Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Lower use of carotid artery imaging at minority-serving hospitals

Objective: We determined whether site of care explains a previously identified racial disparity in carotid artery imaging. Methods: In this retrospective cohort study, data were obtained from a chart review of veterans hospitalized with ischemic stroke at 127 Veterans Administration hospitals in 2007. Extensive exclusion criteria were applied to obtain a sample who should have received carotid artery imaging. Minority-serving hospitals were defined as the top 10% of hospitals ranked by the proportion of stroke patients who were black. Population level multivariate logistic regression models with adjustment for correlation of patients in hospitals were used to calculate predictive probabilities of carotid artery imaging by race and minority-service hospital status. Bootstrapping was used to obtain 95% confidence intervals (CIs). Results: The sample consisted of 1,534 white patients and 628 black patients. Nearly 40% of all black patients were admitted to 1 of 13 minority-serving hospitals. No racial disparity in receipt of carotid artery imaging was detected within nonminority serving hospitals. However, the predicted probability of receiving carotid artery imaging for white patients at nonminority-serving hospitals (89.7%, 95% CI [87.3%, 92.1%]) was significantly higher than both white patients (78.0% [68.3%, 87.8%] and black patients (70.5% [59.3%, 81.6%]) at minority-serving hospitals. Conclusions: Underuse of carotid artery imaging occurred most often among patients hospitalized at minority-serving hospitals. Further work is required to explore why site of care is a mechanism for racial disparities in this clinically important diagnostic test.
Application of sewage sludge to arable land–soil concentrations of polybrominated diphenyl ethers and polychorinated dibenzo‐p‐dioxins, dibenzofurans, and biphenyls, and their accumulation in earthworms

Soils from five agricultural sites, three research sites, and two privately owned farms were analyzed for polychlorinated dibenzo‐p‐dioxins (PCDDs), polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDFs), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and polybronimated diphenylethers (PBDEs). In soils that had not been treated with sludge (reference soils), the international toxic equivalents (I‐TEQs) were 0.6 to 1.5 pg/g dry matter (DM) for the PCDD/Fs, which are low compared to generally reported background soil levels in Europe. The concentrations of sum of six penta‐ and hexa‐PCBs were 450 to 1,400 pg/g DM. The PBDEs 47 and 99 dominated among the tri‐ to hepta‐PBDEs analyzed (8–80 pg/g DM). The impact of adding 1 to 3 tonnes of sludge (DM) per hectare per year on the concentrations was studied at the three research sites by calculating ratios of the compounds in sludge‐treated soil to reference soil (S/R ratio). The concentrations of I‐TEQs did not increase in the sludge‐treated soil, whereas the S/R ratios for PBDEs were greater than one. Also, although the PCB contents were higher in the sludge‐treated soils, the background sources were more important for the concentrations of PCBs than of PBDEs. The largest increase in the S/R ratios was found at a private farm where large amounts of sludge had been used in the past. Accumulation of the compounds in earthworms from the sites also was investigated. The biota‐soil accumulation factors (BSAFs) of the tested compounds declined in the following order: ortho‐PCBs ∼ PBDEs > non‐ortho‐PCBs > 2,3,7,8‐substituted PCDD/Fs. The average BSAF for ortho‐PCBs was five (organic matter/lipids), and the lowest BSAFs (0.1–0.8) found were for octachlorodibenzo‐p‐dioxin. To our knowledge, accumulation of PBDEs in earthworms has not been published previously.
Interferon mono-therapy for symptomatic HCV-associated mixed cryoglobulinemia : meta-analysis of clinical studies.

OBJECTIVE Mixed cryoglobulinemia (MC) is an important complication of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. Antiviral therapy is now an important approach for symptomatic HCV-MC; some information exists on IFN mono-therapy for symptomatic HCV-MC in the non-transplant setting, but its efficacy is still unclear. METHODS We evaluated efficacy and safety of mono-therapy with standard or pegylated interferon (IFN) for symptomatic HCV-associated MC in non-immunosuppressed individuals by performing a systematic review of the literature with a meta-analysis of clinical studies. We used the random-effects model of DerSimonian and Laird with heterogeneity and sensitivity analyses. The primary outcome was sustained viral response (SVR, as a measure of efficacy), and the secondary outcome was the drop-out rate due to side-effects (as a measure of tolerability). RESULTS We identified eleven clinical studies (n = 235 unique patients) ; the rate of baseline kidney involvement ranged between 11% and 74%. The summary estimate of frequency of sustained viral response was 0.15 with a 95% Confidence Interval (CI) of 0.08; 0.22 (random-effects model). Significant heterogeneity occurred (P= 0.001; Chi= 28.9%). Stratified analysis did not meaningfully change the results. The frequency of patients stopping antiviral agents was 3.4% ; most patients experienced minor side effects which did not require interruption of therapy. Baseline cirrhosis (P <0.04), kidney involvement (P <0.07), and arthralgias (P <0.04) showed negative impact on viral response. We found an excellent relationship between viral and clinical response [weighted K = 0.72 (95% CI, 0.54; 0.89)], by an evaluation at individual level on a subset of reports (n = 65 unique patients). CONCLUSIONS This meta-analysis of clinical studies shows that antiviral therapy with standard or pegylated IFN alone for symptomatic MC associated with HCV gives satisfactory response in a minority of patients only. Clinical trials based on combination therapy (pegylated interferon plus ribavirin) or novel immunosuppressive agents are under way in order to improve efficacy and safety of symptomatic HCV-MC. ,
Association of Enterococcus spp. with Severe Combat Extremity Injury, Intensive Care, and Polymicrobial Wound Infection.

BACKGROUND Combat-related extremity wound infections can complicate the recovery of injured military personnel. The Enterococcus genus contains both commensal and pathogenic bacteria found in many combat wounds. We describe the patient population susceptible to Enterococcus infection, the characteristics of Enterococcus spp. isolated from combat-related wounds, and the microbiological profile of Enterococcus-positive wounds. METHODS Patient and culture data were obtained from the Trauma Infectious Disease Outcomes Study. Subjects were divided into a case group with enterococcal extremity wound infections and a comparator group with wound infections caused by other micro-organisms. RESULTS Case and comparator subjects had similar patterns of injury and infection. Case subjects had higher Injury Severity Scores (33 vs. 30; p < 0.001), longer hospitalization at U.S. facilities (55 vs. 40 days; p = 0.004), and required more large-volume blood transfusions (>20 units) within 24 h post-injury (53% vs. 30%; p < 0.001). Approximately 60% of case subjects had three or more infections, and 91% had one or more polymicrobial infections, compared with 43% and 50%, respectively, in the comparator group. The thigh was the most common site of Enterococcus spp. isolation, contributing 50% of isolates. Enterococcus faecium was the predominant species isolated from case-group infections overall (66%), as well as in polymicrobial infections (74%). Frequent co-colonizing microbes in polymicrobial wound infections with Enterococcus were other ESKAPE pathogens (64%) (Enterococcus faecium, Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae [and Escherichia coli], Acinetobacter baumannii, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Enterobacter spp.) and fungi (35%). CONCLUSIONS The specific pathogenicity of Enterococcus relative to other pathogens in polymicrobial wounds is unknown. Identifying strain-specific outcomes and investigating the interactions of Enterococcus strains with other wound pathogens could provide additional tools and strategies for infection mitigation in combat-related wounds.
Liver and Vertebral Uptake of Tc-99m Macroaggregated Albumin (MAA)

An unusual phenomenon during lung scintigraphy is presented. Besides visualization of the lungs, accumulation of Tc-99m macroaggregated albumin (MAA) was seen in a small part of the liver and in and around several thoracic vertebrae. Contrast-enhanced radiographic computed tomography revealed extensive collateral pathways, which were caused by a partially obstructed superior vena cava. Shunting of systemic venous blood flow through chest wall veins to the portal system was responsible for accumulation of MAA in the liver. Retrograde blood flow through dilated thoracic vertebral veins resulted in visualization of the bone marrow.
Distribution of modulatory inputs to the stomatogastric ganglion of the crab, Cancer borealis

The pyloric and gastric mill neural networks in the crustacean stomatogastric ganglion receive modulatory inputs from more anteriorly located ganglia via the stomatogastric nerve. In this study we employed biocytin backfilling and immunostaining, as well as electron microscopy, to determine the origin of these inputs in the crab, Cancer borealis. Fiber counts from electron micrographs of sections through the stomatogastric nerve showed that this nerve contains 55–60 medium to large diameter fibers (1–13 m̈m). These fibers were individually wrapped by several layers of membrane, presumably glial in origin. There was also a single cluster of jointly wrapped, small diameter (< 1 m̈m) fibers that may originate from peripheral sensory somata. Biocytin backfills revealed that approximately two thirds of the individually wrapped fibers in this nerve originate from somata in the other three ganglia of the stomatogastric nervous system, including the paired commissural ganglia and the single oesophageal ganglion. There were approximately 20 biocytin‐labeled somata in each commissural ganglion and 3 somata in the oesophageal ganglion. An additional ten somata were localized to the stomatogastric ganglion itself. This accounts for nearly all of the medium to large diameter fibers in the stomatogastric nerve. We used double‐labeling with backfills and immunocytochemistry to determine that there are two proctolin‐immunoreactive neurons and four FMRFamide‐like immunoreactive neurons among the biocytin‐labeled neurons in each commissural ganglion. Both peptides modulate neural network activity in the stomatogastric ganglion. Thus, our results demonstrate that most inputs to the stomatogastric ganglion originate from somata in the commissural ganglia, and that at least one third of these neurons contain a peptide known to modulate network activity in the stomatogastric ganglion. © 1992 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Onset of Effect of Aclidinium, a Novel, Long-Acting Muscarinic Antagonist, in Patients with COPD

ABSTRACT Aclidinium bromide is a novel, long-acting, inhaled muscarinic antagonist in development for the treatment of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The aim of this study was to assess the rate of onset of bronchodilation with aclidinium compared with placebo and tiotropium. This was a double-blind, double-dummy, multicenter, crossover study in COPD patients with a post-bronchodilator forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1) ≥30% and <60% predicted. On study days, patients received single doses of aclidinium 200 μg, tiotropium 18 μg, or placebo. Serial spirometry was conducted from 10 minutes to 3 hours post-dose. The primary variable was the percentage of patients with an increase in FEV1 of ≥10% above baseline at 30 minutes post-dose. Other assessments included change from baseline in FEV1 and dyspnea over 3 hours post-dose. A total of 115 patients entered the study. Significantly more patients had an increase in FEV1 of ≥10% above baseline at 30 minutes with aclidinium and tiotropium versus placebo (49.5% and 51.8% versus 13.8%; p < 0.0001). At 30 minutes, the relative increase from baseline in FEV1 was significantly higher for aclidinium and tiotropium versus placebo (12% and 11% versus 3%; p < 0.0001). Aclidinium and tiotropium also significantly increased FEV1 (p < 0.01) and improved the perception of dyspnea compared with placebo at all measured time points from 10 minutes to 3 hours post-dose. In conclusion, aclidinium provided effective bronchodilation, similar to that seen with tiotropium, with significant improvements compared with placebo observed from 10 minutes post-dose.
Radiation injury and neurogenesis

Purpose of reviewFor many cancers, survival depends on aggressive combined therapies, but treatment comes at a price. Children and adults who receive radiotherapy involving the brain frequently experience a progressive cognitive decline. The overt pathologies of radiation injury such as white matter necrosis or vasculopathy are the obvious ‘smoking guns’ of dysfunction. However, many patients exhibit severe learning and memory deficits with no overt pathologic changes. This is especially true when the radiation field involves the temporal lobes. The cause of this debilitating dysfunction is currently unknown and untreatable. Recent findingsWithin the temporal lobe, the hippocampal formation plays a central role in short-term learning and memory - the functions most notably affected by radiation. Recent work has also shown that hippocampus-dependent learning and memory are strongly influenced by the activity of neural stem cells and their proliferative progeny. The hippocampal granule cell layer undergoes continuous renewal and restructuring by the addition of new neurons. Radiation at much lower doses than that needed to injure the more resistant post-mitotic neurons and glia of the brain has been found to affect these highly proliferative progenitors severely. The stem/progenitor cell is so sensitive to radiation that a single low dose to the cranium of a mature rat is sufficient to ablate hippocampal neurogenesis. SummaryProgressive learning and memory deficits following irradiation may be caused by the accumulating hippocampal dysfunction that results from a long-term absence of normal stem/progenitor activity. Here, the authors describe the nature of this stem cell dysfunction and contemplate how restoration of stem/progenitor cell activity might be approached in experimental models and, eventually, the clinic.
Simulation study of body surface RF propagation for UWB wearable medical sensors

Ultra Wide-Band (UWB) is a favorable technology for wearable medical sensors that monitor vital signs and other health-related information. Efficient transceiver design requires in-depth understanding of the propagation media which in this case is the human body surface. The results of the few measurement experiments in recent publications point to varying conclusions in the derived parameters of the channel model. As obtaining large amount of data for many scenarios and use-cases is difficult for this channel, a detailed simulation platform can be extremely beneficial in highlighting the propagation behavior of the body surface and determining the best scenarios for limited physical measurements. In this paper, an immersive visualization environment is presented, which is used as a scientific instrument that gives us the ability to observe three-dimensional RF propagation from wearable medical sensors around a human body. We have used this virtual environment to further study UWB channels over the surface of a human body. Parameters of a simple statistical path-loss model and their sensitivity to frequency and the location of the sensors on the body are discussed.
Molecular detection of Phomopsis taxa 1 and 2 in grapevine canes and buds

DNA sequences, specific to each of the two taxa of Phomopsis (taxon 1 and taxon 2) that commonly infect grapevines in Australia, have been identified and cloned. The clones recognise a repeated sequence and both identify genetic variation. The taxon 2-specific marker identified five distinct banding patterns amongst twelve Phomopsis taxon 2 isolates obtained from five different geographical regions. The Phomopsis taxon 1-specific clone was used to detect the fungus in canes and unburst buds of grapevines that displayed symptoms of infection, visible in late winter as pycnidia on bleached canes. However, the fungus was also detected in canes and unburst buds from canes that were not bleached. In addition, perithecia of the sexual phase were observed on other unburst buds following incubation of canes. The results suggest that bleaching should not be used as an indicator of infection by Phomopsis taxon 1. Microscopic examination of infected, micropropagated grapevines showed that, similar to other Phomopsis species, taxon 1 grows subcuticularly in the stems. The specificity and high copy number of the taxon 1 and taxon 2 probes, together with a rapid DNA extraction method, provide the means for a sensitive assay for these fungi and for fundamental studies on the biology of two Phomopsis taxa that infect grapevine in Australia.
Evaluation of shedding of bovine herpesvirus 1, bovine viral diarrhea virus 1, and bovine viral diarrhea virus 2 after vaccination of calves with a multivalent modified-live virus vaccine.

OBJECTIVE To determine whether bovine herpesvirus 1 (BHV1), bovine viral diarrhea (BVDV) virus 1 (BVDV1), or BVDV 2 (BVDV2) were shed after parenteral administration of a multivalent modified-live virus vaccine. DESIGN Prospective study. ANIMALS 28 healthy beef calves and 4 healthy pregnant beef cows. PROCEDURE A commercially available modified-live virus multivalent vaccine was administered to steers and heifers (n = 18) that were seronegative to BHV1, BVDV1, and BVDV2. Four seronegative pregnant control cows were held in contact with the vaccinated calves for 103 days. Unvaccinated calves (n = 10) were held as controls in a separate double-fenced pen. Seroconversion was monitored by determining serum neutralization titers after vaccination. Viral shedding and viremia were assessed via analysis of nasal swab specimens and blood by use of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and reverse transcriptase-PCR assays and virus isolation. RESULTS A transient BVDV1 viremia was detected in most vaccinated calves 3 to 10 days after vaccination. All vaccinated calves seroconverted to BVDV1 and BVDV2. Seventeen of 18 vaccinated calves seroconverted to BHV1. Viral shedding was not detected in the vaccinated calves. All control cattle remained seronegative to BHV1, BVDV1, and BVDV2 throughout the study. CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE Shedding of BHV1, BVDV1, and BVDV2 after vaccination was either nonexistent or undetected and did not result in transmission of BHV1, BVDV1, or BVDV2 vaccine viruses to pregnant contact control cows.
LGBT Workplace Inequality in the Federal Workforce: Intersectional Processes, Organizational Contexts, and Turnover Considerations

How do lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) employees fare in US workplaces? Beyond formal discrimination, do LGBT workers encounter biases that degrade the quality of their day-to-day workplace experiences? Using a representative sample of more than 300,000 employees in 28 “best case” organizations—federal agencies with LGBT-inclusive policies—the authors examine not only whether these informal workplace inequalities occur but also where and for whom they are most exaggerated. LGBT employees report worse workplace experiences than their colleagues across 16 measures of employee treatment, workplace fairness, and job satisfaction. These inequalities are amplified or tempered by organizational contexts and can even affect turnover intentions. They are also intersectional: LGBT women and people of color have consistently more negative experiences than do men and white LGBT workers. These results help map the landscape of LGBT workplace inequality and underscore the importance of considering intersectional and organizational contexts therein.
Shall We Twist

In recent monetary history, central banks around the world have started to introduce unconventional monetary policy measures, such as extending or restructuring the asset side of their balance sheet. The origin of these mon- etary policy tools goes back to an intervention by the U.S. Federal Reserve System under the Kennedy administration in 1961 known as Operation Twist. Operation Twist serves as a perfect laboratory to study the e ectiveness of such balance sheet policies, because interest rates neither were at their lower bound nor was the economy in a historical turmoil. We assess the actions of the FED and the Treasury under Operation Twist based on balance sheet data and evaluate their success using modern time series techniques. We nd that, although being of rather moderate size, the joint policy actions were e ective in compressing the long-short spreads of the Treasury bond rates.
Targeting of Social Protection in 11 Ethiopian Villages

Social protection in Ethiopia is primarily allocated through community-based targeting. The few studies that have analysed the efficacy of aid targeting in Ethiopia have revealed targeting biases in regard to demography, geography and political affiliations. With the introduction in Ethiopia in 2005 of the Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP), a major social protection programme, various administrative guidelines were introduced (and subsequently periodically revised) with the aim of improving targeting. This paper uses data from the last two rounds of the Ethiopian Rural Household Survey to investigate whether PSNP implementation resulted in changes in both targeting determinants and amount received for public works (a component of PSNP) and emergency aid between 2004 and 2009 in 11 rural villages. In general, public works appear to have been allocated on the basis of observable poverty-related characteristics, and emergency aid according to household demographics. In addition, the results suggest that, for both public works and emergency aid beneficiaries, political connections were significant in determining the receipt of aid in 2004 but that this was no longer the case by 2009, indicating an improvement in the channeling of social protection to its intended target groups. However, a household’s experience of recent shocks was found to bear no relationship to receipt of support, which suggests that a more flexible and shock-responsive implementation could improve targeting for transitory needs.
Conditional generation of multi-modal data using constrained embedding space mapping

We present a conditional generative model that maps low-dimensional embeddings of multiple modalities of data to a common latent space hence extracting semantic relationships between them. The embedding specific to a modality is first extracted and subsequently a constrained optimization procedure is performed to project the two embedding spaces to a common manifold. The individual embeddings are generated back from this common latent space. However, in order to enable independent conditional inference for separately extracting the corresponding embeddings from the common latent space representation, we deploy a proxy variable trick - wherein, the single shared latent space is replaced by the respective separate latent spaces of each modality. We design an objective function, such that, during training we can force these separate spaces to lie close to each other, by minimizing the distance between their probability distribution functions. Experimental results demonstrate that the learned joint model can generalize to learning concepts of double MNIST digits with additional attributes of colors,from both textual and speech input.