Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Subintimal angioplasty and stenting in chronic total femoropopliteal artery occlusions: Early- and mid-term outcomes.

BACKGROUND This study was conducted to evaluate the initial and mid-term patency rates of chronic total femoropopliteal artery (FPA) occlusions treated by subintimal angioplasty (SIA) and stenting. METHODS From March 2010 to February 2013, 74 patients were included in the study. Seventy two patients with total occlusion of the FPA and good distal runoff (2 or 3 patent vessels) were treated with percutaneous SIA and stenting. All patients had severe claudication or critical limb ischemia. In all cases, the procedure was performed with a contralateral approach. Follow-up was done at 6 months with clinical evaluation and color-Doppler. If it was necessary, peripheric angiography was performed. RESULTS Immediate technical success was achieved in 72 (97%) patients. Two (3%) distal embolizations, 2 (3%) groin hematomas, 1 (1%) femoral pseudoaneurysm and 1 (1%) rupture of the junction-external iliac-superficial femoral artery occurred. All of the complications were treated successfully. Total occlusion in 1 patient and critical occlusion in 3 patients were showed at the 6th month. Patency rate at the sixth month was 94% with a stent length of 13.4 ± 8.2 cm. CONCLUSIONS Percutaneous SIA and stenting for chronic total of the FPA occlusion showed good initial and mid-term patency rates, with few periprocedural complications.
Localization of MYOC transcripts in human eye and optic nerve by in situ hybridization.

PURPOSE To evaluate MYOC (myocilin) gene expression at the RNA level in normal intact human eyes and optic nerve using in situ hybridization. METHODS Normal human eyes and optic nerves from donors 62 to 83 years of age with no history of glaucoma were fixed, embedded in paraffin, and sectioned. Sections were hybridized with (35)S-labeled sense and antisense riboprobes derived from a full-length MYOC cDNA. RESULTS High levels of MYOC expression were observed throughout the trabecular meshwork as well as in the most anterior nonfiltering meshwork (Schwalbe's line), in the scleral spur, and in the endothelial lining of Schlemm's canal. MYOC transcripts were also detected in the anterior corneal stroma, in the ciliary muscle, beneath the anterior border of the iris, in the iris stroma, and in the sclera. Expression in the retrolaminar region of the optic nerve was present in the pial septa that divide the nerve fiber bundles, in the perivascular connective tissue surrounding the central retinal vessels, and in the dura mater, arachnoid, and pia mater of the meningeal sheath surrounding the optic nerve. CONCLUSIONS MYOC gene expression in the trabecular meshwork, Schlemm's canal, scleral spur, and ciliary muscle indicates a structural or functional role for myocilin in the regulation of aqueous humor outflow that may influence intraocular pressure. MYOC expression in the optic nerve suggests that changes in the structural, metabolic, or neurotropic support of the optic nerve may influence its susceptibility to glaucomatous damage.
Cognitive function and army-rejection rate in young adult male offspring of women with diabetes: A Danish population-based cohort study Authors

Objective While maternal diabetes is a known risk factor for perinatal complications, there is little data on long-term intellectual outcome in offspring. We compare the rejection rate and cognitive functioning of military conscripts according to maternal diabetic status during pregnancy. Research Design and Methods We identified a cohort of Danish male offspring of diabetic mothers born between 1976 and 1984 and followed this cohort together with population-based controls to military conscription. The main outcome was army-rejection rate and cognitive function measured with a validated intelligence test. Results The army rejection rate was 52.5% among 282 men, whose mothers had diabetes during pregnancy, and 45.4% among 870 controls [risk difference= 7.3 (95% CI: 0.6 to 14.0)]. Mean cognitive scores were 41.4 (95% CI: 40.2 to 42.6) units in diabetes mellitus (DM)-exposed conscripts and 42.7 (95% CI: 42.0 to 43.4) units among controls. Stratification by gestational age, Apgar score, and White class did not change the associations. In a subgroup analysis using available data on glycosylated hemoglobin (A1c) levels during pregnancy, this variable was inversely associated with cognitive functioning. In men with maternal A1c below 7% cognitive score was identical with controls. Conclusions The slightly higher army rejection rate in men with maternal diabetes indicates higher morbidity. The identical cognitive functioning in case of well controlled maternal diabetes compared with controls is reassuring, but the negative association between A1c and cognitive score highlights the importance of striving for optimal metabolic control in diabetic women who are or plan to become pregnant.
The common, Near‐Eastern origin of Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews supported by Y‐chromosome similarity

About 80 Sephardim, 80 Ashkenazim and 100 Czechoslovaks were examined for the Y‐specific RFLPs revealed by the probes p12f2 and p49a, f on TaqI DNA digests. The aim of the study was to investigate the origin of the Ashkenazi gene pool through the analysis of markers which, having an exclusively holoandric transmission, are useful to estimate paternal gene flow. The comparison of the two groups of Jews with each other and with Czechoslovaks (which have been taken as a representative source of foreign Y‐chromosomes for Ashkenazim) shows a great similarity between Sephardim and Ashkenazim who are very different from Czechoslovaks. On the other hand both groups of Jews appear to be closely related to Lebanese. A preliminary evaluation suggests that the contribution of foreign males to the Ashkenazi gene pool has been very low (1% or less per generation).
Enterprise training in developing countries : overview of incidence, determinants, and productivity outcomes

Unique firm-level data from five developing countries -- Colombia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, Taiwan and China -- were assembled to provide a first look at the incidence, determinants, and productivity outcomes of enterprise training in developing countries. Several common training determinants were identified in the cross-national analysis. Firms are more likely to train when they are large, employ an educated and skilled workforce, invest in R&D and technology licences, emphasize quality control methods, have foreign capital participation, and export to foreign markets. The production function analyses provided strong evidence of the productivity enhancing effects of training. A large and significant impact of training on productivity was found for skilled workers but not unskilled workers, and for inhouse formal training as compared with external sources of training.
Crowdfunding: The Current State Of Research

Crowdfunding represents an alternative way of funding compared to traditional borrowing. As a principle, crowdfunding is open to everyone - private persons as well as economic actors. A group of people, the crowd, financially contributes small amounts to projects, products or ideas. These projects, products or ideas are owned by fundraisers (e.g. entrepreneurs or private persons), seeking for money in order to get their project realized. Fundraisers search for investors directly or via a specific digital platform, referred to as intermediaries. Crowdfunding represents a recent web 2.0 based phenomenon gaining more and more scientific attention. Therefore, this article seeks to give an overview on the current state of scientific knowledge on the topic, summarizing core definitions as well as characteristics.
Who gains from hourly time‐of‐use retail prices on electricity? An analysis of consumption profiles for categories of Danish electricity customers

Studies of the aggregated hourly electricity load in geographical areas typically show a systematic variation over the day, the week, and seasons. With hourly metering of individual customers, data for individual consumption profiles have become available. Looking into these data we show that consumption profiles for specific categories of customers are equally systematic but quite distinct for different categories of customers. That is, different categories of customers contribute quite differently to the aggregated load profile. Coupling consumption profiles with hourly market prices which also include a systematic component in the hourly variation, we show that customers with different consumption profiles experience different average cost of their electricity consumption when billed according to hourly time‐of‐use prices. Thus, some categories of customers stand to gain from time‐of‐use pricing, while others stand to lose. In Denmark, typically industry, private services and households stand to lose, whereas agriculture and public services stand to gain from time‐of‐use pricing. However, differences within categories of customers are considerable and, for example, industrial companies running 24 h a day tend to gain from a time‐of‐use pricing. WIREs Energy Environ 2014, 3:582–593. doi: 10.1002/wene.120
Rewarding Audit Committee Members: Does it Influence Diligence and Financial Reporting Quality?

An increasing number of Australian companies pay fees to members of audit committees and the amount of such fees is rising. This study examines whether the existence and amount of audit committee fees paid to audit committee members is associated with reduced earnings management through a higher proportion of meetings attended. The results of this study indicate that when audit committee fees are higher, earnings management is reduced through increased meeting attendance. The fact that paying audit committee members higher fees encourages them to attend more audit committee meetings is surprising since audit committee fees, on average, are approximately $6,000 per annum in 2010, an arguably small fraction of the total compensation of directors sitting on the audit committees. The evidence suggests that providing audit committee members with even small amounts of financial rewards can provide incentives for them to exert more diligent effort and thus has a positive effect on audit committee effectiveness, which enhances the audit committee’s role in monitoring financial reporting quality. These results have public policy implications for non-executive directors’ compensation and for mandated disclosure of board committee fees in terms of their quantum.
An Efficient TestRelaxationTechniquefor Combinational & Full-Scan

Reducingtestdatasizeis oneof themajor challengesin testingsystems-on-a-c hip. This problemcan be solvedby testcompactionand/or compressiontechniques.Having a partially specifiedor relaxedtestsetincreasestheeffectivenessof testcompactionandcompressiontechniques.In this paper, weproposea novelandefficienttestrelaxationtechnique for combinationaland full-scan sequentialcircuits. Theproposedtechniqueis faster than the brute-force test relaxationmethodby several orders of magnitude. Theapplication of the techniquein improving the effectivenessof testcompactionandcompressionis illustrated.
Capsule Expression and Genotypic Differences among Staphylococcus aureus Isolates from Patients with Chronic or Acute Osteomyelitis

ABSTRACT There is ample evidence that Staphylococcus aureus capsular polysaccharide (CP) promotes virulence. Loss of capsule expression, however, may lead to S. aureus persistence in a chronically infected host. This study was conducted to determine the relative prevalence of nonencapsulated S. aureus in patients with chronic and acute osteomyelitis. Only 76/118 (64%) S. aureus isolates from patients with osteomyelitis expressed CP, whereas all 50 isolates from blood cultures of patients with infections other than osteoarticular infections expressed CP (P = 0.0001). A significantly higher prevalence of nonencapsulated S. aureus was found in patients with chronic osteomyelitis (53%) than in those with acute osteomyelitis (21%) (P = 0.0046). S. aureus isolates obtained from multiple specimens from five of six patients with chronic osteomyelitis exhibited phenotypic (expression of CP, α-hemolysin, β-hemolysin, slime, and the small-colony variant phenotype) and/or genotypic (pulsed-field gel electrophoresis and spa typing) differences. Nonencapsulated S. aureus was recovered from at least one specimen from each chronic osteomyelitis patient. Fourteen isolates obtained from two patients with acute osteomyelitis were indistinguishable from each other within each group, and all produced CP5. In conclusion, we demonstrated that nonencapsulated S. aureus is more frequently isolated from patients with chronic osteomyelitis than from those with acute osteomyelitis, suggesting that loss of CP expression may be advantageous to S. aureus during chronic infection. Our findings on multiple S. aureus isolates from individual patients allow us to suggest that selection of nonencapsulated S. aureus is likely to have occurred in the patient during long-term bone infection.
The skeleton and the sympathetic nervous system: it's about time!

In this edition of the JCEM, Farr et al. (1) explore the role of the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) in the pathophysiology of osteoporosis. They hypothesized that sympathetic tone would be increased in postmenopausal women and that this rise would be associated with a lower trabecular bone volume fraction in the radius, as well as decreased serum amino-terminal propeptide of type I procollagen (PINP), a marker of bone formation and osteopontin (1). To test their hypothesis, the investigators employed a well-recognized, albeit invasive method to measure sympathetic tone, i.e. intraarterial catheterization and microneurography of the peroneal nerve (2). Quantification of sympathetic activity was regressed against parameters of skeletal microarchitecture measured by high-resolution peripheral quantitative computed tomography (HRpQCT) as well as by indices of bone turnover; the results were then adjusted for age because both pre- and postmenopausal women were analyzed. Their results point to a potentially important inverse relationship between SNS output and trabecular bone mass in the radius, although not in the tibia, particularly in postmenopausal women (1). Cautiously, the authors call for more studies to definitively assess the importance of the SNS in modulating bone turnover.
The number of lines of descent and fixation probabilities of alleles in the pure genetic drift process: analytical approximations.

Analysis of diversity between populations diverged from an evolutionarily small number of generations cannot be done under the assumption that allele frequencies reflect an equilibrium between genetic drift and mutations. An alternative to analysis through coalescence theory is proposed in this situation by developing analytical approximations. Using a Poisson approximation of its distribution, the expected number of genes from one generation whose copies make up the population after a number of generations characterized by fixation index F can be shown to be approximated by 2/F-1, irrespective of population size, and probabilities of fixation of alleles over a finite period of time can be also approximated. These expressions, which were checked numerically, should make it possible to calculate approximate likelihoods for allele frequency distributions promoted by drift.
Estimation Method on Multiple Sources of MEG Based on the Columnar Structure of the Cerebral Cortex

An estimation method for multiple sources of magnetoencephalogram is proposed. In the proposed method, the assumed dipoles are arranged on and oriented perpendicular to the surface of the cerebral cortex based on the hypothesis of the functional columnar structure. Since the positions and orientations of the assumed dipoles are given beforehand, the magnetic fields that originate from the assumed dipoles are predictable. Using a coefficient of determination between the predicted and measured magnetic fields as a criterion, the electric sources of the N20m component of the somatosensory evoke fields when the central nerves of the wrists are stimulated bilaterally and the N100m component of the auditory evoked fields are localized. The positions of the dipoles are close to those localized by the moving dipole method.
2-Hydroxypropyl-beta-cyclodextrin removes all-trans retinol from frog rod photoreceptors in a concentration-dependent manner.

PURPOSE To determine whether a nonprotein lipophilic carrier, 2-hydroxypropyl-beta-cyclodextrin (HP-beta-CD), can remove all-trans retinol from rod photoreceptor outer segments. All-trans retinol is generated in rod outer segments after light exposure. It is highly insoluble, and its efficient transport across extra- and intracellular aqueous space requires specialized carriers. METHODS Experiments were carried out with isolated frog rod photoreceptor cells. The removal of all-trans retinol by different concentrations of this carrier was measured by imaging its fluorescence in single-rod photoreceptors. RESULTS HP-beta-CD concentrations >0.3 mM significantly increased the rate of all-trans retinol removal. The rate of removal increased linearly with carrier concentration, with a slope of 0.0058 min(-1)/mM. CONCLUSIONS The effectiveness of HP-beta-CD shows that a specialized interaction with the cell membrane is not necessary for the efficient transfer of all-trans retinol between the cell membrane and the carrier. The transfer occurs through a collision-based mechanism, as indicated by the linear increase of the rate of removal with the carrier concentration.
Connections and Competences in the Governance of the Value Chain: How Industrial Countries Maintain Their Competitive Advantage

The aim of our paper is to analyse the governance of value chains operating in the traditional sectors of clothing and footwear, focusing particularly on production de-localization from the Italian region of Veneto to the nearby country of Rumania After describing and �quantifying� the internationalization process between Veneto and Rumania we turn to discuss the possible consequences of this process, both for the region of origin and the recipient area. We highlight, through the concepts of linkages and competences how the production internationalization process may determine a progressive weakening of the network of linkages that characterize the home region, and discuss the main obstacles to a successful transfer of know-how and technologies to the host system. From this discussion emerges the vision of some policy measures to amplify possible positive effects and counter negative consequences of the fragmentation of production, both in the home and in the host country.
Congenital impatency of the nasolacrimal duct.

FROM a perusal of the literature, it would seem that congenital impatency of the nasolacrimal duct is a much rarer anomaly than our experience has led us to believe. In order to arrive at figures regarding the incidence of this condition and to learn the best method of treating it, the present study was undertaken. Relatively few papers have appeared in the literature dealing with congenital impatency of the nasolacrimal duct, and almost without exception the condition has been described under the title of "congenital dacryocystitis. " This term is a misnomer, since the underlying condition is not an inflammation of the lacrimal sac but, rather, an impatency of the nasolacrimal duct, the dacryocystitis occurring as a result of stasis. Another poor term appearing in the literature is congenital dacryostenosis, which implies simply a narrowing of the duct. This term should not be used, since it is not stenosis but, rather,
Gas Chromatographic Measurement of Cocaine in Serum, Plasma and Whole Blood

A gas chromatographic method is presented to measure cocaine in serum, plasma or blood. To reduce the in-vitro chemical and enzymic hydrolysis of cocaine, samples should be collected into fluoride oxalate tubes, frozen immediately and stored at — 20°C until analysis. Extractions are carried out in disposable glass tubes immersed in an ice-bath. The method uses a single step extraction from a mildly basic solution into n-butyl acetate containing maprotiline internal standard. A portion of the upper organic layer is chromatographed for 5 min isothermally on a packed column (3% SP2250) with nitrogen-phosphorus detection. The coefficient of variation (CV) of the assay is below 6% at 0·1 mg/L and the limit of accurate measurement is 0·02 mg/L. A case of acute cocaine intoxication is described to illustrate the application of the method.
Mycobacterium avium complex and the normal host: the other side of the coin.

IN an era that has seen the recognition of important new infectious diseases and syndromes such as the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), legionellosis, and toxic shock, and the subsidence of venerable infectious disorders such as smallpox, polio, and streptococcal-induced acute rheumatic fever or glomerulonephritis, it should come as no surprise that another battle is being joined between humanity and microbes. In this issue of the Journal, Prince and colleagues1 report on a series of patients from two hospitals in the Philadelphia area who had pulmonary disease due to Mycobacterium avium complex. Several aspects of their experience merit discussion. First, .
Contact – The Client - Organization Synapsis

In a more and more diverse service related economical environment the client is ambushed by lots of information regarding that particular area. The customer’s attitude towards either a certain type of service or the other comes mainly from inexact sources of information detained before having had a direct contact with the company at hand. Most of the time this information is absorbed via friends, commercials and it is subjective. Nevertheless, this initial type of information is not static at all. It has the tendency of working its way up towards modifying the company’s attitude towards customers. A great role in this molding process has the assistance personnel. Those people are the lesion between the company and the client, transforming the customer’s needs into potential services. In certain cases these service people can help bend certain company’s offers around certain customers. This article aims at underlying the role of these particular service people, as an interface between the client and the company. The main objective of these paper is finding the appropriate staff contact characteristics for different types of services. Their existence determines the relationship between client and organization, transforming the customer desires into services that can be offered and simultaneously modeling (where applicable) the company's offer according to the client.