Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
β‐Blockade: Benefits Beyond Blood Pressure Reduction?

Hypertension is a major cardiovascular (CV) risk factor, but several other common conditions, including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), osteoporosis, and peripheral arterial disease (PAD), have been shown to independently increase the risk of CV events and death. The physiological basis for an increased CV risk in those conditions probably lies in the augmentations of oxidative stress, endothelial dysfunction, systemic inflammation, and arterial stiffness, which all are also hallmarks of hypertension. β‐Blockers have been used for the treatment of hypertension for more than 40 years, but a number of meta‐analyses have demonstrated that treatment with these agents may be associated with an increased risk of CV events and mortality. However, the majority of primary prevention β‐blocker trials employed atenolol, an earlier‐generation β1‐selective blocker whose mechanism of action is based on a reduction of cardiac output. Available evidence suggests that vasodilatory β‐blockers may be free of the deleterious effects of atenolol. The purpose of this review is to summarize pathophysiologic mechanisms thought to be responsible for the increased CV risk associated with COPD, osteoporosis, and PAD, and examine the possible benefits of vasodilatory β‐blockade in those conditions. Our examination focused on nebivolol, a β1‐selective agent with vasodilatory effects most likely mediated via β3 activation.
Mesenchymal Stromal Cell-Based Therapies for Chronic Lung Disease of Prematurity

Abstract Advances in perinatal care allow the survival of ever more premature infants. By approaching the biological limit of viability, survival free of injury becomes more challenging. As a consequence, bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD), the chronic lung disease of prematurity, remains one of the main complications in infants born before 28 weeks' gestation. Currently, there is no treatment for BPD. Recent progress in understanding the biology of stem cells has opened unprecedented therapeutic options to mitigate lung injury and promote lung growth. Perinatal tissue, such as the umbilical cord and the placenta, represents a rich source of potent repair cells. Thus far, mesenchymal stromal cell (MSC)-based therapies demonstrate the most potential for protecting the developing lung from injury. Preclinical evidence supporting this potential therapeutic role has provided the basis for the initiation of phase I and II clinical trials in preterm neonates. This brief review summarizes the current knowledge accumulated over the past 10 years about MSCs and their repair potential in BPD.
Adherence among children and adolescents with insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus over a four-year longitudinal follow-up: I. The influence of patient coping and adjustment.

An onset cohort of adolescents and children with insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus was studied over a 4-year period. Individual patient psychosocial and demographic factors were assessed at study inception and used to examine aspects of adherence over the follow-up. We found that initial assessment of patient coping (defense level, adaptive strength, and locus of control) and adjustment at study inception were predictive of the level of patient adherence to diabetic regimen over the 4 years of study. Psychosocial variables predicted adherence outcomes independent of patient age. This was found for three domains of adherence, i.e., diet, insulin adjustment, and metabolic monitoring, and for the composite index derived from the separate adherence scales. Preadolescents (ages 9-12) at study entry were more adherent than patients who were already adolescent (ages 13-16) when diagnosed. Using multiple regression, three factors (age, adjustment, ego defense level) accounted for 47% of the variance in adherence. No factors were predictive of change in adherence during the follow-up. Thus, psychosocial characteristics of diabetic children assessed shortly after diagnosis predicted typical or average adherence over a 4-year period. Identification of such characteristics may be useful in developing strategies for intervention early in the course of illness.
The Influence of Accrual Anomaly and Winner-Loser Anomaly on Abnormal Return: The Indonesian Evidence

This research aims to investigate the existence of two market anomalies—accrual anomaly and winner-loser anomaly—and compare whether these two anomalies significantly affect the abnormal return in Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX). This research was designed into three steps: (1) Portfolios formation; (2) Test of Existence; and (3) Regression analysis, using the observation period of six years starting from 2002 to 2007. We found that winner-loser anomaly has been more significant in affecting abnormal return for the period of 2002–2007, despite that both accrual and winner-loser anomalies were indicated to exist in the period of observation. The test of accrual anomaly existence during six-year observation period has revealed that in 2003, low accrual firms had generated higher abnormal returns compared to the high accrual firms, for which it indicates the existence of accrual anomaly. The existence of winner-loser anomaly is justified by the significant effect of overreaction on the price reversal phenomena. This research contributes to the study regarding accrual and winner-loser anomalies, attributed by the comparison between these two anomalies based on the statistical measurement analysis according to historical data. The results could be useful for investors to understand the characteristics of Indonesian capital market, in which the efficient market hypothesis is verified not to work properly, hence the publicly-available information should not be the sole information used to formulate their investment strategy.
Functional and bioenergetic consequences of postinfarction left ventricular remodeling in a new porcine model. MRI and 31 P-MRS study.

BACKGROUND The underlying mechanisms by which left ventricular remodeling (LVR) leads to congestive heart failure (CHF) are unclear. This study examined the functional and bioenergetic abnormalities associated with postinfarction ventricular remodeling in a new, large animal model. METHODS AND RESULTS Remodeling was induced by circumflex coronary artery ligation in young pigs. LV mass, volume, ejection fraction (EF), the ratio of scar surface area to LV surface area, and LV wall stresses were calculated from magnetic resonance imaging anatomic data and simultaneously measured LV pressure. Hemodynamics, transmural blood flow, and high-energy phosphates (spatially localized 31P-nuclear magnetic resonance) were measured under basal conditions, during hyperperfusion induced by pharmacological vasodilation with adenosine, and during pyruvate infusion (11 mg/kg per minute IV). Six of 18 animals with coronary ligation developed clinical CHF while the remaining 12 animals had LV dilation (LVR) without CHF. The results were compared with 16 normal animals. EF decreased from 55.9 +/- 5.6% in normals to 34.6 +/- 2.3% in the LVR group (P < .05) and 24.2 +/- 2.8% in the CHF group (P < .05 versus LVR). The infarct scar was larger in CHF hearts than in LVR hearts (P < .05). In normals, LV myocardial creatine phosphate (CP)/ATP ratios were 2.10 +/- 0.10, 2.06 +/- 0.16, and 1.92 +/- 0.12 in subepicardium (EPI), mid myocardium (MID), and subendocardium (ENDO), respectively. In LVR hearts, the corresponding ratios were decreased to 1.99 +/- 0.13, 1.80 +/- 0.14, and 1.57 +/- 0.15 (ENDO P < .05 versus normal). In CHF hearts, CP/ATP ratios were 1.41 +/- 0.14, 1.33 +/- 0.15, and 1.25 +/- 0.15; (P < .05 versus LVR in EPI and MID). The calculated myocardial free ADP levels were significantly increased only in CHF hearts. CONCLUSIONS Bioenergetic abnormalities in remodeled myocardium are related to the severity of LV dysfunction, which, in turn, is dependent on the severity of the initiating myocardial infarction.
Emergence of Vancomycin-Resistant Enterococci at a University Hospital in Taiwan: Persistence of Multiple Species and Multiple Clones

Abstract Objectives: To describe the epidemiology of vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) in a university hospital in Taipei, Taiwan. Design: Retrospective review over a 27-month period, from March 1996 to May 1998. Setting: A tertiary-care teaching hospital in Taiwan. Participants: Patients with VRE isolated from any body site. Methods: Patients were identified through hospital microbiology and infection control records. Patient charts were reviewed for clinical and epidemiology data, including age, gender, previous hospital admissions, underlying diseases, types of infection, and recent antibiotic use. VRE isolates were characterized by their typical biochemical reactions, cellular fatty acid profiles, and the presence of van genes. Antibiotypes using the E-test and randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) patterns of these isolates were used to determine the clonality. Results: Twenty-five isolates of VRE recovered from 12 patients were identified. One patient with a perianal abscess had 12 isolates of VRE (4 Enterococcus faecalis, 7 Enterococcus faecium, and 1 Enterococcus casseliflavus) recovered from perianal lesions. Among 3 patients who were hospitalized in the same room, 1 had a community-acquired cellulitis over the left leg caused by E faecalis, and the other 2 patients both had anal colonization with 2 isolates of E faecalis. The other 8 patients had 1 E faecalis isolate each from various clinical specimens. All isolates possessed vanA resistance phenotype and vanA genes. Different antibiotypes and RAPD patterns of the isolates from different patients excluded the possibility of nosocomial spread at the hospital. Conclusions: Multiple species of VRE (E faecalis, E faecium, and E casseliflavus) and multiple clones of E faecium could colonize or infect hospitalized patients. In addition, clones of VRE can persist long-term in patients' lower gastrointestinal tracts. These results extend our knowledge of the coexistence and the persistence of multiple species and multiple clones of VRE in hospitalized patients.
Automatic Identification of Non-Meaningful Body-Movements and What It Reveals About Humans

We present a framework to identify whether a public speaker's body movements are meaningful or non-meaningful ("Mannerisms") in the context of their speeches. In a dataset of 84 public speaking videos from 28 individuals, we extract 314 unique body movement patterns (e.g. pacing, gesturing, shifting body weights, etc.). Online workers and the speakers themselves annotated the meaningfulness of the patterns. We extracted five types of features from the audio-video recordings: disfluency, prosody, body movements, facial, and lexical. We use linear classifiers to predict the annotations with AUC up to 0.82. Analysis of the classifier weights reveals that it puts larger weights on the lexical features while predicting self-annotations. Contrastingly, it puts a larger weight on prosody features while predicting audience annotations. This analysis might provide subtle hint that public speakers tend to focus more on the verbal features while evaluating self-performances. The audience, on the other hand, tends to focus more on the non-verbal aspects of the speech. The dataset and code associated with this work has been released for peer review and further analysis.
Osteonecrosis of the jaw in cancer after treatment with bisphosphonates: incidence and risk factors.

PURPOSE Osteonecrosis of the jaw (ONJ) has been associated recently with the use of pamidronate and zoledronic acid. We studied the incidence, characteristics, and risk factors for the development of ONJ among patients treated with bisphosphonates for bone metastases. PATIENTS AND METHODS ONJ was assessed prospectively since July 2003. The first bisphosphonate treatment among patients with ONJ was administered in 1997. Two hundred fifty-two patients who received bisphosphonates since January 1997 were included in this analysis. RESULTS Seventeen patients (6.7%) developed ONJ: 11 of 111 (9.9%) with multiple myeloma, two of 70 (2.9%) with breast cancer, three of 46 (6.5%) with prostate cancer, and one of 25 (4%) with other neoplasms (P = .289). The median number of treatment cycles and time of exposure to bisphosphonates were 35 infusions and 39.3 months for patients with ONJ compared with 15 infusions (P < .001) and 19 months (P = .001), respectively, for patients with no ONJ. The incidence of ONJ increased with time to exposure from 1.5% among patients treated for 4 to 12 months to 7.7% for treatment of 37 to 48 months. The cumulative hazard was significantly higher with zoledronic acid compared with pamidronate alone or pamidronate and zoledronic acid sequentially (P < .001). All but two patients with ONJ had a history of dental procedures within the last year or use of dentures. CONCLUSION The use of bisphosphonates seems to be associated with the development of ONJ. Length of exposure seems to be the most important risk factor for this complication. The type of bisphosphonate may play a role and previous dental procedures may be a precipitating factor.
The ecology of competition: A theory of risk-reward environments in adaptive decision making

In many choice environments, risks and rewards---or probabilities and payoffs---seem tightly coupled such that high payoffs only occur with low probabilities. An adaptive mind can exploit this association by, for instance, using a potential reward's size to infer the probability of obtaining it. However, a mind can only adapt to and exploit an environmental structure if it is ecologically reliable, that is if it is frequent and recurrent. We develop the competitive risk--reward ecology theory (CET) that establishes how the ecology of competition can make the association of high rewards with low probabilities ubiquitous. This association occurs because of what is known as the ideal free distribution (IFD) principle. The IFD states that competitors in a landscape of resource patches distribute themselves proportionally to the gross total amount of resources in the patches. CET shows how this principle implies a risk--reward structure: an inverse relationship between probabilities and payoffs. It also identifies boundary conditions for the risk--reward structure, including heterogeneity of resources, computational limits of competitors, and scarcity of resources. Finally, a set of empirical studies (N = 1,255) demonstrate that people’s beliefs map onto properties predicted by CET, and change as a function of the environment. In sum, grounding people's inferences in CET demonstrates how the behaviors of a boundedly rational mind can be better predicted once accounts of the mind and the environment are fused.
Acceleration of Numerical Formulations by Using Graphic Processing Units and Its Application in Electromagnetic Launcher Modeling

The solution of large and complex coupled electromechanical problems requires high-performance computing resources. Over the past years, the use of graphic processing units (GPUs) in scientific computing has gained increasing popularity because of their low cost and parallel architecture. In this paper, the authors report the main results of a GPU approach for the parallelization of a research code for electromagnetic launcher analysis. Programming a GPU-based environment poses a number of critical issues that have to be carefully addressed in order to fully exploit system potential. Data have to be properly organized in order to fit the single-instruction multiple-data scheme; data transfer between the host and the device, as well as memory management of the GPU, deserves accurate programming. Two examples of application of the parallelized code have been reported to show the performance improvements that can be obtained in the numerical analysis of both rail and induction launchers.
Appendix 6

Three archaeological excavations were undertaken by Headland Archaeology (UK) Ltd within the grounds of Doune Primary School in Stirlingshire, each located on the site of Doune Roman fort. These excavations revealed sections through triple-ditched defences, elements of the turf rampart and the perimeter road (via sagularis) on both the west and east sides of the fort. Within the interior of the fort the partial foundations of seven buildings were recovered, including barracks blocks, a corridored building that may represent a workshop (fabrica) and a stable-barracks to accommodate a cavalry squadron (turma). The everyday life of the fort was also revealed, with a series of ovens and an iron-smelting shaft furnace, a first for Roman Scotland. A range of pits were also identified, including some which are likely to be related to the demolition of the fort as it was decommissioned. Artefacts confirm that the fort was built and occupied during the Flavian occupation of Scotland between AD 80 and 86–7.
Expression of antiviral activity and induction of 2',5'-oligoadenylate synthetase by conceptus secretory proteins enriched in bovine trophoblast protein-1.

Establishment of pregnancy in cattle has been proposed to depend on production of a conceptus protein, bovine trophoblast protein-1 (bTP-1), which has a high degree of sequence homology with bovine interferon-alpha (bIFN-alpha), especially the alpha II subfamily. A preparation of bovine conceptus secretory proteins enriched for bTP-1 has antiviral and physico-chemical properties similar to other bIFN-alpha. Antiviral activity is initially detectable in uterine flushings on Day 14 of pregnancy, when the conceptus measures 4-5 mm in length, and increases as the conceptus elongates through Day 18. Day 17 conceptuses produce more than 10(6) U antiviral activity during 24 h of culture. All IFNs induce the enzyme 2',5'-oligoadenylate synthetase, which catalyzes production of 2',5'-oligo(A), which in turn is involved in antiviral and growth inhibitory effects of IFNs. This enzyme activity is induced in Madin-Darby bovine kidney cells by the partially purified bTP-1 preparation similarly to IFN-alpha, -beta, and -gamma. Likewise, the partially purified bTP-1 and bIFN-alpha 1 induce 2',5'-oligo(A) synthetase activity in monolayers of endometrial epithelial and stromal cells. Compared to epithelial cells, stromal cells have higher baseline activity of 2'-5'-oligo(A) synthetase activity (p less than 0.01) and show a greater degree of induction in the presence of either the partially purified bTP-1 or bIFN-alpha 1 (p less than 0.01). Also, 2',5'-oligo(A) synthetase of endometrial stromal cells is induced to a greater degree by our enriched bTP-1 preparation than by bIFN-alpha 1 (p less than 0.01). (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Exercise as a therapeutic intervention for the prevention and treatment of insulin resistance

During the past half‐century, there has been a dramatic increase in the incidence of obesity, insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. A hallmark feature of these conditions is impaired glucose tolerance (IGT). Cross‐sectional and retrospective epidemiological studies have provided direct evidence that a lack of physical activity is strongly associated with IGT. Indeed, physical inactivity is an independent risk factor for insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. The primary defect(s) in the development of whole‐body insulin resistance remain unclear. However, during the past decade significant progress has been made towards an understanding of the molecular basis underlying the beneficial effects of exercise training in stimulating the entry of glucose into insulin‐sensitive tissues. Accordingly, it is now well accepted that regular physical exercise offers an effective therapeutic intervention to improve insulin action in skeletal muscle in insulin‐resistant individuals. This review provides evidence that physical inactivity is significantly associated with IGT and directly contributes to the cascade of events that lead to the expression of the ‘exercise‐deficient phenotype’ associated with insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. In contrast, exercise training will be shown to significantly reduce the risk of developing insulin resistance by improving glucose tolerance and insulin action in individuals predisposed to develop type 2 diabetes. Several putative mechanisms for enhanced glucose uptake after exercise training will be discussed. A determination of the underlying biological mechanisms that result from exercise training is essential in order to define the precise variations in physical activity that result in the most desired effects on targeted risk factors, and to aid in the development of such interventions. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Preferential solvent interactions between proteins and polyethylene glycols.

Preferential solvent interactions between polyethylene glycols and five proteins were investigated by density measurements and analyzed by the multicomponent theory. These measurements were conducted as a function of concentration and molecular size of the synthetic polymer at different pH values. The results showed that proteins are preferentially hydrated under the experimental conditions employed, i.e. polyethylene glycol is excluded from the protein domain. The introduction of protein thermodynamically destabilizes the solvent system. The magnitude of instability increases with increasing concentration of the polymer. Furthermore, systems of polyethylene glycols of higher molecular weight are more destabilized. A linear relationship was observed between the magnitude of destabilization and average hydrophobicity of the proteins employed with the exception of tubulin. The system is more destabilized in the presence of proteins with higher content of hydrophilic residues indicating that the interaction between polyethylene glycol and ionized residues is thermodynamically unfavorable with a negative ion being more so than a positive one. After correcting for the contribution of ionic effect on the instability of the system it was found that at least for a protein of average hydrophobicity of 1000 cal/residue the mass of the protein contributes to the instability also. It may, therefore, be concluded that in a polyethylene glycol system the presence of protein leads to unfavorable thermodynamic interaction which in turn leads to phase separation. The causes of such unfavorable interaction include the charges residing on the protein.