Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Lifetime individual and population consequences of early-life access to health insurance

Gaining access to health insurance in childhood has been associated with improved childhood health and educational attainment. Expansions in health insurance access have steadily lowered the rates of uninsured children and may have long term consequences for adult health and wellbeing. This paper analyzes the lifetime impact of gaining health insurance in childhood on health and economic outcomes during adulthood using dynamic microsimulation. We find disease prevalence at age 65 falls for most chronic conditions, with the exception of cancer. We also find increased access to health insurance in childhood results in 11 additional months of life expectancy and 16 additional months lived free of disability. While there is no change in total lifetime medical spending, both Medicaid and Medicare expenditures fall. Lifetime earnings increase by about 8% for individuals who gain the benefits of childhood health insurance, and the receipt of Disability Insurance falls throughout the entire lifecycle.
Effects of Acute Systemic Endothelin Receptor Blockade on Cardiac Electrophysiology In Vivo

BQ-123, a selective endothelin-A receptor antagonist, has been demonstrated to suppress arrhythmias. However, the role of physiologic levels of endogenous endothelin-1 (ET-1) with respect to electrophysiologic properties of the heart is unknown. BQ-123 (0.45, 0.9, 1.8, 3.6, 7.2, and 14.4 μg/kg/min; n = 10) or saline (control, n = 5) was administered IV for 15 minutes of continuous-rate infusion at incremental doses to anesthetized normal pigs. BQ-123 had no effect on PR and QT interval, QRS duration, intraatrial and AV nodal conduction time as well as the atrial, AV nodal, and ventricular effective refractory periods. As compared with baseline, BQ-123 at 7.2 and 14.4 μg/kg/min caused an increase in heart rate (99 ± 17 versus 110 ± 14 and 118 ± 14 bpm, respectively; P < 0.05), shortened sinus node recovery time (818 ± 165 versus 641 ± 69 and 609 ± 74 milliseconds, respectively; P < 0.05) and decreased mean arterial pressure at 14.4 μg/kg/min (95 ± 18 versus 80 ± 11 mm Hg; P < 0.05). We conclude that in the normal pig, physiologic levels of ET-1 have no effect on conduction properties of atrial, AV nodal, or Purkinje fibers. However, antagonism of ET-1 by BQ-123 unmasks the effect of ET-1 on maintenance of vasomotor tone, which in turn may affect heart rate and sinus node automaticity in the intact pig.
Comparison of PAEE from combined and separate heart rate and movement models in children.

PURPOSE Accurate measurement of physical activity in children is a challenge. Combining physiological (e.g., heart rate (HR)) and body movement registration (e.g., accelerometry) may overcome limitations with either method used alone. This study aimed to compare the estimated physical activity energy expenditure (PAEE) from hip- and ankle-mounted MTI Actigraphs, a hip-mounted Actical, and a new combined HR and movement sensor, the Actiheart (Cambridge Neurotechnology, Papworth, UK). METHODS Resting EE and submaximal EE (treadmill walking and running) were measured in 39 children (13.2 +/- 0.3 yr) by indirect calorimetry during a progressive treadmill exercise bout. Associations between monitor outputs (activity counts, HR, and activity counts + HR) and the criterion were examined by linear regression models. The agreement between measured and predicted PAEE was examined by modified Bland-Altman plots in a subsample of participants. RESULTS The combined Actiheart model (activity counts + HR) had the strongest relationship with PAEE (R2 = 0.86), compared with those from the single-measure models (R2 = 0.69 and 0.82 for the activity model and HR model). The explained variances from the other activity monitors were lower (R2 = 0.50, 0.37, and 0.67) for the hip MTI, ankle MTI, and Actical, respectively. In cross-validation analyses, significant correlations were observed between estimation errors of the methods with the criterion (r = 0.49 to 0.90) in all models using only activity counts indicating a large systematic error. The HR and combined models indicated less systematic error (r = 0.41 and 0.33, respectively). CONCLUSIONS Of the techniques considered, combined HR and movement sensing is the most valid for estimating PAEE in children during treadmill walking and running, compared with movement or HR alone. It also has the lowest level of systematic error.
Robust Tracking via Multi-level Multi-feature Templates

In this paper, we propose a hierarchical and multi-feature appearance model for object tracking. An object is represented by a hierarchical tree model where the nodes represent object parts. An appearance template is designed for each part and described by a multi-feature set that combines multiple observations, such as colour, intensity, texture and edge. The hierarchical model is represented by a three-level spatial pyramid to characterize the target respectively in high-level, mid-level and low-level representations. We demonstrate the multi-level multifeature template model (MMTM) for object tracking in a generative learning formulation. In this formulation, the weights of different features in each template and the contribution of different templates are learnt to distinguish the object and background. The proposed model is tested on a variety of benchmarks involving object deformation, background cluttering and motion blur. The experimental results demonstrate that our approach can achieve superior performance than previous tracking methods.
Degradation of ethofumesate in soil under laboratory conditions

The aim of our research was to determine the influence of the soil type and adjuvants on the dynamics of ethofumesate degradation in soil. Samples of two types of soil were placed in growth chambers. Ethofumesate was applied at a rate of 800 g·ha -1 , alone and in mixture with adjuvant based on methylated crop oil and surfactant adjuvant. Residues of ethofumesate were determined using high-performance liquid chromatography with UV detection. The type of soil influenced the degradation rate of ethofumesate. Significant differences in degradation rate between soils during the first period after treatment (36 days) influenced the DT50 indicator. The addition of oil adjuvant slowed down the degradation of ethofumesate and increased the level of residue in soils. The DT50 value for mixture ethofumesate + oil adjuvant was about 8-10 days higher in comparison with the DT50 for ethofumesate applied alone. No significant differences were observed between degradation rates and the DT50 for ethofumesate applied alone and with surfactant adjuvant.
Occupational eye injury and risk reduction: Kentucky workers’ compensation claim analysis 1994–2003

Background: Occupational eye injuries are a significant source of injury in the workplace. Little population-based research in the area has been conducted, and is necessary for developing and prioritising effective interventions. Methods: Workers’ compensation data from the state of Kentucky for the years 1994–2003 were analysed by demographics, injury nature and cause, cost, and occupational and industrial characteristics. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Current Population Survey was utilised to compute injury rates for demographic and occupational groups. Results: There were 10 545 claims of ocular injury, representing 6.29 claims per 10 000 workers on average annually. A substantial drop in the claim rate was found after the state passed monetary penalties for injuries caused by employer negligence or OSHA violations. Claims by men were over three times more likely than those by women to have associated claim costs (OR 0.52; 95% CI 0.32 to 0.85; p = 0.009). The highest eye injury rates per 10 000 of 13.46 (95% CI 12.86 to 14.07) were found for the helpers/labourers occupation, and of 19.95 (95% CI 18.73 to 21.17) for the construction industry. The total cost of claim payments over the period was over $3 480 000, and average cost per claim approximated $331. Conclusions: Eye injuries remain a significant risk to worker health, especially among men in jobs requiring intensive manual labour. Evidence showed that increased legislative regulation led to a decline in eye injuries, which was consistent with other recent findings in the area. Additionally, targeting groups most at risk, increasing worker training, providing effective eye protection equipment, and developing workplace safety cultures may together reduce occupational eye injuries.
Rapid protein display profiling of cancer progression directly from human tissue using a protein biochip

The complicated, changing pattern of protein expression should contain important information about the pathologic process taking place in the cells of actual tissue. Utilization of this information for the selection of druggable targets could be possible if a means existed to rapidly analyze and display changes in protein expression in defined microscopic cellular subpopulations. As a demonstration of feasibility, we show the generation of sensitive, rapid, and reproducible molecular weight protein profiles of patient‐matched normal, premalignant, malignant, and metastatic microdissected cell populations from stained human esophageal, prostate, breast, ovary, colon, and hepatic tissue sections through the application of an affinity‐based biochip. Reproducible, discriminatory protein biomarker profiles can be obtained from as few as 25 cells in less than 5 min from dissection to the generation of the protein fingerprint. Furthermore, these protein pattern profiles reveal reproducible changes in expression as cells undergo malignant transformation, and are discriminatory for different tumor types. Consistent protein changes were identified in the microdissected cells from patient‐matched tumor and normal epithelium from eight out of eight different malignant esophageal tissue sets and three out of three malignant prostate tissue sets. A means to rapidly generate a display of expressed proteins from microscopic cellular populations sampled from tissue could be an important enabling technology for pharmacoproteomics, molecular pathology, drug intervention strategies, therapeutic assessment of drug entities, disease diagnosis, toxicity, and gene therapy monitoring. Drug Dev. Res. 49:34–42, 2000. Published 2000 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Discontinuous Dielectrophoresis - A Technique for Investigating the Response of Loosely Adherent Cells to High Shear Stress

The functioning of cells under mechanical stress influences several cellular processes, for example proliferation, organogenesis, and transcription. Current techniques used to examine mechanical stress on loosely adherent cells, are however, primarily focused on single individual cells being stimulated, or require time-consuming surface coating techniques; and are limited in the level of shear stress that can be supplied to immobilised cells. Here we report the process of the technique, discontinuous dielectrophoresis; which enables high shear stress analysis of clusters of immobilised loosely adherent cells, we have analysed the performance of the system using Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast cells, up to a shear stress of 42 dyn/cm2. Additionally, we provide application experimental results from investigating shear induced calcium signalling of HEK-293-TRPV4 cells at flow rates of 2.5, and 120 µl/min, corresponding to shear stress levels of 0.875 and 42 dyn/cm2, respectively. In summary, discontinuous dielectrophoresis will enable the investigation of the mechanotransduction behaviour of loosely adherent cells under physiologically relevant shear stresses. Additionally, discontinuous dielectrophoresis provides the capability for parallelism, and dynamic control over the microenvironment, as previously explored by different microfluidic platforms without the capacity for high shear stress analysis of loosely adherent cells.
Do cyclones and forest fragmentation have synergistic effects ? A before-after study of rainforest vegetation structure at multiple sites

Ecological degradation within areas of remnant forest may be amplified if the effects of fragmentation interact with the effects of other environmental disturbances such as wind storms. We used before-after comparisons to assess the effects of Tropical Cyclone Larry on remnant and continuous rainforest in the Wet Tropics uplands of north-eastern Australia. Vegetation structure was measured three years before the cyclone and six months afterwards, at eight continuous forest sites and eight remnants (6-37 ha), within 20 km of the cyclone's track. The cyclone caused extensive defoliation, felling and breakage of stems and branches (greatest among the trees >100 cm diameter which had around 50% stem loss), and increased litter and woody debris. Cyclone effects were strongly influenced by a site's spatial position (P = 0.005, 0.001 in multivariate analyses of overall damage). Maximum damage occurred 10-15 km south of the cyclone track, perhaps because of the additive effects of the west-moving air at the southern eyewall combined 2 with the cyclone's own rapid westward movement. Most fragments were south of the cyclone track, as a consequence of spatially-selective deforestation practices, and therefore showed greatest damage However, once the effects of spatial position were considered, the independent differences in cyclone effects between fragments and continuous forest were lost (P = 0.23, 0.41 when northsouth distance was included as a covariate in analyses). The expected protection afforded by a continuous forest canopy seems to have disappeared in the face of extremely strong cyclonic winds and down-draughts. Nevertheless, an interaction between fragmentation and disturbance may yet occur, during the period of post-cyclone recovery, due to the effects of landscape context on plant recruitment. For example, there was a higher diversity of exotic seedling germination in fragments, independent of the extent of cyclone damage.
Seasonal Changes in Energy-related Blood Metabolites and Mineral Profiles of Nguni and Crossbred Cattle on Communal Rangelands in the Eastern Cape, South Africa

The objective of the current study was to determine seasonal changes in glucose, cholesterol, non-esterified fatty acids (NEFA), serum inorganic phosphorous (SIP), calcium, magnesium and iron concentrations in Nguni and crossbred cattle on the sweet and sour rangelands of the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. Body weights, body condition scores (BCS) and serum concentrations of energy-related metabolites and mineral profiles were determined in late cool-dry, hot-dry, hot-wet, post-rainy and early cool-dry seasons in 100 cattle raised on communal rangelands from August 2007 to May 2008. Nguni cattle had lower (p<0.05) and higher (p<0.05) serum concentrations of glucose in the hot-wet and post-rainy seasons, respectively, compared to crossbreds in the same seasons. Serum cholesterol and NEFA concentrations in Nguni were lower (p<0.05) than in the crossbreds. Nguni and crossbred cattle had higher (p<0.05) serum NEFA concentrations on the sweet rangeland during the late cool-dry season than on sour rangeland. Nguni cattle had higher (p<0.05) SIP concentration in the hot-wet season than the crossbreds. Generally, both breeds had lowest SIP concentration during the hot-wet season on the sour rangeland. The lowest magnesium and highest iron concentrations were observed in the hot-wet and post-rainy seasons, respectively, compared to other seasons. Cattle on the sour rangeland had lower (p<0.05) iron concentrations than those on the sweet rangeland. It was concluded that Nguni cattle had lower cholesterol and NEFA, and higher SIP concentrations in the hot-wet season than crossbreds and energy deficits mostly occurred during the late cool-dry season on the sweet rangeland.
Treatment of the mild cognitive impairment (MCI)

According to Evidence‐Based‐Medicine, any proposal for the rationale treatment of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) must be based on the results of double‐blind, randomized clinical trials (RCTs). However, since MCI at the present time does not constitute a homogeneous clinical syndrome, it is still inappropriate to propose a specific drug treatment. Moreover, RCTs assessing the therapeutic value of acetylcholinesterase‐inhibitors (AChEIs) are negative either trying to improve symptoms (memory performance) or preventing the conversion from MCI to real Alzheimer's Disease (AD). The same negative results were obtained with drugs targeting some systems considered as the early steps of the pathophysiological cascade leading to dementia: non‐steroidal anti‐inflammatory compounds (rofecoxib), sex steroid hormones (testosterone, estrogens), or antioxidants (tocopherol). Either MCI is considered as the very early phase of development of AD (and then the treatments will aim at preventively antagonizing the hallmarks of the disease) or MCI is a new entity (and then the drugs will target the associated neurochemical disturbancies such as tau protein or soluble Aβ oligomers); MCI could also be considered as a monosymptomatic syndrome (amnesia) leading to the development of pure pro‐mnestic drugs. These three hypotheses will be presented on the basis of the neurobiology and the pharmacology, and examples of potentially active candidates will be discussed. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Separation distance between external LPS and structure conductive parts

This paper presents a study on the overvoltages that appear across the separation distance between LPS and structure conductive parts when the former is struck by lightning. The overvoltage calculation is carried out in frequency-domain using the Method of Moments and the results are translated to time-domain by Fourier transform. The structure is represented by its steelwork and the voltages are computed for the standard waveforms corresponding to negative first strokes and subsequent strokes. The likelihood of insulation breakdown is assessed by the Equal Area Method, which takes into account the voltage waveform. It is shown that, for non-insulated LPS, sparks between LPS and structure steelwork are very likely to occur, both for first and subsequent strokes. The results support the proposal of bonding the LPS to the building steelwork, regardless of the condition of the latter. The paper also discusses how this issue is addressed in the international standard for lightning protection of structures.
Axon Initial Segment–Associated Microglia

Microglia are the brain's resident immune cells and function as the main defense against pathogens or injury. However, in the absence of disease, microglia have other functions in the normal brain. For example, previous studies showed that microglia contribute to circuit refinement and synaptic plasticity in the developing and adult brain, respectively. Thus, microglia actively participate in regulating neuronal excitability and function. Here, we report that in the cortex, but not other brain regions, a subset of microglia extend a single process that specifically associates and overlaps with the axon initial segment (AIS), the site where action potentials are generated. Similar associations were not observed with dendrites or distal axons. Microglia–AIS interactions appear early in development, persist throughout adulthood, and are conserved across species including mice, rats, and primates. However, these interactions are lost after microglial activation following brain injury, suggesting that such interactions may be part of healthy brain function. Loss of microglial CX3CR1 receptors, or the specialized extracellular matrix surrounding the AIS, did not disrupt the interaction. However, loss of AIS proteins by the neuron-specific deletion of the master AIS scaffold AnkyrinG disrupted microglia–AIS interactions. These results reveal a unique population of microglia that specifically interact with the AIS in the adult cortex.
Limited Functional Effects of Subacute Syngeneic Bone Marrow Stromal Cell Transplantation after Rat Spinal Cord Contusion Injury

Cell transplantation might be one means to improve motor, sensory, or autonomic recovery after traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI). Among the different cell types evaluated to date, bone marrow stromal cells (BMSCs) have received considerable interest due to their potential neuroprotective properties. However, uncertainty exists whether the efficacy of BMSCs after intraspinal transplantation justifies an invasive procedure. In the present study, we analyzed the effect of syngeneic BMSC transplantation following a moderate to severe rat spinal cord injury. Adult Fischer 344 rats underwent a T9 contusion injury (200 kDy) followed by grafting of GFP-expressing BMSCs 3 days postinjury. Animals receiving a contusion injury without cellular grafts or an injury followed by grafts of syngeneic GFP-expressing fibroblasts served as control. Eight weeks post-transplantation, BMSC-grafted animals showed only a minor effect in one measure of sensorimotor recovery, no significant differences in tissue sparing, and no changes in the recovery of bladder function compared to both control groups in urodynamic measurements. Both cell types survived in the lesion site with fibroblasts displaying a larger graft volume. Thus, contrary to some reports using allogeneic or xenogeneic transplants, subacute intraparenchymal grafting of syngeneic BMSCs has only a minor effect on functional recovery.
Adenovirus receptors: implications for tropism, treatment and targeting

Adenoviruses (Ads) are the most frequently used viral vectors in gene therapy and cancer therapy. Obstacles to successful clinical application include accumulation of vector and transduction in liver cells, coupled with poor transduction of target cells and tissues such as tumours. Many host molecules, including coagulation factor X, have been identified and suggested to serve as mediators of Ad liver tropism. This review summarises current knowledge concerning these molecules and the mechanisms used by Ads to bind to target cells, and considers the prospects of designing vectors that have been detargeted from the liver and retargeted to cells and tissues of interest in the context of gene therapy and cancer therapy. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Co-Production in Business Counselling in Microfinance Setting: A Conceptual Approach

Recent developments in service literature highlight the importance of co-production between the firm and the client in order to create value. This paper presents a model of co-production within the context of microfinance provision and investigates the dyadic relationship between Counsellors from Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) and the Owner Managers of Micro and Small Enterprises (MSEs). The paper develops a conceptual model that identifies the factors that facilitate co-production between Counsellors and Owner Managers. It also identifies co-production outcomes relating to MSEs and MFIs concerned. The model offers researchers a framework for empirical studies in the microfinance setting. Furthermore, microfinance policy makers can use this model to formulate strategies that offer many benefits to both MFIs and Owner Managers.