Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Prevalence of leg ulceration in a London population.

BACKGROUND Current prevalence estimates of chronic leg ulceration are frequently based on studies from the 1980s. During the last decade, major changes have occurred in the application of evidence-based practice to this condition. AIM To determine the prevalence and cause of leg ulceration in a defined geographical population after 8 years of providing standardized evidence based protocols of care. DESIGN Prospective survey. METHODS Patients with leg ulceration of >4 weeks duration) within an integrated acute and community leg ulcer service were ascertained, interviewed and clinically assessed, using a standardized questionnaire on medical history, ulcer details and non-invasive vascular investigation to describe causes. Ulcers were classified by aetiology. RESULTS We identified 113 patients in a population of 252 000, giving a crude prevalence of 0.45/1000 (95%CI 0.37-0.54/1000): 0.34/1000 in men, 0.54/1000 in women. Rates were highly dependent on age, increasing to 8.29 (men) and 8.06/1000 (women) in those aged >85 years. Of the responders, 62/113 (55%) had their ulcer for >1 year. Uncomplicated venous ulceration was observed in only 59/138 (43%) ulcerated limbs; a further 21 had ulceration primarily due to arterial disease. Complex causes were present in 48 (35%) limbs, mostly venous disease in combination with diabetes (35%), lymphoedema (42%) and rheumatoid arthritis (26%). DISCUSSION Our prevalence of chronic leg ulceration is approximately one-third of that predicted by previous studies using similar methodologies in the 1980s. Patients with ulceration have more complex aetiologies than previously recognized, which may be a consequence of both increasing ulcer chronicity and age.
Liver iron, HFE gene mutations, and hepatocellular carcinoma occurrence in patients with cirrhosis.

BACKGROUND & AIMS The influence of HFE gene mutations and liver iron overload on hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) occurrence in patients with cirrhosis is subjected to controversial results. The aim of this work was to clarify this influence in a large cohort of prospectively followed-up cirrhotic patients classified according to the cause of their liver disease. METHODS Three hundred one consecutive cirrhotic patients (162 alcoholics and 139 HCV-infected patients) were included at time of diagnosis of cirrhosis and followed-up. Liver iron overload on initial biopsy according to modified Deugnier's score and C282Y/H63D HFE gene mutations were assessed. RESULTS In patients with alcoholic cirrhosis (mean iron score, 2.0 +/- 3.0; mean time of follow-up, 66.1 +/- 45.1 months), 40 (24.6%) developed HCC. Thirteen (8.02%) were heterozygotes for C282Y HFE gene mutation and had higher hepatic iron scores (3.6 +/- 3.8 vs 1.9 +/- 2.8, respectively, P = .05). In univariate analysis, liver iron overload as a continuous variable (HR, 1.23 [1.13-1.34], P < .001) or in binary coding with an optimal threshold of iron score >/=2.0 (HR, 4.1 [2.1-7.3], P < .0001) and C282Y mutation carriage (HR, 2.7 [1.2-6.3], P = .01) were risk factors for HCC. In multivariate analysis, liver iron and C282Y mutation carriage remained independent risk factors for HCC. In patients with HCV-related cirrhosis (C282Y mutation carriage, 17 [12.23%]; mean liver iron score, 0.9 +/- 1.9; mean time of follow-up, 85.5 +/- 42.1 months; HCC, 63 [45.32%] patients), C282Y mutation carriage and liver iron were not associated with HCC occurrence. CONCLUSIONS Liver iron overload and C282Y mutation are associated with a higher risk of HCC in patients with alcoholic but not HCV-related cirrhosis.
Impact of the environmental conditions and substrate pre-treatment on whey protein hydrolysis: A review

ABSTRACT Proteins in solution are subject to myriad forces stemming from interactions with each other as well as with the solvent media. The role of the environmental conditions, namely pH, temperature, ionic strength remains under-estimated yet it impacts protein conformations and consequently its interaction with, and susceptibility to, the enzyme. Enzymes, being proteins are also amenable to the environmental conditions because they are either activated or denatured depending on the choice of the conditions. Furthermore, enzyme specificity is restricted to a narrow regime of optimal conditions while opportunities outside the optimum conditions remain untapped. In addition, the composition of protein substrate (whether mixed or single purified) have been underestimated in previous studies. In addition, protein pre-treatment methods like heat denaturation prior to hydrolysis is a complex phenomenon whose progression is influenced by the environmental conditions including the presence or absence of sugars like lactose, ionic strength, purity of the protein, and the molecular structure of the mixed proteins particularly presence of free thiol groups. In this review, we revisit protein hydrolysis with a focus on the impact of the hydrolysis environment and show that preference of peptide bonds and/or one protein over another during hydrolysis is driven by the environmental conditions. Likewise, heat-denaturing is a process which is dependent on not only the environment but the presence or absence of other proteins.
A 25-MS/s 14-b 200-mW /spl Sigma//spl Delta/ Modulator in 0.18-/spl mu/m CMOS

The design of a fifth-order 4-b quantizer single-loop /spl Sigma//spl Delta/ modulator is presented that achieves 25-MS/s conversion rate with 84 dB of dynamic range and 82 dB of signal-to-noise ratio. Implemented in a 0.18-/spl mu/m CMOS technology, the 0.95-mm/sup 2/ chip has a power consumption of 200 mW from a 1.8-V supply.
Stage‐specific expression patterns of alkaline phosphatase during development of the first arch skeleton in inbred C57BL/6 mouse embryos

Timing and pattern of expression of alkaline phosphatase was examined during early differentiation of the 1st arch skeleton in inbred C57BL/6 mice. Embryos were recovered between 10 and 18 d of gestation and staged using a detailed staging table of craniofacial development prior to histochemical examination. Expression of alkaline phosphatase is initiated at stage 20.2 in the plasma membrane of mesenchymal cells in the distal region of the first arch. Expression is strongest in osteoid (unmineralised bone matrix) and presumptive periosteum at stage 21.32. Mineralisation begins at stage E23. Expression is present in the mineralised bone matrix. Secondary cartilages form in the condylar and angular processes by stage M24. The cartilaginous cells and surrounding cells in the processes are all alkaline phosphatase‐positive and surrounded by the common periosteum, suggesting that progenitor cells of the processes, dentary ramus and secondary cartilages all originate from a common pool. Nonhypertrophied chondrocytes of Meckel's cartilage express alkaline phosphatase at stage M23. Expression in these chondrocytes is preceded by the expression in their adjacent perichondrium. This is true of chondrocytes in all other cranial cartilages examined. 3‐D reconstruction of expression in Meckel's cartilage also revealed that the chondrocytes of Meckel's cartilage which express alkaline phosphatase and the matrix of which undergoes mineralisation are those surrounded by the alkaline phosphatase‐positive dentary ramus. By stage 25, coincident with mineralisation in the distal section of Meckel's cartilage, most chondrocytes are strongly positive. The perichondria of malleus and incus cartilages express alkaline phosphatase at stage M24. Nonhypertrophied chondrocytes along these perichondria also express alkaline phosphatase. Superficial and deep cells in the dental laminae of incisor and 1st molar teeth become alkaline phosphatase‐positive at the bud stage, stages 21.16 and 21.32, respectively. Dental papillae are negative until stage M24 when alkaline phosphatase expression begins in the dental papillae and follicles of the incisor teeth and the dental follicles of the 1st molar teeth. The dental papillae of the 1st molar teeth express alkaline phosphatase at stage 25. Expression in the dental papillae and follicles appears to coincide with cellular differentiation of follicle from papilla. The presumptive squamosal, ectotympanic and gonial membrane bones, lingual oral epithelial cells connected to the dental laminae of the incisor teeth, hair follicle papillae and sheath and surrounding dermis all express alkaline phosphatase in a stage‐specific manner.
Employment Decentralisation: Polycentricity or Scatteration? The Case of Barcelona

At the present time, most large cities in the world are polycentric and, at the same time, they are undergoing processes of employment decentralisation and deconcentration. It has been argued that polycentricity is just an intermediate stage between monocentricity and a more unstructured, chaotic and amorphous location model, scatteration. For the case of the polycentric Barcelona, the aims of this study are to test: whether its employment is moving from polycentricity to scatteration; and, whether its employment location model is increasingly random and unstructured. The results show that, in spite of the decentralisation and deconcentration processes, employment concentrated in centres still represents a significant percentage of total employment and new sub-centres have emerged in the periphery. What is more, the results also show an increasing influence of employment sub-centres on employment location and density conditions. As a result, polycentricity has been reinforced.
EGFR gene amplification ‐ rearrangement in human glioblastomas

Immunostaining using an affinity‐purified rabbit polyclonal antibody against the extracellular domain of the epidermal‐growth‐factor receptor (EGFR) showed over‐expression occurring in a fraction of tumor cells in 17 out of 18 human glioblastomas and in a majority of cells in 7 of the 18. Southern‐blotting technique using a full‐length EGFR cDNA probe showed a variable degree of amplification in 10 of the 17 glioblastomas, which was associated with EGFR over‐expression in each case. In 2 of the glioblastomas with EGFR gene amplification, a rearrangement of the gene affecting the extracellular domain of the receptor was identified and DNA sequence analyses revealed an identical deletion‐rearrangement of 801 base pairs between exons 2 to 7, resulting in an in‐frame fusion of exons I and 8. © 1995 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Wage Differentials and Their Determinants in US Tourism and Tourism-Associated Industries

This paper examines variations in wages for tourism and tourism-associated industries in the USA for the period 2004–2009. It critically assesses the extent to which tourism and tourism-associated activities conform to their low-wage stereotype and finds this to be true in general, but not universally. It then considers the possibility that wages in US tourism and tourism-associated industries can be explained by observable characteristics of these industries. Recent research suggests that the use of wage data at the level of highly detailed occupations is an effective alternative to other ways of capturing underlying skill differences. Accordingly, data from the US Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) were used to provide this detail. The results strongly support the importance of difference in wages between occupations in understanding differences between industries. They also support the importance of a number of industry characteristics, including profitability, multi-factor productivity and demand growth. The paper also considers the relevance of an industry wage premium or discount for tourism and tourism-associated activities in the USA over the same period. It estimates an industry wage model separately for five individual occupations across all industries that employ for the occupation concerned. The analysis shows that workers in the two more highly paid occupations exhibit evidence of a tourism and tourism-associated discount but that workers in the three more lowly paid occupations exhibit a tourism and tourism-associated wage premium.
DOES THE LAW OF SUPPLY HOLD UNDER UNCERTAINTY

A widely held conjecture of economists is that the quantity supplied by pricetaking producers increases with an increase in output price (law of supply). This cornerstone of economics has been proven repeatedly with many techniques under many different sets of assumptions and is found in all textbooks on principles of economics. Most of these proofs assume full certainty of production relationships, single-product technology, and/or risk neutrality. In a world of uncertainty, one of the most crucial aspects of economic behaviour is risk aversion. With risk aversion, diversification is a basic response to economic uncertainty. Thus, models of producer behaviour under uncertainty need to consider multioutput technology where diversification is a possibility. This paper points out that the widely held 'law of supply' may fail when these generalities (risky multioutput production with risk aversion) are introduced simultaneously where diversification is also affected by a capacity constraint in production. Conditions are developed under which the law fails (holds). The peculiar result occurs because increasing price can increase profit risk more than proportionally while expected profit increases proportionally. This relative increase in risk causes a tendency to shift production capacity into an alternative activity. The first section introduces a model of production under uncertainty. The second section analyses the behaviour of supply in the special case of additive production risk without price risk. The third section shows that similar problems can be encountered with other cases as well. Empirical examples, which demonstrate relevance of the results, are also given.
Democratic governments, economic growth and income distribution

That in democracies more inequality leads to more redistribution is an implication of Allan Meltzer and Scott Richard's well-known model ( 1981). 1 That, in turn, more redistribution leads to less growth is a generally accepted proposition. That "inequality is harmful for growth" (Persson and Tabellini, 1994) is thus the predictable result of the introduction of policy-making a la Meltzer and Richard into the theory of growth. The small literature in which such introduction has been attempted includes contributions by Alberto Alesina, Giuseppe Bertola, Roberto Perotti, Thomsten Persson, Dani Rodrik, Gilles Saint- Paul, Guido Tabellini and Thierry Verdier. Short surveys are provided by Perotti (1992), Persson and Tabellini (1992b) and Verdier (1994). The proposition that inequality of income or wealth, measured at one point of time, has a negative influence on subsequent growth is derived by all these authors with the exception of Saint-Paul and Verdier (1993), and some empirical support for it is displayed in Alesina and Rodrik (1992, 1994) and in Persson and Tabellini (1992a, 1994).
Willingness to Pay of Visitors for the Nature-based Public Park: An Extension of Theory of Planning Behavior (TPB)

Abstract The growing demand of nature-based urban tourism has been acknowledged as a significant factor in the tourism sector over years. The theory of planned behavior (TPB) is commonly viewed as an important role in understanding customer behaviors in field of tourism products and services. The objective of this research is therefore to examine parks visitors’ willingness to pay using technique of Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) to better understand visitors’ destination attributes, subjective norms, behavioral control, and willingness to pay. Of 318 respondents were collected and identified as valid samples. Results imply that understanding determinants affecting visitors’ willingness to pay can be an effective management tool for increasing nature-based parks visitors’ retention.
Telomere length in white blood cells is not associated with morbidity or mortality in the oldest old: a population‐based study

Cross‐sectional studies have repeatedly suggested peripheral blood monocyte telomere length as a biomarker of aging. To test this suggestion in a large population‐based follow‐up study of the oldest old, we measured telomere length at baseline in 598 participants of the Leiden 85‐plus Study (mean age at baseline 89.8 years). We also obtained second telomere measurements from 81 participants after an average time span of between 3.9 and 12.9 years. Telomere length at baseline was not predictive for mortality (P > 0.40 for all‐cause, cardiovascular causes, cancer or infectious diseases, Cox regression for gender‐adjusted tertiles of telomere length) or for the incidence of dementia (P = 0.78). Longitudinally, telomere length was highly unstable in a large fraction of participants. We conclude that blood monocyte telomere length is not a predictive indicator for age‐related morbidity and mortality at ages over 85 years, possibly because of a high degree of telomere length instability in this group.
Exposure and sensitization to indoor allergens: association with lung function, bronchial reactivity, and exhaled nitric oxide measures in asthma.

BACKGROUND Exposure to high levels of allergens in sensitized asthmatic patients causes worsening of pulmonary function in experimental studies. Chronic exposure to lower, naturally occurring levels of allergens might increase the severity of asthma. OBJECTIVE We sought to study the associations between sensitization and exposure to common indoor allergens (dust mite, cat, and dog) in the home on pulmonary function, exhaled nitric oxide (eNO), and airway reactivity in asthmatic patients. METHODS Dust samples were collected from the living room carpet and mattress of 311 subject's homes, and Der p 1, Fel d 1, and Can f 1 concentrations were measured by using ELISAs. Spirometry, nonspecific bronchial reactivity, and eNO were measured. RESULTS Subjects both sensitized and exposed to high levels of sensitizing allergen had significantly lower FEV(1) percent predicted values (mean, 83.7% vs 89.3%; mean difference, 5.6%; 95% CI, 0.6%-10.6%; P =.03), higher eNO values (geometric mean [GM], 12.8 vs 8.7 ppb; GM ratio, 0.7; 95% CI, 0.5-0.8; P =.001), and more severe airways reactivity (PD(20) GM, 0.25 vs 0.73 mg; GM ratio, 2.9; 95% CI, 1.6-5.0; P <. 001) compared with subjects not sensitized and exposed. No significant effect of the interaction between sensitization and exposure was found for FEV(1) percent predicted and eNO values. However, there was a significant effect of the interaction between sensitization and exposure to any allergen (P =.05) and between sensitization and exposure to cat allergen (P =.04) for nonspecific bronchial reactivity. CONCLUSION Asthmatic subjects who are exposed in their homes to allergens to which they are sensitized have a more severe form of the disease.
Diallyl disulfide enhances carbon ion beams–induced apoptotic cell death in cervical cancer cells through regulating Tap73 /ΔNp73

Diallyl disulfide (DADS), extracted from crushed garlic by steam-distillation, has been reported to provide the anticancer activity in several cancer types. However, the effect of DADS on high-LET carbon beams - induced cell death remains unknown. Therefore, we used human cervical cancer cells to elucidate the molecular effects of this dallyl sulfide. Radiotherapy remains the mainstay of treatment, especially in advanced cervical cancer and there is still space to improve the radiosensitivity to reduce radiation dosage. In this study, we found that radiation effects evoked by high-LET carbon beam was marked by inhibition of cell viability, cell cycle arrest, significant rise of apoptotic cells, regulation of transcription factor, such as p73, as well as alterations of crucial mediator of the apoptosis pathway. We further demonstrated that pretreatment of 10 µM DADS in HeLa cells exposed to radiation resulted in decrease in cell viability and increased radiosensitivity. Additionally, cells pretreated with DADS obviously inhibited the radiation-induced G2/M phase arrest, but promoted radiation-induced apoptosis. Moreover, combination DADS and the radiation exacerbated the activation of apoptosis pathways through up-regulated ration of pro-apoptotic Tap73 to anti-apoptotic ΔNp73, and its downstream proteins, such as FASLG, and APAF1. Taken together, these results suggest that DADS is a potential candidate as radio sensitive agent for cervical cancer.
Tax-Based Incomes Policies

GIVEN the institutional features and ethical norms of modem labor markets and the income-maintenance programs of the welfare state, it appears that substantial macroeconomic slack is required to keep the rate of wage inflation and therefore the rate of price inflation from accelerating. Because of these deviations from a purely atomistic, competitive labor market, the unemployment rate required to prevent a rise in wage inflation is economically inefficient. The central policy problem, therefore, is to reduce this nonaccelerating-inflation rate of unemployment (NAIRU) of the economy. The aim of an incomes policy is to introduce a direct restraint on the growth rate of money wages and salaries, so that less macroeconomic slack is required to keep the inflation rate from accelerating. Traditionally there have been two methods of implementing an incomes policy: persuasion and controls. Each has serious shortcomings as a permanent policy. A microeconomic perspective, however, leads naturally to tax incentives, a new method of implementing an incomes policy. A comparison with the environmental pollution problem is instructive. ' Few economists seriously advocate persuasion because in the microeconomic sphere it is taken as an axiom that each economic agent will pursue his own self-