Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of the Histamine H2 Receptor Antagonist Famotidine on the Healing of Colonic Anastomosis in Rats

BACKGROUND: Failure of anastomotic healing is one of the major complications in colorectal surgery. Because histamine plays an important role in immune and inflammatory reactions, we demonstrate the effects of famotidine on the healing of colonic anastomosis in rats. METHODS: Twenty-eight Sprague-Dawley rats were used in the study. Excision and end-to-end anastomosis was performed in the distal colon of the rat. The Famotidine Group received 2 mg/kg/day famotidine; the Control Group received the same amount of saline. Bursting pressure of anastomoses and hydroxyproline content of perianastomotic tissues were evaluated on the third and seventh days following surgery. RESULTS: Bursting pressures and hydroxyproline contents for the Famotidine Group were significantly lower than the equivalent parameters for the Control Group on both the third and seventh days post-surgery. CONCLUSIONS: According to our findings, famotidine exerts detrimental effects on the anastomotic bursting pressure and hydroxyproline content of perianastomotic tissues in the colon of rats.
Penicillin-induced formation of osmotically stable spheroplasts in nongrowing Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus

Bdellovibrio peptidoglycan is of typical gram-negative composition. The molar ratios of alanine:glutamic acid:diaminopimelic acid:muramic acid:glucosamine were about 2:1:1:1:1. Nascent, nongrowing Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus 109J were converted from highly motile vibrios to highly motile spheres when shaken in dilute buffer plus penicillin, cephalothin, bacitracin, or D-cycloserine. The spherical forms contained essentially no sedimentable peptidoglycan; i.e., they were spheroplasts. Spheroplasts induced by penicillin, D-cycloserine, and lysozyme were stable in dilute buffer and did not lyse when subjected to osmotic shock. Normal Bdellovibrio suspended in buffer turned over their peptidoglycan at a rate of approximately 30% h during the initial 120 min of starvation. Chloramphenicol and sodium azide strongly inhibited Bdellovibrio peptidoglycan turnover and the induction of spheroplasts by penicillin. The data indicate that nongrowing B. bacteriovorus are sensitive to penicillin and other antibiotics affecting cell walls because of their high rate of peptidoglycan turnover. It is also concluded that an intact peptidoglycan layer is required for maintaining cell shape, but is not required for osmotic stability of B. bacteriovorus.
Inversion of Ionospheric Electron Density Based on a Constrained Simultaneous Iteration Reconstruction Technique

In this paper, a new algorithm, which is the constrained simultaneous iteration reconstruction technique (SIRT), is presented for the inversion of ionospheric electron density. This new algorithm uses the smoothing of neighboring pixels in the same layer to create a reasonable constraint matrix. Thus, it overcomes the limitation of conventional SIRT and improves the accuracy of electron density inversion. The reliability and feasibility of the new algorithm and its superiority to the SIRT are demonstrated by numerical simulation experiment and reconstruction results based on the actual GPS observations.
Nef is required for efficient HIV-1 replication in cocultures of dendritic cells and lymphocytes.

Dendritic cells (DCs) are thought to play a crucial role in the pathogenesis of HIV-1 infection. DCs are believed to transport virus particles to lymph nodes before transfer to CD4(+) lymphocytes. We have investigated the role of Nef in these processes. HIV-1 replication was examined in human immature DC-lymphocyte cocultures and in DCs or lymphocytes separately. Using various R5-tropic and X4-tropic HIV-1 strains and their nef-deleted (Deltanef) counterparts, we show that Nef is required for optimal viral replication in immature DC-T cells clusters and in T lymphocytes. Nef exerts only a marginal role on viral replication in immature DCs alone as well as on virion capture by DCs, long-term intracellular accumulation and transmission of X4 strains to lymphocytes. We also show that wild-type and Deltanef virions are similarly processed for MHC-I restricted exogenous presentation by DCs. Taken together, these results help explain how HIV-1 Nef may affect viral spread and immune responses in the infected host.
Evidence for Increased Clinical Severity of Familial and Sporadic Paget's Disease of Bone in Campania, Southern Italy

The analysis of 236 Italian patients with Paget's bone disease showed higher clinical severity and greater frequency of neoplastic degeneration among patients who live or descend from individuals living in the Campania region (southern Italy). A prevalent involvement of the spine and the skull, the sites preferentially involved in giant cell tumors complicating Paget's disease, was also shown in familial cases from this geographical region.
Activation mechanisms of endothelial NF-κB, IKK, and MAP kinase by tert-butyl hydroperoxide

Lipid peroxidation plays a major role in vascular dysfunction and age-related cardiovascular diseases. A major product of lipid peroxidation, tert-butyl hydroperoxide (t-BHP), has been reported to modulate vascular reactivity and cellular signaling. To better understand vascular abnormality, we set out to delineate the activation mechanism of nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB) by t-BHP and the regulation of MAPK in endothelial cells. The results showed that t-BHP induces NF-κB activation by an inhibitor of κB (IκB) phosphorylation through IκB kinase (IKK) activation. Our data from this t-BHP study also showed increased p38 MAP kinase and ERK activity; however, interestingly, t-BHP showed no influence on JNK. Pretreatment with the p38 MAP kinase inhibitor, SB203580 and the ERK1/2 inhibitor, PD98059, prevented t-BHP-induced increases in p65 translocation, NF-κB luciferase activity, and phospho-IKKα/β. Data suggested that t-BHP induces NF-κB activation through the IKK pathway, which involves p38 MAPK and ERK activation. This study illustrates a role of t-BHP in NF-κB activation and MAPK related-signaling pathways. The t-BHP-induced activation of NF-κB and MAPK could be a major player in vascular dysfunctions, as seen in oxidative stressed responses and the vascular inflammatory process.
Nyctanthes arbor-tristis Linn. (Night Jasmine): A sacred ornamental plant with immense medicinal potentials

Nyctanthes arbor-tristis Linn. is one of the most useful traditional medicinal plants in India. It is distributed widely in sub-Himalayan regions and Southwards to Godavari. Each part of the plant has some medicinal value and is thus commercially exploitable. It is now considered as a valuable source of several unique products for the medicines against various diseases and also for the development of some industrial products. The present review includes comprehensive information on the chemical constituents, biological activities of important compounds, pharmacological actions, medicinal applications and micro propagation of Night jasmine and emphasizes the need for further exploring available information.
Could Chapter 11 Redeem Itself? Wealth and Welfare Effects of the Redemption Option

In its reform of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, the American Bankruptcy Institute (ABI) is proposing to grant a redemption option to junior creditors and let them exit the bargaining process. A game-theoretic, continuous-time model of the leveraged firm under Chapter 11 is developed to assess the wealth transfers and welfare impacts of such an amendment. After fitting the model to the current outcomes of Chapter 11, numerical experiments show that junior creditors are overcompensated and that the redemption option replaces one type of Absolute Priority Rule violations with another. Importantly, the redemption option aligns junior creditors' interests with those of shareholders, thereby increasing the incentives for risk-shifting. While the ABI reform reduces bankruptcy costs, it also increases the risk of liquidation.
Assessing the validity of Task Analysis as a quantitative tool to measure the efficacy of rehabilitation in brain injury

Abstract Background: Inpatient rehabilitation with patients who have sustained an acquired brain injury (ABI), including traumatic brain injury (TBI), focuses on improving performance in activities of daily living (ADLs). Although not studied to date in patients with ABI/TBI, Task Analysis (TA) integrates assessment and the prompting/cueing levels required to complete various tasks, with the goal to achieve effective skill acquisition and rehabilitation planning. TA has demonstrated efficacy in teaching life skills in individuals with developmental disabilities and in this study is applied to teaching ADL skills in ABI/TBI rehabilitation. Primary objective: To validate the use of TA in measuring progress in teaching ADLs by comparing it with three common ADL measures: Functional Independence Measure, Barthel Index and Klein-Bell. Methods: Twenty-four inpatients were administered the Functional Independence Measure (FIM), Barthel Index (BI) and the Klein-Bell ADL Scale (KB) TA within 72 hours of admission, at 4 weeks and within 72 hours of discharge, for showering and dressing tasks. A repeated measures ANOVA compared scores across the four measures, at three time points, for both tasks. Conclusion: Concurrent validity of TA in measuring improvements in the ADL tasks was established. Improvements were associated with reductions in supervision and disability levels. TA was shown to be an effective evaluation and teaching strategy during rehabilitation, with demonstrated reductions in disability and supervision levels.
Proteins: emerging carrier for delivery of cancer therapeutics

Introduction: Over the past decades, proteins have emerged as versatile carriers for the diagnosis and treatment of cancer, diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, and many more diseases. Proteins have gained considerable attention in formulation of several delivery systems for anticancer drugs due to their nontoxic, non-immunogenic, biocompatible and biodegradable nature. Proteins are good candidates for conjugation with drugs as they provide good pharmacokinetics as well as better cancer tissue accumulation. Protein nanoparticulate systems are also of advancing importance owing to their modifiable functionalities and potential applications in various biological fields. The customizable nature of proteins also makes them outstanding carriers as target-specific delivery systems. Areas covered: This review emphasizes on protein conjugates (drug-albumin, drug-gelatin, drug-transferrin, and drug-antibody conjugates), protein nanoparticles (prepared using albumin, gelatin, casein, silk proteins, elastin, and lectins), surface modification of protein nanoparticles (using surfactant, polyethylene glycol, cationic/thermosensitive polymers, folic acid, monoclonal antibodies, and peptides/proteins), and their preclinical and clinical status with respect to cancer therapy. Expert opinion: The major obstacles for commercial success of protein-based delivery are lack of inexpensive as well as quality methods for their preparation and quality control; and if overcome, proteins will stand out as a superior drug-delivery carrier for cancer therapy.
Strengthening collective action to improve marketing performance: evidence from farmer groups in Central Africa

ABSTRACT Purpose: Several development organisations have implemented programs to enhance smallholder farmers’ crop productivity and market access through collective action with mixed results. Therefore, this study examines the drivers of success of collective action initiatives as a pathway to improving farmers marketing performance using data from Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Design/methodology/approach: This study uses primary data collected from 30 farmer groups through focus group discussions. These groups are assessed for differences in their marketing performance using descriptive and cluster analysis techniques. Findings: Most of the group members are poor (67%) and few are considered as rich (2%) or middle class (28%), while the rest are destitute. The destitute community members are often excluded from the groups due to their own passivity and inability to contribute financial resources for joint activities. Mature farmer groups with strong internal structures and greater participation in product bulking as well as formally organised groups with stable external links significantly have higher marketing performance. Practical implications: We recommend that for farmers to maximise the benefits of collective action, supportive policies are necessary to encourage the formation of groups and transform existing ones into business entities to access high-value markets and perhaps even export markets. Farmer groups need to intensify their market research to access ready and stable markets such as supermarkets and institutions with larger volumetric requirements. Theoretical implications: The study shows that collective action is important for smallholder farmers in developing countries to sustainably access markets and increase their marketing performance. Originality/Value: Few studies have examined how social capital and collective action are utilised to improve smallholder farmers marketing performance, particularly in Central Africa.
Nonvolatile Crossbar Switch Using $\hbox{TiO}_{x}/ \hbox{TaSiO}_{y}$ Solid Electrolyte

A nonvolatile crossbar switch using a dual-layered TiOx/TaSiOy solid electrolyte, "NanoBridge," has been developed. NanoBridge is scalable to 50 nm and programmed at low voltage while keeping a low ON-resistance. The high compatibility with a back-end-of-line processing for CMOS integrated circuits is achieved by using the dual-layered TiOx/TaSiOy solid electrolyte, in which a barrier (Ti) is inserted on Cu and changes to an oxide during the subsequent process step. TiOx has the double role of preventing Cu oxidation during TaSiOy deposition and acting as a solid electrolyte itself. A resistive-change characteristic is investigated in terms of the inserted barrier dependence. At an optimal barrier insertion, the integrated switch shows bipolar switching characteristics with a high OFF-/ON-resistance ratio of 106. The developed device is applied to a 4 × 4 crossbar switch integrated with the CMOS circuit. The crossbar switch is configured without select transistors and transfers signals properly.
Household preferences for improved water services in Kelantan, Malaysia: a choice experiment approach

The condition of water supply provided to consumers is an important element which influences their health and daily routine. Excellent water services will give consumer’s confidence to consume the water but poor services may endanger the households in many aspects and may tarnish the water company’s reputation. Low water price may limit the water services improvement and upgrading projects. The objective of this study is to estimate household’s willingness to pay using stated preference technique, the Choice Experiment (CE). This technique is employed to assess consumer’s preferences in water service attributes such as water quality (QUAL), water disruption (DIST), Non-Revenue Water (NRW) and water price (PRICE). The Mixed Logit (ML) was applied to derive the households’ marginal value for different attributes of the water services. The findings show that households are willing to contribute more on “water quality” attribute which derives the highest marginal value. The outcomes of this study will form the basis of policy recommendations to improve and enhance current domestic water services to a better level in the future.
Inflation Targeting ∗

Acknowledgements: Forthcoming in The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2nd edition, edited by Larry Blum and Steven Durlauf. I thank Kathleen Hurley for editorial and secretarial assistance. Financial support from Princeton University's Center for Economic Policy Studies is gratefully acknowledged. Expressed views and any remaining errors are my own responsibility.
Generating Multiple Diverse Hypotheses for Human 3D Pose Consistent with 2D Joint Detections

We propose a method to generate multiple diverse and valid human pose hypotheses in 3D all consistent with the 2D detection of joints in a monocular RGB image. We use a novel generative model uniform (unbiased) in the space of anatomically plausible 3D poses. Our model is compositional (produces a pose by combining parts) and since it is restricted only by anatomical constraints it can generalize to every plausible human 3D pose. Removing the model bias intrinsically helps to generate more diverse 3D pose hypotheses. We argue that generating multiple pose hypotheses is more reasonable than generating only a single 3D pose based on the 2D joint detection given the depth ambiguity and the uncertainty due to occlusion and imperfect 2D joint detection. We hope that the idea of generating multiple consistent pose hypotheses can give rise to a new line of future work that has not received much attention in the literature. We used the Human3.6M dataset for empirical evaluation.
Dividends from unrealized earnings and default risk

Using hand-collected data on Israeli firms’ unrealized earnings and debt restructurings following adoption of the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), we investigate whether and how dividend payouts based on unrealized revaluation earnings affect a firm’s default risk. Our results indicate that, in the era of fair value accounting, whether the dividend payment originates from unrealized or realized earnings has a significant effect on a firm’s default risk, above and beyond the effect of the extent of the payment. Specifically, controlling for various determinants of financial risk, including the amount of the dividends paid, we find that firms are four times more likely to subsequently require debt restructuring, if they distribute dividends based on unrealized earnings. However, this enhanced risk seems to be mispriced by the market: cost of debt proxies are generally insignificantly different for these firms, following payouts originating from unrealized earnings, than for firms that never make such risky payouts.
Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation for pandemic influenza A(H1N1)-induced acute respiratory distress syndrome: a cohort study and propensity-matched analysis.

RATIONALE Many patients with severe acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) caused by influenza A(H1N1) infection receive extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) as a rescue therapy. OBJECTIVES To analyze factors associated with death in ECMO-treated patients and the influence of ECMO on intensive care unit (ICU) mortality. METHODS Data from patients admitted for H1N1-associated ARDS to French ICUs were prospectively collected from 2009 to 2011 through the national REVA registry. We analyzed factors associated with in-ICU death in ECMO recipients, and the potential benefit of ECMO using a propensity score-matched (1:1) cohort analysis. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS A total of 123 patients received ECMO. By multivariate analysis, increasing values of age, lactate, and plateau pressure under ECMO were associated with death. Of 103 patients receiving ECMO during the first week of mechanical ventilation, 52 could be matched to non-ECMO patients of comparable severity, using a one-to-one matching and using control subjects only once. Mortality did not differ between the two matched cohorts (odds ratio, 1.48; 95% confidence interval, 0.68-3.23; P = 0.32). Interestingly, the 51 ECMO patients who could not be matched were younger, had lower Pa(o(2))/Fi(o(2)) ratio, had higher plateau pressure, but also had a lower ICU mortality rate than the 52 matched ECMO patients (22% vs. 50%; P < 0.01). CONCLUSIONS Under ECMO, an ultraprotective ventilation strategy minimizing plateau pressure may be required to improve outcome. When patients with severe influenza A(H1N1)-related ARDS treated with ECMO were compared with conventionally treated patients, no difference in mortality rates existed. The unmatched, severely hypoxemic, and younger ECMO-treated patients had, however, a lower mortality.
Methods for Collapsing Multiple Rare Variants in Whole‐Genome Sequence Data

Genetic Analysis Workshop 18 provided whole‐genome sequence data in a pedigree‐based sample and longitudinal phenotype data for hypertension and related traits, presenting an excellent opportunity for evaluating analysis choices. We summarize the nine contributions to the working group on collapsing methods, which evaluated various approaches for the analysis of multiple rare variants. One contributor defined a variant prioritization scheme, whereas the remaining eight contributors evaluated statistical methods for association analysis. Six contributors chose the gene as the genomic region for collapsing variants, whereas three contributors chose nonoverlapping sliding windows across the entire genome. Statistical methods spanned most of the published methods, including well‐established burden tests, variance‐components‐type tests, and recently developed hybrid approaches. Lesser known methods, such as functional principal components analysis, higher criticism, and homozygosity association, and some newly introduced methods were also used. We found that performance of these methods depended on the characteristics of the genomic region, such as effect size and direction of variants under consideration. Except for MAP4 and FLT3, the performance of all statistical methods to identify rare casual variants was disappointingly poor, providing overall power almost identical to the type I error. This poor performance may have arisen from a combination of (1) small sample size, (2) small effects of most of the causal variants, explaining a small fraction of variance, (3) use of incomplete annotation information, and (4) linkage disequilibrium between causal variants in a gene and noncausal variants in nearby genes. Our findings demonstrate challenges in analyzing rare variants identified from sequence data.
Heart rate variability during exercise performed below and above ventilatory threshold.

PURPOSE To examine whether differences in heart rate variability (HRV) can distinguish sub- from supra-ventilatory-threshold exercise and whether the exercise duration at supra-threshold intensity alters cardiorespiratory synchronization. METHODS Beat-to-beat RR interval, VO2, VCO2, VE, and blood lactate concentration of 11 healthy well-trained young subjects were collected during two exercise tests: 1) a moderate-intensity test: 15 min performed below the power at ventilatory threshold (pVT); and 2) a heavy-intensity test: above pVT until exhaustion. Fast Fourier transform, smoothed pseudo Wigner-Ville distribution, and complex demodulation were applied to RR time series. RESULTS 1) Moderate exercise shows a prevalence of low-frequency (LF) spectral energy compared with the high-frequency (HF) one (LF = 80 +/- 10% vs HF = 20 +/- 10%, P < 0.001), whereas the reverse is observed during heavy exercise (LF = 11 +/- 8% vs HF = 89 +/- 8%, P < 0.001). 2) During heavy exercise, the HF amplitude and the tidal volume (Vt) remained constant, whereas the breathing frequency (BF) increased (BF: 0.70 +/- 0.18 vs 0.93 +/- 0.31, P < 0.01) and mean RR decreased (342 +/- 15 vs 317 +/- 16, P < 0.01). Despite the RR series and the breathing signal remaining synchronized, HR/BF ratio decreased and stabilized at 3 RR for one breathing cycle, whatever the initial ratio. CONCLUSION 1) HRV allows us to differentiate sub- from supra-ventilatory-threshold exercise and 2) exercise duration at supra-threshold intensity does not alter the cardiorespiratory synchronization.