Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
La crisis financiera: origen y perspectivas

La crisis financiera internacional, que en un principio se penso circunscripta al mercado de hipotecas de los EE.UU. , esta repercutiendo con fuerza en la economia real de los principales paises de la OECD. De alli, su impacto negativo se transmitira en mayor o menor medida, a traves del ajuste en la demanda agregada global, al resto del planeta. La perturbacion, la de mayor intensidad desde la crisis de los anos �30, esta incidiendo sobre los mercados financieros y el desempeno economico de los paises en desarrollo, aunque su alcance definitivo esta aun lejos de poder estimarse. Los organismos internacionales, tradicionalmente cautelosos a la hora de elaborar proyecciones, pronostican una recesion para 2009 en el mundo desarrollado, mientras que coinciden en senalar una marcada desaceleracion del crecimiento economico en los paises emergentes. La evolucion de los indicadores durante el ultimo trimestre de 2008 esta confirmando los pronosticos e indicando que la profundidad de la crisis fue en un principio subestimada. El fuerte crecimiento experimentado por America Latina durante el ultimo lustro, respaldado por la importante mejora de los terminos de intercambio impulsados por el dinamismo de la demanda internacional de materias primas, parece haber llegado a su fin. Los altos precios de las commodities tocaron su techo a principios de 2008, para luego entrar en un espiral descendente cuyo derrotero final aun es una incognita. En este contexto, cabe esperar que la recesion que afectara a los paises desarrollados repercuta en el mundo en desarrollo a traves de diversos canales de contagio. Por un lado, el mencionado descenso en las cotizaciones de las materias primas propiciara una caida en el valor de las exportaciones. Asimismo, ante situaciones de creciente riesgo, de restriccion crediticia y de liquidez en los centros financieros es de esperar un cambio en la tendencia verificada en el ultimo lustro en los flujos de capital, que se transformara en negativa para los paises en desarrollo. Este hecho impactara tanto en la evolucion futura de las inversiones en los paises emergentes como en su acceso al financiamiento. Otra variable afectada del balance de pagos sera la correspondiente a las remesas de emigrantes, que son una parte sustancial del ingreso de divisas de algunas economias latinoamericanas. La disminucion del nivel de actividad en los paises desarrollados al incidir sobre los ingresos impactara negativamente sobre el monto de tales remesas. En resumen, la crisis iniciada durante el corriente ano es susceptible de extenderse por un periodo relativamente prolongado, de no acentuarse las politicas anticiclicas de los paises de la OECD y su disposicion de cooperar con los paises en desarrollo a fin de corregir las causas que condujeron a esta situacion. Las reuniones de alto nivel que se llevo a cabo, entre ellas las del G20 en Washington y las del Financiamiento para el Desarrollo en la OMC, permiten constatar la disposicion sobre el particular.
The effects of siguazodan, a selective phosphodiesterase inhibitor, on human platelet function

1 The effects of siguazodan (SK&F 94836) a selective phosphodiesterase (PDE) inhibitor with inotropic and vasodilator activity, were studied on human platelets. 2 Siguazodan selectively inhibited the major cyclic AMP‐hydrolysing PDE in human platelet supernatants. The inhibited enzyme has been variously termed cyclic GMP‐inhibited PDE or PDE‐III. 3 In platelet‐rich plasma (PRP), siguazodan inhibited U46619‐induced aggregation more potently than that induced by ADP and collagen. Treatment of the PRP with aspirin had no effect on the potency of siguazodan. 4 In washed platelets, siguazodan increased cyclic AMP levels and reduced cytoplasmic free calcium ([Ca2+]i). ADP decreased the ability of siguazodan to raise cyclic AMP and this may explain its lower potency in inhibiting responses to ADP. 5 Siguazodan has anti‐platelet actions over the same concentration range that it is an inotrope and vasodilator.
Patterns of subjective memory impairment in the elderly: association with memory performance

Abstract Background The association of subjective memory impairment (SMI) with cognitive performance in healthy elderly subjects is poor because of confounds such as depression. However, SMI is also a predictor for future dementia. Thus, there is a need to identify subtypes of SMI that are particularly related to inferior memory performance and may represent at-risk stages for cognitive decline. Method A total of 2389 unimpaired subjects were recruited from the German Study on Ageing, Cognition and Dementia in Primary Care Patients (AgeCoDe), as part of the German Competence Network on Dementia. Clusters of SMI according to patterns of response to SMI questions were identified. Gender, age, depressive symptoms, apolipoprotein E (apoE) genotype, delayed recall and verbal fluency were included in a Classification and Regression Tree (CART) analysis to identify discriminators between the clusters. Results We identified three clusters. Cluster 1 contained subjects without memory complaints. Cluster 2 contained subjects with general memory complaints, but mainly without memory complaints on individual tasks of daily living. Cluster 3 contained subjects with general memory complaints and complaints on individual tasks of daily living. Depressive symptoms, as the first-level discriminator, distinguished between clusters 1 and 2 versus cluster 3. In subjects with only a few depressive symptoms, delayed recall discriminated between cluster 1 versus clusters 2 and 3. Conclusions In SMI subjects with only a minor number of depressive symptoms, memory complaints are associated with delayed recall. As delayed recall is a sensitive predictor for future cognitive decline, SMI may be the first manifestation of future dementia in elderly subjects without depression.
Lysine 300 is essential for stability but not for electrogenic transport of the Escherichia coli NhaA Na+/H+ antiporter

Na+/H+ antiporters are located in the cytoplasmic and intracellular membranes and play crucial roles in regulating intracellular pH, Na+, and volume. The NhaA antiporter of Escherichia coli is the best studied member of the Na+/H+ exchanger family and a model system for all related Na+/H+ exchangers, including eukaryotic representatives. Several amino acid residues are important for the transport activity of NhaA, including Lys-300, a residue that has recently been proposed to carry one of the two H+ ions that NhaA exchanges for one Na+ ion during one transport cycle. Here, we sought to characterize the effects of mutating Lys-300 of NhaA to amino acid residues containing side chains of different polarity and length (i.e. Ala, Arg, Cys, His, Glu, and Leu) on transporter stability and function. Salt resistance assays, acridine-orange fluorescence dequenching, solid supported membrane-based electrophysiology, and differential scanning fluorometry were used to characterize Na+ and H+ transport, charge translocation, and thermal stability of the different variants. These studies revealed that NhaA could still perform electrogenic Na+/H+ exchange even in the absence of a protonatable residue at the Lys-300 position. However, all mutants displayed lower thermal stability and reduced ion transport activity compared with the wild-type enzyme, indicating the critical importance of Lys-300 for optimal NhaA structural stability and function. On the basis of these experimental data, we propose a tentative mechanism integrating the functional and structural role of Lys-300.
Voltage‐dependent conductances of solitary ganglion cells dissociated from the rat retina.

1. Ganglion cells were dissociated from the enzyme‐treated rat retina, identified with specific fluorescent labels, and maintained in vitro. Electrophysiological properties of solitary retinal ganglion cells were investigated with both conventional intracellular and patch‐clamp recordings. Although comparable results were obtained for most measurements some important differences were noted. 2. The input resistance of solitary retinal ganglion cells was considerably higher when measured with ‘giga‐seal’ suction pipettes than with conventional intracellular electrodes. Under current‐clamp conditions with both intracellular and patch pipettes, these central mammalian neurones maintained resting potentials of about ‐60 mV and displayed action potentials followed by an after‐hyperpolarization in response to small depolarizations. The membrane currents during this activity, analysed under voltage clamp with patch pipettes, consisted of five components: Na+ current (INa), Ca2+ current (ICa), and currents with properties similar to the delayed outward, the transient (A‐type), and the Ca2+‐activated K+ currents (IK, IA and IK(Ca), respectively). 3. Ionic substitution, pharmacological agents, and voltage‐clamp experiments revealed that the regenerative currents were carried by both Na+ and Ca2+. 100 nM‐1 microM‐tetradotoxin (TTX) reversibly blocked the fast spikes carried by the presumptive INa, which under voltage‐clamp analysis had classical Hodgkin‐Huxley‐type activation and inactivation. 4. Single‐channel recordings of the Na+ current (iNa) permitted comparison of these 'microscopic' events with the 'macroscopic' whole‐cell current (INa). The inactivation time constant (tau h) fitted to the averaged single‐channel recordings of iNa in outside‐out patches was slower than the tau h obtained during whole‐cell recordings of INa. 5. In the presence of 1‐40 microM‐TTX and 20 mM‐TEA, slow action potentials appeared in intracellular recordings and were probably mediated by Ca2+. The potentials were abrogated by 3 mM‐Co2+ or 200 microM‐Cd2+; conversely, increasing the extracellular Ca2+ concentration from 2.5 to 10‐25 mM or substitution of 1 mM‐Ba2+ for 2.5 mM‐Ca2+ enhanced their amplitude. ICa was measured directly in whole‐cell recordings with patch pipettes after blocking INa with extracellular 1 microM‐TTX and K+ currents with intracellular 120‐mM Cs+ and 20 mM‐TEA. 6. During whole‐cell recordings with patch electrodes, extracellular 20 mM‐TEA suppressed IK and, to a lesser extent, IA. Extracellular 5 mM‐4‐AP or a pre‐pulse of the membrane potential to ‐40 mV prior to stronger depolarization completely blocked IA. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
Construction of a model eye and its applications

Construction details are given of a model eye, based on the Bennett and Rabbetts schematic eye. It incorporates a cornea, lens, and spherical fund us. Distilled water filled the anterior and vitreous chambers. By means of a micrometer screw, the vitreous chamber depth can be precisely varied to produce axial ametropia from +11 to −17D. Readings taken over the greater part of this range with a Topcon Auto refractor RM‐A6500 were found to be repeatable and reproducible within ±0.25 D. The model eye was used to investigate the relationship between the actual size of a fundus feature and its photographic image in two different fundus cameras. With a Zeiss Oberkochen camera of lelecentric design the magnification was found lo remain constant whatever the degree of axial ametropia, whereas with a Carl Zeiss Jena camera the magnification varied linearly with amelropia. A technique developed by Littmann for determining the actual size of a retinal feature when using a fundus camera of telecentric design is discussed briefly.
An Australian mass casualty incident triage system for the future based upon triage mistakes of the past: the Homebush Triage Standard.

BACKGROUND The purpose of this study was to create a system of mass casualty incident triage that provides a common language platform for both ambulance and hospital personnel based upon standard daily operating procedures for both groups. METHODS An annotated literature review was conducted. RESULTS The Homebush Triage Standard taxonomy consists of five categories: immediate, urgent, not urgent, dying and dead, which are given the phonetic alphabet designations of Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta and Echo, respectively, to facilitate radio voice communications. Colours are assigned to each category: red (Homebush Red), yellow (Homebush Gold), green (Homebush Green), white and black comply with Standards Australia AS-2700 1996 Colour Standard for General Purposes, to ensure triage materials have consistent production standards. Numbers are reserved to either quantify or stratify individuals within a particular triage category. The Homebush Triage Standard methodology is based on START (Simple Triage Assessment and Rapid Transport) and SAVE (Secondary Assessment of Victim Endpoint) and documents triage priority using geographic triage with triage flags, instead of triage tags. CONCLUSION The Homebush Triage Standard provides a basis for both seamless patient reassessment at all points along the casualty evacuation chain and the audit of the medical response to mass casualty incidents. It allows hospital and ambulance staff to keep working using familiar routines and removes fundamental barriers to good communication during a time of crisis.
Food fails to suppress ghrelin levels in obese humans.

UNLABELLED Ghrelin is the first circulating hormone shown to stimulate feeding in humans following systemic administration. Food consumption decreases circulating ghrelin concentrations in lean subjects but the effects of feeding have not been studied in the obese. METHODS We investigated the effects of a test meal on plasma ghrelin and leptin concentrations in 13 lean and 10 obese subjects. RESULTS Fasting ghrelin was significantly higher in lean than in obese subjects (857 pmol/1 vs. 325 pmol/l, (p = 0.002) and fell by 39.5% thirty minutes after eating in the lean group before returning rapidly towards baseline values: (p = 0.003). There was no change in circulating ghrelin in the obese group. Circulating leptin concentration also fell acutely 15 minutes following food intake in lean but not obese subjects (p < 0.0001). CONCLUSIONS Obese subjects do not exhibit the decline in plasma ghrelin and leptin seen after a meal in the lean. The role of the decline in leptin is unclear but given the orexigenic properties of ghrelin, the lack of suppression following a meal in obese subjects could lead to increased food consumption and suggest that ghrelin may be involved in the pathophysiology of obesity.
Dynamic exercise stimulates group III muscle afferents.

1. In decerebrate cats, we investigated the responses of group III muscle afferents to dynamic exercise. The cats performed low intensity dynamic exercise on a treadmill. Group III afferent activity from the dynamically exercising triceps surae muscles was recorded from L7-S1 dorsal root filaments. 2. Single-unit recordings were obtained from 15 group III afferent fibers whose receptive fields were in the triceps surae muscles and from one group III afferent whose receptive field was in the flexor digitorum longus muscle. Conduction velocities for the 16 group III afferents ranged from 3.0 to 27.9 m/s (15.6 +/- 1.9 m/s, mean +/- SE). 3. Ten of 16 group III muscle afferents were stimulated by dynamic exercise. Of the 10, 7 were strongly responsive and 3 were mildly responsive to dynamic exercise. Each of the 10 afferents displayed at least some activity that was synchronized to the contraction phase of the step cycle. The mean developed tensions for strongly responsive afferents, mildly responsive afferents, and afferents that did not respond were 0.8 +/- 0.3, 1.3 +/- 0.5, and 0.7 +/- 0.3 Kg, respectively (P > 0.05). Thus differences in the responsiveness of the afferents to exercise were not attributable to differences in developed tensions. 4. The group III afferents that were strongly responsive to dynamic exercise were also mechanically sensitive. Each strongly responsive afferent (n = 7) was stimulated by nonnoxious pressure applied to its receptive field. Most strongly responsive afferents (n = 5) were stimulated by stretch of the triceps surae muscles. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
The energy efficiency optimization based on dynamic spectrum sensing and nodes scheduling in cognitive radio sensor networks

Nowadays, cognitive radio sensor networks are facing the inherent energy constraint and spectrum resource scarce problems. Hence in this paper, novel spectrum sensing and nodes selection methods are investigated to jointly optimize the energy and spectrum efficiency. Firstly, to shorten sensing time and save unnecessary spectrum sensing energy, a dynamic censored spectrum sensing scheme is employed to decide when to stop sensing. Then a priority-based sensor node scheduling algorithm in cooperative spectrum sensing is proposed to balance the trade-off between energy efficiency and spectral efficiency. Through mapping discrete parameters into continues real domains, we could decide which nodes are selected for spectrum sensing at an lower complexity. Simulation results demonstrate that significant energy and spectral efficiency could be achieved through the proposed methods.
Quantitatively Measuring Privacy in Interactive Query Settings Within RDBMS Framework

Little attention has been paid to the measurement of risk to privacy in Database Management Systems, despite their prevalence as a modality of data access. This paper proposes PriDe, a quantitative privacy metric that provides a measure (privacy score) of privacy risk when executing queries in relational database management systems. PriDe measures the degree to which attribute values, retrieved by a principal (user) engaging in an interactive query session, represent a reduction of privacy with respect to the attribute values previously retrieved by the principal. It can be deployed in interactive query settings where the user sends SQL queries to the database and gets results at run-time and provides privacy-conscious organizations with a way to monitor the usage of the application data made available to third parties in terms of privacy. The proposed approach, without loss of generality, is applicable to BigSQL-style technologies. Additionally, the paper proposes a privacy equivalence relation that facilitates the computation of the privacy score.
Signal-Regulatory Protein α-CD47 Interactions Are Required for the Transmigration of Monocytes Across Cerebral Endothelium1

Monocyte infiltration into inflamed tissue requires their initial arrest onto the endothelial cells (ECs), followed by firm adhesion and subsequent transmigration. Although several pairs of adhesion molecules have been shown to play a role in the initial adhesion of monocytes to ECs, the mechanism of transendothelial migration is poorly defined. In this study, we have investigated the role of signal-regulatory protein (SIRP)α-CD47 interactions in monocyte transmigration across brain ECs. CD47 expression was observed in vivo on cerebral endothelium of both control animals and animals suffering from experimental allergic encephalomyelitis. To investigate whether SIRPα-CD47 interactions are instrumental in the trafficking of monocytes across cerebral EC monolayers, in vitro assays were conducted in which the migration of monocytes, but not adhesion, was found to be effectively diminished by blocking SIRPα and CD47 on monocytes and ECs, respectively. In this process, SIRPα was found to interact solely with its counterligand CD47 on ECs. Overexpression of the CD47 molecule on brain ECs significantly enhanced monocytic transmigration, but did not affect adhesion. SIRPα-CD47-mediated transendothelial migration involved Gi protein activity, a known signaling component of CD47. Finally, cross-linking of CD47 on brain ECs induced cytoskeletal reorganization of the endothelium, a process that was Gi protein independent. These data provide the first evidence that the interaction of CD47 with its monocytic counterligand SIRPα is of importance in the final step of monocyte trafficking into the brain, a critical event in the development of neuroinflammatory diseases.
Which Method for Diagnosing Small Fiber Neuropathy?

Introduction: Small fiber neuropathies (SFN) induce pain and/or autonomic symptoms. The diagnosis of SFN poses a challenge because the role of skin biopsy as a reference method and of each neurophysiological test remain to be discussed. This study compares six methods evaluating small sensory and autonomic nerve fibers: skin biopsy, Quantitative Sensory Testing (QST), quantitative sweat measurement system (Q-Sweat), Laser Evoked Potentials (LEP), Electrochemical Skin Conductance (ESC) measurement and Autonomic CardioVascular Tests (ACVT). Methods: This is a single center, retrospective study including patients tested for symptoms compatible with SFN between 2013 and 2016 using the afore-mentioned tests. Patients were ultimately classified according to the results and clinical features as “definite SFN,” “possible SFN” or “no SFN. ” The sensitivity (Se) and specificity (Sp) of each test were calculated based on the final diagnosis and the best diagnostic strategy was then evaluated. Results: Two hundred and forty-five patients were enrolled (164 females (66.9%), age: 50.4 ± 15 years). The results are as follows: skin biopsy: Se = 58%, Sp = 91%; QST: Se = 72%, Sp = 39%; Q-Sweat: Se = 53%, Sp = 69%; LEP: Se = 66%, Sp = 89%; ESC: Se = 60%, Sp = 89%; Cardiovascular tests: Se = 15%, Sp = 99%. The combination of skin biopsy, LEP, QST and ESC has a Se of 90% and a Sp of 87%. Conclusion: Our study outlines the benefits of combining skin biopsy, ESC, LEP and QST in the diagnosis of SFN.
Typing of Pneumocystis carinii strains that infect humans based on nucleotide sequence variations of internal transcribed spacers of rRNA genes

Small portions of the 18S and the 26S rRNA genes, the entire 5.8S rRNA gene, and internal transcribed spacers ITS1 and ITS2 (located between the 18S and 5.8S rRNA genes and between the 5.8S and 26S rRNA genes, respectively) of Pneumocystis carinii that infect humans were cloned and sequenced. The nucleotide sequences of the 18S, 5.8S, and 26S rRNA genes determined in the study were approximately 90% homologous to those of P. carinii that infect rats, while the sequences of ITS1 and ITS2 of P. carinii from the two different hosts were only 60% homologous. The 18S, 5.8S, and 26S rRNA gene sequences of P. carinii from 15 patient specimens were determined and were found to be identical to each other, whereas the ITS sequences were found to be variable. With the observed sequence variation, it was possible to classify the ITS1 sequences into two types and the ITS2 sequences into three types. P. carinii strains that had the same type of ITS1 sequence could have a different type of ITS2 sequence. On the basis of the sequence types of the two ITS regions, P. carinii from the 15 patients were classified into four groups. P. carinii from three patient specimens were found to contain two different ITS sequence patterns. More surprisingly, one additional specimen was found to have one ITS sequence typical of P. carinii isolates that infect humans and another typical of P. carinii isolates that infect rats. The studies indicate that it is possible to type P. carinii strains on the basis from one patient, suggesting that coinfection with more than one strain of P. carinii may occur in the same patient.