Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effect of oral low dose clonidine premedication on postoperative pain in patients undergoing abdominal hysterectomy: a randomized placebo controlled clinical trial.

UNLABELLED This study evaluated the effect of oral low dose clonidine premedication on postoperative pain and hemodynamic status of the patients during abdominal hysterectomy under general anesthesia. METHODS This study is a randomized, placebo controlled double-blinded clinical trial. After approval of the study protocol by the Ethics Committee 60 patients were recruited and written informed consents were obtained. Two hours before surgery, patients in the treatment group (n=30) received a single oral dose of 100 microgram of clonidine and those in the placebo group received an oral dose of placebo (n=30). The severity of postoperative pain was assessed at 2nd, 6th, 12th and 24th hours after the operation using the visual analog scoring system (VAS score). Also the total dose of administered analgesics during 24 hours after the surgery and the interval between the surgery and the first request of analgesic were compared between the two groups. Systolic blood pressure and pulse rate were recorded during the surgery and at the post anesthesia care unit. Drug related adverse effects were also evaluated. RESULTS Postoperative pain VAS during 24 hours after the surgery was significantly (P=0.001) lower in clonidine group (3.86 +/- 0.89) compared to the placebo group (4.86 +/- 0.93). Also, the interval between surgery and the first request of analgesic in clonidine group was 4.13 +/- 3.27 hours on of longer duration (P=0.02) compared to 2.88 +/- 3.74 hours in placebo group. The mean heart rate and systolic blood pressure were lower in the clonidine group. CONCLUSION A single oral 100 microg dose of clonidine administered 2 hours before abdominal hysterectomy significantly reduces the severity of postoperative pain.
Proteinases, Their Extracellular Targets, and Inflammatory Signaling

Given that over 2% of the human genome codes for proteolytic enzymes and their inhibitors, it is not surprising that proteinases serve many physiologic-pathophysiological roles. In this context, we provide an overview of proteolytic mechanisms regulating inflammation, with a focus on cell signaling stimulated by the generation of inflammatory peptides; activation of the proteinase-activated receptor (PAR) family of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCR), with a mechanism in common with adhesion-triggered GPCRs (ADGRs); and by proteolytic ion channel regulation. These mechanisms are considered in the much wider context that proteolytic mechanisms serve, including the processing of growth factors and their receptors, the regulation of matrix-integrin signaling, and the generation and release of membrane-tethered receptor ligands. These signaling mechanisms are relevant for inflammatory, neurodegenerative, and cardiovascular diseases as well as for cancer. We propose that the inflammation-triggering proteinases and their proteolytically generated substrates represent attractive therapeutic targets and we discuss appropriate targeting strategies.
INVESTISSEMENT ISLAMIQUE AU MARCHÉ FINANCIER RÉGIONAL DE L’UNION ÉCONOMIQUE ET MONÉTAIRE OUEST AFRICAINE (UEMOA): UNE APPLICATION DU FILTRAGE ISLAMIQUE

La Bourse Regionale des Valeurs Mobilieres (BRVM) de l’UEMOA est une place financiere capable d’attirer une diversite d’investisseurs. Cette place boursiere est situee dans une zone economique ou plus de la moitie de la population est musulmane. Parmi cette population, il existe des agents economiques qui respectent la religion et qui veulent investir conformement aux preceptes de l’Islam. Ce travail pionnier etudie la possibilite d’investir a la BRVM dans le respect des principes d’ethique et de responsabilite sociale de la Shari‘ah. En employant la methode du filtrage islamique, l’etude a revele qu’il existe des opportunites d’investissements conformes a la Shari‘ah sur ladite place.
Reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act: Political Forces and Perspectives

American education policy affects more than 50 million students in the nation’s public and private schools (National Center for Education Statistics, 2008), as well as their parents, the educators who serve them, and the communities to which they belong. Because education policy affects so many people, it assumes an important place on the political agenda and leads several political actors to push and pull in an effort to shape policy within the contours of their own particular interest or ideology. Spring (1998) identified politicians, private foundations, teachers' unions, special-interest groups, school administrators, boards of education, and the courts as among those political actors. Shaped by competing forces, the politics of education often yields policy that is grounded in compromise and malleability as interested groups seek common ground and form coalitions to win passage of their reforms. Politically marginalized groups, or those who were left out of the policy making process, are often later able to gain influence and form new majority coalitions as the political pendulum swings from one direction to another and as previously allied groups begin to splinter. The result is education policy that is created on weak footing and is alterable as interest groups and political ideologues gain and lose the power to control policy formation. The current debate over reauthorization of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) exemplifies this process. Political forces that were marginalized in the original passage of the law in 2001 have reemerged to force the current debate into a stalemate.
Interpersonal processes and hearing voices: a study of the association between relating to voices and distress in clinical and non-clinical hearers.

BACKGROUND Previous research suggests that the distress experienced by clinical voice hearers is associated with the perceived relationship between voice and hearer, independent of beliefs about voices and depression. AIMS This study aimed to replicate these findings and generate further hypotheses by comparing the voice hearing experiences of clinical and non-clinical hearers. METHOD A cross-sectional, quantitative design was employed and used between-subjects and correlational methods. Thirty-two clinical voice hearers and 18 non-clinical voice hearers were assessed using the PSYRATS, the Voice and You questionnaire, the Beliefs About Voices Questionnaire - Revised, and the Beck Depression Inventory-II. RESULTS For clinical voice hearers, distress was significantly associated with perceptions of the voice as dominating and intrusive, and hearers distancing themselves from the voice. However, these associations were not independent of beliefs about voices' omnipotence or malevolence. Non-clinical voice hearers were significantly less distressed than clinical voice hearers and voices were perceived as less dominant, intrusive, malevolent and omnipotent. Non-clinical hearers were found to relate from a position of less distance to voices perceived as benevolent. CONCLUSIONS Findings from previous research were only partially replicated. Clinically, the development of less maladaptive relationships between voice and voice hearer may reduce distress.
Predisposition of infants with chronic lung disease to respiratory syncytial virus-induced respiratory failure: a vascular hypothesis

Background. Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) causes the highest rate of severe respiratory infections and mortality in infants and children worldwide. Preterm infants with underlying chronic lung disease (CLD), including bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD), are among those at high risk for severe morbidity, long term sequelae and mortality postinfection. The definition of CLD/BPD has evolved and is currently described as a disease of restricted lung development (i.e. impaired alveolar and pulmonary vascular development). This article describes potential mechanisms by which RSV infection causes respiratory failure in the infant with BPD. Methods and results. The opinions expressed in this article are based on a review of recent investigations into the mechanisms through which RSV infections could cause excessive pulmonary edema formation and subsequent respiratory failure in the infant with CLD. Although alveolar overinflation and atelectasis are well-described patterns of RSV-induced respiratory illness in this infant population, the finding of pulmonary edema is a complex, multifactorial process that is less well understood. Experimental evidence suggests that RSV infection in infants with CLD/BPD not only causes increases in pulmonary vascular reactivity but also precipitates pulmonary edema formation via multiple mechanisms (e.g. nonuniform elevations in pulmonary artery pressure, endothelial injury, alveolar epithelial damage and impairments of native alveolar liquid clearance mechanisms). Conclusions. Novel therapies for managing RSV-induced respiratory failure in the infant with CLD/BPD must consider factors responsible for the substantial pulmonary vascular component of this illness.
An animal model for the investigation of adverse responses to i.v. anesthetic agents and their solvents.

In man the number of adverse responses to the Cremophor-containing anaesthetic agents Althesin and propanidid (Epontol) has been reported to be greater than that encountered with thiopentone. The response of the mini-pig to repeated injection of a range of i.v. anaesthetics and their solvents has been investigated in an attempt to ascertain the possible role of Cremophor in the production of these responses. A second injection of Cremophor EL or the Cremophor/Micellophor-containing agents Althesin and propanidid (Epontol), given 7 days after the first, produced a high frequency of adverse responses. On only one occasion, when alphaxalone and alphadolone were given in a mixture of alcohol and propylene glycol, was an abnormal response seen on the first administration of any agent. The second administration of alphaxalone and alphadolone in the same solvent produced abnormal responses in two of four pigs. No such responses were seen when propanidid was administered in alcohol and propylene glycol or when this solvent mixture was given alone. No abnormal responses were seen following the repeated administration of thiopentone. A marked increase in arterial pressure, and an immediate but transient marked decrease in the numbers of circulating polymorphonuclear leucocytes, were consistent findings in animals showing adverse responses. No abnormal responses were found when the interval between two administrations of Althesin was extended to 3 weeks.
FDI and Economic Development in China: 1978-2008

Abstract-Endeavors have been made in this paper to discern the long-run relations between FDI and economic development in China in the comprehensive framework, which incorporates determinants as output, FDI, capital formation, employment, human capital and international openness. VAR Impulse Response, Variance Decomposition, Johansen Co-integration and VECM have been estimated, focusing on the long-run structural relations; findings indicate that in the long run, FDI tends to decrease economic growth; economic development in China seems to be fueled by domestic capital accumulation and employment growth; FDI inflows do crowd out domestic capitals, and reduce employment growth, whilst the latter increases the former.
Selection of mutations that alter the osmotic control of transcription of the Salmonella typhimurium proU operon

We isolated 60 independent mutations, designated osmX, in Salmonella typhimurium that result in constitutive expression of the normally osmoregulated proU operon. Each of the osmX mutations is closely linked to the proU locus and cis-dominant over the osmX+ allele in diploid strains. These results suggest that the mutations are probably in the 5' transcriptional control region of the proU operon. Our failure to obtain either recessive or unlinked mutations that altered the osmotic control of transcription of the proU operon suggests that transcriptional regulation of the gene is not under the negative control of a repressor protein that is dispensable for cell viability. We discuss possible models for the mechanism of osmotic regulation of transcription of the proU operon.
Prediction of the 10-year course of borderline personality disorder.

OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to determine the most clinically relevant baseline predictors of time to remission for patients with borderline personality disorder. METHOD A total of 290 inpatients meeting criteria for both the Revised Diagnostic Interview for Borderlines and DSM-III-R for borderline personality disorder were assessed during their index admission with a series of semistructured interviews and self-report measures. Diagnostic status was reassessed at five contiguous 2-year time periods. Discrete survival analytic methods, which controlled for baseline severity of borderline psychopathology and time, were used to estimate hazard ratios. RESULTS Eighty-eight percent of the patients with borderline personality disorder studied achieved remission. In terms of time to remission, 39.3% of the 242 patients who experienced a remission of their disorder first remitted by their 2-year follow-up, an additional 22.3% first remitted by their 4-year follow-up, an additional 21.9% by their 6-year follow-up, an additional 12.8% by their 8-year follow-up, and another 3.7% by their 10-year follow-up. Sixteen variables were found to be significant bivariate predictors of earlier time to remission. Seven of these remained significant in multivariate analyses: younger age, absence of childhood sexual abuse, no family history of substance use disorder, good vocational record, absence of an anxious cluster personality disorder, low neuroticism, and high agreeableness. CONCLUSIONS The results of this study suggest that prediction of time to remission from borderline personality disorder is multifactorial in nature, involving factors that are routinely assessed in clinical practice and factors, particularly aspects of temperament, that are not.
Transformation properties of the E2a-Pbx1 chimeric oncoprotein: fusion with E2a is essential, but the Pbx1 homeodomain is dispensable

The t(1;19) chromosomal translocation in acute lymphoblastic leukemias creates chimeric E2a-Pbx1 oncoproteins that can act as DNA-binding activators of transcription. A structural analysis of the functional domains of E2a-Pbx1 showed that portions of both E2a and Pbx1 were essential for transformation of NIH 3T3 cells and transcriptional activation of synthetic reporter genes containing PBX1 consensus binding sites. Hyperexpression of wild-type or experimentally truncated Pbx1 proteins was insufficient for transformation, consistent with their inability to activate transcription. When fused with E2a, the Pbx-related proteins Pbx2 and Pbx3 were also transformation competent, demonstrating that all known members of this highly similar subfamily of homeodomain proteins have latent oncogenic potential. The oncogenic contributions of E2a to the chimeras were localized to transactivation motifs AD1 and AD2, as their mutation significantly impaired transformation. Either the homeodomain or Pbx1 amino acids flanking this region could mediate transformation when fused to E2a. However, the homeodomain was not essential for transformation, since a mutant E2a-Pbx1 protein (E2a-Pbx delta HD) lacking the homeodomain efficiently transformed fibroblasts and induced malignant lymphomas in transgenic mice. Thus, transformation mediated by the chimeric oncoprotein E2a-Pbx1 is absolutely dependent on motifs acquired from E2a but the Pbx1 homeodomain is optional. The latter finding suggests that E2a-Pbx1 may interact with cellular proteins that assist or mediate alterations in gene expression responsible for oncogenesis even in the absence of homeodomain-DNA interactions.
Analysis of APC Types Involved in CD4 Tolerance and Regulatory T Cell Generation Using Reaggregated Thymic Organ Cultures

Tolerance to self-Ags is generated in the thymus. Both epithelial and hematopoietic thymic stromal cells play an active and essential role in this process. However, the role of each of the various stromal cell types remains unresolved. To our knowledge, we describe the first comparative analysis of several types of thymic hematopoietic stromal cells (THSCs) for their ability to induce CD4 tolerance to self, in parallel with the thymic epithelium. The THSCs—two types of conventional dendritic cells (cDCs), plasmacytoid dendritic cells, macrophages (MΦs), B lymphocytes, and eosinophils—were first characterized and quantified in adult mouse thymus. They were then examined in reaggregated thymic organ cultures containing mixtures of monoclonal and polyclonal thymocytes. This thymocyte mixture allows for the analysis of Ag-specific events while avoiding the extreme skewing frequently seen in purely monoclonal systems. Our data indicate that thymic epithelium alone is capable of promoting self-tolerance by eliminating autoreactive CD4 single-positive thymocytes and by supporting regulatory T cell (Treg) development. We also show that both non-Treg CD4 single-positive thymocytes and Tregs are efficiently deleted by the two populations of cDCs present in the thymus, as well as to a lesser extent by MΦs. Plasmacytoid dendritic cells, B lymphocytes, and eosinophils were not able to do so. Finally, cDCs were also the most efficient THSCs at supporting Treg development in the thymus, suggesting that although they may share some characteristics required for negative selection with MΦs, they do not share those required for the support of Treg development, making cDCs a unique cell subset in the thymus.
A novel image filtering approach for sensor fingerprint estimation in source camera identification

Photo-response non-uniformity (PRNU) noise has been well established as a reliable fingerprint of imaging sensors for source camera identification and other forensic applications. In this paper, we introduce a novel denoising method for PRNU noise extraction that considerably outperforms the existing techniques. The rationale is to use as little as one adjacent pixel in spatial domain filtering to suppress the pixel-to-pixel correlation in the estimation of the (supposedly white) PRNU noise. Experimental results are presented based on an image database of ten cameras of different models and makes. These results are embodied in the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) of source camera identification.
Impacts of US Biodiesel Mandates on World Vegetable Oil Markets

In this paper we seek to understand the impact of expanded use of soybean oil biodiesel to address biofuel mandates on global vegetable oil markets, and in particular on the demand for palm oil. An open-economy equilibrium model is derived to investigate the market effects of biodiesel expansion on related energy and vegetable oil markets. The model is calibrated to represent the recent benchmark data in calendar year 2014. The simulation estimates suggest that the expanded use of soy oil for biodiesel in the US will have considerable impacts on world vegetable oil markets. The majority of the vegetable oil replacement is likely to occur through substitution of palm oil under a wide range of plausible elasticity values on the demand for vegetable oil and the demand substitution between soy oils and palm oils.
N‐Terminal Kinesins: Many and Various

Molecular motors are a fascinating group of proteins that have vital roles in a huge variety of cellular processes. They all share the ability to produce force through the hydrolysis of adenosine triphosphate, and fall into classes groups: the kinesins, myosins and the dyneins. The kinesin superfamily itself can be split into three major groups depending on the position of the motor domain, which is localized N‐terminally, C‐terminally, or internally. This review focuses on the N‐terminal kinesins, providing a brief overview of their roles within the cell, and illustrating recent key developments in our understanding of how these proteins function.
Respiratory and cardiovascular responses to walking down a traffic-polluted road compared with walking in a traffic-free area in participants aged 60 years and older with chronic lung or heart disease and age-matched healthy controls: a randomised, crossover study

Summary Background Long-term exposure to pollution can lead to an increase in the rate of decline of lung function, especially in older individuals and in those with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), whereas shorter-term exposure at higher pollution levels has been implicated in causing excess deaths from ischaemic heart disease and exacerbations of COPD. We aimed to assess the effects on respiratory and cardiovascular responses of walking down a busy street with high levels of pollution compared with walking in a traffic-free area with lower pollution levels in older adults. Methods In this randomised, crossover study, we recruited men and women aged 60 years and older with angiographically proven stable ischaemic heart disease or stage 2 Global initiative for Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD) COPD who had been clinically stable for 6 months, and age-matched healthy volunteers. Individuals with ischaemic heart disease or COPD were recruited from existing databases or outpatient respiratory and cardiology clinics at the Royal Brompton & Harefield NHS Foundation Trust and age-matched healthy volunteers using advertising and existing databases. All participants had abstained from smoking for at least 12 months and medications were taken as recommended by participants’ doctors during the study. Participants were randomly assigned by drawing numbered disks at random from a bag to do a 2 h walk either along a commercial street in London (Oxford Street) or in an urban park (Hyde Park). Baseline measurements of participants were taken before the walk in the hospital laboratory. During each walk session, black carbon, particulate matter (PM) concentrations, ultrafine particles, and nitrogen dioxide (NO 2 ) concentrations were measured. Findings Between 2012,
Diagnostic accuracy of loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) for screening patients with imported malaria in a non-endemic setting

Background: Sensitive and easy-to-perform methods for the diagnosis of malaria are not yet available. Improving the limit of detection and following the requirements for certification are issues to be addressed in both endemic and non-endemic settings. The aim of this study was to test whether loop-mediated isothermal amplification of DNA (LAMP) may be an alternative to microscopy or real-time PCR for the screening of imported malaria cases in non-endemic area. Results: 310 blood samples associated with 829 suspected cases of imported malaria were tested during a one year period. Microscopy (thin and thick stained blood slides, reference standard) was used for the diagnosis. Real-time PCR was used as a standard of truth, and LAMP (Meridian Malaria Plus) was used as an index test in a prospective study conducted following the Standards for Reporting Diagnosis Accuracy Studies. In the 83 positive samples, species identification was P. falciparum (n = 66), P. ovale (n = 9), P. vivax (n = 3) P. malariae (n = 3) and 2 co-infections with P. falciparum + P.malariae. Using LAMP methods, 93 samples gave positive results, including 4 false-positives. Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value for LAMP tests were 100%, 98.13%, 95.51%, and 100% compared to PCR. Conclusion: High negative predictive value, and limit of detection suggest that LAMP can be used for screening of imported malaria cases in non-endemic countries when expert microscopists are not immediately available. However, the rare occurrence of non-valid results and the need for species identification and quantification of positive samples preclude the use of LAMP as a single reference method.