Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Hispanic Culture, Portfolio Decisions, and Asset Prices

We examine the impact of culture on portfolio decisions and asset returns, focusing on the large and growing Hispanic population in the United States. We find that both retail and institutional investors in high Hispanic neighborhoods overweight local, lottery-type, and high-momentum stocks and their trades are more strongly correlated. Systematic Hispanic trading generates excess return comovement among locally headquartered firms. We also find evidence of higher local stock returns, a stronger negative lottery-stock premium, and larger momentum returns in high-Hispanic areas. Collectively, these findings suggest that evolving ethnic demographics affect U.S. capital markets.
Optimal Bank Leverage and Recapitalization in Crowded Markets

We study optimal bank leverage and recapitalization in general equilibrium when the sup- ply of specialized investment capital is imperfectly elastic. Assuming incomplete insurance against capital shortfalls and segmented financial markets, ex-ante leverage is inefficiently high, leading to excessive insolvencies during systemic capital shortfall events. Recapitalizations by equity issuance are individually and socially optimal. Additional frictions can turn asset sales individually but not necessarily socially optimal. Our results hold for different bankruptcy protocols and we offer testable predictions for banks’ capital structure management. Our model provides a rationale for macroprudential capital regulation that does not require moral hazard or informational asymmetries.
Omitted Budget Constraint Bias and Implications for Competitive Pricing

Standard choice-based conjoint models often ignore or insufficiently approximate consumers’ budget constraints, despite the prominent role of budget constraints in economic theory. The authors offer a theoretically motivated improvement to the choice-based conjoint model that is especially appropriate for high-ticket durable goods and develop a Bayesian method for the inference of unobserved budget constraints. The proposed method leverages respondents’ stated budget constraints that suffer from measurement error and respondents’ financial demographic variables as additional information to reduce the dependency on functional form assumptions in the estimation. The authors show that accounting for budget constraints substantially increases model fit and the accuracy of competitive pricing in an industry-grade discrete-choice experiment on consumer preferences for high-end laptops. The proposed model performs better than the canonical linear price benchmark model, which is not flexible enough to approximate budget constraints. In theory, more flexible utility specifications, such as the nonlinear dummy price model, can approximate consumers’ budget constraints. However, they perform poorly when only finite data are available. The authors conclude that applied researchers in industry and academia will benefit from having a better tool for estimating budgets in high-ticket categories.
Kinetics and Mechanism of the Chromium(VI) Oxidation of Formic Acid in the Presence of Picolinic Acid and in the Presence and Absence of Surfactants

Abstract The kinetics and mechanism of picolinic acid (PA)- catalysed oxidation of formic acid have been studied in aqueous HClO4 media under the experimental conditions, 103[Cr(VI)]T = 0.67-2.67 mol dm-3, [PA]T = 0.01-0.12 mol dm-3, [HCO2H]T = 0.1-0.8 mol dm-3, [H+] = 0.35-1.5 mol dm-3,1 = 1.5 mol dm-3 in the temperature range 25-40° C. The kinetic parameters of the catalysed path have been compared with those of the relatively slower uncatalysed path which proceed parallelly with the catalysed path. In the catalysed path, Cr(VI)-PA cyclic complex formed at the pre-equilibrium step receives a nucleophilic attack at the Cr(VI) centre by the substrate leading to a ternary complex with the release of a proton in a reversible path. Then the ternary complex experiences the redox decomposition at the rate-determining step giving rise to Cr(IV)-PA complex and CO2. Then the Cr(IV)-PA complex reacts faster ultimately giving rise to Cr(III)-PA complex. The anionic surfactant sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) catalyses both the uncatalysed and catalysed paths in aqueous HClO4 media while the cationic surfactant cetyl pyridinium chloride (CPC) inhibits the reactions in aqueous H2SO4 media. In the presence of the surfactants, applicability of the Piszkiewicz model has been tested for the ΡΑ-catalysed path. Micellar effects are in conformity with the proposed mechanism.
Studies on the Constituents of the Seeds of Cassia obtusifolia LINN. The Structures of Two New Anthraquinone Glycosides

Two new anthraquinones, alaternin 1-O-β-D-glucopyranoside and chryso-obtusin 2-O-β-D-glucopyranoside, were isolated, along with physcion 8-O-β-D-glucopyranoside, from the seeds of Cassia obtusifolia LINN. , and their structures were established on the basis of spectral and chemical evidence.
Functional Rating Scales in Spinal and Bulbar Muscular Atrophy: A Systematic Review, Meta-Analysis and Critical Appraisal of their Measurement Properties

Tracking disease progression and treatment effect of spinal bulbar muscular atrophy, or Kennedy's disease, is challenging given its slowly progressive nature. To achieve success in SBMA clinical trials, a reliable, responsive, and validated patient-reported motor function scale must capture progression of SBMA-specific motor dysfunction. Here, we conducted a systematic review, meta-analysis, and appraisal of core measurement properties of the SBMA functional rating scale (SBMAFRS). We established that the SBMAFRS has satisfactory internal consistency, inter-rater reliability, and construct validity for measuring progressive motor dysfunction over similar neurodegenerative motor function scales but inadequate sensitivity to change over time. Further development to validate and improve the SBMAFRS' ability to capture longitudinal responsiveness in larger cohorts is warranted.
Primary Endpoints in Current Phase II/III Trials for Alzheimer Disease

This study examined the primary and secondary endpoints used by recent phase II/III randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of drugs for the Alzheimer disease. We searched the Clinical Trials.gov database to identify all RCTs registered from January 1, 2011 until August 19, 2018. We identified 122 RCTs and examined primary and secondary endpoints most commonly used. The median number of primary endpoints was 1 (range: 1 to 48) and the median number of secondary endpoints was 4 (range: 1 to 19). Cognitive function was used as a primary endpoint by 59% of the RCTs identified. Although few trials included a primary outcome set that fulfilled the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) or European Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) requirements, these were met by a combination of the primary and secondary outcomes of more than half of the trials.
Comparison of Prediction Models for Mortality Related to Injuries from Road Traffic Accidents after Correcting for Undersampling

In this study, four models—logistic regression (LR), random forest (RF), linear support vector machine (SVM), and radial basis function (RBF)-SVM—were compared for their accuracy in determining mortality caused by road traffic injuries. They were tested using five years of national-level data from the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency’s (KDCA) National Hospital Discharge In-Depth Survey (2013 through to 2017). Model performance was measured for accuracy, precision, recall, F1 score, and Brier score metrics using classification analysis that included characteristics of patients, accidents, injuries, and illnesses. Due to the number of variables and differing units, the rates of survival and mortality related to road traffic accidents were imbalanced, so the data was corrected and standardized before the classification models’ performances were compared. Using the importance analysis, the main diagnosis, the type of injury, the site of the injury, the type of injury, the operation status, the type of accident, the role at the time of the accident, and the sex were selected as the analysis factors. The biggest contributing factor was the role in the accident, which is the driver, and the major sites of the injuries were head injuries and deep injuries. Using selected factors, comparisons of the classification performance of each model indicated RBF-SVM and RF models were superior to the others. Of the SVM models, the RBF kernel model was superior to the linear kernel model; it can be inferred that the performance of the high-dimensional transformed RBF model is superior when the dimension is complex because of the use of multiple variables. The findings suggest there are limitations to analyses involving imbalanced, multidimensional original data, such as data on road traffic mortality. Thus, analyses must be performed after imbalances are corrected.
Hemolysis of Human Erythrocytes by Argovit™ AgNPs from Healthy and Diabetic Donors: An In Vitro Study

The use of nanomaterials is becoming increasingly widespread, leading to substantial research focused on nanomedicine. Nevertheless, the lack of complete toxicity profiles limits nanomaterials’ uses, despite their remarkable diagnostic and therapeutic results on in vitro and in vivo models. Silver nanoparticles (AgNPs), particularly Argovit™, have shown microbicidal, virucidal, and antitumoral effects. Among the first-line toxicity tests is the hemolysis assay. Here, the hemolytic effect of Argovit™ AgNPs on erythrocytes from one healthy donor (HDE) and one diabetic donor (DDE) is evaluated by the hemolysis assay against AgNO3. The results showed that Argovit™, in concentrations ≤24 µg/mL of metallic silver, did not show a hemolytic effect on the HDE or DDE. On the contrary, AgNO3 at the same concentration of silver ions produces more than 10% hemolysis in both the erythrocyte types. In all the experimental conditions assessed, the DDE was shown to be more prone to hemolysis than the HDE elicited by Ag+ ions or AgNPs, but much more evident with Ag+ ions. The results show that Argovit™ is the least hemolytic compared with the other twenty-two AgNP formulations previously reported, probably due to the polymer mass used to stabilize the Argovit™ formulation. The results obtained provide relevant information that contributes to obtaining a comprehensive toxicological profile to design safe and effective AgNP formulations.
Scavenging action to hydroxyl free radical of ligustrazine and it's derivatives

OBJECTIVE To evaluate scavengine action to hydroxyl free radical of ligustrazine and it's derivatives. METHODS Using Fenton reaction to assay and calculate content scavenging 50% of all hydroxyl free radicals (EC50). RESULTS In terms of the scanenging action to·OH, there was significant difference between the ligustrazine as well as its derivatives, and benzoicacid and man-nitol (P0.01). However, there was no apparent difference between ligustrazine and its derivatives (P0.05). CONCLUSIONS Ligustrazine and it's derivatives have strong scavenging action to hydroxyl free radical.
The Differences in Clinical Presentation, Management, and Prognosis of Laboratory-Confirmed COVID-19 between Pregnant and Non-Pregnant Women: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has affected millions of people across the globe. Previous coronavirus outbreaks led to worsened symptoms amongst pregnant women, suggesting that pregnant women are at greater risk. Objectives: Our aim is to investigate the differences in clinical presentation, management, and prognosis of COVID-19 infection in pregnant and non-pregnant women. Methods: We ran a search on electronic databases and analysis of the relevant articles was done using Revie Manager 5.4. Results: The review consists of nine studies comprising 591,058 women (28,797 pregnant and 562,261 non-pregnant), with most of the data derived from two large studies. The risk of experiencing fever (RR: 0.74; 95% CI: 0.64–0.85), headache (RR: 0.77; 95% CI: 0.74–0.79), myalgia (RR: 0.92; 95% CI: 0.89–0.95), diarrhea (RR: 0.40, 95% CI: 0.39–0.43), chest tightness (RR: 0.86; 95% CI: 0.77–0.95), and expectoration (RR: 0.45; 95% CI: 0.21–0.97) were greater amongst non-pregnant COVID-19-infected women. Pregnant women with COVID-19 were less likely to be obese (RR: 0.68; 95% CI: 0.63–0.73) or have a smoking history (RR: 0.32; 95% CI: 0.26–0.39). COVID-19-infected non-pregnant women had a higher frequency of comorbidity such as chronic cardiac disease (RR: 0.58; 95% CI: 0.44–0.77), renal disease (RR: 0.45; 95% CI: 0.29–0.71), and malignancy (RR: 0.82; 95% CI: 0.68–0.98), compared to COVID-19-infected pregnant women. The risk of ICU admission (RR: 2.26; 95% CI: 1.68–3.05) and requirement of invasive mechanical ventilation (RR: 2.68; 95% CI: 2.07–3.47) were significantly higher amongst pregnant women. Conclusions: Although the frequency of risk factors and the risk of experiencing clinical symptoms of COVID-19 were higher among non-pregnant women, COVID-19-infected pregnant women had a higher requirement of ICU admission and invasive mechanical ventilation compared to non-pregnant COVID-19-infected women. More well-conducted studies from varying contexts are needed to draw conclusions. Prospero registration: CRD42020204638.
A novel role of miR-326 in colorectal carcinoma by regulating E2F1 expression.

PURPOSE Colorectal carcinoma (CRC) ranks third in incidence but second in mortality worldwide, ascertaining the pathogenesis of CRC is crucial for its treatment. Accumulating studies have shown that E2F1 is a key regulator in CRC progression, which regulates the transcription of genes engaged in DNA replication, mitosis and survival of cancer patients, however, the mechanism of these processes is not fully elucidated. METHODS Here, we determined E2F1 expression in clinical CRC specimens by TCGA database analysis, Microarray immunohistochemical technique and Western blot, respectively. The expression of E2F1 was elevated in CRC tumor tissues, and the patients' total survival time was associated with the level of E2F1. Then the prediction software and meta-analysis were used to predict the miRNAs targeting E2F1. RT-qPCR, TCGA analysis and in situ hybridization experiments were utilized to determine the decreased miR-326 expression in CRC tumor tissues. Luciferase and Western blot assays determined that miR-326 directly targeted E2F1 in CRC cells. Next, CCK8, flow cytometry, Transwell and wound healing assays were used to determine the biological function of miR-326-E2F1 axis in vitro. RESULTS miR-326 overexpression significantly inhibited the viability, invasion and migration and promoted the apoptosis of CRC cells, but overexpression of both E2F1 and miR-326 in turn increased cell viability, invasion and migration and decreased cell apoptosis. CONCLUSIONS This study demonstrates the significant roles of miR-326-E2F1 in CRC progression and may represent a potential target for CRC therapy.
Nebulized Colistin in Ventilator-Associated Pneumonia and Tracheobronchitis: Historical Background, Pharmacokinetics and Perspectives

Clinical evidence suggests that nebulized colistimethate sodium (CMS) has benefits for treating lower respiratory tract infections caused by multidrug-resistant Gram-negative bacteria (GNB). Colistin is positively charged, while CMS is negatively charged, and both have a high molecular mass and are hydrophilic. These physico-chemical characteristics impair crossing of the alveolo-capillary membrane but enable the disruption of the bacterial wall of GNB and the aggregation of the circulating lipopolysaccharide. Intravenous CMS is rapidly cleared by glomerular filtration and tubular excretion, and 20–25% is spontaneously hydrolyzed to colistin. Urine colistin is substantially reabsorbed by tubular cells and eliminated by biliary excretion. Colistin is a concentration-dependent antibiotic with post-antibiotic and inoculum effects. As CMS conversion to colistin is slower than its renal clearance, intravenous administration can lead to low plasma and lung colistin concentrations that risk treatment failure. Following nebulization of high doses, colistin (200,000 international units/24h) lung tissue concentrations are > five times minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of GNB in regions with multiple foci of bronchopneumonia and in the range of MIC breakpoints in regions with confluent pneumonia. Future research should include: (1) experimental studies using lung microdialysis to assess the PK/PD in the interstitial fluid of the lung following nebulization of high doses of colistin; (2) superiority multicenter randomized controlled trials comparing nebulized and intravenous CMS in patients with pandrug-resistant GNB ventilator-associated pneumonia and ventilator-associated tracheobronchitis; (3) non-inferiority multicenter randomized controlled trials comparing nebulized CMS to intravenous new cephalosporines/ß-lactamase inhibitors in patients with extensive drug-resistant GNB ventilator-associated pneumonia and ventilator-associated tracheobronchitis.
A Latency-Optimized Network-on-Chip with Rapid Bypass Channels

Network-on-Chips with simple topologies are widely used due to their scalability and high bandwidth. The transmission latency increases greatly with the number of on-chip nodes. A NoC, called single-cycle multi-hop asynchronous repeated traversal (SMART), is proposed to solve the problem by bypassing intermediate routers. However, the bypass setup request of SMART requires additional pipeline stages and wires. In this paper, we present a NoC with rapid bypass channels that integrates the bypass information into each flit. In the proposed NoC, all the bypass requests are delivered along with flits at the same time reducing the transmission latency. Besides, the bypass request is unicasted in our design instead of broadcasting in SMART leading to a great reduction in wire overhead. We evaluate the NoC in four synthetic traffic patterns. The result shows that the latency of our proposed NoC is 63.54% less than the 1-cycle NoC. Compared to SMART, more than 80% wire overhead and 27% latency are reduced.
Associations between the Severity of the Post-Acute COVID-19 Syndrome and Echocardiographic Abnormalities in Previously Healthy Outpatients Following Infection with SARS-CoV-2

Simple Summary With the COVID-19 pandemic lasting over a year and affecting all continents, a new problem has arisen—that of convalescents, who continue to have various symptoms at more than 4 and up to 12 weeks after the acute disease, the so called post-acute COVID-19 syndrome. In this article, we tried to determine if previously healthy adults with post-acute COVID-19 syndrome also have cardiac complications related to the number of persisting symptoms, the quality of life scores and the initial pulmonary injury. Using transthoracic echocardiography, we found cardiac abnormalities (pulmonary hypertension, systolic and diastolic dysfunction, pericarditis) in about a quarter of the 150 participants in our study. Their gravity was significantly correlated with the severity of COVID-19, the number of weeks passed since the acute illness, the number of persisting symptoms, and the quality of life. Post-acute COVID-19 is a recently proposed term which aims to characterize the various symptoms persisting after an acute SARS-CoV-2 infection, their severity being explained partially by residual multi-system alterations, with an important impact on the functional status and quality of life of the affected individuals. Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic affected over 130 million individuals during more than one year. Due to the overload of health-care services, a great number of people were treated as outpatients, many of them subsequently developing post-acute COVID-19 syndrome. Our study was conducted on 150 subjects without a history of cardiovascular diseases, treated as outpatients for a mild/moderate form of COVID-19 4 to 12 weeks prior to study inclusion, and who were diagnosed with post-acute COVID-19 and attended a cardiology evaluation with transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) for persisting symptoms. We detected various cardiac abnormalities in 38 subjects (25.33%), including pulmonary hypertension (9.33%), impaired left ventricular performance (8.66%), diastolic dysfunction (14%) and/or evidence of pericarditis (10%). We highlighted statistically significant correlations between the intensity of symptoms and quality of life scores with the severity of initial pulmonary injury, the number of weeks since COVID-19 and with TTE parameters characterizing the systolic and diastolic performance and pulmonary hypertension (p < 0.001). (Post-acute COVID-19 is a complex syndrome characterized by various symptoms, the intensity of which seem to be related to the severity and the time elapsed since the acute infection, and with persisting cardiac abnormalities.
PCA-Based Denoising Algorithm for Outdoor Lidar Point Cloud Data

Due to the complexity of surrounding environments, lidar point cloud data (PCD) are often degraded by plane noise. In order to eliminate noise, this paper proposes a filtering scheme based on the grid principal component analysis (PCA) technique and the ground splicing method. The 3D PCD is first projected onto a desired 2D plane, within which the ground and wall data are well separated from the PCD via a prescribed index based on the statistics of points in all 2D mesh grids. Then, a KD-tree is constructed for the ground data, and rough segmentation in an unsupervised method is conducted to obtain the true ground data by using the normal vector as a distinctive feature. To improve the performance of noise removal, we propose an elaborate K nearest neighbor (KNN)-based segmentation method via an optimization strategy. Finally, the denoised data of the wall and ground are spliced for further 3D reconstruction. The experimental results show that the proposed method is efficient at noise removal and is superior to several traditional methods in terms of both denoising performance and run speed.
Imaging Techniques for the Study of Fibrosis in Atrial Fibrillation Ablation: From Molecular Mechanisms to Therapeutical Perspectives

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most prevalent form of cardiac arrhythmia. It is often related to diverse pathological conditions affecting the atria and leading to remodeling processes including collagen accumulation, fatty infiltration, and amyloid deposition. All these events generate atrial fibrosis, which contribute to beget AF. In this scenario, cardiac imaging appears as a promising noninvasive tool for monitoring the presence and degree of LA fibrosis and remodeling. The aim of this review is to comprehensively examine the bench mechanisms of atrial fibrosis moving, then to describe the principal imaging techniques that characterize it, such as cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) and multidetector cardiac computed tomography (MDCT), in order to tailor atrial fibrillation ablation to each individual.