Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
What are the most important nonmotor symptoms in patients with Parkinson's disease and are we missing them?

Nonmotor symptoms (NMS) are increasingly recognized as important and neglected aspects of Parkinson's disease (PD). We evaluated their relative frequency and comparative impact on health‐related quality of life (Hr‐QoL) using validated questionnaires. In addition, we assessed the rate of reporting of NMS in neurology clinics compared with their subjective impact on patients. We used a range of validated clinimetric scales of motor and nonmotor symptoms and Hr‐QoL to assess consecutive patients with PD. Reporting of NMS was assessed by comparison with case note documentation. A mean of 11 of 30 NMS per patient were elicited on the NMS questionnaire of which on average 4.8 were reported in the clinical notes (44%). The most common NMS were autonomic (particularly urinary). The Hr‐QoL scores correlated most strongly with autonomic dysfunction (r = 0.84; particularly urinary and gastrointestinal symptoms), mood (r = 0.74), fatigue (r = 0.74), sleep problems (nocturnal r = 0.55; daytime somnolence r = 0.65), pain (r = 0.56), and psychosis (r = 0.55, all p < 0.0001) followed by UPDRS motor score (r = 0.48, p < 0.0001). Greater motor fluctuations (r = 0.57) and dyskinesia (r = 0.43, both p < 0.0001) were also associated with worse Hr‐QoL. In multivariate analysis, depression had the strongest association with Hr‐QoL (adjusted R2 = 0.53, p = 0.005) followed by fatigue, thermoregulatory, gastrointestinal, and cardiovascular autonomic function (especially orthostatic hypotension), daytime somnolence, and urinary problems. This study demonstrates that a autonomic dysfunction, psychiatric complications, pain, fatigue, and sleep problems are major correlates of poor Hr‐QoL. However, whilst psychiatric problems are increasingly documented, many symptoms (particularly those possibly perceived as embarrassing or unrelated) remain under‐reported. © 2010 Movement Disorder Society
Evaluation of the effect of probiotic (inersan®) alone, combination of probiotic with doxycycline and doxycycline alone on aggressive periodontitis - a clinical and microbiological study.

INTRODUCTION The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the effect of a probiotic (Inersan®) alone, a combination of the probiotic with doxycycline and doxycycline alone on aggressive periodontitis patients. METHODS Thirty patients who satisfied the inclusion and exclusion criteria, were assigned to one of the above mentioned three groups by using block randomization. The clinical and the microbiological parameters were recorded on day 0, at 2 weeks and at 2 months. On day 0, before recording the clinical parameters, 0.5 ml of unstimulated saliva was collected for the evaluation of the microbiological parameters. The clinical parameters which were recorded were the plaque index, the gingival index, the probing pocket depth and the clinical attachment level. The microbiological parameters which were recorded were Lactobacilli and Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans. After this, Scaling and Root Planing (SRP) was performed on day 0. Two weeks after the SRP, the patients were recalled for the saliva sample collection and for the evaluation of the clinical parameters. On the same day, medications were given to the patients to be taken for fourteen days according to the group which they belonged to (Group A - probiotic alone, Group B - a combination of the probiotic with doxycycline, Group C - doxycycline alone). The patients were then recalled at two months for the saliva sample collection and for the evaluation of the clinical parameters. RESULTS The administration of the probiotic alone, a combination of the probiotic with doxycycline and doxycycline alone, resulted in a decrease in the plaque index, the gingival index, the probing pocket depth and the clinical attachment level at 2 months, which was statistically significant (p < 0.05). The A. actinomycetemcomitans count tended to decrease in all the three groups at 2 months, which was statistically non-significant (p > 0.05). The Lactobacilli count tended to increase significantly in the probiotic alone group (p < 0.05). CONCLUSION Probiotics have a future in the treatment of aggressive periodontitis, as antibiotics are prescribed most of the time. These antibiotics can lead to the emergence of drug resistant micro-organisms and they can also disturb the beneficial microflora of the body. Thus, as an alternative to antibiotics, probiotics can be used, as they repopulate the beneficial microflora and reduce the pathogenic bacteria.
A novel absorb/transmit FSS for secure indoor wireless networks with reduced multipath fading

A novel absorb/transmit frequency selective surface (FSS) is presented for 5-GHz wireless local area network (WLAN) applications. The novelty of the design is that it is capable of absorbing, as opposed to reflecting, WLAN signals while passing mobile signals. The FSS consists of two layers, one with conventional conducting cross dipoles and the other with resistive cross dipoles. The absorption of the WLAN signal is important to reduce additional multipaths and resultant fading otherwise caused by the FSS. The structure has good transmission characteristics for 900/1800/1900-MHz mobile bands and performs well for both horizontal and vertical polarizations. The distance between the two layers is less than a quarter free-space wavelengths. Theoretical and experimental results are presented.
"Telling It Like It Is...": Understanding the Truth and Reconciliation Commission from the Perspective of Survivors

Brandon Hamber is an independent consultant. Dineo Nageng is a former researcher at the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation. Gabriel O'Malley is a former intern at the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation. Executive Summary Abstract: The article focuses on survivors' perspectives of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). It probes their feelings, thoughts and views both before and after interacting with the Commission. Their feelings and opinions about issues such as justice, punishment and amnesty are explored. This information, which forms the backbone of this article, was obtained from interviews with twenty survivors of political violence committed under the apartheid government. The article shows that healing, truth, justice and reconciliation are interrelated. For survivors the relationships between the concepts is not linear, that is truth does not automatically lead to reconciliation. The article demonstrates that those who interacted with the TRC held a range of largely legitimate expectations; most expected, at the very least, that they would get some truth about their case. Many are currently feeling let down by the TRC process, despite its successes at publicising the atrocities of the past and fostering national reconciliation.
Glycemic control with diet, sulfonylurea, metformin, or insulin in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus: progressive requirement for multiple therapies (UKPDS 49). UK Prospective Diabetes Study (UKPDS) Group.

CONTEXT Treatment with diet alone, insulin, sulfonylurea, or metformin is known to improve glycemia in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus, but which treatment most frequently attains target fasting plasma glucose (FPG) concentration of less than 7.8 mmol/L (140 mg/dL) or glycosylated hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) below 7% is unknown. OBJECTIVE To assess how often each therapy can achieve the glycemic control target levels set by the American Diabetes Association. DESIGN Randomized controlled trial conducted between 1977 and 1997. Patients were recruited between 1977 and 1991 and were followed up every 3 months for 3, 6, and 9 years after enrollment. SETTING Outpatient diabetes clinics in 15 UK hospitals. PATIENTS A total of 4075 patients newly diagnosed as having type 2 diabetes ranged in age between 25 and 65 years and had a median (interquartile range) FPG concentration of 11.5 (9.0-14.4) mmol/L [207 (162-259) mg/dL], HbA1c levels of 9.1% (7.5%-10.7%), and a mean (SD) body mass index of 29 (6) kg/m2. INTERVENTIONS After 3 months on a low-fat, high-carbohydrate, high-fiber diet, patients were randomized to therapy with diet alone, insulin, sulfonylurea, or metformin. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Fasting plasma glucose and HbA1c levels, and the proportion of patients who achieved target levels below 7% HbA1c or less than 7.8 mmol/L (140 mg/dL) FPG at 3, 6, or 9 years following diagnosis. RESULTS The proportion of patients who maintained target glycemic levels declined markedly over 9 years of follow-up. After 9 years of monotherapy with diet, insulin, or sulfonylurea, 8%, 42%, and 24%, respectively, achieved FPG levels of less than 7.8 mmol/L (140 mg/dL) and 9%, 28%, and 24% achieved HbA1c levels below 7%. In obese patients randomized to metformin, 18% attained FPG levels of less than 7.8 mmol/L (140 mg/dL) and 13% attained HbA1c levels below 7%. Patients less likely to achieve target levels were younger, more obese, or more hyperglycemic than other patients. CONCLUSIONS Each therapeutic agent, as monotherapy, increased 2- to 3-fold the proportion of patients who attained HbA1c below 7% compared with diet alone. However, the progressive deterioration of diabetes control was such that after 3 years approximately 50% of patients could attain this goal with monotherapy, and by 9 years this declined to approximately 25%. The majority of patients need multiple therapies to attain these glycemic target levels in the longer term.
Exchange Rates and Capital Flows: A Sensitivity Analysis

This paper discusses the effects of different exchange rate regimes with different assumptions about the speed of adjustment of capital flows and expectations about changes in the exchange rate. It does this using simulation and eigenvalue analysis of a structural model of a small open economy. Responses of key macro-economic variables are examined under a range of domestic and external shocks. It is found that in the model used a flexible exchange rate produces instability if capital flows adjust sluggishly to changes in income, interest rates, and expectations about the exchange rate. For this reason a managed float may be desirable if capital flows are slow to adjust. If capital flows adjust rapidly, however, a much more flexible exchange rate is possible and contributes to the control of money and inflation in the model without additional detrimental effects on unemployment or output. Taux de change etflux de capitaux: une analyse post-optimale. Ce memoire examine les effets de divers regimes de taux de change sur certaines variables macro-economiques quand on part de certains postulats quant a la vitesse d'ajustement des flux de capitaux et des anticipations des changements dans le taux de change. On utilise des analyses de simulation et de vecteurs propres d'un modele structurel d'une petite economie ouverte. L'effet d'impact sur certaines variables macro-economiques est calibre pour tout un eventail de chocs domestiques et extemes. II appert a partir du modele utilise qu'un rEgime de taux de change flexible engendre l'instabilit6 si les flux de capitaux s'ajustent lentement aux changements dans le niveau du revenu, des taux d'int6ret et dans les anticipations quant au niveau du taux de change. Pour cette raison, un taux de change gere peut s'averer desirable si les flux de capitaux sont lents a s'ajuster. Si les flux de capitaux s'ajustent rapidement, cependant, un taux de change plus flexible est possible et contribue a un meilleur controle de la monnaie et de l'inflation dans le modele sans pour autant donner lieu a des effets indesirables sur le niveau du chomage ou du produit national.
Constitutional Specificity, Unwritten Understandings and Constitutional Agreement

This short book chapter explores the determinants of constitutional specificity. Treating constitutional texts as coordination devices, it predicts that demand for specificity will increase as a function of audience heterogeneity, political uncertainty, and other factors. It shows that constitutions are getting longer and more detailed over time, and that constitutions in common law countries are longer than those in civil law countries, though not necessarily any clearer.
Acute Lung Injury And Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome: A Review Article

Acute lung injury is a syndrome with a diagnostic criteria base on hypoxaemia and a classical radiological appearance, with acute respiratory distress syndrome at the severe end of the disease spectrum. Its incidence is common, it is likely to exist outside the intensive care setting and therefore is a condition relevant to all clinicians. Genetically predisposed individuals are subject to environmental triggers which can be intra or extrapulmonary in nature. An inflammatory response causes damage to alveolar epithelial cells and vasculature, impairing gas exchange and can lead to multiple organ failure. Management centres around supportive care and treating the cause, but evidence supports use of low tidal volume ventilatory settings and conservative intravenous fluid strategies. Long term outcomes are related to neuromuscular, cognitive and psychological issues rather than pulmonary, and rehabilitation during recovery needs to focus on this. Acute Lung Injury (ALI) is a continuum of clinical and radiographic changes affecting the lungs, characterised by acute onset severe hypoxaemia, not related to left atrial hypertension, occurring at any age. At the severe end of this spectrum lies Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) and therefore unless specifically mentioned this review will address ARDS within the syndrome of ALI. It was first described by Ashbaugh in the Lancet in 1967. This landmark paper described a group of 12 patients with “Respiratory Distress Syndrome” who had refractory hypoxaemia, decreased lung compliance, diffuse infiltrates on chest radiography and required positive end expiratory pressure (PEEP) for ventilation. 1
Teleos™: Development of a Software Toolkit for Authoring Virtual Medical Environments

Virtual reality simulations in medicine present a variety of technical challenges that differ from those associated with flight, space, and battlefield simulations. One imposing barrier to the widespread adoption of medical simulators is the lack of software tools that could enable medical content developers to author simulations in their respective disciplines. Our experience in developing custom standalone virtual reality applications in medicine has provided the basis for the development of Teleos™, a software toolkit for authoring interactive simulations in medicine.
Fundamental and Technical Analysis: Substitutes or Complements?

Although the fundamental and technical analysis literatures invest considerable effort in assessing their respective ability to explain share prices, they invariably do so without reference to each other. In this context, we propose an equity valuation model integrating both fundamental and technical analysis and, in doing so, recognize their potential as complements rather than as substitutes. Testing confirms the complementary nature of fundamental and technical analysis by showing that, although each performs well in isolation, models integrating both have superior explanatory power. While our findings relate to the valuation of shares, they also have implications for other valuation exercises.
The Asian Economic Crisis and the Future of Asian Capitalism

The economic and political fallout from the Asian economic crisis of 1997 is unabated. Economic uncertainty, social hardship, political instability, and popular unrest are evident in nearly every country in the region. Four years after the financial collapse that began in Thailand, the search for explanations continues. In Thailand, what the Asian Wall Street Journal called “the blame game” (8 May 2001) includes foreign investors, speculators, the World Bank/IMF (International Monetary Fund), local politicians, and bankers; efforts to extradite Thai financiers who fled abroad continue today. Why has understanding the crisis proven to be so difficult? Interpretations of capitalist crises have always been the Achilles heel of the Left. The historic divide between revolutionaries and reformists in the late nineteenth century turned on the fundamental question of whether capitalism was capable of internal reform or whether it was so deeply contradictory that it required radical transformation. Interpretations of the Asian crisis are thus politically charged. The questions the crisis raises are broad: (1) Is the crisis a symptom of the failure of capitalist development in general or only of its Asian variant (the “miracle economies,” as the World Bank called them a year or so before the
Associative memories via artificial neural networks

Several design techniques that can be used for continuous-time and discrete-time neural networks to realize associative memories are presented. Associative memory is discussed, and neural network models are presented. Some stability concepts are outlined. The applicability of these techniques is demonstrated by means of specific examples that illustrate strengths and weaknesses. <<ETX>>
Poly(ADP-ribosyl)ation as a DNA Damage-induced Post-translational Modification Regulating Poly(ADP-ribose) Polymerase-1-Topoisomerase I Interaction*

Poly(ADP-ribosyl)ation is a post-translational modification that occurs immediately after exposure of cells to DNA damaging agents. In vivo, 90% of ADP-ribose polymers are attached to the automodification domain of poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase-1 (PARP-1), the main enzyme catalyzing this modification reaction. This enzyme forms complexes with transcription initiation, DNA replication, and DNA repair factors. In most known cases, the interactions occur through the automodification domain. However, functional implications of the automodification reaction on these interactions have not yet been elucidated. In the present study, we created fluorescent protein-tagged PARP-1 to study this enzyme in live cells and focused on the interaction between PARP-1 and topoisomerase I (Topo I), one of the enzymes that interacts with PARP-1 in vitro. Here, we demonstrate that PARP-1 co-localizes with Topo I throughout the cell cycle. Results from bioluminescence resonance energy transfer assays suggest that the co-localization is because of a direct protein-protein interaction. In response to DNA damage, PARP-1 de-localization and a reduction in bioluminescence resonance energy transfer signal because of the automodification reaction are observed, suggesting that the automodification reaction results in the disruption of the interaction between PARP-1 and Topo I. Because Topo I activity has been reported to be promoted by PARP-1, we then investigated the effect of the disruption of this interaction on Topo I activity, and we found that this disruption results in the reduction of Topo I activity. These results suggest that a function for the automodification reaction is to regulate the interaction between PARP-1 and Topo I, and consequently, the Topo I activity, in response to DNA damage.
Evaluation of delay variation in asynchronous circuits based on the scalable-delay-insensitive model

Delay model has a great impact on asynchronous circuits. The scalable-delay-insensitive (SDI) model is based on the variation factor K that represents the degree of variation in an approximately scalable delay distribution. If the scaling variation is expected to be large, larger K value is used in the SDI model based synthesis and layout. K value is decided by the technology and the operating environment. We show some evaluation results for the scaling ratio of circuit components and scaling variation between any two components in the circuit using SPICE simulation. Then we present how to decide K value and show some evaluation results of the variation factor K for different technologies. Finally, as a case study we show how to design a delay line for the SDI model based bundled-data circuits.
A Trend Study: Technology Adoption in the Teaching-Learning Process by Secondary Agriscience Teachers--2002 and 2007

This study was designed to determine agriscience teachers’ adoption of technology for use in instruction and to determine if their technology adoption and perceived barriers to technology adoption had changed since the 2002 benchmark study. This study was part of a larger study of technology adoption by secondary career and technical education teachers. Data were collected with a mailed questionnaire with telephone follow-up to a random sample of secondary agriscience teachers in Louisiana. Teachers have increased their technology adoption for use in instruction over the past 5 years, although they still do not have access to the technology they need to use technology fully in their instruction. They continue to perceive that moderate barriers exist that prevent them from integrating technology into their teaching, with no change over the past 5 years. Agriscience teachers were experiencing some technology. Teachers continue to use traditional sources for their technology training. The availability of technology and gender are strong predictors of the extent to which agriscience teachers had adopted technology in their teaching.
Commentaries and Rejoinder to “Marketing and Firm Value: Metrics, Methods, Findings, and Future Directions”: Linking Marketing Actions to Value Creation and Firm Value: Insights from Accounting Research

Srinivasan and Hanssens (2009) offer an ambitious research agenda for establishing the links among marketing actions, value creation, and observed market values. They describe the research technologies available for exploring these links and summarize the current understanding of these links based primarily on evidence from the marketing literature. We complement Srinivasan and Hanssens's work by highlighting the insights, opportunities, and challenges that accounting researchers have encountered in addressing highly related questions. This commentary proceeds as follows: We summarize accounting researchers' broad interest in intangible invest ments and its potential applicability to the research agenda that Srinivasan and Hanssens propose. Next, we discuss accounting research that links marketing actions to interme diate measures of value creation. We follow this with a dis cussion of the theoretical foundations for and what can be learned from value-relevance research designs. Then, we discuss short-window studies. Finally, we suggest potential tests of the appropriateness and completeness of the mar ket's reaction to marketing actions and present evidence from the accounting literature that is relevant to the ques tion whether managers can influence investors' understand ing of marketing actions.