Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Vardenafil in men with stable statin therapy and dyslipidemia.

INTRODUCTION Phosphodiesterase type-5 (PDE-5) inhibitors have previously been evaluated for their efficacy and safety in various clinical trials in men with erectile dysfunction (ED) with or without associated comorbidities. AIM This is the first prospective, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study to evaluate the efficacy and safety of a PDE-5 inhibitor (i.e., vardenafil) in an exclusive population of men with ED and dyslipidemia. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Three coprimary efficacy measurements (Sexual Encounter Performance [SEP]2, SEP3, International Index of Erectile Function-Erectile Function [IIEF-EF] domain scores) were used to assess the differential effect of vardenafil vs. placebo in this patient population. Adverse events (AEs) safety data were obtained to compare safety outcomes. METHODS This 12-week of randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study was conducted in 59 U.S. centers. Patients received either on-demand, flexible-dose vardenafil 10 mg (titrated to 5 mg or 20 mg based upon efficacy and safety) or placebo. RESULTS Of the 712 patients screened and entered into the study, 395 were randomized. Baseline demographics for the intent-to-treat population included: mean age, 54.4 years (+/-7.5 standard deviation [SD]); 76% Caucasian; mean body mass index (BMI), 31.7 kg/m(2) (+/-12.7 SD); 47% past/present smoker; and 42% severe ED. Aside from dyslipidemia, other comorbidities included hypertension, 61%; obesity (i.e., BMI >/= 30), 51%; and type 1 or 2 diabetes, 40%. During the 12-week treatment period, the least squares (LS) adjusted mean success rates in patients on vardenafil vs. placebo were: SEP2, 79.09% vs. 51.92%; and SEP3, 66.69% vs. 33.83% (P < 0.001). The LS adjusted mean IIEF-EF domain score for week 12 using LOCF was 21.99 in patients on vardenafil therapy vs. 14.83 in those on placebo (P < 0.001). The most commonly encountered AEs were headache and nasal congestion. CONCLUSIONS Vardenafil was demonstrated to be safe and effective for managing ED in men with ED and associated dyslipidemia. The results of this study support the role of expanded research on outcomes related to effective ED treatment and aggressive lipid control.
On defining ageism

Ageism' has entered the popular vocabulary. whilst it is easy to catalogue examples of ageism, its definition remains problematic, frequently relying upon parallels with racism and sexism. This paper endeavours to draw out the distinctive character of ageism as it relates to biological ageing and to the measurement of age, as well as to the question of whether 'elderly people' are a minority group. We argue that a radical critique which only conceives of ageism as a conflict between 'society' and 'elderly people' is inadequate. In conclusion, we offer a basis for the definition of ageism and four principles for non-ageist action.
Camera parameter initialization for 3D kinematic systems

3D scene information can be extracted from images acquired by cameras. Before doing the actual reconstruction, camera calibration has to be done. Reconstruction accuracy is highly dictated by the calibration. Two typical demands, which are not easily simultaneously satisfied, are: calibration has to be done in a fast and convenient manner and yet assure a high degree of reconstruction accuracy. The computational part of calibration usually includes the initialization of camera parameters and refinement based on an initial set of values. The goodness of the initial set greatly affects the refinement procedure in terms of convergence speed and ultimately reconstruction accuracy. This work proposes a new calibration method for 3D kinematic systems. It shortens the commonly used calibration procedure, gives better initial parameter values for the refinement procedure which in turn is supposed to assure faster and safer convergence of the iterative minimization algorithm. Additionally, it is shown that even without parameter refinement the proposed method gives more accurate 3D reconstruction output.
Reasons and causes: the nature of explanations in Psychology and Psychiatry

SYNOPSIS The relationship between psychological and biological processes is examined. Criteria for the distinction between reasons and causes are described. These provide a basis for a separation of those mental states and behaviour that can be explained in a reductionist fashion, and those that are not reducible. The proposed conceptual framework has clinical and research implications.
Estimating Historical Occupational Exposure to Airborne Hexavalent Chromium in a Chromate Production Plant: 1940–1972

This article presents a retrospective exposure assessment for 493 workers who were occupationally exposed to airborne hexavalent chromium, Cr(VI), at a Painesville, Ohio, chromate production plant from 1940–1972. Exposure estimates were reconstructed using a job-exposure matrix approach that related job titles with area monitoring data from 21 industrial hygiene surveys conducted from 1943 to 1971. No personal monitoring data were collected. Specifically, airborne Cr(VI) concentration profiles for 22 areas of the plant, termed job-exposure group (JEG) areas, were constructed for three distinct time periods (1940–1949, 1950–1964, and 1965–1972), with cut points based on known major plant and process changes. Average airborne Cr(VI) concentrations were the highest for the bridge crane operators (5.5 mg/m 3 ) prior to 1965, although only four cohort members held this job title. Airborne concentrations for the rest of the production areas of the plant ranged from 1.9 mg/m 3 for packers in the 1940s to 0.012 mg/m 3 for ore mill operators after 1964. For nearly all JEG areas, exposures decreased over time, particularly after 1964. For example, average airborne concentrations in production areas of the plant decreased from 0.72 mg/m 3 in the 1940s to 0.27 mg/m 3 from 1950 to 1964, and the average was 0.039 mg/m 3 after 1964. Former workers were interviewed to determine activity patterns in the plant by job title. This information was combined with Cr(VI) monitoring data to calculate cumulative occupational exposure for each worker. Cumulative exposures ranged from 0.003 to 23 (mg/m 3 ) × years. The highest monthly 8-hour average exposure concentration for each worker ranged from 0.003 to 4.1 mg/m 3 . These exposure estimates have been combined with mortality data for this cohort to assess the lung cancer risk associated with inhaled Cr(VI), and a positive dose-response relationship was observed for increases in lung cancer mortality with measures of cumulative exposure and highest monthly exposure.
Affective-Evaluative Learning in Humans: A Form of Associative Learning or Only an Artifact?

Abstract The status of evaluative conditioning (EC) as a distinct form of associative learning was called in question by Field and Davey (1997, 1998, 1999), who argued that in the typical visual EC paradigm, nonassociative visual concept learning is responsible for the evaluative changes observed. Especially, the use of only within-subject control conditions instead of independent control groups was criticized. The present three experiments show (a) that EC effects can be demonstrated within another sensory modality than visual perception and (b) that EC effects are demonstrable in a between-subject design (including a successful replication attempt). A further result was that these EC effects do not require participants' conscious awareness. The data provide no support for an artifactual account of EC but suggest an interpretation of EC as a form of associative learning.
Interdependent transcription control elements regulate the expression of the SPRR2A gene during keratinocyte terminal differentiation

Expression of the SPRR2A gene, a member of the small proline-rich family of cornified cell envelope precursor proteins, is strictly linked to keratinocyte terminal differentiation both in vivo and in vitro. In this study, we explored the molecular mechanisms underlying this regulation in transiently transfected primary keratinocytes induced to differentiate in vitro. Deletion mapping and site-directed mutagenesis of SPRR2A promoter-chloramphenicol acetyltransferase constructs indicate that four transcription control elements are essential and sufficient for promoter activity. These elements were further characterized by electrophoretic mobility shift and identified as (i) an inverted octamer doublet, bound by the POU domain factor Oct-11 (Skn-1a/i, Epoc-1), (ii) an interferon-stimulated response element recognized by interferon regulatory factors 1 and 2, (iii) an Ets binding site partially overlapping the interferon-stimulated response element, and (iv) a TG box recognized by the Sp1 family of zinc finger transcription factors. Destruction of a single terminal differentiation element is sufficient to completely abolish transcription from the SPRR2A promoter, indicating that these transcription control elements function in concert in an interdependent manner. Apparently, integration of signals transmitted by the above-mentioned transcription factors is necessary and sufficient to promote gene expression during keratinocyte terminal differentiation.
Biogeographic Variation in Host Range Phenotypes and Taxonomic Composition of Marine Cyanophage Isolates

Despite the important role of phages in marine systems, little is understood about how their diversity is distributed in space. Biogeographic patterns of marine phages may be difficult to detect due to their vast genetic diversity, which may not be accurately represented by conserved marker genes. To investigate the spatial biogeographic structure of marine phages, we isolated over 400 cyanophages on Synechococcus host strain WH7803 at three coastal locations in the United States (Rhode Island, Washington, and southern California). Approximately 90% of the cyanophage isolates were myoviruses, while the other 10% were podoviruses. The diversity of isolates was further characterized in two ways: (i) taxonomically, using conserved marker genes and (ii) phenotypically, by testing isolates for their ability to infect a suite of hosts, or their “host range. ” Because host range is a highly variable trait even among closely related isolates, we hypothesized that host range phenotypes of cyanophage isolates would vary more strongly among locations than would taxonomic composition. Instead, we found evidence for strong biogeographic variation both in taxonomic composition and host range phenotypes, with little taxonomic overlap among the three coastal regions. For both taxonomic composition and host range phenotypes, cyanophage communities from California and Rhode Island were the most dissimilar, while Washington communities exhibited similarity to each of the other two locations. These results suggest that selection imposed by spatial variation in host dynamics influence the biogeographic distribution of cyanophages.
HashFile: An efficient index structure for multimedia data

Nearest neighbor (NN) search in high dimensional space is an essential query in many multimedia retrieval applications. Due to the curse of dimensionality, existing index structures might perform even worse than a simple sequential scan of data when answering exact NN query. To improve the efficiency of NN search, locality sensitive hashing (LSH) and its variants have been proposed to find approximate NN. They adopt hash functions that can preserve the Euclidean distance so that similar objects have a high probability of colliding in the same bucket. Given a query object, candidate for the query result is obtained by accessing the points that are located in the same bucket. To improve the precision, each hash table is associated with m hash functions to recursively hash the data points into smaller buckets and remove the false positives. On the other hand, multiple hash tables are required to guarantee a high retrieval recall. Thus, tuning a good tradeoff between precision and recall becomes the main challenge for LSH. Recently, locality sensitive B-tree(LSB-tree) has been proposed to ensure both quality and efficiency. However, the index uses random I/O access. When the multimedia database is large, it requires considerable disk I/O cost to obtain an approximate ratio that works in practice. In this paper, we propose a novel index structure, named HashFile, for efficient retrieval of multimedia objects. It combines the advantages of random projection and linear scan. Unlike the LSH family in which each bucket is associated with a concatenation of m hash values, we only recursively partition the dense buckets and organize them as a tree structure. Given a query point q, the search algorithm explores the buckets near the query object in a top-down manner. The candidate buckets in each node are stored sequentially in increasing order of the hash value and can be efficiently loaded into memory for linear scan. HashFile can support both exact and approximate NN queries. Experimental results show that HashFile performs better than existing indexes both in answering both types of NN queries.
Acute noradrenergic activation induces insulin resistance in human skeletal muscle.

We assessed in normal subjects the effects of an acute increase in forearm norepinephrine (NE) release, evoked by -20 mmHg lower body negative pressure (LBNP), on insulin-mediated muscle glucose uptake. Seven normal subjects underwent the following two insulin euglycemic clamps in random sequence: one during application of LBNP and the other without LBNP (control study). In the control study, hyperinsulinemia (approximately 60 microU/ml) produced a significant increment in forearm NE release, measured by using the forearm perfusion technique combined with infusion of tritiated NE (from 4.91 +/- 1 to 7.94 +/- 1.33 ng.l-1.min-1; P < 0.05). Forearm glucose uptake rose from 0.97 +/- 0.13 to 5.2 +/- 0.2 mg.l-1.min-1 in response to insulin infusion. When the insulin clamp was performed during LBNP, forearm NE release rose to significantly higher values than those of the control study (from 4.33 +/- 0.52 to 12.7 +/- 1.46 ng.l-1.min-1; P < 0.01 vs. control). Under these conditions, the stimulatory effect of insulin on forearm glucose uptake was markedly reduced (from 0.78 +/- 0.10 to 3.2 +/- 0.7 mg.l-1.min-1; P < 0.02 vs. control). Forearm blood flow and plasma epinephrine and free fatty acid concentrations were comparable in the two study sessions. These data demonstrate that an acute activation of endogenous NE release antagonizes insulin-mediated glucose uptake in forearm skeletal muscle, probably accounted for by a direct metabolic effect of NE.
A Review of Intelligence Test Modifications Used with Cerebral Palsied and Other Handicapped Groups

1 Preparation supported in part by Grant 15-P55277/9-02 from the Social and Rehabilitation Service, Dept. HEW. The helpful suggestions of Edward A. Jacobson and Michael D. Dowdle are gratefully acknowledged. Intelligence tests which are designed for and standardized on a nonhandicapped population are often administered to handicapped children. However, the physical disabilities of these children frequently make it impossible for them to perform on such tests. Therefore, modifications in test procedures are often necessary, but modifications can create
Triple unification of inflation, dark matter, and dark energy using a single field

We construct an explicit scenario whereby the same material driving inflation in the early universe can comprise dark matter in the present universe, using a simple quadratic potential. Following inflation and preheating, the density of inflaton/dark matter particles is reduced to the observed level by a period of thermal inflation, of a duration already invoked in the literature for other reasons. Within the context of the string landscape, one can further argue for a nonzero vacuum energy of this field, thus unifying inflation, dark matter, and dark energy into a single fundamental field.
Upgrading Uncompetitive Products Economically

The skyline of a multidimensional point set consists of the points that are not dominated by other points. In a scenario where product features are represented by multidimensional points, the skyline points may be viewed as representing competitive products. A product provider may wish to upgrade uncompetitive products to become competitive, but wants to take into account the upgrading cost. We study the top-k product upgrading problem. Given a set P of competitor products, a set T of products that are candidates for upgrade, and an upgrading cost function f that applies to T, the problem is to return the k products in T that can be upgraded to not be dominated by any products in P at the lowest cost. This problem is non-trivial due to not only the large data set sizes, but also to the many possibilities for upgrading a product. We identify and provide solutions for the different options for upgrading an uncompetitive product, and combine the solutions into a single solution. We also propose a spatial join-based solution that assumes P and T are indexed by an R-tree. Given a set of products in the same R-tree node, we derive three lower bounds on their upgrading costs. These bounds are employed by the join approach to prune upgrade candidates with uncompetitive upgrade costs. Empirical studies with synthetic and real data show that the join approach is efficient and scalable.
Oxidation of primary bile acids by a 7 alpha-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase elaborating Clostridium bifermentans soil isolate.

A gram-positive, rod-shaped anaerobe (strain F-6) was isolated from soil. This organism was identified by cellular morphology as well as fermentative and biochemical data as Clostridium bifermentans. Strain F-6 formed 7-ketolithocholic acid from chenodeoxycholic acid and 7-ketodeoxycholic acid from cholic acid in whole cell cultures, but did not transform deoxycholic acid, ursodeoxycholic acid, or ursocholic acid. This reaction is reversible. The structures of 7-ketolithocholic acid and 7-ketodeoxycholic acid were verified by mass spectroscopy and by thin-layer chromatography using Komarowsky's spray reagent. When incubated with the strain F-6 glycine and taurine conjugates of the primary bile acids were partially hydrolyzed and transformed to 7-keto products. Optimal yields of 7-ketolithocholic acid and 7-ketodeoxycholic acid were obtained after 78 h of incubation. Culture pH changed with time and was characterized by an initial drop (1.1 pH units) and a gradual increase back to the starting pH (7.3). Corroborating these observations, an inducible, NADP-dependent, 7 alpha-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase was demonstrated in cell extracts of strain F-6. A trace of NAD-dependent 7 alpha-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase was also found. A substantial increase in the specific activity of the NADP-dependent 7 alpha-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase was observed when either 7-ketolithocholic acid, chenodeoxycholic acid, or deoxycholic acid was included in the growth medium. Optimal induction of the NADP-dependent 7 alpha-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase was achieved with 0.3-0.4 mM 7-ketolithocholic acid. Production of the enzyme(s) was optimal at 6-8 h of growth and the 7 alpha-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenases had a pH optimum of approximately 11. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Effects of elastic seats on seated body apparent mass responses to vertical whole body vibration

Apparent mass (AM) responses of the body seated with and without a back support on three different elastic seats (flat and contoured polyurethane foam (PUF) and air cushion) and a rigid seat were measured under three levels of vertical vibration (overall rms acceleration: 0.25, 0.50 and 0.75 m/s2) in the 0.5 to 20 Hz range. A pressure-sensing system was used to capture biodynamic force at the occupant-seat interface. The results revealed strong effects of visco-elastic and vibration transmissibility characteristics of seats on AM. The response magnitudes with the relatively stiff air seat were generally higher than those with the PUF seats except at low frequencies. The peak magnitude decreased when sitting condition was changed from no back support to a vertical support; the reduction however was more pronounced with the air seat. Further, a relatively higher frequency shift was evident with soft seat compared with stiff elastic seat with increasing excitation. Practitioner Summary: The effects of visco-elastic properties of the body-seat interface on the apparent mass responses of the seated body are measured under vertical vibration. The results show considerable effects of the coupling stiffness on the seated body apparent mass, apart from those of excitation magnitude and back support.
Model-Based Testing with AsmL . NET DRAFT 1 Model-Based Testing with AsmL . NET

We present work on a tool environment for model-based testing with the Abstract State Machine Language (AsmL). Our environment supports semi-automatic parameter generation, call sequence generation and conformance testing. We outline the usage of the environment by an example, discuss its underlying technologies, and report on some applications conducted in the Microsoft environment.
Secure Coprocessor Integration with Kerberos V5

The nightmare of Trusted Third Party (T3P) based protocol users is compromise of the T3P. Because the compromised T3P can read and modify any user information, the entire user group becomes vulnerable to secret revelation and user impersonation. Kerberos, one of the most widely used network authentication protocols, is no exception. When the Kerberos Key Distribution Center (KDC) is compromised, all the user keys are exposed, thus revealing all the encrypted data and allowing an adversary to impersonate any user. If an adversary has physical access to the KDC host, or can obtain administrator rights, KDC compromise is possible, and catastrophic. To solve this problem, and to demonstrate the capabilities of secure hardware, we have integrated the IBM 4758 secure coprocessor into Kerberos V5 KDC. As a result of the integration, our implemented KDC preserves security even if the KDC host has been compromised.
Accuracy of Subjective Performance Appraisal is Not Modulated by the Method Used by the Learner During Motor Skill Acquisition

The present experiment examined whether the method of subjectively appraising motor performance during skill acquisition would differentially strengthen performance appraisal capabilities and subsequent motor learning. Thirty-six participants (18 men and 18 women; M age = 20.8 years, SD = 1.0) learned to execute a serial key-pressing task at a particular overall movement time (2550 ms). Participants were randomly separated into three groups: the Generate group estimated their overall movement time then received knowledge of results of their actual movement time; the Choice group selected their perceived movement time from a list of three alternatives; the third group, the Control group, did not self-report their perceived movement time and received knowledge of results of their actual movement time on every trial. All groups practiced 90 acquisition trials and 30 no knowledge of results trials in a delayed retention test. Results from the delayed retention test showed that both methods of performance appraisal (Generate and Choice) facilitated superior motor performance and greater accuracy in assessing their actual motor performance compared with the control condition. Therefore, the processing required for accurate appraisal of performance was strengthened, independent of performance appraisal method.
Introduction to the Special issue: The Stresses of Parenting

Introduces the special issue on the stresses of parenting by highlighting the need for dynamic multivariate models to understand the causation of parenting stress and its impact on parenting behaviors and child outcomes. A brief summary of the principal thrust and conclusions of each article is presented. The importance of parental cognitions as mediators of more distal factors that influence parent-child interaction is emphasized.