Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Fibroblast growth factor 23 and risks of mortality and end-stage renal disease in patients with chronic kidney disease.

CONTEXT A high level of the phosphate-regulating hormone fibroblast growth factor 23 (FGF-23) is associated with mortality in patients with end-stage renal disease, but little is known about its relationship with adverse outcomes in the much larger population of patients with earlier stages of chronic kidney disease. OBJECTIVE To evaluate FGF-23 as a risk factor for adverse outcomes in patients with chronic kidney disease. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS A prospective study of 3879 participants with chronic kidney disease stages 2 through 4 who enrolled in the Chronic Renal Insufficiency Cohort between June 2003 and September 2008. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES All-cause mortality and end-stage renal disease. RESULTS At study enrollment, the mean (SD) estimated glomerular filtration rate (GFR) was 42.8 (13.5) mL/min/1.73 m(2), and the median FGF-23 level was 145.5 RU/mL (interquartile range [IQR], 96-239 reference unit [RU]/mL). During a median follow-up of 3.5 years (IQR, 2.5-4.4 years), 266 participants died (20.3/1000 person-years) and 410 reached end-stage renal disease (33.0/1000 person-years). In adjusted analyses, higher levels of FGF-23 were independently associated with a greater risk of death (hazard ratio [HR], per SD of natural log-transformed FGF-23, 1.5; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.3-1.7). Mortality risk increased by quartile of FGF-23: the HR was 1.3 (95% CI, 0.8-2.2) for the second quartile, 2.0 (95% CI, 1.2-3.3) for the third quartile, and 3.0 (95% CI, 1.8-5.1) for the fourth quartile. Elevated fibroblast growth factor 23 was independently associated with significantly higher risk of end-stage renal disease among participants with an estimated GFR between 30 and 44 mL/min/1.73 m(2) (HR, 1.3 per SD of FGF-23 natural log-transformed FGF-23; 95% CI, 1.04-1.6) and 45 mL/min/1.73 m(2) or higher (HR, 1.7; 95% CI, 1.1-2.4), but not less than 30 mL/min/1.73 m(2). CONCLUSION Elevated FGF-23 is an independent risk factor for end-stage renal disease in patients with relatively preserved kidney function and for mortality across the spectrum of chronic kidney disease.
Expressing access control policies with an event-based approach

In this paper, we introduce EB3SEC. This language is used to express access control policies in information systems. Permissions and prohibitions are exp ressed with a class diagram. EB3SEC also includes a process algebra. This process algebra allow s one to express specific constraints over permissions and prohibitions. Organizational constr ain s such as obligation and separation of duty are also supported by process algebra. Separation of duty constraints can be expressed at a workflow process level. Standards such as RBAC or OrBAC can b e used to express the access control policy, but their derivatives can also be used. EB3SEC provide a formal language with a high level of expressiveness to describe access control po licies.
Protein and DNA elements involved in transactivation of the promoter of the bovine herpesvirus (BHV) 1 IE-1 transcription unit by the BHV alpha gene trans-inducing factor

In herpes simplex virus (HSV)-infected cells, the transcription of immediate-early (alpha) genes is regulated by a virion component, the alpha gene trans-inducing factor (alpha TIF). This protein forms a complex with cellular factors and TAATGARAT motifs present in one or more copies in the promoters of all alpha genes. We have characterized the bovine herpesvirus 1 (BHV-1) homolog of this protein. Like its HSV counterpart, the BHV alpha TIF was synthesized in the later stages of infection and could be demonstrated to be a component of purified virions. In transient expression assays, BHV alpha TIF was a strong transactivator and stimulated the activity of IE-1, the major BHV-1 alpha gene promoter, with an efficiency comparable to that of HSV alpha TIF. This stimulation was largely dependent on a TAATGAGCT sequence present in a single copy in IE-1, and BHV alpha TIF, in conjunction with cellular factors, formed a complex with oligonucleotides containing this sequence. Despite these similarities between the two alpha TIFs, our preliminary observations suggest that the proteins may activate transcription by different mechanisms. Although BHV alpha TIF strongly transactivated IE-1, it differed from its HSV counterpart in that the carboxyl terminus of BHV alpha TIF, when fused to the DNA-binding domain of GAL4, was a relatively poor stimulator of a promoter containing GAL4-binding sites. Also unlike HSV alpha TIF, removal of the carboxyl terminus of BHV alpha TIF reduced but did not eliminate the ability of the protein to transactivate IE-1. These results are discussed in view of the structural similarities and differences among the alpha TIFs of alphaherpes-viruses.
The MIMO Relay Channel in the Presence of Keyhole Effects

A MIMO keyhole is a propagation environment such that the channel gain matrix has unit rank (single degree of freedom), irrespective of the number of deployed antennas or their correlations (spacing), thereby reducing the MIMO channel capacity to that of a SISO channel. Related literature seems to consider such degeneration hopeless. Contrary to this general belief, this paper demonstrates that cooperative diversity can mitigate keyhole effects. Precisely, provided that the source-relay channel is keyhole-free, we show that there exists a ``cutoff'' relay transmit power above which keyhole effects can be mitigated even when both the source-destination and the relay-destination channels incur keyhole effect. Furthermore, assuming Rayleigh fading, the devised closed form of this power threshold is found to be independent of the channel gain matrices, thereby applying to situations where channel state information (CSI) is unreliable or unavailable at the transmitters. Numerical examples confirm the relevance of our claims.
Approximating minimum quartet inconsistency: (abstract)

A fundamental problem in computational biology which has been widely studied in the last decades is the reconstruction of evolutionary trees from biological data. Unfortunately, almost all its known formulations are NPhard. The compelling need for having efficient computational tools to solve this biological problem has brought a lot of attention to the analysis of the quartet paradigm for inferring evolutionary trees [1, 2, 8]. Given a quartet of taxa {a, b~ c, d}, there are 3 possible degree-3 trees connecting the taxa as terminals. Each such tree is called a quartet topology. The quartet methods proceed by first estimating the topology of each quartet of taxa and then recombining the inferred quartet topologies into an evolutionary tree. A major difficulty in this approach derives from the fact that quartet topology inference methods often make mistakes, and thus may result in a set Q of quartet topologies that is inconsistent with any evolutionary tree. Therefore, the problem of recombining the quartet topologies of Q to form an estimate of the correct evolutionary tree is naturally formulated as an optimization problem that looks for a tree T maximizing the number of consistent quartets (i.£. IQ rl QTt), o r equivalently minimizing the number of inconsistent quartets (i.e. [Q QTI), where QT denotes the unique set of quartet topologies induced by T. The above (complementary) problems are referred to as Maximum Quartet Consistency (MQC) and Minimum Quartet Inconsistency (MQI) problems. In a recent paper [4], it has been shown that MQC is NP-hard, but it admits a PTAS, using the technique of smooth integer polynomial programming and exploiting the natural denseness of the set Q (i.e. tQI -i ) 8(n4), where n is the number of taxa). However, the PTAS only guarantees an evolutionary tree that may deviate from Q by en 4 quartet topologies, for any small constant e ) 0. Some methods, such as maximum likelihood, gives good results in practice (i.e. the quartet errors are << O(n4)). In this case, the trees computed by the PTAS are not very useful since they may actually contain many more
Health coaching: a concept analysis.

PURPOSE Variations in the use of health coaching documented in the literature indicate a lack of conceptual clarity. The purpose of this article was to clarify the meaning of health coaching and propose an operational definition. CONCLUSIONS Seven attributes were identified and used to propose an operational definition of health coaching as a goal-oriented, client-centered partnership that is health-focused and occurs through a process of client enlightenment and empowerment. PRACTICE IMPLICATION This operational definition and the proposed empirical measures of each attribute can be used to validate the presence of health coaching, develop theory-based applications, and consistently test the effectiveness of interventions using this concept.
Penguins, Hype, and MMOGs for Kids: A Critical Reexamination of the 2008 “Boom” in Children’s Virtual Worlds Development

According to various media and academic sources, the virtual worlds landscape underwent a profound transformation in 2008, with the arrival of numerous new titles designed and targeted specifically to young children. Although a growing body of research has explored some of the titles involved in this shift, little remains known of its overall scope and contents. This article provides a mapping of the initial “boom” in children’s virtual worlds development and identifies a number of significant patterns within the ensuing children’s virtual worlds landscape. The argument is made that while the reported boom in children’s virtual worlds has been exaggerated, a number of important shifts for online gaming culture did unfold during this period, some of which challenge accepted definitions of “virtual world” and “multiplayer online game. ” The implications of these findings are discussed in light of contemporary developments and trends within children’s digital culture and within online gaming more broadly.
Automatic Floorplan Design

The problem of allocating area to modules at the highest level of a top-down decomposition is treated in this paper. A theorem of Schoenberg is applied to obtain a good embedding of the module space into the plane. The dutch metric is introduced to transform netlist information - if available - into a distance matrix. This metric is flexible enough to enable the user to steer the design in an interactive environment, and rigorous enough to yield results satisfying optimality criterions. The embedding is used to derive the topology of the floorplan in the form of the structure tree of a slicing structure. To store the partial structure tree during the construction a concise and convenient data structure, the shorthand tree, is introduced. For any aspect ratio of the chip a minimum area floorplan can be generated. The paper also shows how wiring space predictions can be incorporated, how varying degrees of module flexibility can be accounted for, and how fixing bonding pad macros affects the procedure.
Biologic skin substitutes.

BACKGROUND The ideal skin substitute should closely approximate the skin in function. The substitute should be readily available, easily sterilized and stored, and relatively inexpensive. OBJECTIVE To describe recent developments in the area of biologic skin substitutes. RESULTS Considerable advances have been made in keratinocyte and fibroblast culturing when used in conjunction with a biodegradable material as a substrate. CONCLUSION There is no skin substitute that perfectly mimics autologous skin. However, recent developments show promise.
Cruelty, Dignity, and Determinism

Resolution of controversy about "free will" and consequent "moral responsibility" requires that questions about these subjects be phrased as propositions amenable to verification. Translation of such questions into verifiable form permits testing for the consistency of assumption used in the explanation and control of behavior and for the alleged effects of belief in these assumptions. One such test is reported of such consequences. Indeterminists have argued that the accordance of "dignity" to man requires this assumption. Where "human dignity" is defined in a fashion that does not beg the question of free will--that is, nontautologically as "resistance to revenge and the infliction of pain"it is found that dignity is more likely to be accorded humans by determinists than by indeterminists. Therefore, other studies of the alleged consequences of the ascription of "free will" and "moral responsibility" may show these ideas to be irrelevant, if not inimical, to the achievement of commonly professed social goals.
Stressful events and social conduct during adolescence

This study aimed to verify the existence of the relationship between the occurrence of stressful life events and the social behavior of adolescents. Using the Social Behavior Scale and the Adolescent Stressful Life Events Inventory, this study sought to identify, in a sample of 144 adolescents, the predominant behavior (antisocial, prosocial, oppositional-defiant), the most frequent types of stressful events and their perceived intensity. The relation between stressful events and social conduct was verified by means of the t-Test and the Pearson Correlation Test, and the analyses showed that some experiences have a significant relation with the adolescents’ social conduct. The results showed an average significantly higher for the antisocial behavior among boys. Among the investigated events, “psychological abuse” was the most frequent and “sexual abuse” was the one causing the biggest impact. The occurrence of “psychological abuse” may be a risk factor for the development of “antisocial behavior”.
The effect of alpha-2 adrenergic agonists on memory and cognitive flexibility.

BACKGROUND The noradrenergic system modulates cognitive flexibility for insight-based problem solving in studies using beta-adrenergic antagonists, which block noradrenergic neurotransmission postsynaptically. However, it is not known whether alpha2-adrenergic agonists, that decrease noradrenergic neurotransmission by presynaptic inhibition, have the same effect. OBJECTIVES Therefore, we wished to test whether alpha2-adrenergic agonists would have a similar effect on cognitive flexibility. METHODS Eighteen normal adults were tested on cognitive flexibility, problem solving, verbal and spatial memory tasks after receiving clonidine (0.1 mg), an alpha2-agonist, placebo, or ephedrine (25 mg), a noradrenergic stimulant. RESULTS Three-way analysis of variance revealed no significant drug effect on cognitive flexibility or problem solving. There was also no significant effect of clonidine on memory. CONCLUSIONS Therefore, alpha2-agonists do not influence cognitive flexibility in the same manner as beta-antagonists. Better performance on memory with clonidine might be expected based on primate studies demonstrating benefits in working memory using clonidine. This benefit was not observed for the commonly used clinical memory tasks in our study. This may have implications for why clonidine has not demonstrated efficacy for cognitive disorders such as Alzheimer disease, despite its known benefit for working memory in animal models.
Mutagenicity and Genotoxicity of (5′S)-8,5′-Cyclo-2′-deoxyadenosine in Escherichia coli and Replication of (5′S)-8,5′-Cyclopurine-2′-deoxynucleosides in Vitro by DNA Polymerase IV, Exo-Free Klenow Fragment, and Dpo4

Reactive oxygen species generate many lesions in DNA, including R and S diastereomers of 8,5′-cyclo-2′-deoxyadenosine (cdA) and 8,5′-cyclo-2′-deoxyguanosine (cdG). Herein, the result of replication of a plasmid containing S-cdA in Escherichia coli is reported. S-cdA was found mutagenic and highly genotoxic. Viability and mutagenicity of the S-cdA construct were dependent on functional pol V, but mutational frequencies (MFs) and types varied in pol II- and pol IV-deficient strains relative to the wild-type strain. Both S-cdA → T and S-cdA → G substitutions occurred in equal frequency in wild-type E. coli, but the frequency of S-cdA → G dropped in pol IV-deficient strain, especially when being SOS induced. This suggests that pol IV plays a role in S-cdA → G mutations. MF increased significantly in pol II-deficient strain, suggesting pol II’s likely role in error-free translesion synthesis. Primer extension and steady-state kinetic studies using pol IV, exo-free Klenow fragment (KF (exo–)), and Dpo4 were performed to further assess the replication efficiency and fidelity of S-cdA and S-cdG. Primer extension by pol IV mostly stopped before the lesion, although a small fraction was extended opposite the lesion. Kinetic studies showed that pol IV incorporated dCMP almost as efficiently as dTMP opposite S-cdA, whereas it incorporated the correct nucleotide dCMP opposite S-cdG 10-fold more efficiently than any other dNMP. Further extension of each lesion containing pair, however, was very inefficient. These results are consistent with the role of pol IV in S-cdA → G mutations in E. coli. KF (exo–) was also strongly blocked by both lesions, but it could slowly incorporate the correct nucleotide opposite them. In contrast, Dpo4 could extend a small fraction of the primer to a full-length product on both S-cdG and S-cdA templates. Dpo4 incorporated dTMP preferentially opposite S-cdA over the other dNMPs, but the discrimination was only 2- to 8-fold more proficient. Further extension of the S-cdA:T and S-cdA:C pair was not much different. For S-cdG, conversely, the wrong nucleotide, dTMP, was incorporated more efficiently than dCMP, although one-base extension of the S-cdG:T pair was less efficient than the S-cdG:C pair. S-cdG, therefore, has the propensity to cause G → A transition, as was reported to occur in E. coli. The results of this study are consistent with the strong replication blocking nature of S-cdA and S-cdG, and their ability to initiate error-prone synthesis by Y-family DNA polymerases.
Bible Believers: Fundamentalists in the Modern World.

Bible believer (also Bible-believer, Bible-believing Christian, Bible-believing Church ) is a self-description by conservative Christians to differentiate their teachings from others who see non- or extrabiblical tradition as higher or equal in authority. In normal usage, "Bible believer" means an individual or organisation that believes the Christian Bible is true in some significant way. However, this combination of words is given a unique meaning in fundamentalist Protestant circles, where it is equated with the belief that the Christian Bible "contains no theological contradictions, historical discrepancies, or other such 'errors'", otherwise known as biblical inerrancy.
Optimization of EMG movement recognition for use in an upper limb wearable robot

To functionally aid patients suffering from neurological disorder, a 3 degrees-of-freedom (DoF) upper limb wearable robot is presented (Fig. 1). In order to provide seamless user assistance, the intention of the wearer must be determined. As a sensing mechanism, electromyographic (EMG) signals have commonly been used to estimate human movement. In this study, the effectiveness of movement recognition using a generalized 8-port EMG sensor (Myo Armband) around the forearm was evaluated. Four fundamental movements of the arm (wrist flexion/extension and forearm pronation/supination) were classified using a neural network (NN) with a single hidden layer. The classification method was optimized through analysis of pre-processing algorithms and window size (0.25 to 1 second) to reduce computational expense and maintain classification accuracy. Through these accomplishments, significant groundwork has been provided for the development of a robust and non-invasive solution to tremor of the upper limb.
Recurrent Deep-Stacking Networks for sequence classification

Deep Stacking Networks (DSNs) are constructed by stacking shallow feed-forward neural networks on top of each other using concatenated features derived from the lower modules of the DSN and the raw input data. DSNs do not have recurrent connections, making them less effective to model and classify input data with temporal dependencies. In this paper, we embed recurrent connections into the DSN, giving rise to Recurrent Deep Stacking Networks (R-DSNs). Each module of the R-DSN consists of a special form of recurrent neural networks. Generalizing from the earlier DSN, the use of linearity in the output units of the R-DSN enables us to derive a closed form for computing the gradient of the cost function with respect to all network matrices without backpropagating errors. Each module in the R-DSN is initialized with an echo state network, where the input and recurrent weights are fixed to have the echo state property. Then all connection weights within the module are fine tuned using batch-mode gradient descent where the gradient takes an analytical form. Experiments are performed on the TIMIT dataset for frame-level phone state classification with 183 classes. The results show that the R-DSN gives higher classification accuracy over a single recurrent neural network without stacking.
Treatment of tennis elbow: the evidence

Tennis elbow is an overuse syndrome most prevalent in the fourth decade. Predominant symptoms of lateral elbow pain on gripping or resisted wrist dorsiflexion result in many consultations in primary care and days lost from work. Most patients will recover within a year.1 This should be remembered when considering the results of this Clinical Evidence extract, which is based on a Cochrane review of the subject. The review identified randomised controlled trials (RCTs) of numerous treatment modalities for lateral elbow pain. The risks of blindly accepting “evidence based medicine” are known,2 and there are some limitations within …
HIV-1 Subtype Is an Independent Predictor of Reverse Transcriptase Mutation K65R in HIV-1 Patients Treated with Combination Antiretroviral Therapy Including Tenofovir

ABSTRACT Subtype-dependent selection of HIV-1 reverse transcriptase resistance mutation K65R was previously observed in cell culture and small clinical investigations. We compared K65R prevalence across subtypes A, B, C, F, G, and CRF02_AG separately in a cohort of 3,076 patients on combination therapy including tenofovir. K65R selection was significantly higher in HIV-1 subtype C. This could not be explained by clinical and demographic factors in multivariate analysis, suggesting subtype sequence-specific K65R pathways.
FAK/src-Family Dependent Activation of the Ste20-Like Kinase SLK Is Required for Microtubule-Dependent Focal Adhesion Turnover and Cell Migration

Cell migration involves a multitude of signals that converge on cytoskeletal reorganization, essential for development, immune responses and tissue repair. Using knockdown and dominant negative approaches, we show that the microtubule-associated Ste20-like kinase SLK is required for focal adhesion turnover and cell migration downstream of the FAK/c-src complex. Our results show that SLK co-localizes with paxillin, Rac1 and the microtubules at the leading edge of migrating cells and is activated by scratch wounding. SLK activation is dependent on FAK/c-src/MAPK signaling, whereas SLK recruitment to the leading edge is src-dependent but FAK independent. Our results show that SLK represents a novel focal adhesion disassembly signal.
Deconstructing the moral mind: when data speak

El estudio de los fundamentos psicologicos de los juicios morales parece haber abandonado definitivamente el terreno meramente teorico para constituirse, finalmente, en una problematica abordable a traves de enfoques empiricos. En efecto, a pesar de que el estudio de los temas morales ha sido materia recurrente de las humanidades y de las ciencias sociales, solo la posterior integracion de diferentes disciplinas cientificas en la ciencia de la “psicologia moral” parece haber sido determinante para el desarrollo de este campo de estudio. © Revista Colombiana de Ciencias Sociales.