statistical inferences about an adjusted exposure-disease association parameter (e.g., a partial correlation) is described as a function of the degree of unreliability in the surrogate variables used in place of the underlying disease, exposure, and confounding factors of real interest. It is shown that unreliability in the surrogate confounder is much more apt to produce seriously misleading inferences than is unreliability in the surrogate measures for disease and exposure. Practical methods are discussed for dealing with less than perfectly reliable surrogate variables.
Productive Capital and Technical Efficiency in the UE-15

In this research we examine the capitalization process in the UE-15 with the aim to establish if the evolution manteined in the last two decades for the public capital and its distribution related private capital have conditioned the technical efficiency of the European economies. In this analysis we use the frontier function approach that allows to consider an inefficiency use of the productive factors. Specifically, we employ the parametric stochastic frontier model from Battese and Coelli (1995) to explore the determinants of the technical efficiency. The results show that larger endowments of public capital may facilitate the access of the productive activity to the levels of the more efficient members. We also find a limit to the capacity of introducing improvements in the use of productive factors, and it is related to private capital, then if the increase of public capital does not lead to an optimal distribution of this factor, the effect on efficiency will be negative.
What is a Promise from the Government Worth? Quantifying Political Risk in State and Personal Pension Schemes in the United Kingdom

There are three key types of political risk facing pension schemes: those induced by demographic, economic, and pure political factors. The state scheme in the United Kingdom has been susceptible to all three types since 1980, with the result that the annual real internal rate of return on the second-pillar state pension for the average male worker fell from 5.1% to 1.5% over 25 years. The flat-rate, first-pillar Basic State Pension has also experienced a fall in its IRR of 3 percentage points as a result of the indexation basis changing from earnings to prices.
A study on the generalised space of urban–rural integration in Beijing suburbs during the present day

Urban–rural integration is a complex process in the giant urban–rural system of the Beijing suburbs with various evolutions in modern suburban functions. Therefore, the functions and processes of the whole Beijing suburb system cannot be treated in isolation. Based on the theory of generalised space proposed by Chen (2008), the urban–rural integration process in the Beijing suburbs was analysed in real space (R-space), phase space (P-space) and order space (O-space). The results show that the macro urban–rural gap is the dominant factor in the O-space. A multifunctional policy at the meso-level will promote the scientific evolution of the P-space. These factors in turn influence the evolution of the urban–rural integration in Beijing suburbs at various levels in the R-space. Finally, new features of spatial organisation, for example, fractals, are generalised from the interactions of those three spaces. Therefore, the perspective of the R-P-O space fusion can provide theoretical guidance to investigators for the urban–rural integration of Beijing suburbs.
Analysis of the 5' flanking region of the human beta-glucuronidase gene.

We have sequenced 4.2 kb of the 5' flanking region of the human beta-glucuronidase gene, compared this sequence to the 5' upstream sequence reported for the murine gene, determined the transcription start sites of the human gene, and studied expression of human minigene deletion constructs in COS cells. The 200 bp immediately 5' to the translation initiation codon have a high G + C content (72%) and contain no TATA box, two properties commonly associated with "housekeeping genes. " The sequence 5' to -200 bp contains seven Alu repetitive elements which account for more than 50% of this flanking sequence. From deletion analysis of minigene constructs, 200 bp of 5' sequence appeared sufficient for maximal expression in transfected COS cells. S1 nuclease protection analysis showed that transcription initiates from a cluster of sites around -30 bp in all tissues examined. In some cases, a low but detectable level of transcription also initiates 126 bp upstream of the ATG. Inspection of the sequence surrounding both start sites revealed some similarity to the recently described "initiator" transcriptional control element (S.T. Smale and D. Baltimore (1989), Cell 57: 103-113). Comparison of the 5'flanking sequence with that available from the murine beta-glucuronidase gene reveals only one 28-bp highly conserved region, which surrounds the -126 start site.
Mutations in Chromatin Components Suppress a Defect of Gcn5 Protein in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

ABSTRACT The yeast GCN5 gene encodes the catalytic subunit of a nuclear histone acetyltransferase and is part of a high-molecular-weight complex involved in transcriptional regulation. In this paper we show that full activation of the HOpromoter in vivo requires the Gcn5 protein and that defects in this protein can be suppressed by deletion of the RPD3 gene, which encodes a histone deacetylase. These results suggest an interplay between acetylation and deacetylation of histones in the regulation of the HO gene. We also show that mutations in either the H4 or the H3 histone gene, as well as mutations in the SIN1gene, which encodes an HMG1-like protein, strongly suppress the defects produced by the gcn5 mutant. These results suggest a hierarchy of action in the process of chromatin remodeling.
Pneumococci Can Persistently Colonize Adult Patients with Chronic Respiratory Disease

ABSTRACT Streptococcus pneumoniae plays an important role in causing acute exacerbations in patients with chronic respiratory disease. However, few data are available regarding pneumococcal persistence in adult patients with chronic respiratory diseases. Fifty pneumococci recovered from sputum samples (1995 to 2010) from 13 adult patients with ≥3 episodes of acute exacerbation or pneumonia, with the same serotype and pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) pattern, were studied. Multilocus sequence typing (MLST) loci, penicillin-binding protein (PBP) genes (pbp2x, pbp1a, pbp2b), and the quinolone-resistant determining regions (QRDRs) of parC, parE, and gyrA were PCR amplified and sequenced. The average time between the first and last episode was 582 days (standard deviation [SD], ±362). All but two patients received multiple courses of β-lactam treatment, and all persistent strains were resistant to penicillin; however, the PBP sequences were stable over time apart from one variable nucleotide in pbp2x, observed among pneumococci isolated from three patients. In contrast, 7/11 patients treated with fluoroquinolones had fluoroquinolone-resistant pneumococci. In three patients, the initially fluoroquinolone-susceptible strain developed resistance after fluoroquinolone therapy, and in the remaining four patients, the persistent strain was fluoroquinolone resistant from the first episode. QRDR changes involved in fluoroquinolone resistance were frequently observed in persistent strains after fluoroquinolone treatment; however, the PBP sequences and MLST genotypes of these strains were stable over time.
Efficient parallel programming on scalable shared memory systems with High Performance Fortran

OpenMP offers a high‐level interface for parallel programming on scalable shared memory (SMP) architectures. It provides the user with simple work‐sharing directives while it relies on the compiler to generate parallel programs based on thread parallelism. However, the lack of language features for exploiting data locality often results in poor performance since the non‐uniform memory access times on scalable SMP machines cannot be neglected. High Performance Fortran (HPF), the de‐facto standard for data parallel programming, offers a rich set of data distribution directives in order to exploit data locality, but it has been mainly targeted towards distributed memory machines.
Integration and Contagion in US Housing Markets

This paper explores integration and contagion among US metropolitan housing markets. The analysis applies Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) house price repeat sales indexes from 384 metropolitan areas to estimate a multi-factor model of U.S. housing market integration. It then identifies statistical jumps in metropolitan house price returns as well as MSA contemporaneous and lagged jump correlations. Finally, the paper evaluates contagion in housing markets via parametric assessment of MSA house price spatial dynamics. A R-squared measure reveals an upward trend in MSA housing market integration over the 2000s to approximately . 83 in 2010. Among California MSAs, the trend was especially pronounced, as average integration increased from about . 55 in 1997 to close to . 95 in 2008! The 2000s bubble period similarly was characterized by elevated incidence of statistical jumps in housing returns. Again, jump incidence and MSA jump correlations were especially high in California. Analysis of contagion among California markets indicates that house price returns in San Francisco often led those of surrounding communities; in contrast, southern California MSA house price returns appeared to move largely in lock step. The high levels of housing market integration evidenced in the analysis suggest limited investor opportunity to diversify away MSA-specific housing risk. Further, results suggest that macro and policy shocks propagate through a large number of MSA housing markets. Research findings are relevant to all market participants, including institutional investors in MBS as well as those who regulate housing, the housing GSEs, mortgage lenders, and related financial institutions.
THE IMPACT OF POLITICAL RISK ON THE FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT DECISION: A CAPITAL BUDGETING ANALYSIS

ABSTRACT Using a capital budgeting framework, we examine the impact of political risk on the foreign direct investment decision. Political risk may alter operating cash flows via discriminatory regulations as well as the investment via expropriation. We model the impact of political operating costs and expropriation costs on the NPV of a project under the assumption that the parameters that affect the NPV are constant over the life of the project. Next, we provide an illustration for the case in which the relevant parameters are variable over the life of the project. The paper concludes with an example of political risk in the 1990s, the case of Black Sea Energy Ltd.'s investment in Russia.
Within-Team Debriefing Versus Instructor-Led Debriefing for Simulation-Based Education: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Objective:To compare the effectiveness of an interprofessional within-team debriefing with that of an instructor-led debriefing on team performance during a simulated crisis. Background:Although instructor-led simulation debriefing is considered the “gold standard” in team-based simulation education, cost and logistics are limiting factors for its implementation. Within-team debriefing, led by the individuals of the team itself rather than an external instructor, has the potential to address these limitations. Methods:One hundred twenty subjects were grouped into 40 operating room teams consisting of 1 anesthesia trainee, 1 surgical trainee, and 1 staff circulating operating room nurse. All teams managed a simulated crisis scenario (pretest). Teams were then randomized to either a within-team debriefing group or an instructor-led debriefing group. In the within-team debriefing group, the teams reviewed the video of their scenario by themselves. The teams in the instructor-led debriefing group reviewed their scenario guided by a trained instructor. Immediately after debriefing, all teams managed a different intraoperative crisis scenario (posttest). All sessions were videotaped. Blinded expert examiners used the validated Team Emergency Assessment Measure scale to assess crisis resource management performance of all teams in random order. Result:Team performance significantly improved from pretest to posttest (P = 0.008) regardless of the type of debriefing. There was no significant difference in the degree of improvement between within-team debriefing and instructor-led debriefing (P = 0.52). Conclusions:Within-team debriefing results in measurable improvements in team performance in simulated crisis scenarios. This form of debriefing may be as effective as instructor-led team debriefing, which could improve resource utilization and feasibility of team-based simulation (NCT01067378).
A Dyad-Based Analysis of New Venture Success

We examine variance in the performance of new ventures that emerged prior to the Internet bubble burst with data that spans beyond it. These firms faced high uncertainty, and were hoping to compensate founders and investors with appropriately high returns. We address the performance issues through the use of dyads, where Internet-related ventures are matched to non-Internet ventures. We find that the Internet has a positive effect on both performance and volatility measures. We also find that incentive, value proposition, and context factors explain performance variance within the sample of Internet-related ventures, as well as terminal events within that sample.