Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
In vivo effects of a new dentifrice containing 1.5% arginine and 1450 ppm fluoride on plaque metabolism.

OBJECTIVE This paper presents the results of a clinical study assessing the in vivo effects on plaque metabolism of a new dentifrice containing 1.5% arginine, an insoluble calcium compound, and 1450 ppm fluoride compared to a commercially available dentifrice containing 1450 ppm fluoride alone. METHODS A four-week, parallel, randomized, double-blind clinical study using 54 subjects was conducted at the New York University College of Dentistry Bluestone Center for Clinical Research. Two study groups used the following products for two weeks: 1) a dentifrice containing 1.5% arginine, an insoluble calcium compound, and 1450 ppm fluoride as sodium monofluorophosphate (MFP; test); and 2) a commercial silica dentifrice with 1450 ppm fluoride as sodium fluoride (NaF; control). In the following two-week period, all subjects used the control product. The effects of product use on plaque metabolism in vivo were assessed by conducting ex vivo analyses at baseline, after two weeks of assigned product use, and after two weeks of control product use. These plaque analyses comprised pH measurements before and after an in vivo sucrose rinse, and measurements of ammonia production and lactate production. RESULTS The study showed that subjects using the test dentifrice, containing 1.5% arginine, an insoluble calcium compound, and 1450 ppm fluoride, had significantly higher plaque pH values before the sucrose challenge than those using the commercially available control dentifrice (p < or = 0.01). Plaque samples from subjects using the arginine-containing dentifrice also produced significantly higher levels of ammonia (p < or = 0.01). Subjects using the arginine-containing dentifrice also had a directionally higher plaque pH after the sucrose challenge, and their plaque samples produced a directionally lower level of lactate during the two-week treatment period compared to subjects using the control dentifrice. Following two weeks of subsequent use of the control product, there were no significant differences in plaque metabolism measures between groups. CONCLUSION A new dentifrice containing 1.5% arginine, an insoluble calcium compound, and 1450 ppm fluoride has been shown in this study to modulate plaque metabolism, increasing ammonia production and decreasing lactate production, thereby increasing plaque pH to help restore a pH-neutral environment.
Suppression mechanism of mitochondrial ORF79 accumulation by Rf1 protein in BT-type cytoplasmic male sterile rice.

SUMMARY In BT-type cytoplasmic male sterile rice (Oryza sativa L.) with Chinsurah Boro II cytoplasm, cytoplasmic male sterility (CMS) is caused by an accumulation of the cytotoxic peptide ORF79. The ORF79 protein is expressed from a dicistronic gene atp6-orf79, which exists in addition to the normal atp6 gene in the BT-type mitochondrial genome. The CMS is restored by a PPR (pentatricopeptide-repeat) gene, Rf1, via RNA processing. However, it has not yet been elucidated how the accumulation of ORF79 is reduced by the action of the Rf1 protein. Here, we report that the level of processed orf79 transcripts in the restorer line was reduced to 50% of the unprocessed atp6-orf79 transcripts in the CMS line. Ninety percent of the processed orf79 transcripts, which remained after degradation, were not associated with the ribosome for translation. Our data suggests that the processing of atp6-orf79 transcripts diminishes the expression of orf79 by the translational reduction and degradation of the processed orf79 transcripts.
Cognitive function, fatigue, and menopausal symptoms in women receiving adjuvant chemotherapy for breast cancer.

PURPOSE There is evidence that cognitive dysfunction, fatigue, and menopausal symptoms may occur in women receiving adjuvant chemotherapy for breast cancer. Here, we determine their incidence and severity, and interrelationships between them and quality of life. PATIENTS AND METHODS In this study, 110 women receiving adjuvant chemotherapy each nominated a female relative, friend, or neighbor (matched by age) as a control; 100 eligible matched pairs were evaluated. Patients and controls completed the following assessments: the High-Sensitivity Cognitive Screen, and the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-General (FACT-G) quality of life scale with subscales for fatigue (FACT-F) and endocrine symptoms (FACT-ES). They also performed tests of attention and reaction time. RESULTS Patients and controls were well matched for age and level of education. There was a higher incidence of moderate or severe cognitive impairment in the patient group (16% v 4%; P =.008). Patients experienced much more fatigue than controls (median FACT-F scores, 31 v 46; P <.0001) and more menopausal symptoms (median FACT-ES scores, 58 v 64; P <.0001). Self-reported quality of life of the patients was poorer than for controls, especially in physical and functional domains (median FACT-G scores, 77 v 93; P <.0001). There was strong correlation between fatigue, menopausal symptoms, and quality of life (P <.0001 for each pair), but none were significantly associated with the presence of cognitive dysfunction. CONCLUSION Adjuvant chemotherapy causes cognitive dysfunction, fatigue, and menopausal symptoms in women with breast cancer. Priority should be given to the study of strategies that might reduce these toxic effects.
Detection of Aspergillus antigens associated with invasive infection

Serial urine samples were collected from 33 neutropenic patients, 10 of whom developed invasive aspergillosis (IA) while undergoing bone marrow transplantation or remission induction therapy for leukemia. Concentrated urine samples from the infected patients were subjected to polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, blotted, and then incubated with antiserum raised to a cell wall extract of Aspergillus fumigatus (anti-CW) or an immunoglobulin G monoclonal antibody to A. fumigatus galactomannan (EBA1). When IA patient urine blots were probed with anti-CW, major bands at 11 and 18 kilodaltons (kDa); intermediate bands at 13, 14, and 29 kDa; and minor bands at 38 and 44 kDa were seen. In contrast, EBA1 showed diffuse staining at molecular masses larger than 45 kDa and a single weak band at 21 kDa. Urine samples from the 23 patients with no evidence of IA were unreactive with both anti-CW and EBA1. These antigen bands are likely to represent immunodominant antigens which are excreted during IA and should play a valuable role in the development of rapid diagnostic tests for aspergillosis.
Necessity for surgery in children with gastrooesophageal reflux and supraoesophageal symptoms.

BACKGROUND/PURPOSE The majority of gastrooesophageal reflux (GER) manifestations in children are supraoesophageal, and "spitting/posseting" is "the tip of the iceberg" because most reflux episodes are not regurgitated. Aim of the present study was to prospectively evaluate the incidence of gastrooesophageal reflux and the incidence of antireflux surgery in patients with difficult-to-treat respiratory symptoms. PATIENTS AND METHODS Five hundred and ninety-five children with difficult-to-treat respiratory symptoms were prospectively enrolled in a blind study looking for the correlation between clinical presentation (asthma or non-asthma), oesophageal pH monitoring, X-ray barium meal, broncho-alveolar lavage, necessity for surgery, and outcome. RESULTS pH monitoring was anomalous in 47% of patients with asthma (group A) and in 43% of those who did not have asthma as main symptom (group B). Overall, 48 patients finally underwent anti-reflux surgery (8%) as anti-reflux medical treatment did not ensure stable benefits. No major surgical complications were experienced. Postoperatively, respiratory symptoms improved strongly (Visick 1) in 69% of cases, moderately (Visick 2) in 27%, while clinical worsening (Visick 4) was observed in 4%. CONCLUSIONS The results of this study stress the importance of symptoms, clinical response to anti-reflux medical treatment and broncho-alveolar lavage compared to classical pH parameters in the decision-making process for patients with difficult-to-treat supraoesophageal symptoms. To date no single tool alone has proved to be diagnostic in these patients. Fundoplication is recommended only when a relationship between supraoesophageal symptoms and gastrooesophageal reflux is strongly suspected.
IMAP: An iterative method for aligning protein-protein interaction networks

Biological network alignment benefits the evolutionary and comparative biology by providing regions of topological and functional similarity between different species. However, most existing network aligners follow heuristic methods and only capture the static information that based purely on the original isolated networks, while there also exists valuable interactive information hidden in the resulted alignment that provides additional signals for further improvement. In this paper, we propose an iterative method IMAP to improve the quality of existing network aligners. IMAP starts from an imperfect seed alignment generated by any aligner, and then iteratively refines it by capturing interactive information hidden in current alignment until convergence. Within each iteration, we calculate the likelihood of pairwise alignment using supervised learning techniques, hence heuristic functions are no longer required. Furthermore, we extend IMAP to start from multiple seed aligners to combine their individual advantages. Comprehensive experiments indicate that IMAP improves existing network aligners significantly in terms of node correctness, topology conservation and biological similarity. Therefore, IMAP can benefit the subsequent cross-species biology researches by providing high-quality alignment between PPI networks.
Assessing readiness for transition from paediatric to adult health care: Revision and psychometric evaluation of the Am I ON TRAC for Adult Care questionnaire.

AIM To refine and psychometrically test the Am I ON TRAC for Adult Care questionnaire. BACKGROUND Inadequate transition to adult care for adolescents with special healthcare needs has been associated with greater risk of treatment non-adherence, lack of medical follow-up, increased morbidity and mortality. Presently, there are no well-validated measures assessing adolescents' readiness to transition from paediatric to adult medical care. DESIGN Descriptive cross-sectional study. METHODS The Am I ON TRAC for Adult Care questionnaire was refined to improve the instrument's methodological soundness. A literature review informed the revisions. A convenience sample of 200 adolescents, 12-19 years, was recruited from four outpatient clinics at a paediatric hospital in Western Canada between April-June 2012. Construct validity was evaluated by Exploratory Factory Analysis; concurrent validity was assessed using the Psychosocial Maturity Index. Internal consistency was evaluated by computing Cronbach's alpha estimates. RESULTS Factor analysis of the knowledge items identified a 14-item unidimensional scale. Knowledge and behaviour sub-scale scores increased with age, with a stronger relationship between knowledge and age. Psychosocial maturity correlated with both sub-scale scores, but had a stronger association with behaviour. Psychosocial maturity and age had a weak but significant correlation suggesting age is a loose proxy for maturity. Only 27% of 17-year olds, but 62% 18-year olds, scored above the behaviour cut-off for transition readiness. CONCLUSION The revised Am I ON TRAC for Adult Care questionnaire is a psychometrically sound measure that has potential to be used as a readiness assessment tool in both clinical practice and research.
An Assessment of Vertical Equity in Four States: Addressing Risk Factors in Education Funding Formulas.

American society has long realized the importance of education as a tool for social and economic mobility and therefore has supported free public education with taxpayer dollars. Understanding that every child is entitled to an education appropriate to his or her needs, to varying extents state legislatures have recognized the importance of providing funding to educate children at risk of academic failure. Such children include not only those with disabilities but also children affected by poverty, urbanicity, race, limited English proficiency, and family characteristics such as low parental educational attainment. Given the range of risk factors facing public schools and their potential effect on academic achievement, the level and extent of state funding for at-risk students is of growing concern. In particular, the funding of such programs represents an important but often overlooked theoretical concept in the analysis of state education funding systems: vertical equity. The purpose of this article is to reinvigorate the discussion of vertical equity through an assessment of the funding systems in four states that ascertains how and to what extent risk factors are addressed.
The autistic brain: birth through adulthood

Purpose of reviewWe discuss evidence of brain maldevelopment in the first years of life in autism and new neuroanatomical and functional evidence from later ages of development. Recent findingsHead circumference, an accurate indicator of brain size in children, was reported to jump from normal or below normal size in the first postnatal months in autistic infants to the 84th percentile by about 1 year of age; this abnormally accelerated growth was concluded by 2 years of age. Infants with extreme head (and therefore brain) growth fell into the severe end of the clinical spectrum and had more extreme neuroanatomical abnormalities. In the frontal and temporal lobes in autism, there have been reports of abnormal increases in gray and white matter at 2 to 4 years; reduced metabolic measures; deviant diffusion tensor imaging results in white matter; underdeveloped cortical minicolumns; and reduced functional activation during socio-emotional, cognitive and attention tasks. Cerebellar abnormalities included abnormal volumes, reduced number and size of Purkinje neurons in the vermis and hemispheres, molecular defects, and reduced functional activation in posterior regions. SummaryA new neurobiological phenomenon in autism has been described that precedes the onset of clinical behavioral symptoms, and is brief and age-delimited to the first two years of life. The neurobiological defects that precede, trigger, and underlie it may form part of the developmental precursors of some of the anatomical, functional, and behavioral manifestations of autism. Future studies of the first years of life may help elucidate the factors and processes that bring about the unfolding of autistic behavior.
Language and Cultural Challenges Facing Business Faculty in the Ever-Expanding Global Classroom.

More than 690,000 foreign students studied in the United States during the 2009-10 academic year. As non-native English-speaking students continue to pour into American educational institutions, one question many educators have is: are these international students adequately prepared for the language and cultural demands they will face when they are competing in the classroom and in the job market with their U.S. born counterparts? While it is a common belief that foreign students arrive with strong academic credentials, this does not reflect their grasp of the English language or their ability to adjust to significant cultural differences. Too many international students arrive with fraudulent admissions documents and once here, their fear of failure and their anxiety of becoming acclimated to a new culture often result in increased incidents of cheating, lying, and plagiarizing in order to succeed. When the above are married with the fact that the majority of faculty are not prepared to recognize or address the unique problems experienced by international students, the end result is that professors get frustrated by what they believe to be underprepared or disinterested students and the international students do not make the conceptual connections and acquire the elementary foundation needed to progress through the more advanced aspects of the curriculum. This article will look at some of the cultural and language barriers that act as impediments to an international student’s ability to succeed in the business classroom and will offer some solutions to enable faculty to be part of the pathway to success for the international students in their courses.
Inattention and Switching Costs as Sources of Inertia in Medicare Part D

Consumers' health plan choices are highly persistent even though optimal plans change over time. This paper separates two sources of inertia, inattention to plan choice and switching costs. We develop a panel data model with separate attention and choice stages, linked by heterogeneity in acuity, i.e., the ability and willingness to make diligent choices. Using data from Medicare Part D, we find that inattention is an important source of inertia but switching costs also play a role, particularly for low-acuity individuals. Separating the two stages and allowing for heterogeneity is crucial for counterfactual simulations of interventions that reduce inertia.
Nonlinear Effects of Provincial Economic Growth on Environmental Pollution

Using panel smooth transition regression (PSTR) model, we study the nonlinear effects of provincial economic growth on environmental pollution in China. The empirical research shows that the relationship between provincial economic growth and environmental pollution in China exists nonlinear smooth transition mechanism; provincial economic growth has an asymmetric effect on environmental pollution, which means that it has an negative (positive) effect when provincial GDP is less than (higher than) 2.85 trillion Yuan; the optimal provincial GDP interval is [2.20, 3.63] trillion Yuan, where the marginal effect is negative. Keywords-economic growth; environmental pollution; PSTR; nonlinear influence
Existence and exponential stability of periodic solution for Cohen-Grossberg neural networks with hybrid delays

In this paper, a generalized model of Cohen-Grossberg neural networks with periodic coefficients and hybrid delays is investigated. By employing integro-differential inequality and M-matrix theory, some sufficient conditions ensuring the existence and global exponential stability of the periodic oscillatory solution for Cohen-Grossberg neural networks with hybrid delays are obtained. An examples is given to show the effectiveness of the obtained results.
Event-triggered control for networked systems based on network dynamics

This paper investigates the stability and stabilization of networked control systems under simultaneous consideration of control system performance and network dynamics. By constructing an information dispatching middleware, a framework of networked control systems is established. In terms of the middleware, a novel event-triggered scheme is developed to regulate the transmission of the sampled data by considering network dynamics. The main feature of the scheme is that the released sampled data is not only determined by the current control system state, and the error between the current data and the latest transmitted state of the control system, but also by the current state of the network dynamics. An augmented system of the proposed framework is formulated based on a fluid-flow model. By using Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional approach, sufficient conditions are derived for system analysis and synthesis, respectively. Under the proposed framework, a tradeoff is provided to balance the utilization of communication resources and the desired performance of the control systems. Finally, a numerical example is given to illustrate the merits and effectiveness of this proposed framework.
Neuropsychological correlates of MRI temporal lobe abnormalities in schizophrenia.

OBJECTIVE The authors evaluated the neuropsychological correlates of temporal lobe abnormalities in schizophrenic patients. METHOD Fifteen schizophrenic patients underwent assessment of memory, by the Wechsler Memory Scale--Revised, and abstraction/categorization, by the similarities subtest of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale--Revised and the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test. Neuropsychological tests of motor and constructional functions were used as control tasks. The patients also underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies in which new neuroimaging techniques were used to derive measurements of volume and three-dimensional surface renderings of temporal lobe structures. RESULTS Spearman rank-order correlations indicated significant associations between poor scores on tests of verbal memory, abstraction, and categorization and reduced volume in temporal lobe structures, including the parahippocampal gyrus and posterior superior temporal gyrus (left and right). By contrast, performance on tests of visual memory and on control tasks was not correlated with MRI temporal lobe abnormalities. CONCLUSIONS These findings suggest a significant but modest relation between reduced volume in specific temporal lobe regions and neuropsychological deficits in abstraction, categorization, and verbal memory, all of which may reflect a dysfunctional semantic system in schizophrenia.
University of Groningen BENEFICIAL EFFECT OF CHRONIC NIMODIPINE TREATMENT ON BEHAVIORAL DYSFUNCTIONS OF AGED RATS EXPOSED TO PERINATAL ETHANOL TREATMENT

The long-term effects of prenatal and early postnatal ethanol exposure were assessed in adult (5-month), aged (24-month), and senescent (30-month) rats on non-aggressive intermale social behavior, and on black-white discrimination and spatial learning behaviors. Furthermore, the effects of chronic application of the Ca 2÷ channel blocker nimodipine, which reportedly improves behavioral function in aging, were studied on the ethanol-induced behavioral deficits during aging. The results showed that the perinatal alcohol treatment suppressed social behavior by reducing the frequency and duration of social interactions at all ages. Black-white discrimination behavior and appetitively motivated learning in a hole-board were also markedly disturbed. Several measures of social and spatial learning behaviors of ethanolexposed rats revealed progressive functional decline with aging. Chronic oral treatment with nimodipine improved the social activity and normalized the cognitive behavioral capabilities of aged and senescent rats exposed to ethanol. We concluded that: (1) the behavioral disabilities caused by perinatal ethanol toxicity are persistent in the rat lifespan and become more pronounced with aging; and (2) administration of nimodipine in the aging period improves, with a long-lasting efficacy, the ethanol-induced behavioral dysfunctions in aged rats.