Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Death by withdrawal from dialysis: a 20-year clinical experience.

The reasons for withdrawal from dialysis are not well understood. The goals of this study were to determine the risk of dying by withdrawal from dialysis over time and to elucidate pertinent clinical correlates in 716 long-term dialysis patients. These patients were monitored from the initiation of dialysis through the time of death, transplant or transfer to another program during a 20-yr period from 1970 through 1989. The causes of death in the 340 deceased patients were analyzed. Clinical correlates and associated risk factors were evaluated in the patients who died from withdrawal from dialysis. Withdrawal from dialysis was defined as: "Death with manifestations of uremia because of withdrawal from dialysis. Underlying medical conditions should not have been active, leading to rapid deterioration with imminent death. " Withdrawal from dialysis and cardiac events were the second leading cause of death, each accounting for 18.5% of the deaths. Patients stopping dialysis were older at the start of dialysis than were patients dying of other causes (P < 0.0006; Kruskal-Wallis test), with 65.1% of these patients 61 yr of age and older. Cancer, malnutrition, catabolism, and "dissatisfaction with life" were important associations with the decision to withdraw. More than 50% of patients withdrawing from dialysis had either diabetic nephropathy or atherosclerotic renal vascular disease. Withdrawal from dialysis was a common cause of death in these dialysis patients especially if they were over 61 and had systemic diseases such as diabetes mellitus and renal vascular disease. The reasons for a higher incidence of withdrawal in certain programs deserve further study.
The use of household cleaning sprays and adult asthma: an international longitudinal study.

RATIONALE Cleaning work and professional use of certain cleaning products have been associated with asthma, but respiratory effects of nonprofessional home cleaning have rarely been studied. OBJECTIVES To investigate the risk of new-onset asthma in relation to the use of common household cleaners. METHODS Within the follow-up of the European Community Respiratory Health Survey in 10 countries, we identified 3,503 persons doing the cleaning in their homes and who were free of asthma at baseline. Frequency of use of 15 types of cleaning products was obtained in a face-to-face interview at follow-up. We studied the incidence of asthma defined as physician diagnosis and as symptoms or medication usage at follow-up. Associations between asthma and the use of cleaning products were evaluated using multivariable Cox proportional hazards or log-binomial regression analysis. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS The use of cleaning sprays at least weekly (42% of participants) was associated with the incidence of asthma symptoms or medication (relative risk [RR], 1.49; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.12-1.99) and wheeze (RR, 1.39; 95% CI, 1.06-1.80). The incidence of physician-diagnosed asthma was higher among those using sprays at least 4 days per week (RR, 2.11; 95% CI, 1.15-3.89). These associations were consistent for subgroups and not modified by atopy. Dose-response relationships (P < 0.05) were apparent for the frequency of use and the number of different sprays. Risks were predominantly found for the commonly used glass-cleaning, furniture, and air-refreshing sprays. Cleaning products not applied in spray form were not associated with asthma. CONCLUSIONS Frequent use of common household cleaning sprays may be an important risk factor for adult asthma.
Task complexity and difficulty in music information retrieval

There has been little research on task complexity and difficulty in music information retrieval (MIR), whereas many studies in the text retrieval domain have found that task complexity and difficulty have significant effects on user effectiveness. This study aimed to bridge the gap by exploring i) the relationship between task complexity and difficulty; ii) factors affecting task difficulty; and iii) the relationship between task difficulty, task complexity, and user search behaviors in MIR. An empirical user experiment was conducted with 51 participants and a novel MIR system. The participants searched for 6 topics across 3 complexity levels. The results revealed that i) perceived task difficulty in music search is influenced by task complexity, user background, system affordances, and task uncertainty and enjoyability; and ii) perceived task difficulty in MIR is significantly correlated with effectiveness metrics such as the number of songs found, number of clicks, and task completion time. The findings have implications for the design of music search tasks (in research) or use cases (in system development) as well as future MIR systems that can detect task difficulty based on user effectiveness metrics.
Pharmacokinetic analysis of oral doxycycline in rhesus macaques

Following administration of an antibiotic, the concentration in blood changes over time and is dependent on the type of antibiotic, the route and species of the individual. The most relevant pharmacodynamic property of a bacteriostatic antibiotic such as doxycycline is the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC), whereas pharmacokinetics may include rates of absorption and elimination from blood.
Measurement of the extracellular pH of solid tumours in mice by magnetic resonance spectroscopy: a comparison of exogenous 19F and 31P probes

Precise measurement of pHe in vivo may be of clinical value for both diagnosis and selection of therapy. pHe measurements made by the 31P probe 3‐aminopropylphosphonate (3‐APP) were compared with those made by the 19F probe, 3‐[N‐(4‐fluor‐2‐trifluoromethylphenyl)‐sulphamoyl]‐propionic acid (ZK‐150471) in three solid tumour types, human HT29 xenografts, murine RIF‐1 fibrosarcomas and Lettre tumours grown subcutaneously in mice. No significant differences were observed when probe measurements of pHe were compared at 20–60 min post‐administration, although very low pHe values (ca. 6.0) were recorded in two out of eight Lettre tumours by ZK‐150471. The more rapid pHe measurements possible using ZK‐150471 showed that during the first 20 min post‐administration significant increases occurred in pHe which were greatest in the more necrotic tumours. Since isolated cell experiments showed that ZK‐150471 was non‐toxic and did not enter the cells, this early increase in pHe may reflect gradual penetration by ZK‐150471 of the reportedly alkaline necrotic space in the tumours. The wide chemical shift range, improved signal‐to‐noise and absence of signal overlap allowed a more rapid and precise measurement of pHe by ZK‐150471 compared to 3‐APP. These characteristics suggest that ZK‐150471 is currently the preferred pHe probe for non‐invasive MRS. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Assessment of Hepatic Glucose Metabolism by Indirect Calorimetry in Combination with a Non-Invasive Technique Using Naturally Enriched 13C Glucose in Healthy Children and Adolescents

The metabolic fate of hepatic glucose can be best studied using invasive techniques such as tracer infusions and frequent blood sampling which have been revealed to be impractical in the pediatric age group. The aim of this study was to develop a non-invasive method based on indirect calorimetry and expired 13CO2 monitoring in order to gain insight into the mechanisms leading to impaired glucose tolerance in children and teenagers. As a first step, net glucose oxidation (NGO) and energy expenditure (EE) were measured in 47 subjects (range 7.5–17.3 years) of whom 18 were prepubertal (P1), 11 in early puberty (P2–P3) and 18 in late puberty (P4–P5) after 3-hourly loads of 180 mg/kg of oral maize glucose containing naturally enriched 13C. Isotope analysis allowed to calculate exogenous and endogenous glucose oxidation (EXGO, ENGO) and, hence, to derive TGS and NGS, that is glycogen turnover. NGO and EE decreased significantly with pubertal progression, reflecting higher metabolism at younger ages, whereas EXGO remained constant. TGS did not change significantly whereas NGS showed a significant negative correlation with pubertal progression: this can be explained by the fact that glycogenolysis exceeded glycogen synthesis in this experimental setting. This non-invasive method appears to be a promising tool to study the fate of hepatic glucose and therefore glycogen turnover in children at risk of developing glucose intolerance and/or type 2 diabetes.
How to define the user's tolerance of response time in using mobile applications

System response time can greatly affect the user experience. Society has entered the mobile Internet era, and in mobile applications, as carriers of the mobile Internet, response time is an important performance index related to users' attention. Previous studies of user experience of response time have focused more on computers and websites and less on mobile applications. The current study develops an evaluation program for researching user experience of response times in mobile applications; this simulation enables users to give subjective evaluations. The results indicate the following: (1) with an increase in response time, evaluation scores gradually decrease; (2) the relationship between response time and the subjective experience of users fits a logarithmic function, which can provide relevant references for determining mobile applications' response time; and (3) this article provides insight into performance standards related to response time for mobile applications.
Human-in-the-loop Data Integration

Data integration aims to integrate data in different sources and provide users with a unified view. However, data integration cannot be completely addressed by purely automated methods. We propose a hybrid human-machine data integration framework that harnesses human ability to address this problem, and apply it initially to the problem of entity matching. The framework first uses rule-based algorithms to identify possible matching pairs and then utilizes the crowd to refine these candidate pairs in order to compute actual matching pairs. In the first step, we propose similarity-based rules and knowledge-based rules to obtain some candidate matching pairs, and develop effective algorithms to learn these rules based on some given positive and negative examples. We build a distributed in-memory system DIMA to efficiently apply these rules. In the second step, we propose a selection-inference-refine framework that uses the crowd to verify the candidate pairs. We first select some "beneficial" tasks to ask the crowd and then use transitivity and partial order to infer the answers of unasked tasks based on the crowdsourcing results of the asked tasks. Next we refine the inferred answers with high uncertainty due to the disagreement from the crowd. We develop a crowd-powered database system CDB and deploy it on real crowdsourcing platforms. CDB allows users to utilize a SQL-like language for processing crowd-based queries. Lastly, we provide emerging challenges in human-in-the-loop data integration.
An eye state recognition algorithm based on feature level fusion

In order to overcome the impact of complex illumination environment and head movement, a novel eye state recognition algorithm is proposed in this paper, which is based on feature level fusion. Firstly, Pseudo Zernike feature was found can be used to overcome the impact of head movement and Gabor feature can be used to overcome the impact of illumination changing. Then we got the fusion feature by combining the two normalized features in series and used it in SVM eye state classifier. The experimental results show that the new fusion feature can overcome the challenges of head movement and illumination and reach a high accuracy of 99.8% in eye state recognition.
Pancreatic Endocrine and Exocrine Function and Salivary Gland Function in Autoimmune Pancreatitis Before and After Steroid Therapy

Introduction Autoimmune pancreatitis (AIP) is a distinct clinical entity in which an autoimmune mechanism may be involved in pathogenesis. Aim To investigate salivary gland function in addition to pancreatic endocrine and exocrine function in patients with AIP, and to determine changes occurring after steroid therapy. Methodology Fasting serum glucose levels, oral glucose tolerance tests or glycosylated hemoglobin values were examined in 19 patients with AIP. N-benzoyl-L-tyrosyl-p-aminobenzoic acid excretion test, sialochemistry and parotid gland scintigraphy were performed in 8 patients. Results Eight patients had evidence of DM. Steroid therapy subsequently improved insulin secretion and glycemic control in 3 of 5 patients treated. Pancreatic exocrine function was reduced in 88% of patients. Impaired pancreatic exocrine function improved after steroid therapy in 3 of 6 patients treated. The 3 patients also showed treatment-related improvement in endocrine function. Concentration of &bgr;2-microglobulin in saliva was significantly raised in patients with AIP compared with controls (P < 0.05). Ratio of cumulative peak count to injected radionuclide and washout ratio in parotid scintigraphy in patients with AIP was significantly lower than those of controls (P < 0.01). Salivary gland dysfunction improved after steroid therapy in all 5 patients treated. Conclusions Pancreatic endocrine and exocrine and salivary gland function were frequently impaired in patients with AIP, and steroid therapy was occasionally effective for these dysfunctions.
A Loop Gain Optimization Technique for Integer-$N$ TDC-Based Phase-Locked Loops

This paper presents a loop gain optimization technique for integer- N digital phase-locked loops with a time-to-digital converter. Due to noise filtering properties, a phase-locked loop has an optimal loop gain which gives rise to the best jitter performance, taking into account external and internal noise sources. By using the loop gain optimization technique, the digital phase-locked loops can automatically attain this loop gain in background to minimize the jitter. Theoretical analysis is presented. The stability issue and the impact of loop latency are also discussed. Finally, the analysis is compared to behavioral simulations with good agreement.
Absence of Immunodominant Anti-Gag p17 (SL9) Responses among Gag CTL-Positive, HIV-Uninfected Vaccine Recipients Expressing the HLA-A*0201 Allele1

According to a number of previous reports, control of HIV replication in humans appears to be linked to the presence of anti-HIV-1 Gag-specific CD8 responses. During the chronic phase of HIV-1 infection, up to 75% of the HIV-infected individuals who express the histocompatibility leukocyte Ag (HLA)-A*0201 recognize the Gag p17 SLYNTVATL (aa residues 77–85) epitope (SL9). However, the role of the anti-SL9 CD8 CTL in controlling HIV-1 infection remains controversial. In this study we determined whether the pattern of SL9 immunodominance in uninfected, HLA-A*0201 HIV vaccine recipients is similar to that seen in chronically HIV-infected subjects. The presence of anti-SL9 responses was determined using a panel of highly sensitive cellular immunoassays, including peptide:MHC tetramer binding, IFN-γ ELISPOT, and cytokine flow cytometry. Thirteen HLA-A*0201 vaccinees with documented anti-Gag CD8 CTL reactivities were tested, and none had a detectable anti-SL9 response. These findings strongly suggest that the pattern of SL9 epitope immunodominance previously reported among chronically infected, HLA-A*0201-positive patients is not recapitulated in noninfected recipients of Gag-containing canarypox-based candidate vaccines and may be influenced by the relative immunogenicity of these constructs.
220–360-GHz Broadband Frequency Multiplier Chains (x8) in 130-nm BiCMOS Technology

This article presents two broadband frequency multiplier chains (FMCs) fabricated with a standard 130-nm SiGe BiCMOS process. In both solutions, a broadband push-push frequency doubler (x2) operating at 220–360 GHz was employed. In order to properly drive such a doubler, with sufficient input power and bandwidth, two different power amplifiers (PAs) have been adopted: the former is based on a cascode configuration and the latter is based on a stacked topology. In addition, a D-band frequency quadrupler (x4) has been integrated before the PAs and doubler, to complete the design of frequency eighth tupler (x8) chains. The first FMC with the cascode PA achieves peak output power of 2.3 dBm, with maximum conversion gain (GC) and bandwidth of 15 dB and 127 GHz, respectively. The second FMC with the stacked PA delivers a saturated output power of 2.5 dBm, with a maximum GC and a bandwidth of 12 dB and 72 GHz, respectively. The two FMCs consume maximum dc power of 0.537 and 0.542 W. The complete design procedure of the FMCs is presented in this article. To the best of our knowledge, the reported bandwidth is state-of-the-art and widest among SiGe based FMCs.
Association between body condition score and live weight in pasture-based Holstein-Friesian dairy cows

The objective was to quantify the strength of the relationship between body condition score (BCS) and live weight (LW) in pasture-based Holstein-Friesian dairy cattle, and to determine the kg LW per unit BCS. A total of 26021 test-day records with information on both BCS (1–10 scale, where 1 is emaciated and 10 is obese) and LW across 1110 lactations from one research farm were used in the analysis. Correlation and regression analyses were used to determine the degree of association between BCS and LW in different parities, stages of the inter-calving interval and years. Correlations between BCS and LW were relatively consistent, with the mean correlation between BCS and LW across all data of 0·55 implying that differences in BCS explain approximately 30% of the variation in LW. Significantly different regressions of LW on BCS were present within stage of inter-calving interval by parity subclasses. Excluding calving, LW per unit BCS varied from 17 kg (early to mid lactation in parity 1) to 36 kg (early lactation in parity 4 and 5). However, LW per unit BCS was greatest at calving varying from 44 kg in first parity animals to 62 kg in second parity animals. On average, 1 BCS unit equated to 31 kg LW across all data.
driftsel: an R package for detecting signals of natural selection in quantitative traits

Approaches and tools to differentiate between natural selection and genetic drift as causes of population differentiation are of frequent demand in evolutionary biology. Based on the approach of Ovaskainen et al. (2011), we have developed an R package (driftsel) that can be used to differentiate between stabilizing selection, diversifying selection and random genetic drift as causes of population differentiation in quantitative traits when neutral marker and quantitative genetic data are available. Apart from illustrating the use of this method and the interpretation of results using simulated data, we apply the package on data from three‐spined sticklebacks (Gasterosteus aculeatus) to highlight its virtues. driftsel can also be used to perform usual quantitative genetic analyses in common‐garden study designs.
How Nurse Agreeableness and Negative Mood of Nursing Supervisors Impact on Helping Colleagues

Background: Nursing collaboration is important in enhanced health care quality. Previous studies have identified agreeableness and supervisor negative mood as two predictors for subordinate collaboration. However, in nursing contexts, exactly how these factors influence nursing intention to help colleagues remains unknown, as well as how their interactive influences. Objectives: Thus this study investigates whether nurse agreeableness and supervisor negative mood impacts nursing intention to help colleagues independently and interactively. Methods: This study adopts a cross-sectional design and questionnaires for collecting data. One sample set comprised one supervisor and three nurses. This study issued 53 sets and collected complete responses from 46 sets, yielding an effective response ratio of 86.8%. Results: Analytical results indicated that nursing intention to help colleagues is positively related to nurse agreeableness (path coefficient = .54, t = 6.61, p < .01), but negatively related to supervisor negative mood (path coefficient = -.13, t = -1.67, p < .05). Moreover, analytical results indicated that for highly agreeable nurses, the relationship between supervisor negative mood and nursing intention to help colleagues is significantly stronger than that for lowly agreeable nurses, demonstrating that nurse agreeableness amplifies the negative impact of supervisor negative mood on nursing intention to help colleagues.
Hemodynamics during the acute phase of myocardial damage caused by isoproterenol.

One to three days after two consecutive subcutaneous injections of 40 mg/kg isoproterenol were given to male rats, severe histological changes occurred in the myocardium. Blood pressure, cardiac output, and work of these rats did not differ from normal. During polyvinylpyrrolidone infusion, normal rats raised their cardiac output to about three times the preinfusion value, while only a slight increase took place in the isoproterenol-treated rats. The difference was less marked during pitressin and norepinephrine infusion. It is concluded that during the acute damage of the myocardium by isoproterenol, the functional capacity of the heart is greatly reduced.
Characterization and phylogeny of Isaria spp. strains (Ascomycota: Hypocreales) using ITS1‐5.8S‐ITS2 and elongation factor 1‐alpha sequences

The elongation factor 1‐alpha (EF1‐α) and the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) regions ITS1 and ITS2 (ITS1‐5.8S‐ITS2) sequences were used to characterize and to identify Isaria isolates from Argentina, Mexico, and Brazil, as well as to study the phylogenetic relationships among these isolates and other related fungi from the order Hypocreales. The molecular characterization, which was performed by PCR‐RFLP of EF1‐α and ITS1‐5.8‐ITS2 genes, was useful for resolving representative isolates of Isaria fumosorosea, Isaria farinosa, and Isaria tenuipes and to confirm the taxonomic identity of fungi from Argentina, Mexico, and Brazil. The phylogenetic analyses showed three clades corresponding to three families of Hypocreales. The genus Isaria was confirmed as polyphyletic and in family Cordycipitaceae, Isaria species were related to anamorphic species of Beauveria, Lecanicillium, and Simplicillium and to teleomorphic Cordyceps and Torrubiella. Therefore, EF1‐α and ITS1‐5.8S‐ITS2 genes were found to be powerful tools for improving the characterization, identification, and phylogenetic relationship of the Isaria species and other entomopathogenic fungi.