Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of selective and unselective endothelin‐receptor antagonists on prostacyclin synthase gene expression in experimental pulmonary hypertension

Objective. Compared to the unselective endothelin (ET) receptor antagonist (Bosentan), superior effects of selective ET‐A‐receptor blockage (Ambrisentan) for the treatment of pulmonary hypertension (PH) are expected due to ET‐B‐receptor mediated beneficial effects. Our hypothesis was that treatment with Ambrisentan leads to an increase in prostacyclin synthase I (PGIS) expression compared to Bosentan. Material and methods. To test this hypothesis, rats were treated with either monocrotaline (MCT) only, MCT+Ambrisentan or MCT+Bosentan. After 4 weeks, right ventricular systolic pressure (RVSP), pulmonary vascular remodelling and right ventricular hypertrophy (RV/(LV+S)) were measured. Results. In MCT only treated animals, significantly greater expression of PGIS mRNA was found in the lungs compared to control animals, and this was confirmed by immunohistochemical analysis indicating increased staining of PGIS in the very small pulmonary arteries (17 % greater expression of PGIS mRNA in MCT versus control, p = 0.002; Remmele score (RS): 51 versus 102, p = 0.009). Treatment with Bosentan resulted in a significantly lower expression of PGIS mRNA compared to Ambrisentan and MCT only (7 % versus 18 %, p = 0.003 and 7 % versus 17 %, p = 0.004). This observation was also confirmed by immunohistochemical analysis (RS very small arteries: 45 versus 81, p = 0.003; RS small arteries: 45 versus 108, p = 0.014). No difference was observed in RVSP, RV/(LV+S) or pulmonary vascular remodelling between the two treatment groups (RVSP: 28 versus 39 mmHg, p = 0.189; RV/(LV+S) 0.46 versus 0.48, p = 0.818; medial area: 78.3 % versus 75.2 %, p = 0.823). Conclusions. Treatment with Bosentan leads to lower PGIS expression in pulmonary arteries compared to Ambrisentan, although the greater PGIS expression by Ambrisentan treatment had no benefical effect on pulmonary haemodynamics.
The Impact of Prothrombotic Mutations on Factor Consumption in Adult Patients with Severe Hemophilia

About 10% of patients with severe hemophilia exhibit a milder clinical phenotype with less frequent bleeds. Among many other factors, coinheritance of prothrombotic mutations have been proposed to act as modulators of clinical severity in severe hemophilia. We conducted a study to evaluate the impact of 3 prothrombotic mutations (factor V Leiden, factor II, and methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase mutations) on clinical phenotype of patients with severe hemophilia in our institution. For this purpose we compared the average annual factor concentrate consumption between carriers and noncarriers of prothrombotic mutations. A total of 38 hemophilia A and B patients with factor levels less than 1 were recruited between October 2006 and October 2007. Prothrombotic mutations were detected in venous blood using polymerase chain reaction amplification technique. Eighteen patients (47%) carried no prothrombotic mutations. The remaining 20 patients (53%) were found to be carriers of either 1 or 2 mutations. Median age in both carrier and the non-carrier groups was 27 years. None of the patients in either group gave a history of thromboembolic event. Median annual factor concentrate consumptions in carriers and noncarriers were 610 ± 530 units/kg and 770 ± 670 units/kg, respectively (P = .203). Our results demonstrated no significant difference in annual factor concentrate consumption between carriers and noncarriers of prothrombotic mutations. Considering that average annual factor consumption is a surrogate indicator of clinical phenotype, we concluded that coinheritance of prothrombotic mutations was not associated with occurrence of different clinical phenotypes in severe hemophilia.
Comparison of the sequence of the gene encoding African swine fever virus attachment protein p12 from field virus isolates and viruses passaged in tissue culture

Comparison of the amino acid sequence of the African swine fever virus attachment protein p12 from different field virus isolates, deduced from the nucleotide sequence of the gene, revealed a high degree of conservation. No mutations were found after adaptation to Vero cells, and a polypeptide with similar characteristics was present in an IBRS2-adapted virus. The sequence of the 5' flanking region was conserved among the isolates, whereas sequences downstream of the gene were highly variable in length and contained direct repeats in tandem that may account for the deletions found in different isolates. Protein p12 was synthesized in swine macrophages infected with all of the viruses tested.
Physical control framework and protocol design for cyber-physical control system

A cyber-physical system is an integration of computation, networking, and physical processes. This article introduces a novel physical control framework to integrate various devices to form the lower-level abstraction network. Two relevant protocols within this framework are proposed for information exchange between different network environments. Furthermore, a formal verification method for the proposed protocols is discussed. The model-checking tool SPIN is used to model and formally verify such protocols. The properties of the protocols are expressed using linear temporal logic to enable model-checking. Implementation results are presented to provide a deeper understanding of the proposed protocols.
IDENTIFICATION OF EURYHELMIS COSTARICENSIS METACERCARIAE IN THE SKIN OF TOHOKU HYNOBIID SALAMANDERS (HYNOBIUS LICHENATUS), NORTHEASTERN HONSHU, JAPAN

Since 2000, cutaneous nodular lesions were observed in Tohoku hynobiid salamanders (Hynobius lichenatus) in the northern Abukuma Mountains, northeastern Honshu, Japan. The distribution of diseased salamanders has expanded, along with the increasing severity of the disease. Samples (foreleg, hindleg, and tail) from five diseased salamanders caught in the spring of 2009 contained 11 to 383 metacercarial cysts (0.43–0.48 mm in diameter) per individual. Experimental inoculations of the metacercariae into rats (Rattus norvegicus) resulted in the development of pentagonal adults with intrauterine eggs that were collected at 3 days, 2 wk, and 5 wk postinoculation. Although adults obtained from rats were smaller, the flukes were morphologically similar to Euryhelmis costaricensis, recorded from Japanese martens (Martes melampus) in northeastern Honshu. The ribosomal RNA gene sequences of the metacercariae collected from salamanders and the E. costaricensis collected from a Japanese marten were identical, confirming the morphology-based species identification. Environmental changes responsible for the increased frequency of diseased salamanders and the increased parasite load are unknown, although increases in feral populations of introduced raccoons (Procyon lotor) and American minks (Neovison vison) may be associated.
The Brazilian Experience in the Use of the Shield Wire line Technology (SWL) for Energy Distribution

This paper presents an analysis of the impact of the lightning overvoltages on the operational performance of the energized shield wire line technology (SWL) implemented in two locations of the State of Rondonia, Brazil. The analysis covers the periods of 1996 to 2000 (SWL Jaru) and 1997 to 2002 (SWL Itapua do Oeste), and shows that lightning is responsible for most of the system outages. The paper describes the satisfactory results achieved with the system, showing that the isolation and energization of the shield wires does not deteriorate the lightning performance of the 230 kV transmission lines. Comparisons between the performances of the SWL technology, conventional 34.5 kV lines, and thermal power plants in operation in the same region are also presented. The results demonstrate the technical and economical viability of the SWL technology and show that its application can lead to a postponement of investments.
Synchronous reluctance motors for small electric traction vehicle

The paper present the analysis of the performances of an electrical machine used for small power automotive application. The electrical machine under study in this paper is a small flux synchronous reluctance machine (SynRM) with 4 poles and 24 slots. The analysis of studied machine will be carried out both analytically and numerically in SPEED program and Flux (2D and skewed solver).
Presidential campaigning on the web: The influence of candidate world wide web sites in the 2000 general election

This study investigated the short term effects of viewing presidential candidate World Wide Web (WWW) sites (George W. Bush or Al Gore) on attitudes toward issues and character. Participants spent 15 minutes viewing either Bush's or Gore's site (a control group viewed a nonpolitical Web page). Results reveal that these sites do influence voters. Those who viewed Gore's WWW site (compared to the control group) had more positive perceptions of Gore's character, favorable perceptions of Bush's character, policy positions, and leadership, and lower ratings of Bush on a global feelings category. Gore site viewers, however, did not have more positive perceptions of Gore's policy positions or leadership, and they did not rate him higher on a global feeling measure (compared with the control group). No significant differences occurred for those who viewed Bush's site (compared with the control group) on any dependent variable. Thus, although we should not assume that Web sites will necessarily influence voters, it is clear that they can do so.
Listening to their silence? The political reaction of affected communities to large-scale land acquisitions: insights from Ethiopia

In Ethiopia, large-scale land acquisitions have been growing ever larger over the last few years, mainly in the lowland parts of the country. A substantial amount of land has already been acquired by both domestic and foreign investors in the Benishangul-Gumuz region. The land acquisitions pose apparent threats to the economic, cultural and ecological survival of local indigenous communities. In particular, Gumuz ethnic groups, who depend on customary forms of land access and control, and whose livelihoods are based heavily on access to natural resources, are being differentially affected. Through a case study in some selected administrative districts of the Benishangul-Gumuz region, this paper uses empirical evidence to examine how local indigenous communities are engaging with or challenging the recent land acquisitions. By doing so, the paper shows how the apparent silence of the Gumuz people regarding the land acquisitions is misleading. It shows how local communities, although not organized either politically or economically, express their discontent in differentiated ways against the state and social forces – particularly over land and access to employment, and around state politics. As I show in this paper, local reactions range from covert to more open forms of resistance.
Disaggregating marketplace attitudes toward risk: a contingent-claim-based model

With a view to providing economic interpretations of temporal changes in Risk-Neutral Probability Distributions (RNPDs), this article estimates RNPDs from option prices, then studies the expected excess returns on a fixed-strategy reference portfolio constructed from RNPD-defined contingent claims. It disaggregates the reference portfolio into an investment, an insurance and a certainty component, each containing one type of contingent claim (having positive, negative or zero expected excess return, respectively). The disaggregation provides a convenient way of operationalizing Markowitz's semi-variance measures, one for upside potential and one for downside risk. Our empirical tests show that the pricing of investment-oriented claims is related to both S&P index growth and volatility, but the pricing of insurance-oriented claims is related only to index volatility. Moreover, the relative importance of insurance earnings to total earnings appears principally to be related to volatility. Thus our analyses show that investment and insurance claims are priced differently in the marketplace, and the different pricing effects can be identified by disaggregating the reference portfolio returns.
Research Note: Why don't They Travel Any More?

The application of the three-step coding of grounded theory is used to analyse the travel constraints and management strategies of 24 Korean interviewees aged 40 and over. These interviewees are categorized into travellers and non-travellers. Travellers include ‘constraint haves’ and ‘constraint have-nots’, while non-travellers are ‘constraint haves with travel desire’ or ‘constraint haves without travel desire’. Twenty-one participants had constraints, and 20 out of 21 chose not to travel any more, mainly owing to time and money factors.
Silicon sacrificial layer dry etching (SSLDE) for free-standing RF MEMS architectures

A novel Silicon Sacrificial Layer Dry Etching (SSLDE) technique using sputtered amorphous or LPCVD polycrystalline silicon as sacrificial layers and a dry fluorine-based (SF/sub 6/) plasma chemistry as releasing process is reported with a detailed experimental study of the release etching step. The process is capable of various applications in surface micromachining process, and can be applied in fabricating RF MEMS switches, tunable capacitors, high-Q suspended inductors and suspended-gate MOSFETs. The developed SSLDE process can release metal suspended beams and membranes with excellent performance in terms of etch rate (up to 15 /spl mu/m/min), Si:SiO/sub 2/ selectivity and is fully compatible with standard MEMS processing equipment and CMOS post-processing.
Causes and Effects of Surgical Delay in Patients With Hip Fracture

BACKGROUND The clinical effect of surgical delay in older patients with hip fracture is controversial. Discrepancies among study findings may be due to confounding that is caused by the reason for the delay or a differential effect on patient risk subgroups. OBJECTIVE To assess the effect of surgical delay on hospital outcomes according to the cause of delay. DESIGN Prospective cohort study. SETTING A hip fracture unit in a university hospital in Spain. PATIENTS 2250 consecutive elderly patients with hip fracture. MEASUREMENTS Time to surgery, reasons for surgical delay, adjusted in-hospital death, and risk for complications. RESULTS Median time to surgery was 72 hours. Lack of operating room availability (60.7%) and acute medical problems (33.1%) were the main reasons for delays longer than 48 hours. Overall, rates of hospital death and complications were 4.35% and 45.9%, respectively, but were 13.7% and 74.2% in clinically unstable patients. Longer delays were associated with higher mortality rates and rates of medical complications. After adjustment for age, dementia, chronic comorbid conditions, and functionality, this association did not persist for delays of 120 hours or less but did persist for delays longer than 120 hours (P = 0.002 for overall time effect on death and 0.002 for complications). The risks were attenuated after adjustment for the presence of acute medical conditions as the cause of the delay (P = 0.06 for time effect on mortality and 0.31 on medical complications). Risk for urinary tract infection remained elevated (odds ratio, 1.54 [95% CI, 0.99 to 2.44]). No interaction between delay and age, dementia, or functional status was found. LIMITATION This was a single-center study without postdischarge follow-up. CONCLUSION The reported association between late surgery and higher morbidity and mortality in patients with hip fracture is mostly explained by medical reasons for surgical delay, although some association between very delayed surgery and worse outcomes persists. PRIMARY FUNDING SOURCE None.
The Detection and Segmentation of the Left Ventricle of the Heart from Ultrasound Data using Deep Learning Architectures and Efficient Search Methods

We present a new pattern recognition model based on deep learning architectures for the automatic segmentation of the left ventricle of the heart in ultrasound images. Our model addresses the following problems inherent to pattern recognition approaches: 1) the need of a large set of training images, 2) robustness to imaging conditions not present in the training data, and 3) complex search process. We present extensive quantitative evaluation which shows that our method produces state-of-the-art results in a public database using two orders of magnitude less training data than current pattern recognition approaches. This is relevant given the difficulty in acquiring training data for medical image analysis applications. We also show that our method correlates well with user annotations (r = 0.98, p < 10−5) and that the results produced by the system are within inter-user variations. Finally, we also show that efficient search methods reduce up to ten-fold the complexity of the method while it still produces state-of-the-art results.
GOVERNMENT CALLING: PUBLIC SERVICE MOTIVATION AS AN ELEMENT IN SELECTING GOVERNMENT AS AN EMPLOYER OF CHOICE

The article assesses public service motivation as a possible influence in the attractiveness of government as an employer by embedding it into a person-organization fit framework. First, a theoretical framework is developed and all relevant concepts are discussed. In addition, a set of hypotheses concerning the research question is developed. A sample of 1714 final year masters students demonstrates that the presence of public service motivation positively correlates with the preference for prospective public employers. For government organizations that display a high degree of publicness, the effect of public service motivation as a predictor for employer preference is stronger. Next to building a middle range theory on public service motivation, the article also reveals that public service motivation is present at a pre-entry level.
Research Methods in Foodservice Industry

Abstract This paper discusses and presents a binary logit model used to identify factors affecting the decision to dine out. The purpose of this paper is to convey an understanding of the logit model and to facilitate use of the model for research related to the foodservice industry. Data used in the binary logit application come from the 1994-1996 Continuing Survey of Food Intakes by Individuals (CSFII) and the Diet and Health Knowledge Survey (DHKS). The results of the empirical study shows that income had a positive effect on the probability of dining out, and those who were employed full time, part time, or temporarily unemployedwere more likely to dine out than unemployed respondents. Household size and age of the respondents had a negative effect on the probability of dining out. Education and gender did not affect the probability of dining out, while race of the household manager had a significant effect on the probability. White household managers were more likely to dine out than non-white household managers. The effects of urbanization and region were not significant.
Can Affine Models Match the Moments in Bond Yields?

This paper examines the ability of three-factor affine term structure models with essentially, extended, and semi-affine risk premium specifications to capture the dynamics of bond excess returns, yield volatility and higher order moments in yields. Extended affine models can best capture the time-variation in excess returns and yield volatility simultaneous. However, none of the three-factor models can fully match bond return predictability and yield volatility jointly. Extended affine models are more restricted in the ability to price bonds because of necessary parameter restrictions — the so-called Feller condition — and essentially affine and semi-affine models are therefore better suited for pricing purposes.
Development of a Reverse Transcription-Quantitative PCR System for Detection and Genotyping of Aichi Viruses in Clinical and Environmental Samples

ABSTRACT Aichi viruses (AiVs) have been proposed as a causative agent of human gastroenteritis potentially transmitted by fecal-oral routes through contaminated food or water. In the present study, we developed a TaqMan minor groove binder (MGB)-based reverse transcription-quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR) system that is able to quantify AiVs and differentiate between genotypes A and B. This system consists of two assays, an AiV universal assay utilizing a universal primer pair and a universal probe and a duplex genotype-specific assay utilizing the same primer pair and two genotype-specific probes. The primers and probes were designed based on multiple alignments of the 21 available AiV genome sequences containing the capsid gene. Using a 10-fold dilution of plasmid DNA containing the target sequences, it was confirmed that both assays allow detection and quantification of AiVs with a quantitative range of 1.0 × 101 to 1.0 × 107 copies/reaction, and the genotype-specific assay reacts specifically to each genotype. To validate the newly developed assays, 30 clinical stool specimens were subsequently examined with the assays, and the AiV RNA loads were determined to be 1.4 × 104 to 6.6 × 109 copies/g stool. We also examined 12 influent and 12 effluent wastewater samples collected monthly for a 1-year period to validate the applicability of the assays for detection of AiVs in environmental samples. The AiV RNA concentrations in influent and effluent wastewater were determined to be up to 2.2 × 107 and 1.8 × 104 copies/liter, respectively. Our RT-qPCR system is useful for routine diagnosis of AiVs in clinical stool specimens and environmental samples.
Antipsychotic Response Worsens With Postmenopausal Duration in Women With Schizophrenia

Background The loss of estrogens in the menopause may lead to increased vulnerability for psychotic relapse, poor clinical outcome, and a need for increased antipsychotic dose. However, confounders such as cumulative estrogen exposure and time since menopause have been inadequately studied. Our aim was to investigate potential variables capable of influencing antipsychotic response in a sample of postmenopausal women with schizophrenia. Methods Sixty-four postmenopausal schizophrenic women were followed in a 12-week prospective treatment-by-clinical requirement study. Duration of reproductive years was considered an indirect measure of lifetime cumulative estrogens exposure. Psychopathological assessment included the following: Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale, Personal and Social Performance, and Clinical Global Impression-Schizophrenia Scale. Response was defined as a reduction of 30% or more of Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale total scores. Antipsychotic adherence was assessed by plasma level monitoring at 4 weeks. Regression analyses were performed to investigate the association between potential confounding factors and antipsychotic response. Results Forty-two participants (66%) were found to be antipsychotic responders. Time since menopause was significantly and negatively associated with overall antipsychotic response, explaining almost 42% of the variance of the model used. Smoking and cumulative estrogen exposures were associated with improvement in negative symptoms. Smoking and time since menopause were associated with improvement in excitement symptoms, and smoking was positively associated with improvement in depressive and cognitive symptoms. Discussion Time since menopause was significantly negatively associated with antipsychotic response in postmenopausal schizophrenic women, suggesting a decline in antipsychotic response after menopause. The neurobiological basis for antipsychotic response may include a role for estrogen and nicotine receptors.