Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cost-effectiveness analysis of valsartan versus losartan and the effect of switching

Abstract Objectives: Losartan will shortly become generic, and this may encourage switching to the generic drug. However, valsartan was shown in a meta-analysis to be statistically superior in lowering blood pressure (BP) to losartan. This paper examines the costs of treatment with these two drugs and the potential consequences of switching established valsartan patients to generic losartan. Methods: A US payer cost-effectiveness model was developed incorporating the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) events related to systolic blood pressure (SBP) control comparing valsartan to continual losartan and switching from valsartan to generic losartan. The model, based upon a meta-analysis by Nixon et al. and Framingham equations, included first CVD event costs calculated from US administrative data sets and utility values from published sources. The modeled outcomes were number of CVD events, costs and incremental cost per quality-adjusted life-year (QALY) and life-year (LY). Results: Fewer patients had fatal and non-fatal CVD events with valsartan therapy compared with continual losartan and with patients switched from valsartan to generic losartan. The base-case model results indicated that continued treatment with valsartan had an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio of $27,268 and $25,460 per life year gained, and $32,313 and $30,170 per QALY gained, relative to continual losartan and switching treatments, respectively. Sensitivity analyses found that patient discontinuation post-switching was a sensitive parameter. Including efficacy offsets with lowered adherence or discontinuation resulted in more favorable ratios for valsartan compared to switching therapy. Limitations: The model does not evaluate post-primary CVD events and considers change in SBP from baseline level as the sole predictor of CVD risk. Conclusions: Valsartan appears to be cost-effective compared to switching to generic losartan and switching to the generic drug does not support a cost offset argument over the longer term. Physicians should continue to consider the needs of individual patient and not cost offsets.
Genetic similarity and phenotypic diversity of commensal and pathogenic strains of Candida albicans isolated from the oral cavity

Colony phenotype and genetic similarity were assessed within and between groups of commensal and pathogenic strains of Candida albicans collected from the oral cavities of individuals in a single geographical locale. Thirty-eight percent of pathogenic isolates contained predominant or minor variant colony morphologies (other than smooth) when samples from the sites of infection were cultured on plates, while 16% of commensal isolates contained minor variant colony morphologies when samples from the sites of carriage were cultured. The genetic similarities of isolates within and between groups were assessed by DNA fingerprinting by using Southern blot hybridization with the fingerprinting probe Ca3 and analysis with the computer-assisted, automated Dendron system. Both the commensal and the pathogenic groups contained a major cluster of genetically similar C. albicans isolates representing 31 and 33% of the strains in the respective groups. When a combined dendrogram of both commensal and pathogenic isolates was generated, the major clusters of genetically similar isolates in each group mixed into one large cluster. Minor clusters in the individual dendrograms also mixed. These results suggest common clonal origins for commensal and pathogenic strains in the same geographical locale.
Improved Bend Waveguide Design for Terahertz Transmission

Bending waveguides with 90° corners based on a two-dimensional photonic crystal with metallic cylinders arranged in a square lattice are studied for THz wave guiding. Considering single- and double-line defects, five different designs are investigated and assessed in terms of their transmission performance. A better structure is proposed by increasing the number of rods in the bending arc, thus achieving superior performance of the transmission characteristics in comparison to that of the former five designs. A comparison of the improved bend waveguide with a linear waveguide shows a significant reduction of the bending losses. Transmission levels of up to 98% within a 2.5 THz bandwidth (from 1.2 to 3.7 THz) have been accomplished.
Longitudinal Monitoring of Intracranial Arterial Stenoses with Transcranial Doppler Ultrasonography

The natural history of intracranial arterial stenoses remains relatively unknown. To monitor the progression of these lesions over time, the authors reviewed transcranial Doppler (TCD) laboratory reports at five hospitals for patients with angiographically documented intracranial arterial stenoses along the internal carotid artery distribution, and at least two TCD studies conducted more than 2 months apart. Twenty‐two patients (19 men and 3 women; mean age, 64 years) with 29 stenoses were identified. The findings were compared to reproducibility data obtained from 11 age‐matched control subjects with repeat TCD studies. During a mean follow‐up period of 21 months, peak systolic flow velocities corresponding to the areas of stenosis increased in 9 arteries with lesions, and new collateral flow patterns, indicating further hemodynamic compromise distal to the lesions, developed in 2; one of the latter also had increased corresponding velocities. Thus, 10 (35%) arteries with lesions had TCD evidence of progression. Flow velocities remained the same in 13 (45%) stenotic vessels and dropped in 2 (7%). Findings were considered inconclusive for 4 lesions (14%). These findings suggest that intracranial arterial stenoses are dynamic lesions, and that they can evolve and cause further reductions of the arterial diameters after relatively short periods of time. TCD can noninvasively detect their hemodynamic efects.
Suicidal Ideation and Its Correlates: Testing the Interpersonal Theory of Suicide in Chinese Students

The present study explored the validity of Joiner's interpersonal theory of suicide in a sample of 439 Chinese university students 17 to 24 years of age. The results indicated that the three elements of the theory (thwarted belongingness, perceived burdensomeness, and acquired capability for self-harm) were associated with current suicidal ideation in the total sample of students. For men, only thwarted belongingness and perceived burdensomeness predicted suicidal ideation, whereas all three elements of the theory predicted suicidal ideation for women. Multiple regression analyses, controlling for other variables, supported the role of burdensomeness and acquired capability for suicide, but not thwarted belongingness.
Political Connectedness and Court Outcomes: Evidence from Chinese Corporate Lawsuits

Many authoritarian regimes lack an independent judiciary. This article studies the effect of firms’ political connectedness on court outcomes using a unique hand-collected data set of 3,323 commercial lawsuits involving listed companies in China. We find robust evidence that Chinese courts favor state firms and private firms with personal political ties. The positive effect of political connectedness is pronounced in the outcomes of litigation but not arbitration and is less pronounced in regions with better legal institutions. We also find that locally connected firms are favored in their home courts but not when the case is tried outside their home province. There is some evidence that China’s 2007 Property Law reduces the advantage of state firms. Our results cast light on the welfare redistribution role of courts in emerging and transitional economies.
Neural Control of Insulin Secretion

It is well established that much of the secretion of the islets of Langerhans in the pancreas is controlled by circulating fuels, the main controller being glucose which stimulates insulin secretion and inhibits glucagon secretion. By monitoring the plasma levels after food ingestion, the islets secrete adequate amounts of insulin so that absorbed fuels can be stored as glycogen and/or fat. The endocrine pancreas derives additional information about the incoming nutrients from the numerous gastrointestinal hormones (GI) released by different parts of the intestines in anticipation of or when food passes. Several of these GI hormones are capable of influencing glucagon and insulin release from the endocrine pancreas. This peripheral control of insulin and glucagon secretion fulfills most of the metabolic needs. However, the animal also needs a fine tuned regulation of the secretion of these hormones in order to cover metabolic demands in the long-term and under emergency conditions. In this respect it is important to anticipate or to adapt to external influences. Such a controlling role can be fulfilled by the central nervous system (CNS). Already in the middle of the 19th century Claude Bernard suggested that several metabolic processes concerned with energy regulation and in particular with blood glucose homeostasis are controlled by the central nervous system. He suggested that there were nerves causing hyperglycaemia by stimulating glycogenolysis in the liver and other nerves which stimulated glucose uptake in the tissues. Half a century later these concepts changed. The main regulatory region for blood glucose was relocated from the brain to the pancreas. Over the last several decades, there is again increasing evidence for a participation of the central nervous system on blood glucose homeostasis via a direct innervation of the liver and/or via innervation of the pancreas. As we will see below, the study of the central nervous influences has also clinical implications.
Bollgard Cotton and Resistance of Tobacco Budworm (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) to Conventional Insecticides in Southern Tamaulipas, Mexico

Abstract Insecticide susceptibility in tobacco budworm, Heliothis virescens (F.) (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae), was determined for 8 yr (1991–2001) with larvae sampled from cotton in southern Tamaulipas, Mexico. Before 1996, when Bollgard cotton expressing the Cry1A(c) δ-endotoxin was introduced into the region, two important patterns were documented. The first was economically significant increases in resistance to certain insecticide groups. The second was occurrence of virtually complete control failures in the field during 1994 and 1995. The largest resistance changes were recorded for the type II pyrethroids cypermethrin and deltamethrin. These products are the most widely used products in the region. Resistance ratios for these products increased up to >100-fold from 1991 to 1995. After 1996, the resistance levels declined. These findings did not occur with other products of scant use (e.g., permethrin, profenofos, and endosulfan) or low tobacco budworm efficacy coupled to a high use pattern (e.g., methyl parathion). This clear trend toward reversal of resistance to type II pyrethroids can be understood, in part, with respect to two factors: 1) the high adoption rate of transgenic cotton in the region, from 31.2% in the beginning (1996) to ≈90% in 1998; this has considerably curbed the use of synthetic insecticides, with the attending loss of selection pressure on this pest; and 2) the potential immigration to the region of susceptible tobacco budworms from cultivated and wild suitable hosts as well as from transgenic cotton might have influenced the pest population as a whole. The influence of transgenic cotton on southern Tamaulipas can be more clearly seen by the drastic reduction of insecticide use to control this important pest. Now tobacco budworms in this region are susceptible to type II pyrethroids. Two effective and fundamentally different pest management tools are now available to cotton growers in southern Tamaulipas: transgenic cotton, coupled with careful use of pyrethroids, offers the possibility of sustainable and profitable cotton production.
Servitization: academic research and business practice

En los ultimos anos, la servitizacion de la manufactura ha llegado a ser un topico de interes tanto a nivel academico como empresarial. Asi, las empresas estan contemplando que la servitizacion es una forma de mejorar su posicion competitiva y estar mas cerca de sus clientes. Diferentes estudios empiricos han intentado explicar por que y como se servitiza. Facilitan informacion clave para entender mejor el proceso de servitizacion. La conexion entre la academia y la practica empresarial es decisiva en los fundamentos de este topico de investigacion. La fundamentacion del mismo, permitira continuar con su desarrollo y a la puesta en practica en las empresas. Asi, este numero especial pretende contribuir en el avance de la teoria y practica de la servitizacion. In recent years, the servitization of manufacturing has become a topic of interest to both academics and practitioners. Indeed, companies are realising that servitization is a way to enhance their competitive advantage and get closer to their customers. Several empirical studies have attempted to explain why and how to servitize. They provide important insights to better understand the processes of servitization. The connection between academia and business practices is decisive in the foundation of this research topic. This foundation will allow continuing with its development, contributing in turn to improve the implementation in companies. Hence, this special issue aims to contribute to the theoretical and practical aspects of servitization.
A virtual linear accelerator for verification of treatment planning systems

A virtual linear accelerator is implemented into a commercial pencil-beam-based treatment planning system (TPS) with the purpose of investigating the possibility of verifying the system using a Monte Carlo method. The characterization set for the TPS includes depth doses, profiles and output factors, which is generated by Monte Carlo simulations. The advantage of this method over conventional measurements is that variations in accelerator output are eliminated and more complicated geometries can be used to study the performance of a TPS. The difference between Monte Carlo simulated and TPS calculated profiles and depth doses in the characterization geometry is less than ±2% except for the build-up region. This is of the same order as previously reported results based on measurements. In an inhomogeneous, mediastinum-like case, the deviations between TPS and simulations are small in the unit-density regions. In low-density regions, the TPS overestimates the dose, and the overestimation increases with increasing energy from 3.5% for 6 MV to 9.5% for 18 MV. This result points out the widely known fact that the pencil beam concept does not handle changes in lateral electron transport, nor changes in scatter due to lateral inhomogeneities. It is concluded that verification of a pencil-beam-based TPS with a Monte Carlo based virtual accelerator is possible, which facilitates the verification procedure.
The Effect of ADAM8 on the Proliferation and Apoptosis of Hepatocytes and Hepatoma Carcinoma Cells

This study was undertaken to evaluate the effect of ADAM8 on the proliferation and apoptosis of hepatocytes and hepatoma carcinoma cells during hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) progression. The expression of ADAM8 was significantly increased with good correlation of PCNA expression increasing and cells apoptosis decreasing during the progression of HCC in the liver of mice. Proliferation experiment in vitro showed that recombinant ADAM8 could induce the expression of PCNA in L02 cells, but not in HepG2 cells. Apoptosis experiment in vitro showed that recombinant ADAM8 did not induce or inhibit the expression of apoptosis‐related factors Bcl2, Bax, and Caspase3 in L02 cells, but significantly induced the expression of Bcl2, inhibited the expression of Bax and Caspase3 in HepG2 cells. In conclusion, our study suggested that ADAM8 could promote the proliferation of normal hepatocytes and render hepatoma carcinoma cells more resistant to apoptosis to play important roles during the progression of HCC. ADAM8; Proliferation; Apoptosis
It's about Time: A System Thinking Analysis of the Litigation Finance Industry and Its Effect on Settlement

The developing litigation finance industry is applauded by those who champion its access-granting and bargaining-power-equalizing functions for low-income plaintiffs in civil suits, and derided by those who warn of its unsavory business practices and interference with settlement efforts. With no current body of law adequately addressing the potential problems this burgeoning industry creates, it is vital to develop an approach to litigation finance that protects both the integrity of the settlement process and consumer interests. Such an approach simultaneously must avoid excessive regulation that effectively hinders court access by precluding disadvantaged plaintiffs with viable claims from having their days in court. Applying systems thinking to the field of litigation finance and its effect on settlement reveals a simple objective that would best achieve the necessary balance between this new field’s angels and demons: reducing the time delay currently plaguing civil courts. Part I of this Comment explores the general structure, history, and current status of litigation finance, identifying the circumstances that stimulated its creation and describing its prototypical operation. Part I also briefly reviews existing legal doctrines that have been, or could potentially be, used to regulate litigation finance, including champerty, usury, and contract law. Part II examines the widely diverging viewpoints about the litigation finance industry, focusing in
Critical Evaluation of the Linkage Between Tick-Based Risk Measures and the Occurrence of Lyme Disease Cases

Abstract The nymphal stage of the blacklegged tick, Ixodes scapularis Say, is considered the primary vector to humans in the eastern United States of the Lyme disease spirochete Borrelia burgdorferi sensu stricto. The abundance of infected host-seeking nymphs is commonly used to estimate the fundamental risk of human exposure to B. burgdorferi, for the purpose of environmental risk assessment and as an outcome measure when evaluating environmentally based tick or pathogen control methods. However, as this tick-based risk measure does not consider the likelihoods of either human encounters with infected ticks or tick bites resulting in pathogen transmission, its linkage to the occurrence of Lyme disease cases is worth evaluating. In this Forum article, we describe different tick-based risk measures, discuss their strengths and weaknesses, and review the evidence for their capacity to predict the occurrence of Lyme disease cases. We conclude that: 1) the linkage between abundance of host-seeking B. burgdorferi-infected nymphs and Lyme disease occurrence is strong at community or county scales but weak at the fine spatial scale of residential properties where most human exposures to infected nymphs occur in Northeast, 2) the combined use of risk measures based on infected nymphs collected from the environment and ticks collected from humans is preferable to either one of these risk measures used singly when assessing the efficacy of environmentally based tick or pathogen control methods aiming to reduce the risk of human exposure to B. burgdorferi, 3) there is a need for improved risk assessment methodology for residential properties that accounts for both the abundance of infected nymphs and the likelihood of human–tick contact, and 4) we need to better understand how specific human activities conducted in defined residential microhabitats relate to risk for nymphal exposures and bites.
Nutrient Dependence of RNase E Essentiality in Escherichia coli

ABSTRACT Escherichia coli cells normally require RNase E activity to form colonies (colony-forming ability [CFA]). The CFA-defective phenotype of cells lacking RNase E is partly reversed by overexpression of the related endoribonuclease RNase G or by mutation of the gene encoding the RNA helicase DeaD. We found that the carbon source utilization by rne deaD doubly mutant bacteria differs from that of rne+ cells and from that of cells mutated in deaD alone and that the loss of rne function in these bacteria limits conversion of the glycolytic pathway product phosphoenolpyruvate to the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle intermediate oxaloacetic acid. We show that the mechanism underlying this effect is reduced production of the enzyme phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase (PPC) and that adventitious overexpression of PPC, which facilitates phosphoenolpyruvate utilization and connects the glycolytic pathway with the TCA cycle, restored CFA to rne deaD mutant bacteria cultured on carbon sources that otherwise were unable to sustain growth. We further show that bacteria producing full-length RNase E, which allows formation of degradosomes, have nutritional requirements different from those of cells supplied with only the N-terminal catalytic region of RNase E and that mitigation of RNase E deficiency by overexpression of a related RNase, RNase G, is also affected by carbon source. Our results reveal previously unsuspected effects of RNase E deficiency and degradosome formation on nutrient utilization by E. coli cells.
A dual feed PIFA diversity antenna for MIMO systems

This paper presents a novel dual-feed Planar Inverted-F Antenna (PIFA) for MIMO radio communication systems at 2.45 GHz. This antenna contains only one radiating plate with two matched and isolated ports. To reduce the mutual coupling and to achieve a good isolation, ground plane under the top radiating plate is etched. The calculated envelope cross-correlation is less than 0.02 and the ratio of the mean effective gain between the two ports is close to unity. It is shown that a single PIFA antenna can be used instead of two antennas for diversity gain which is an excellent solution for saving the space and cost. Simulated and measured results are provided to verify the conclusion.
Percutaneous Computed Tomography-Guided Coaxial Core Biopsy for Small Pulmonary Lesions with Ground-Glass Attenuation

Introduction: The aim of this study was to investigate the diagnostic value of percutaneous computed tomography (CT)-guided coaxial transthoracic needle biopsy (TNB) for small pulmonary lesions (≤3 cm) with persistent ground-glass opacity (GGO). Methods: From January 2004 to February 2010, consecutive patients with persistent small GGO lesions (≤3 cm) who underwent CT-guided TNB were analyzed. The pathologic results of CT-guided TNB were compared with final diagnoses, and the GGO percentage on CT was correlated with the stromal invasion in surgical pathology. Results: We performed CT-guided TNB on 1612 patients during the study period. Among them, 55 patients had persistent small GGO lesions (size range 0.5–3.0 cm; 1.72 ± 0.73 cm), 47 were diagnosed with lung adenocarcinomas, and 8 with benign nonspecific lesions. Minor procedure-related complications occurred in 26 patients (47.3%) with small pneumothorax and 11 patients (20.0%) with self-limited mild hemoptysis. The final diagnoses of the 43 patients receiving lobectomy were invasive adenocarcinoma (n = 23), pure bronchioloalveolar carcinoma (n = 19), and mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue lymphoma (n = 1). The diagnostic accuracy was 93.0% (40/43) using CT-guided TNB. Pure GGO lesions had a higher incidence of pure bronchioloalveolar carcinoma than GGO-dominant lesions (70.0% versus 21.7%; p = 0.004). Compared with surgical pathology, stromal invasion was underestimated in 43.5% (10/23) of the TNB specimens, especially in pure GGO lesions (83%, 5/6). In logistic regression analysis, the GGO percentage correlated inversely with stromal tumor invasion (p = 0.0028). Conclusions: CT-guided coaxial TNB is a safe and useful method for diagnosing small (≤3 cm) persistent GGO lesions. Stromal invasion may be underestimated by TNB in GGO lesions.