Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Antiangiogenesis Effect of Interleukin 12 During Early Growth of Human Pancreatic Cancer in SCID Mice

Interleukin 12 (IL-12) is a heterodimeric cytokine that exerts a potent antitumor effect through its pleiotropic actions. It was recently reported that IL-12 has also a potent antiangiogenic effect through the induction of IFN-&ggr;, which triggers the production of chemokines such as IP-10 that has been shown to have antiangiogenesis properties. In this study we transfected the IL-12 gene into a human pancreatic adenocarcinoma cell line (PK-1). PK-1 cells transfected with the green fluorescence protein (gfp) gene were used as positive controls. The in vitro growth curve and in vivo tumor growth of transfectants (IL-12/PK-1 and gfp/PK-1) were compared with those of parental cells. The SCID mice used in this study were administered antiasialo GM-1 Ab (100 &mgr;g, i.p., twice weekly) to deplete the remaining immunoeffector cells, NK cells. Using a skinfold chamber model, we observed and recorded tumor angiogenesis by intravital microscopy. In vitro growth of IL-12/PK-1 and gfp/PK-1 cells was not different from that of wild-type PK-1 cells (wt/PK-1). However, IL-12 transfected PK-1 cells did not develop into tumors as did the wt/PK-1 cells after subcutaneous inoculation in antiasialo GM-1 Ab administered SCID mice. The growth of IL-12/PK-1 tumors was restored in mice treated with anti-IL-12 antibody. We found that IL-12/PK-1, in contrast to gfp/PK-1 and wt/PK-1, failed to initiate an angiogenic response, as observed in the skinfold chamber model. These results indicate that the antiangiogenesis effect of IL-12 alone, without immune system involvement, is sufficient to block the growth of human pancreatic cancer.
Alabama coronary artery bypass grafting project: results of a statewide quality improvement initiative.

CONTEXT Efforts to improve quality of care in the cardiac surgery field have focused on reducing the risk-adjusted mortality associated with common surgical procedures, such as coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG). However, the best methodological approach to improvement is under debate. OBJECTIVE To test an intervention to improve performance of CABG surgery. DESIGN AND SETTING Quality improvement project based on baseline (July 1, 1995-June 30, 1996) and follow-up (July 1-December 31, 1998) performance measurements from medical record review for all 20 Alabama hospitals that provided CABG surgery. PATIENTS Medicare patients discharged after CABG surgery in Alabama (n = 5784), a comparison state (n = 3214), and a national sample (n = 3758). INTERVENTION Confidential hospital-specific performance feedback and assistance with multimodal improvement interventions, including the option to share relevant experience with peers. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Duration of intubation, reintubation rate, aspirin therapy at discharge, use of the internal mammary artery (IMA), hospital readmission rate, and risk-adjusted in-hospital mortality. RESULTS Proportion of extubation within 6 hours increased from 9% to 41% in Alabama, decreased from 40% to 39% in the comparison state, and increased from 12% to 25% in the national sample. Use of IMA increased from 73% to 84%, 48% to 55%, and 74% to 81%, respectively, in the 3 samples, but aspirin use increased only in Alabama (from 88% to 92%). The amount of improvement in all 3 of these process measures was greater in Alabama than in the other samples (IMA use for Alabama vs comparison state was P =.001 and for Alabama vs national sample, P =.02; and P<.001 for all other comparisons). Risk-adjusted mortality decreased in Alabama (4.9% to 2.9%), but this decrease was not statistically significantly different from mortality changes in the other groups (odds ratio, 0.76; 95% confidence interval, 0.54-1.07 vs national sample). CONCLUSION Confidential peer-based regional performance feedback and process-oriented analysis of shared experience are associated with some improvement in quality of care for patients who underwent CABG surgery.
How Different Are Alternative Beta Strategies?

In this article, the authors use a quantitative approach to compare different alternative beta strategies, based on statistical relationships among their returns. Using correlations, principal component analysis, regression factor models, and minimum spanning tree graphs, they identify and quantify statistical closeness of these portfolios. The results show that when measured by return comovements and common systematic risk exposures, different alternative beta portfolios are, on average, quite close to each other. Surprisingly, in some cases, returns of portfolios with different strategic approaches can be more similar than those of two portfolios representing different variations of the same approach. Using a formal clustering technique, the authors show how to identify distinct clusters within a set of alternative beta portfolios. Given potential redundancy of alternative beta, their clusters can give a better diversified set of building blocks for multi-strategy allocations than individual strategies themselves. The authors build several portfolio allocations using clusters of alternative beta strategies as building blocks and compare individual strategy-based and cluster-based allocations, within both static and dynamic allocation frameworks. They find that the cluster-based allocations have a better risk–return profile with respect to the portfolios based on individual strategies.
Combined Modular Key and Data Error Protection for Content-Addressable Memories

Content-addressable memories (CAMs) are a type of memory that receives an input search key and compares it to every entry of a table of stored keys. If there is a match, they return the corresponding address where the value was found. Alternatively, they can include a related Random Access Memory (RAM) that is accessed with the matching address, returning the corresponding data values. To protect a CAM with associated RAM against errors, parity or error-correction codes (ECCs) are typically used. They usually protect the CAM and the RAM information separately incurring in additional storage needs. This paper proposes a scheme to protect some configurations of CAM with its associated RAM from errors with a single ECC code. This ECC code can be used to provide advanced error correction to the combination of the key and data values stored in the CAM and the RAM, but it can also be applied in a modular way to provide simpler protection to the key or to the values individually.
Patents and Competition Law in India: CCI's Reductionist Approach in Evaluating Competitive Harm

The objective of this paper is to examine the CCI’s reasoning and approach in patent – related cases, in light of (i) the legislative framework governing competition and patent law in India, (ii) the economic theories that govern the intersection between antitrust and patent law, and (iii) the manner in which competition agencies in comparative jurisdictions have dealt with similar agreements and conduct by a patent holder.Part 1 of this paper deals with an analysis of the distinction between sections 3 and 4 of the Competition Act 2002, in light of the CCI’s tendency to conflate issues pertaining to abuse of dominance and evaluation of anti-competitive agreement involving patents. Part 2 deals with constraints on pricing imposed in several CCI rulings. Part 3 deals with nonprice licensing restrictions as constituting abuse of dominance. Part 4 deals with cases involving a refusal to deal where products are protected by IP rights or proprietary technologies. Part 5 deals with the practice of price discrimination in unified systems markets dominated by intellectual property.
Treating Children With Early-Onset Conduct Problems: Intervention Outcomes for Parent, Child, and Teacher Training

Families of 159, 4- to 8-year-old children with oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) were randomly assigned to parent training (PT); parent plus teacher training (PT + TT); child training (CT); child plus teacher training (CT + TT); parent, child, plus teacher training (PT + CT + TT); or a waiting list control. Reports and independent observations were collected at home and school. Following the 6-month intervention, all treatments resulted in significantly fewer conduct problems with mothers, teachers, and peers compared to controls. Children's negative behavior with fathers was lower in the 3 PT conditions than in control. Children showed more prosocial skills with peers in the CT conditions than in control. All PT conditions resulted in less negative and more positive parenting for mothers and less negative parenting for fathers than in control. Mothers and teachers were also less negative than controls when children received CT. Adding TT to PT or CT improved treatment outcome in terms of teacher behavior management in the classroom and in reports of behavior problems.
Pre-service Primary School Teachers' Science Content Knowledge: an Instrument for its Assessment

An instrument to assess primary school science content knowledge in pre-service primary schoolteachers was elaborated and validated. A multiple-choice test with 50 items was initially proposed. Four content areas of science from the curriculum of Primary Education were considered: natural environment and its conservation, biological diversity, health education and the human body, matter and energy. A sample of 83 pre-service teachers from a Spanish university participated in the statistical validation process. External consistency (Test-Retest correlation), internal consistency (Kurder-Richardson’s 20th formula), item difficulty and item discrimination indices were analysed as well as distractor selection. Some adjustments were made and a second shorter 30-item version was proposed. This new instrument was validated with four different samples amounted for a total of 756 Spanish pre-service primary teachers. Distributions of difficulty and discrimination indexes were analysed. Consistency among samples was very good. Remarkable results about participants’ poor science content mastery and misconceptions were shown. Implications of these findings are discussed.
Saying, “I Don’t”: The Effect of the Affordable Care Act Young Adult Provision on Marriage

This paper investigates the effect of the Affordable Care Act young adult provision on the propensity to marry. The young adult provision expanded options for obtaining insurance coverage outside of marriage. Young adults affected by the provision might have less incentive to marry since one avenue for obtaining health insurance coverage is through marriage. This paper examines this question by applying difference-in-differences-type methods using the 2008–2013 American Community Survey. Results suggest that the provision is associated with decreases in the likelihood of marrying, cohabitation, and spousal health insurance coverage and an increase in the probability of divorce.
Power decomposition based on SVM regression

For more efficient energy consumption, it is crucial to have accurate information on how power is being consumed through a single power measurement. It benefits both market participants such as retailers, network businesses and also power consumers. This means that the metering device must not only be able to distinguish between different loads on a common circuit, but also decipher their respective power consumption. This paper gives our investigation on power load signature and power decomposition. In particular, the paper focuses on the development of power decomposition algorithm based on support vector machine (SVM) regression, i.e, estimating the power proportion of constant power (CP) loads to constant impedance (CI) loads. The power decomposition algorithm in this paper works on steady-state power load signal.
Comparative efficacy and safety of atypical and conventional antipsychotic drugs in first-episode psychosis: a randomized, double-blind trial of olanzapine versus haloperidol.

OBJECTIVE Few long-term studies have compared the efficacy and safety of typical and atypical antipsychotic medications directly in patients with a first episode of psychosis who met the criteria for schizophrenia or a related psychotic disorder. This study compared the acute and long-term effectiveness of haloperidol with that of olanzapine in patients with first-episode psychosis in a large, controlled clinical trial. METHOD Patients with first-episode psychosis (N=263) were randomly assigned under double-blind conditions to receive haloperidol or olanzapine and were followed for up to 104 weeks. Domains measured included psychopathology, psychosocial variables, neurocognitive functioning, and brain morphology and metabolism. This report presents data from clinical measures of treatment response and safety data from the 12-week acute treatment phase. RESULTS Haloperidol and olanzapine were associated with substantial and comparable baseline-to-endpoint reductions in symptom severity, which did not differ significantly in last-observation-carried-forward analyses. However, in a mixed-model analysis, olanzapine-treated subjects had significantly greater decreases in symptom severity as measured by the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale total score and negative and general scales and by the Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale but not as measured by the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale positive scale and by the Clinical Global Impression severity rating. Olanzapine-treated patients experienced a lower rate of treatment-emergent parkinsonism and akathisia but had significantly more weight gain, compared with the haloperidol-treated patients. Overall, significantly more olanzapine-treated subjects than haloperidol-treated subjects completed the 12-week acute phase of the study (67% versus 54%). CONCLUSIONS As expected on the basis of previous studies, both olanzapine and haloperidol were effective in the acute reduction of psychopathological symptoms in this group of patients with first-episode psychosis. However, olanzapine had several relative advantages in therapeutic response. Although the nature of adverse events differed between the two agents, retention in the study was greater with olanzapine. Retention in treatment is important in this patient population, given their risk of relapse. Longer-term results are needed to determine whether treatment with atypical antipsychotics results in superior outcomes for a first episode of schizophrenia.
Evaluation of Households' Preferences for the Planned Hydropower Station in Graz-Puntigam using a Choice Experiment

Kurzfassung: In this paper we use a choice experiment to estimate public preferences for the construction of a new hydropower plant in the city of Graz (Austria). The econometric results point out that people have in general a positive attitude towards the construction of the new hydropower plant. The provision of green electricity, as well as the creation of new possibilities for recreation, are valued positively by the public, and therefore they exhibit a positive “Willingness To Pay” (WTP). However, the realisation of the new hydropower plant must come along with a small environmental impact in order to gain a significant welfare increasing impact. In addition to the choice experiment, we explain the differences in respondents’ WTP for hydropower expansion in Austria using a Tobit model. The results show that WTP is determined by four socio-economic characteristics, namely sex, age, residential area as well as respondent’s attitude towards hydroelectric power.
Histone deacetylases facilitate sodium/calcium exchanger up‐regulation in adult cardiomyocytes

It is becoming increasingly evident that histone deacetylases (HDACs) have a prominent role in the alteration of gene expression during the growth remodeling process of cardiac hypertrophy. HDACs are generally viewed as corepressors of gene expression. However, we demonstrate that class I and class II HDACs play an important role in the basal expression and up‐regulation of the sodium calcium exchanger (Ncx1) gene in adult cardiomyocytes. Treatment with the HDAC inhibitor trichostatin A (TSA) prevented the pressure‐overload‐stimulated up‐regulation of Ncxl expression. Overexpression of HDAC5 resulted in the dose‐dependent up‐regulation of basal and a‐adrenergic stimulated Ncx1 expression. We show that Nkx2.5 recruits HDAC5 to the Ncx1 promoter, where HDAC5 complexes with HDAC1. Nkx2.5 also interacts with transcriptional activator p300, which is recruited to the Ncxl promoter. We demonstrate that when Nkx2.5 is acetylated, it is found associated with HDAC5, whereas deacetylated Nkx2.5 is in complex with p300. Notably, TSA treatment prevents p300 from being recruited to the endogenous Ncx1 promoter, resulting in the repression of Ncx1 expression. We propose a novel model for Ncx1 regulation in which deacetylation of Nkx2.5 is required for the recruitment of p300 and results in up‐regulation of exchanger expression. —Chandrasekaran, S. , Peterson, R. E. , Mani, S. K. , Addy, B. , Buchholz, A. L. , Xu, L. , Thiyagarajan, T. , Kasiganesan, H. , Kern, C. B. , Menick, D. R. Histone deacetylases facilitate sodium/calcium exchanger up‐regulation in adult cardiomyocytes. FASEBJ. 23, 3851–3864 (2009). www.fasebj. org
Load frequency control of power systems with Sugeno fuzzy gain scheduling PID controller

This paper proposes a new Fuzzy Gain Scheduled Proportional, Integral and Derivative (FGPID) controller by using Takagi-Sugeno (TS) fuzzy system to the load frequency control problem in multi-area power systems. The TS fuzzy inference engine is chosen and the range of the controller is selected suitably to enhance the output performance of the system. Simulation results demonstrate the ability of the proposed control model in damping the frequency oscillations and tie line power deviations due to area load changes. The approach is compared against two controllers in the literature; Fuzzy Gain Scheduling Integral and Derivative (FGID) controller, and Fuzzy Gain Scheduling Proportional and Integral (FGPI) controller. Settling times, overshoots, undershoots and Integral Square Error (ISE) of frequency deviation are used as comparison criteria. Nonlinear simulation results show that the proposed controller provides better performance than the other two models.
Comparison of molecular dynamics and harmonic mode calculations on RNA.

Conformational fluctuations of a double-stranded RNA oligonucleotide have been calculated from a two nanosecond molecular dynamics simulation including explicit waters and ions and from a harmonic mode analysis. The harmonic mode analysis was performed in the absence of solvent using various effective dielectric screening functions. RNA flexibility was analyzed and compared at the level of atomic position fluctuations, helical base-pair descriptor fluctuations and global helix bending, stretching, and twisting flexibilities. Although quantitative differences were found, the qualitative pattern of atomic position and helical descriptor fluctuations along the sequence was similar for both methods. For the helical descriptor flexibility, the largest differences were observed for base-pair roll and rise that showed two times larger fluctuations in the molecular dynamics simulation. A significant overlap between the sub-space spanned by soft principal components calculated from the molecular dynamics simulation and harmonic modes was found. Both approaches predict a negative covariation for most helical base-pair step descriptors of neighboring base pair steps (with the exception of rise), which tend to stiffen the RNA at the global level. The RNA persistence length extracted from the molecular dynamics simulation (350-600 A) is smaller than the experimental value ( approximately 720 A) and estimates based on the harmonic mode approach (1100-1700 A).
Effects of the Heavy Metal Cu2+ on Growth, Development, and Population Dynamics of Spodoptera litura (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae)

ABSTRACT Spodoptera litura (F.) larvae were fed with artificial food containing four different concentrations of copper (25, 50, 100, and 200 mg/kg). Copper affected growth, development, and population dynamics of late instar larvae. Our results indicate that the fourth and fifth instar survival rates were significantly reduced at 50–200 mg/kg copper (Cu2+). Moreover, all the Cu2+ treatments significantly reduced pupation and moth emergence rates in a dose-dependent manner. Larvae fed 25 or 50 mg/kg Cu2+ showed significant reductions in development period compared with non-Cu controls, and the pupation duration of animals fed 200 mg/kg was significantly longer than in non-Cu controls. All Cu2+ concentrations significantly reduced individual pupal weights compared with controls. In addition, Cu2+ at some concentrations significantly affected fertility parameters, such as doubling population time (DT), the net reproduction rate (R0 ), the mean generation time (T), the intrinsic rate of increase (rm ), and the finite increase rate (&lgr;). Our study demonstrates that low concentrations of Cu2+ in the diet (25 and 50 mg/kg) shorten the generation time by 4–5 d, whereas higher Cu2+ concentrations (100 and 200 mg/kg) increase DT for 1–2 d.
An Algorithmic Solution of N-Person Games

Two-person, perfect information, constant sum games have been studied in Artificial Intelligence. This paper opens up the issue of playing n-person games and proposes a procedure for constant sum or non-constant sum games. It is proved that a procedure, maxn, locates an equilibrium point given the entire game tree. The minimax procedure for 2-person games using look ahead finds a saddle point of approximations, while maxn finds an equilibrium point of the values of the evaluation function for n-person games using look ahead. Maxn is further analyzed with respect to some pruning schemes.
Patient-reported and economic outcomes related to sofosbuvir and ledipasvir treatment for chronic hepatitis C

ABSTRACT Introduction: We used published literature from 2013–2016, to review data regarding the new all oral interferon and ribavirin free direct acting antiviral (DAA’s) treatment regimens. Areas covered: Specifically, this paper will address DAA’s clinical efficacy, their associated patient reported outcomes, their adherence to treatment, and their cost-effectiveness of treatment using studies from the United States. Expert commentary: The current data suggest that cure and elimination of HCV appears to be on the horizon; however, more research is needed to verify similar results from real world practices. Further, research is also needed to overcome the barriers to treatment (lack of education and awareness of HCV, inadequate diagnosis technology, and lack of access and link to care) in order for the elimination of HCV to be obtained.