Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Low-dose rosuvastatin improves the functional and morphological markers of atherosclerosis in asymptomatic postmenopausal women with dyslipidemia

Objective Several large-scale studies have shed light on the primary preventive efficacy of statins against atherosclerotic diseases in the course of treatment of dyslipidemia. However, this efficacy in the management of dyslipidemia in relatively low-risk patients, particularly in women, has not been clarified. Here, we investigated the efficacy of dyslipidemia treatment with a statin on three indices that are widely used to assess atherosclerosis in postmenopausal women: carotid intima-media thickness (CIMT), arterial stiffness index &bgr; of the common carotid artery (carotid stiffness &bgr;), and brachial artery pulse wave velocity (baPWV). Methods The study enrolled 51 postmenopausal women aged 55 years or older with dyslipidemia. The participants were randomly divided into two treatment groups and received a single daily administration of 2.5 mg of rosuvastatin or no statin therapy as control. Results At baseline, the groups did not significantly differ with regard to the three indices. At the third and 12th months of treatment, both carotid stiffness &bgr; and baPWV values were significantly lower than those of the control group. As for CIMT, the value was significantly lower in the statin group than in the control group at 12 months of treatment. These changes were in conjunction with a significant decrease in low-density lipoprotein cholesterol. Interestingly, changes in CIMT during the 12-month period were significantly correlated with changes in high-sensitivity C-reactive protein during the 3-month period independently of lipid profile. Conclusions The potent statin improves baPWV and carotid stiffness &bgr;, in addition to CIMT (surrogate markers of coronary artery disease), in postmenopausal women with low-risk dyslipidemia. Further studies to clarify the common mechanisms underlying the link between cholesterol-lowering therapy and atherosclerosis in postmenopausal women are required.
Can stress echocardiography compete with perfusion scintigraphy in the detection of coronary artery disease and cardiac risk assessment?

AIMS The aim of this review was to define the place of stress echocardiography in the context of perfusion scintigraphy for the detection of coronary artery disease (CAD) and the assessment of cardiac risk. Stress echocardiography has the benefits of widespread availability, relatively low cost, portability, absence of radiation, and the determination of the ischaemic threshold. However, the echocardiographic windows are variable, sometimes with poor echogenicity, and interpretation is subjective and requires an adequate learning period. METHODS AND RESULTS Diagnostic and prognostic comparisons were focused on studies comparing stress (exercise, dobutamine, adenosine or dipyridamole) echocardiography and perfusion scintigraphy in the same patients. These direct diagnostic comparisons (22 studies for a total of 1380 patients) show that stress echocardiography may be somewhat less sensitive in detecting and localizing mild CAD (in particular when vasodilators are used), but is more specific than perfusion scintigraphy. The direct prognostic comparisons (five studies for a total of 805 patients) show that stress echocardiography and perfusion scintigraphy have comparable prognostic value. CONCLUSIONS At this moment, stress echocardiography already seems very competitive with perfusion scintigraphy. In the near future, improvement in endocardial border detection and quantitation of wall motion analysis are expected to improve the value of stress echocardiography still further.
Accrued Earnings and Growth: Implications for Future Profitability and Market Mispricing

Prior research reveals that the accrual component of profitability is less persistent than the cash flow component, and that investors fail to fully appreciate their differing implications for future profitability (Sloan 1996). However, accruals are a component of growth in net operating assets as well as a component of profitability. Just as we can disaggregate profitability into accruals and cash flows from operations, we can disaggregate growth in net operating assets into accruals and growth in long‐term net operating assets. We find that, after controlling for current profitability, both components of growth in net operating assets—accruals and growth in long‐term net operating assets—have equivalent negative associations with one‐year‐ahead return on assets. This result is consistent with conservative accounting and diminishing marginal returns on investments. We also find that, after controlling for current profitability, the market appears to equivalently overvalue accruals and growth in long‐term.
Phosphatidylinositol 3-Kinase Signaling Is Involved in Neurogenesis during Xenopus Embryonic Development*

Phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) has numerous cellular functions, including cell survival and proliferation. In this study, we demonstrated that the expression of the active form of PI3K induced dorsal differentiation and axis duplication and strongly induced the expression of neural markers. In contrast, the inhibition of PI3K activity by its dominant negative mutant induced the phenotype of losing posterior structures and the expression of ventral markers. Akt is an essential target of PI3K for neurogenesis. The expression of the active form of Akt induced axis duplication and increased the expression of neural markers. Inhibition of the Akt activity abolished the PI3K-induced double heads and axes. This signal transmits through its target, glycogen synthase kinase 3β, which is known to mediate Wnt signaling for Xenopus development. These results identify a new function of PI3K/Akt signaling in axis formation and neurogenesis during Xenopus embryonic development and provide a direct link between growth factor-mediated PI3K/Akt signaling and Wnt signaling during embryonic development.
8-Channel single embryo pipette for accurate C. elegans bioassays

The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) is a powerful model organism for addressing fundamental biological questions related to human disease and aging. Accurate control of the number of worms is a primary step for quantitative biological or biochemical worm analysis and assays. However, conventional single-worm isolation methods often encounter operational complexity, involving manual manipulation steps that result in relatively low throughput and a lack of accuracy, with possible physical damage of the worms. Here, we propose an “8-channel Single Embryo Pipette” (8-SEP) that was specifically designed for rapid and highly efficient dispensing of single C. elegans embryos, from an embryo suspension directly into standard microtiter plates. Our microfluidic device takes advantage of pressure-tuned flexible embryo microtraps by means of which single embryos can be easily captured and released on-demand. 8-SEP fluidic manipulations do not have an adverse impact on embryo or worm physiology as monitored by normal development of the embryos after dispensing.
Internal auditing: an essential tool for adding value and improving the operations of financial institutions and organisations

The main purpose of this paper is to present the practice of internal audit in the business environment as an essential tool and a necessary case for financial institutions and organisations to change from traditional to modern models of management, without necessarily replacing their fundamental management practices. This work presents the role of internal audit for financial institutions and organisations analysing the limits, the tasks, the responsibilities, the powers and the concept of the function of internal audit, concentrating mainly to its application on Greek enterprises and organisations.
Regional Competitiveness in Central European Countries: In Search of a Useful Conceptual Framework

ABSTRACT The goal of this discussion paper is to examine the relevance of selected influential theoretical and conceptual approaches to regional competitiveness for specific geographical and institutional contexts of Central European (CE) regions. We argue that strategic documents and policies (both nation- and region-wide) in CE countries are based on un-critical applications of a few popular concepts of competitiveness that were originally proposed and mainly applied in Western European and US regions. Existing empirical evidence documents a strong role of exogenous factors of competitiveness in CE regions, the in-house character of firm innovations and weak demand for innovations, and other impediments of R&D collaboration. We suggest that these (and other factors) limit the applicability of concepts such as regional innovation systems and Porterian clusters in the context of many CE regions. On the other hand, we argue that some other concepts such as the global production networks perspective or related variety and economic complexity can provide some relevant and inspiring frameworks for analysing regional competitiveness in CE countries.
Educating about HIV: prevention, impact mitigation and care

Since very early in the epidemic, education has been identified as central to an effective response. Three different kinds of education can be distinguished: education for HIV prevention, education about treatment, and education to prevent or mitigate the negative effects of the epidemic. This article also considers three different contexts in which education takes place: in schools, at the level of specific groups and across society as a whole. Some 30 years into the epidemic, it is vital that the potential of education is more fully recognized and embraced, not only by agencies and individuals with special expertise in the field (although this is essential), but also by everyone seeking to contribute to the ambitious goals of zero new infections, zero discrimination and zero AIDS-related deaths.
Learning from Failures or Failing to Learn? Lessons from Pharmaceutical R&D

Innovation is a trial and error process in which both successes and failures contribute to knowledge creation and destruction. In this paper we test theoretical predictions about the role of failures in new product development on private and public knowledge and interfirm knowledge transfer. We analyse the outcomes of world‐wide R&D projects in the pharmaceutical industry, and proxy knowledge flows with forward citations received by patents associated with each project. We find that patents covering successfully completed projects (i.e., leading to drug launch on the market) receive more citations than those associated to failed (terminated) projects, which in turn are cited more often than patents lacking clinical or preclinical information. Failures by specialized firms are cited more frequently than the ones of generalist companies. We therefore offer evidence of the value of failures as research inputs in (pharmaceutical) innovation.
MINISTERIAL ADVISERS: THE EXPERIENCE OF THE WHITLAM GOVERNMENT*

: Following the election of the Whitlam government in December 1972 changes in the composition, work and style of ministers' offices were substantial. Evaluations of the emerging pattern conflicted, often quite sharply. This paper surveys the pattern of staffing introduced by Labor and examines in particular the roles of ministerial officers as political and policy advisers. The paper also discusses recent experiences with ministerial staff in the United Kingdom and Canada, and makes brief reference to the use of ministerial staff by the Fraser government. Assessing the effectiveness of ministerial advisers is not easy. No straight forward measures of effectiveness exist. It is argued that, despite the ambitions of some ministerial staff during the Whitlam government, the role of ministerial advisers was essentially limited and confined. Ministers found them useful but few found them overwhelmingly so. While the Fraser government has reduced the number and visibility of ministerial staff it has retained the institutional underpinning of Labor's system. In the search for ways of assisting political parties to govern and to respond to changing situations, it is likely that ministerial staff with ability to advise on policy will receive further attention in the future.
Integrating Web‐Based Documents, Shared Knowledge Bases, and Information Retrieval for User Help

We describe a prototype system, IKARUS, with which we investigated the potential of integrating web‐based documents, shared knowledge bases, and information retrieval for improving knowledge storage and retrieval. As an example, we discuss how to implement both a user manual and an online help system as one system. The following technologies are combined: a web‐based design, a frame‐based knowledge engine, use of an advanced full‐text search engine, and simple techniques to control terminology. We have combined graphical browsing with several unusual forms of text retrieval—for example, to the sentence and paragraph level.
Skin Color Is Relevant to Vitamin D Synthesis

Background: Whether dark skin produces less vitamin D after UVB radiation than fair skin remains controversial. Objective: To compare 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25-(OH)-D] levels after a single UVB exposure in fair (phototype II-III) and black-skinned (phototype VI) volunteers. Methods: Fair-skinned volunteers (n = 20, 4 males/16 females, mean age: 23.2 years) and black-skinned (n = 11, 6 males/5 females, mean age: 23.8 years) received a single total body UVB exposure (0.022 J/cm2). The 25-(OH)-D levels were measured on days 0, 2 and 6. Results: On day 0, all volunteers were severely vitamin D deficient. On day 2, 25-(OH)-D levels of fair-skinned volunteers increased significantly (median: 11.9-13.3 ng/ml, p < 0.0001), but not in black-skinned people (median: 8.60-8.55 ng/ml, p = 0.843). Again, on day 6, 25-(OH)-D levels of fair-skinned volunteers increased significantly (median: 11.9-14.3 ng/ml, p < 0.0001), but not in black-skinned people (median: 8.60-9.57 ng/ml, p = 0.375). Conclusion: This study suggests that skin pigmentation negatively influences vitamin D synthesis.
THE FISHER EFFECT: A SURVEY

The Fisher hypothesis has been a much debated topic. Over the years the hypothesis debated and the techniques used have changed. While the majority of early studies on the Fisher effect concentrated primarily on confirming the long and distributed lag in expectations formation, subsequent work saw the integration of the Fisher hypothesis with the theories of rational expectations and efficient markets. With the incorporation of these theories in the Fisher hypothesis, the methodological advances involved examining the time series properties of the variables in question. This survey reviews previous work from this perspective. In addition, the studies pertaining to developing economies and possible explanations for the failure of the Fisher effect are also reviewed.
A two-level hidden Markov model for characterizing data traffic from vehicles

With the popularization of intelligent transport and mobile internet services, vehicles and people on board generate increasing amounts of data. To match future networks with this use case, tools are needed to analyze the requirements set for the network. In this paper, we study the characteristics of data traffic in the context of networked vehicles. We generate data traffic based on real-world vehicle traces and reported data patterns of end-user applications and vehicles. Based on this, we propose a two-level hidden Markov model to describe both large and small temporal characteristics of data traffic from vehicles aggregated on base stations. We evaluate the proposed model by comparing the original and synthesized data. The results show that the proposed model can well characterize the data traffic from vehicles.
Ultrasound guidance system for prostate biopsy

We designed a guidance system for prostate biopsy based on PET/MR images and 3D ultrasound (US). With our proposed method common inter-modal MR-US (or CT-US in case of PET/CTs) registration can be replaced by an intra-modal 3D/3D-US/US registration and an optical tracking system (OTS). On the pre-operative site, a PET/MR calibration allows to link both hybrid modalities with an abdominal 3D-US. On the interventional site, another abdominal 3D US is taken to merge the pre-operative images with the real-time 3D-US via 3D/3D-US/US registration. Finally, the images of a tracked trans-rectal US probe can be displayed with the pre-operative images by overlay. For PET/MR image fusion we applied a point-to-point registration between PET and OTS and MR and OTS, respectively. 3D/3D-US/US registration was evaluated for images taken in supine and lateral patient position. To enable table shifts between PET/MR and US image acquisition a table calibration procedure is presented. We found fiducial registration errors of 0.9 mm and 2.8 mm, respectively, with respect to the MR and PET calibration. A target registration error between MR and 3D US amounted to 1.4 mm. The registration error for the 3D/3D-US/US registration was found to be 3.7 mm. Furthermore, we have shown that ultrasound is applicable in an MR environment.
On the Inefficacy of Temporary Policy in a Dynamic General Equilibrium with Money

We construct a dynamic economy with many consumers with money in their utilities. Two main results—a turnpike theorem and inefficacy of temporary policy—are established in a dynamic general equilibrium framework in which price effects generated through markets are explicitly factored in. Turnpike, which is perfectly independent from wealth distribution among the heterogeneous consumers, will be globally attractive. Temporary policy is not effective not only for the future but for the current economy if the long‐run interest rate level is low. The inefficacy result coincides with an intuitive explanation by the standard permanent income hypothesis.
Electronmicroscopy of genetic activity.

ACTIVE GENES FROM AMPHIBIAN OOCYTES 379 Ribosomal RNA genes 380 Lampbrush chromosomes 383 ACTtVZ GeNeS FROM BACteRiA 384 Structural genes 384 Ribosomal RNA genes 388 Bacteriophage genetic activity 390 YEAST GENETIC ACTiViTY 392 MAMMALIAN GE ETIC ACTIVITY 393
Glioblastoma Multiforme Classified As Mesenchymal Subtype

ABSTRACT INTRODUCTION: Recently, researchers have been considering as adverse prognostic factors in primary glioblastomas not only clinical indicators but also various cellular, genetic and immunological markers. The aim of the present article was to report a case of primary glioblastoma multiforme with poor survival in a patient after surgical intervention, and to determine the unfavorable prognostic markers. CASE REPORT: We present a 71-year-old man with histologically verified glioblastoma multiforme and a postoperative survival of 48 days. The patient did not receive any radiotherapy and adjuvant therapy with temozolomide because of the short survival. Serum and transcription levels of TNF-α, CD44, YKL-40 and IL-6 were determined by molecular-biological and immunological analyses. We found very high transcription levels of the genes CD44, YKL-40 and IL-6, increased gene expression of TNF-α, and elevated serum concentrations of TNF-α, YKL-40 and IL-6 and reduced serum concentration of CD44. CONCLUSION: Molecular-biological and immunological analyses support the hypothesis that glioblastoma multiforme is presented by a heterogeneous group of glial tumors with different clinical course and prognosis. The high expression levels of TNF-α, CD44, YKL-40, and IL-6 indicate that the tumor can be categorized as mesenchymal subtype of glioblastoma multiforme, which accounts for the rapid clinical course and lethal outcome of the condition. РЕЗЮМЕ ВВЕДЕНИЕ: В качестве неблагоприятных прогностических факторов при первичных глиобластомах в последнее время обсуждаются не только клинические показатели, но и различные клеточные, генетические и иммунологические маркеры. ЦЕЛЬ: Работа ставит себе целью анализировать случай с первичной мультиформенной глиобластомой и краткой выживаемостью после оперативной интер- венции, а также и определить неблагоприятные прогностические маркеры. ПРЕДСТАВЛЕНИЕ СЛУЧАЯ: Авторы представляют случай 71-оголетнего мужчины с доказанной мультиформенной глиобластомой и постоперативной выживаемостью в 48 дней. Из-за непродолжительной выживаемости пациент не подвергнут телегамматерапии и адювантной терапии Темозоломид- ом. С помощью молекулярно- биологических и иммунологических анализов определены транскрипционные и сывороточные уровни TNF-α, IL-6, YKL-40 и CD44. Устанавливаются экстремно высокие транскрипционные уровни генов CD44, IL-6 и YKL-40, увеличенная экспрессия TNF-α, сопровожденные повышенной сывороточной концентрацией IL-6, TNF-α и YKL-40 и пониженной сывороточной концентрацией CD44. ЗАКЛЮЧЕНИЕ: Молекулярно-биологический
Four-electron Reduction of Dioxygen by a Multicopper Oxidase, CueO, and Roles of Asp112 and Glu506 Located Adjacent to the Trinuclear Copper Center*

The mechanism of the four-electron reduction of dioxygen by a multicopper oxidase, CueO, was studied based on reactions of single and double mutants with Cys500, a type I copper ligand, and the noncoordinating Asp112 and Glu506, which form hydrogen bonds with the trinuclear copper center directly and indirectly via a water molecule. The reaction of C500S containing a vacant type I copper center produced intermediate I in an EPR-silent peroxide-bound form. The formation of intermediate I from C500S/D112N was restricted due to a reduction in the affinity of the trinuclear copper center for dioxygen. The state of intermediate I was realized to be the resting form of C500S/E506Q and C500S of the truncated mutant Δα5–7CueO, in which the 50 amino acids covering the substrate-binding site were removed. Reactions of the recombinant CueO and E506Q afforded intermediate II, a fully oxidized form different from the resting one, with a very broad EPR signal, g < 2, detectable only at cryogenic temperatures and unsaturated with high power microwaves. The lifetime of intermediate II was prolonged by the mutation at Glu506 involved in the donation of protons. The structure of intermediates I and II and the mechanism of the four-electron reduction of dioxygen driven by Asp112 and Glu506 are discussed.