Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Molecular links between COPD and lung cancer: new targets for drug discovery?

ABSTRACT Introduction: COPD and lung cancer are leading causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide, and they share a common environmental risk factor in cigarette smoke exposure and a genetic predisposition represented by their incidence in only a fraction of smokers. This reflects the ability of cigarette smoke to induce an inflammatory response in the airways of susceptible smokers. Moreover, COPD could be a driving factor in lung cancer, by increasing oxidative stress and the resulting DNA damage and repression of the DNA repair mechanisms, chronic exposure to pro-inflammatory cytokines, repression of innate immunity and increased cellular proliferation. Areas covered: We have focused our review on the potential pathogenic molecular links between tobacco smoking-related COPD and lung cancer and the potential molecular targets for new drug development by understanding the common signaling pathways involved in COPD and lung cancer. Expert commentary: Research in this field is mostly limited to animal models or small clinical trials. Large clinical trials are needed but mostly combined models of COPD and lung cancer are necessary to investigate the processes caused by chronic inflammation, including genetic and epigenetic alteration, and the expression of inflammatory mediators that link COPD and lung cancer, to identify new molecular therapeutic targets.
A prospective trial of ionic vs nonionic contrast agents in routine clinical practice: comparison of adverse effects.

A multicenter study of adverse effects of ionic and nonionic contrast agents was conducted in three similar time periods. In 1985, before approval of the nonionic contrast agents by the Food and Drug Administration, 6006 consecutive patients received iv ionic agents for urography or CT. After approval of the nonionic agents, 7170 consecutive patients referred for the same examinations were studied. The two groups of patients were significantly different, but the differences were small and did not uniformly favor either group. The incidence of adverse effects in the patients given ionic contrast material was significantly higher than that of the nonionic group (4.17% vs 0.69%, p less than .001). The reactions were also more severe in the ionic group than in the nonionic group (p less than .005). A patient questionnaire disclosed that many patients did not feel well for hours to days after the procedure and also did not immediately resume normal activities of daily living. The nonionic agent was significantly less distressful than the ionic agent. We conclude that nonionic agents cause fewer and less severe adverse effects. Reducing adverse effects can save the patient or the examining site either time or money. However, this study does not show that nonionic agents are more cost-effective than ionic agents.
Transcriptomic responses to ocean acidification in larval sea urchins from a naturally variable pH environment

Some marine ecosystems already experience natural declines in pH approximating those predicted with future anthropogenic ocean acidification (OA), the decline in seawater pH caused by the absorption of atmospheric CO2. The molecular mechanisms that allow organisms to inhabit these low pH environments, particularly those building calcium carbonate skeletons, are unknown. Also uncertain is whether an enhanced capacity to cope with present day pH variation will confer resistance to future OA. To address these issues, we monitored natural pH dynamics within an intertidal habitat in the Northeast Pacific, demonstrating that upwelling exposes resident species to pH regimes not predicted to occur elsewhere until 2100. Next, we cultured the progeny of adult purple sea urchins (Strongylocentrotus purpuratus) collected from this region in CO2‐acidified seawater representing present day and near future ocean scenarios and monitored gene expression using transcriptomics. We hypothesized that persistent exposure to upwelling during evolutionary history will have selected for increased pH tolerance in this population and that their transcriptomic response to low pH seawater would provide insight into mechanisms underlying pH tolerance in a calcifying species. Resulting expression patterns revealed two important trends. Firstly, S. purpuratus larvae may alter the bioavailability of calcium and adjust skeletogenic pathways to sustain calcification in a low pH ocean. Secondly, larvae use different strategies for coping with different magnitudes of pH stress: initiating a robust transcriptional response to present day pH regimes but a muted response to near future conditions. Thus, an enhanced capacity to cope with present day pH variation may not translate into success in future oceans.
A computer aided method for closed reduction of diaphyseal tibial fracture using projection images: A feasibility study

A computer aided method for closed tibial shaft fracture reduction based on measurements of 12 projection parameters (6 angulations and 6 translations) from an anteroposterior radiograph, a lateral radiograph, and a transverse projection photograph is examined. The development, validation and reliability of the computer aided method are presented. A custom-made unilateral external fixation device consisting of 7 calibrated one-degree-of-freedom joints was employed to execute the reduction. Five tibial fracture phantoms with initial deformities that covered a wide range of misalignments were tested. The mean (standard deviation) resultant rotational and translational errors after the reduction were 3.32° (0.96°) and 1.65 (0.86) mm, respectively, which indicates good reduction accuracy. Three independent raters made the measurements of the projection parameters to test inter-rater reliability. The intra-class correlation coefficients were found to range between 0.935 and 1, indicating good reliability. Since ideal patient positioning for AP, lateral and transverse image acquisition is not easily attainable, the effect of patient positioning errors on the measurement of projection parameters was explored using a tibial phantom. The preliminary results revealed that 10° deviations in positioning do not greatly affect the measurement of AP and lateral angulation parameters (<1.7°). However, a 10° positioning error about the long bone axis may result in a change of as much as 10.7° in the measurements of transverse projection angulation parameters. In addition, a 10° positioning error about an arbitrary anatomical axis may result in translational projection parameter changes of up to 6.8 mm. For these reasons, a previously validated method that allows for accurate positioning of the tibia about its long axis and a two-step reduction strategy to achieve the best possible deformity reduction are proposed. Procedures to facilitate reliable measurement of tibial torsion are also discussed. It appears that the projection-based reduction method exposes the patient to less radiation and allows for simple, quick and accurate reductions, making it an attractive choice for acute clinical applications.
Sexual Assault and Dyadic Relationship Satisfaction: Indirect Associations Through Intimacy and Mental Health

Rates of child and adult sexual assault (SA) among women are staggering and place women at risk for intra- and interpersonal difficulties. However, the independent contributions of child and adult SA or the mechanisms of this risk are unknown. This study’s goal was to examine the indirect effects of child and adult SA on women’s own and partner’s relationship functioning through their impact on women’s mental health, emotional intimacy, and sexual intimacy. Results revealed that the association of women’s child SA with both her own and her partner’s relationship satisfaction operated through emotional intimacy. Considerations for the study of women with a history of SA in the context of couple functioning are discussed.
Handbook on Business Process Management 2: Strategic Alignment, Governance, People and Culture

Business Process Management (BPM) has become one of the most widely used approaches for the design of modern organizational and information systems. The conscious treatment of business processes as significant corporate assets has facilitated substantial improvements in organizational performance but is also used to ensure the conformance of corporate activities. This Handbook presents in two volumes the contemporary body of knowledge as articulated by the world's leading BPM thought leaders. This second volume focuses on the managerial and organizational challenges of BPM such as strategic and cultural alignment, governance and the education of BPM stakeholders. As such, this book provides concepts and methodologies for the integration of BPM. Each chapter has been contributed by leading international experts. Selected case studies complement their views and lead to a summary of BPM expertise that is unique in its coverage of the most critical success factors of BPM. The second edition of this handbook has been significantly revised and extended. Each chapter has been updated to reflect the most current developments. This includes in particular new technologies such as in-memory data and process management, social media and networks. A further focus of this revised and extended edition is on the actual deployment of the proposed theoretical concepts. This volume includes a number of entire new chapters from some of the world's leading experts in the domain of BPM.
Kaldi+PDNN: Building DNN-based ASR Systems with Kaldi and PDNN

The Kaldi toolkit is becoming popular for constructing automated speech recognition (ASR) systems. Meanwhile, in recent years, deep neural networks (DNNs) have shown state-of-the-art performance on various ASR tasks. This document describes our open-source recipes to implement fully-fledged DNN acoustic modeling using Kaldi and PDNN. PDNN is a lightweight deep learning toolkit developed under the Theano environment. Using these recipes, we can build up multiple systems including DNN hybrid systems, convolutional neural network (CNN) systems and bottleneck feature systems. These recipes are directly based on the Kaldi Switchboard 110-hour setup. However, adapting them to new datasets is easy to achieve.
Thermoelectric properties of MnSi1.7

Higher manganese silicide (MnSi1.7) bulk and thin-film materials have been prepared by the hot-pressed and electron-beam evaporation methods, respectively. The Seebeck coefficient, electrical resistivity, and thermal conductivity (for bulk material only) are measured from room temperature to 783 K. The un-doped bulk and thin-film MnSi1.7 are p-type. The figure of merit, ZT, of the bulk material can be reached to 0.29 at 723 K. N-type MnSi1.7 film can be obtained by addition of iron into the film. It is found that the thermoelectric properties of n-type MnSi1.7 are better than those of p-type MnSi1.7, which is consistent with the recent thoeretical prediction.
Iron Deficiency in the Rat: Effects on Energy Metabolism in Brown Adipose Tissue

ABSTRACT. : Mitochondria were prepared from the brown adipose tissue of control rats and animals made iron deficient by means of a low iron diet. The specific activities of the mitochondrial electron transport system (NADH, succinate and α-glycerophosphate oxidase activities) were markedly and significantly reduced in preparations of brown adipose tissue from the iron-deficient rats as compared with preparations from the control animals. In contrast, concentrations of the cytochrome pigments a + a3, and c + c1 were normal and cytochrome b was slightly reduced (18%) in the mitochondrial preparations from the iron-deficient animals. Treatment of the iron-deficient animals with triiodothyronine significantly increased the amount of brown fat present per kilogram of body weight in both control and iron-deficient rats, but did not significantly affect the specific activities of the mitochondrial electron transport system.
Yellow Fever Vaccine. V. Antibody Response in Monkeys Inoculated with Graded Doses of the 17D Vaccine

A dosage equal to or greater than approximately 3.4 Dex (decimal exponent, log10) weanling mouse intracerebral 50% lethal dose (LD50) was sufficient to elicit a yellow fever antibody response, as determined by the plaque neutralization (PN) test, in better than 90% of vaccinated rhesus monkeys. Lower dosages were progressively less effective in terms of PN titers and the PN and hemagglutination-inhibition serological conversion rates observed. A dose of between 3.4 and 4.2 Dex weanling mouse intracerebral LD50, or one-tenth to one times the dosage recommended for man, provided an optimal antibody response in monkeys. In rhesus monkeys, in contrast to the findings for man, pre-existing yellow fever antibody did not interfere with the antibody response to yellow fever vaccine. The PN test was felt to be a more sensitive and specific indicator of yellow fever antibody in rhesus monkeys after vaccination than the hemagglutination inhibition or complement fixation tests.
The Influence of Arms Imports on Third World Debt

The debt crisis facing many developing countries has attracted much attention in recent years. In large part, most of the analysis of Third World debt has focused on the methods used to finance the rapid rate of increase in external debt and the capacity of the developing countries to service the debt. ' Few studies, however, have attempted to define the motives for debt accumulation, other than, for example, to point to the obvious need to finance current account deficits resulting from the oil price shocks.2 An increasing suspicion among some analysts is that a large proportion of existing Third World debt was contracted for the purpose of financing stepped-up levels of military expenditure, in general, and arms imports, in particular. Analysts stressing the link between arms imports and Third World debt note that these two patterns represent more than just a coincidence. Further substantiation of the link between arms transfers and public external debt is found in the fact that arms purchases grew in importance during the 1970s as the two major arms donors switched their policy from one of gifts to one of sales. Despite the rather logical assertion that considerable amounts of Third World indebtedness have stemmed from arms imports, little empirical testing of the link between arms imports and Third World debt has been done. Nor has there been any empirical work determining whether the link between arms imports and external debt is universal throughout the Third World, or rather is confined to a smaller subgroup of Third World countries. The main purpose of the analysis that follows is to determine the role played by military expenditures in general and arms imports in particular in affecting the level of Third World debt. A secondary objective is to determine which groups of developing countries were most inclined to finance arms imports with increased external indebtedness.
Segmentation of two-phase flow: a free representation for Level Set method with a priori knowledge

In this paper, an extension of digital images segmentation approach based on active contours, or snakes approach, and an extension of shape model are unified in order to develop a free representation for level set method with a priori knowledge. The proposed method improves the average freely previously trained format, using the method of contour active for Level Set. In this case, there is no restriction to interface evolution as occurs in other approaches that combine active contours and prior knowledge. This approach is used for the correct identification of gas bubble shape in gas–liquid two-phase flow. The main objective of this work is to provide a validation system to support the development of other flow measurements tools based on widely used instrumentation. The promising results indicate that image segmentation by the proposed approach gives good results and it can be used as an efficient method to validate other existing approaches to flow measurement instrumentation.
Microsimulation Modelling of the Corporate Firm: Exploring Micro-Macro Economic Relations

1 Introduction. - 2 The firm in models of the economy. - 3 A model of routine decisions and realized outcomes. - 4 A model of investment decisions. - 5 How the combined model works. - 6 Model application. - 7 From micro to macro and back: Simulating the impact of changing sales expectations. - 8 From macro to micro and back: Simulation of the impact of investment subsidy policies. - 9 Simulation of structural changes at the sector level. - 10 Summary and appraisal. - Appendix A List of symbols. - Appendix B Derivation of price and output reactions of the firm. - Appendix C Detailed analysis of the market shares equation. - Appendix D Parameters and initial values. - Appendix E On the difficulties of adapting AGE models to imperfect competition and heterogeneous behaviour of firms. - References. - Author index.
Who benefits from tax competition in the European Union

Statutory tax rates have declined in the European Union in the recent decades. An applied general equilibrium model on corporate taxation sheds light on the economic and welfare implications of tax rate reforms. Domestic distortions proof highly relevant as even unilateral reductions of the corporate income tax rate might reduce welfare if the labour tax rate has to be increased. Profit shifting induces countries to underbid each others tax rates, but this effect is sizable only if two countries are closely linked. The harmful external effects of CIT rate reductions are limited, which reduces the need for European coordination of CIT rates.
Culling reasons as related to lifetime dairy performance in Polish Friesian (Black-and-White) cows on Pawłowice farm in the years 1909-2006

Relationships were estimated between longevity, culling reasons and yield of milk and milk components in the I, II and III 305-day lactations and lifetime dairy performance. ANOVA with Duncan test was applied. Cows culled for health problems showed the highest lifetime dairy performance; those kept in the herd for a short of time were culled because of hard milking and behavioural problems or were sold for breeding.
Acetylcholinesterase inhibitors in treatment-resistant psychotic depression

Dopamine receptor antagonists can be effective in psychotic depression but response is not assured. Visual hallucinations may arise from a dysregulation of brain cholinergic systems and acetylcholinesterase inhibitors (AChEIs) can treat such hallucinations in dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB). AChEIs have been used in schizophrenia with some success but their efficacy and tolerability in psychotic depression is unclear. This striking case illustrates AChEIs specifically targeting multimodal hallucinations in treatment-resistant depression. To our knowledge it is the first case report to do so. It highlights the value of delineating psychopathology when considering novel interventions. This case also shows the idiosyncratic nature of side effects and the importance of pursuing different drugs within class.
cDNA cloning and expression of a novel adipose specific collagen-like factor, apM1 (AdiPose Most abundant Gene transcript 1).

Abstract We isolated a novel adipose-specific gene, apM1, the transcript of which is the most abundant in the mRNA population from human adipose tissue. Northern blotting revealed that the human apM1 gene transcript is exclusively expressed in adipose tissue. The apM1 gene encodes a 244 amino acid open reading frame containing a putative signal sequence and G-X-Y repeats (66 amino acids) followed by a cluster of aromatic residues near the C terminus having high local similarity with collagens X and VIII and complement factor C1q. Thus, apM1 is likely to be a novel collagen-like secretory protein exclusively produced by adipose tissue.
Stability elements in the LRP6 cytoplasmic tail confer efficient signalling upon DIX-dependent polymerization

Wnt/β-catenin signalling controls cell fates in development, tissue homeostasis and cancer. Wnt binding to Frizzled receptors triggers recruitment of Dishevelled to the plasma membrane and formation of a signalosome containing the LRP5/6 co-receptor, whose cytoplasmic tail (ctail) thus becomes phosphorylated at multiple PPP(S/T)Px(S/T) motifs. These then directly inhibit GSK3β, which results in β-catenin accumulation and signalling. Here, we revisit previous epistasis experiments, and show that Dishevelled signals through LRP5/6 in human cells and Drosophila embryos. To recapitulate this signalling event, and to define its functional elements, we fused the Dishevelled DIX domain to the LRP6 ctail, which forms cytoplasmic signalosomes with potent signalling activity mediated by its PPP(S/T)Px(S/T) motifs. Their phosphorylation and activity depends critically on DIX-mediated polymerization, and on multiple stability elements in the LRP6 ctail, including the T1479 epitope upstream of the membrane-proximal PPP(S/T)Px(S/T) motif. Thus, stable polymerization emerges as a key principle underlying the function of Dishevelled-dependent signalosomes.
Privatism and Urban Policy in Britain and the United States

Part 1 The pursuit of the private city: the pursuit of the private city in the 1980s privatism and the trans-Atlantic transfer evaluating privatism. Part 2 Urban policy traditions in the United States and Britain: the private city in America privatism and the planning response in Britain urban policy orientations in a comparative context. Part 3 Urban redevelopment and the US war on poverty: privatism and urban redevelopment privatizing the war on poverty. Part 4 Local economic development policy in the US: the evolution of local economic development policy municipal marketing and civic entrepreneurship pitfalls on the path to local economic development reshaping the Cinderella city rethinking local economic development policy. Part 5 The new privatism and urban America in the 1980s: the new urban reality and the urban agenda urban policy and the standard of economic efficiency the urban budget and the attack on local economic development voluntarism, community self-reliance and the new federalism enterprize zones and the romance of entrepreneurialism privatization of public services entrepreneurial cities and the technology chase impacts of the new privatism the Reagan legacy and the politics of urban disinvestment. Part 6 The redirection of British urban policy: the beginnings of policy redirection cities and the strategy of privatism the pattern of policy initiative. Part 7 Privatism and urban regeneration in Britain: leveraging urban regeneration urban development corporations and the centralization of policy enterprize zones and the displacement of the planning regime public-private partnerships and the marketing of cities Thatcher's divided kingdom. Part 8 Urban policy and the limits of privatism: the promise of privatism the limits of privatism post-industrialism and the politics of privatism.