Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Gender difference in blood pressure responses to dietary sodium intervention in the GenSalt study

Objective To examine factors related to blood pressure (BP) responses to dietary sodium and potassium interventions. Methods We conducted a dietary feeding study that included a 7-day low-salt intervention (51.3 mmol sodium/day), a 7-day high-salt intervention (307.8 mmol sodium/day), and a 7-day high-salt and potassium-supplementation (60 mmol potassium/day) intervention among 1906 study participants in rural China. The BP was measured nine times during the 3-day baseline observation and during the last 3 days of each intervention phase using a random-zero sphygmomanometer. Results The BP responses to low-sodium intervention were significantly greater in women than in men: −8.1 [95% confidence interval (−8.6 to −7.6)] versus −7.0 (−7.5 to −6.6) mmHg for systolic and −4.5 (−4.9 to −4.1) versus −3.4 (−3.8 to −3.0) mmHg for diastolic. Likewise, BP responses to high-sodium interventions were significantly greater in women than in men: 6.4 (5.9–6.8) versus 5.2 (4.8–5.7) mmHg for systolic and 3.1 (2.7–3.5) versus 1.7 (1.4–2.1) mmHg for diastolic (all P < 0.001). In addition, systolic BP responses to sodium interventions increased with age, and both systolic and diastolic BP responses to sodium interventions increased with baseline BP levels. BP responses to potassium supplementation also increased with baseline BP levels. Conclusion These results suggest that female gender, older age, and hypertension increase the sensitivity to dietary sodium intervention. Furthermore, low dietary sodium intake may be more effective in reducing BP among these subgroups.
Memantine before Mastectomy Prevents Post-Surgery Pain: A Randomized, Blinded Clinical Trial in Surgical Patients

Background Neuropathic pain following surgical treatment for breast cancer with or without chemotherapy is a clinical burden and patients frequently report cognitive, emotional and quality of life impairment. A preclinical study recently showed that memantine administered before surgery may prevent neuropathic pain development and cognitive dysfunction. With a translational approach, a clinical trial has been carried out to evaluate whether memantine administered before and after mastectomy could prevent the development of neuropathic pain, the impairment of cognition and quality of life. Method A randomized, pilot clinical trial included 40 women undergoing mastectomy in the Oncology Department, University Hospital, Clermont-Ferrand, France. Memantine (5 to 20 mg/day; n = 20) or placebo (n = 20) was administered for four weeks starting two weeks before surgery. The primary endpoint was pain intensity measured on a (0–10) numerical rating scale at three months post-mastectomy. Results Data analyses were performed using mixed models and the tests were two-sided, with a type I error set at α = 0.05. Compared with placebo, patients receiving memantine showed at three months a significant difference in post-mastectomy pain intensity, less rescue analgesia and a better emotional state. An improvement of pain symptoms induced by cancer chemotherapy was also reported. Conclusions This study shows for the first time the beneficial effect of memantine to prevent post-mastectomy pain development and to diminish chemotherapy-induced pain symptoms. The lesser analgesic consumption and better well-being of patients for at least six months after treatment suggests that memantine could be an interesting therapeutic option to diminish the burden of breast cancer therapy. Trial Registration Clinicaltrials.gov NCT01536314
Holding Back the Tide: Policies to Preserve and Reconstruct Health Insurance Coverage in Maryland

Over the past decade, state officials have pursued a variety of strategies to protect and expand health insurance coverage for their residents. This article examines the course of action in Maryland, where new initiatives were shaped around the state's unique hospital payment system and its reimbursement of uncompensated care, an evolving Medicaid and children's health program, and regulation of the small group health insurance market. Several important patterns emerge from the Maryland experience. First, even the most incremental initiatives—programs intended to aid a few thousand beneficiaries—bring into play the very issues that hamper comprehensive reforms: who is deserving of mutual aid and what is the proper role of government versus private entities in administering that aid. In Maryland, these issues generate conflict not only between Democrats and Republicans but also urban and rural interests. Second, all of the important reforms of the past decade were undertaken primarily in reaction to federal policy initiatives. Contrary to rhetoric lauding states as the "laboratories of democracy," the political impetus for reform and basic policy options emerge from interaction between federal and state debates. Third, even with budget surpluses and Democrats in control of the governorship and legislature, Maryland did not move aggressively toward universal health insurance. Now, with a much weaker economy and a new, Republican governor, the primary challenge will be to prevent further erosion of insurance coverage. The Maryland experience reiterates that each step toward greater health security, no matter how small, is a major technical and political challenge and that it will be difficult if not impossible to rely on states to secure coverage for all Americans in the foreseeable future. [End Page 203]
Molecular chaperones in cilia and flagella: implications for protein turnover.

The mechanisms of protein incorporation and turnover in 9+2 ciliary axonemes are not known. Previous reports of an HSP70-related protein, first in Chlamydomonas flagella and then in sea urchin embryonic cilia, suggested a potential role in protein transport or incorporation. The present study further explores this and other chaperones in axonemes from a representative range of organisms. Two-dimensional gel electrophoresis proved identity between the sea urchin ciliary 78 kDa HSP and a constitutive cytoplasmic HSP70 cognate (pI = 5.71). When isolated flagella from mature sea urchin sperm were analyzed, the same total amount and distribution of 78 kDa protein as in cilia were found. Antigens of similar size were detected in ctenophore comb plate, molluscan gill, and rabbit tracheal cilia. Absent from sea urchin sperm flagella, TCP-1alpha was detected in sea urchin embryonic and rabbit tracheal cilia; the latter also contained HSP90, detected by two distinct antibodies. Tracheal cilia were shown to undergo axonemal protein turnover while tracheal cells mainly synthesized ciliary proteins. TCP-1alpha progressively appeared in regenerating embryonic cilia only as their growth slowed, suggesting a regulatory role in incorporation or turnover. These results demonstrate that chaperones are widely distributed ciliary and flagellar components, potentially related to axonemal protein dynamics.
Comparison of FDG and FDG-labeled leukocytes PET/CT in diagnosis of infection

Summary The aim of this study is to compare FDG and FDG-labeled leukocyte (WBC) PET/CT in the diagnosis of infection using different SUV and visual thresholds for interpretation. Patients, material, method: 49 consecutive patients (27 men, 22 women, mean age: 55.7 years, range: 16-89 years) with suspected musculoskeletal infection (n = 34), vascular graft infection (n = 5), aortitis (n =1 ), endo - carditis (n = 1), mass lesion which is suspicious for infection or malignity (n = 6), and fever of unknown origin (n = 2) underwent both FDG and WBC-PET/CT. Images were evaluated by both visual analysis (grade 1-3) according to uptake intensity and quantitative grading (grade 1-3) based on lesion to background SUVmax values. Final diagnosis was made by histopathological, microbiological analysis or clinical-radiological work-up. Results: The diagnosis of infection was made in total 24 patients, of whom 14 were diagnosed by histopathological and the rest by clinical-radiological work-up. WBC-PET/CT imaging with the visual threshold of 1b as infection positivity (for truncal lesions uptake equivalent to liver or lumbar vertebrae uptake; for extremity lesions uptake significantly higher than neighbouring soft tissue uptake or higher than neighbouring bone marrow uptake) was found to have the highest diagnostic accuracy (AUC: 0.874, CI: 0.771-0.997, p < 0.001). The optimal SUV threshold was found to be 8.8 (p = 0.006; sensitivity: 72.7%, specificity: 82.8) and 5.3 (p < 0.001; sensitivity: 81.8%, specificity: 79.3%) for FDG and WBC-PET/CT, respectively by ROC curve analysis. Conclusion: WBC-PET/CT is more valuable than FDG PET/CT in the imaging of infection. Visual threshold of >1b seems to be more suitable for detection of infection.
The burden of endometriosis: costs and quality of life of women with endometriosis and treated in referral centres.

BACKGROUND This study aimed to calculate costs and health-related quality of life of women with endometriosis-associated symptoms treated in referral centres. METHODS A prospective, multi-centre, questionnaire-based survey measured costs and quality of life in ambulatory care and in 12 tertiary care centres in 10 countries. The study enrolled women with a diagnosis of endometriosis and with at least one centre-specific contact related to endometriosis-associated symptoms in 2008. The main outcome measures were health care costs, costs of productivity loss, total costs and quality-adjusted life years. Predictors of costs were identified using regression analysis. RESULTS Data analysis of 909 women demonstrated that the average annual total cost per woman was €9579 (95% confidence interval €8559-€10 599). Costs of productivity loss of €6298 per woman were double the health care costs of €3113 per woman. Health care costs were mainly due to surgery (29%), monitoring tests (19%) and hospitalization (18%) and physician visits (16%). Endometriosis-associated symptoms generated 0.809 quality-adjusted life years per woman. Decreased quality of life was the most important predictor of direct health care and total costs. Costs were greater with increasing severity of endometriosis, presence of pelvic pain, presence of infertility and a higher number of years since diagnosis. CONCLUSIONS Our study invited women to report resource use based on endometriosis-associated symptoms only, rather than drawing on a control population of women without endometriosis. Our study showed that the economic burden associated with endometriosis treated in referral centres is high and is similar to other chronic diseases (diabetes, Crohn's disease, rheumatoid arthritis). It arises predominantly from productivity loss, and is predicted by decreased quality of life.
Causality and Consciousness in Economics: Concepts of Change in Orthodox and Heterodox Economics

Institutionalists have always considered causality a central concept of economics and have added weight to the theoretical orientation by contrasting the neo-classical concept of linear causality with the sophisticated and realistic concept of circular and cumulative causation pioneered by Thorstein Veblen [18981. Neoclassical economists have not only failed to give further ontic and theoretical profile to their causality concept but have also tended to reject it altogether as a basis upon which an analysis of economic processes could be built. Bertrand Russel's insistence that the causality concept was "humbug" has left a deep impression on those economists who were prepared to derive from an axiomatic treatment the ultimate scientific status of economic theory. Thus, institutional economics, with its concept of circular and cumulative causation, is opposed to orthodox economics, where causality is considered redundant or methodologically impeding, and, where if it enters the scene at all, is given a deterministic interpretation which robs it of its original substance. The differences in the causality concepts of orthodox and heterodox economics are profound-and where there is smoke there must also be fire. Given the mixed attitude of neo-classical economists toward causal
Still Looking for the Right Mechanism as a Target During Ablation of Atrial Fibrillation

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most commonly encountered cardiac arrhythmia in the clinical practice. The electrophysiological mechanisms underlying AF have been extensively investigated in the past and have revealed evidence for both focal electrical activity triggering AF1 and reentrant activity (multiple wavelet reentry) maintaining AF.2 The predominant site of focal electrical activity triggering AF is the pulmonary vein (PV). 1,3 The abnormal automaticity, triggered activity, and microreentry have been proposed as the model of underlying mechanism of electrical activity in the PV. Recent studies have shown that catheter ablation is one of the most effective treatments for AF. Without doubt, pulmonary vein isolation (PVI) to isolate electrically arrhythmogenic foci located in the PVs from the LA4,5 is the cornerstone of catheter ablation for AF. Moreover, several techniques other than PVI have been proposed for AF ablation. Among alternative or additional methods to PVI, ablation targeting complex-fractionated atrial electrograms (CFAE) and ganglionated plexi (GP) would be 2 main approaches. Nademanee et al.6 first proposed in 2004 that CFAEs would represent “nests” of AF and would be ideal target sites for ablation to eliminate AF. They presumed that CFAEs correlate with areas of slow conduction zone and pivot points of small reentrant wavelets to maintain AF. They reported the unique method of AF ablation using CFAE guidance, the result of which was comparable or even superior to PVI. However, Oral et al.7 reported that ablation for AF only targeting CFAEs had modest short-term efficacy and patients required repeat procedures. Recently, some investigators demonstrated favorable effect when combining CFAEs as an adjunctive therapy with PVI.8-10 The involvement of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) in ventricular arrhythmia has been well recognized from a long time ago. For example, a study over 100 years ago by Eidenbroudt11 demonstrated that direct cervical vagus nerve stimulation increased the threshold for ventricular fibrillation (VF) induction. Schwartz et al.12 also showed the strong evidence of relationship between impaired cardiac autonomic control and lethal ventricular arrhythmias, especially VF. As
Transposition of IS1 circles

IS1, the smallest active transposable element in bacteria, encodes transposase. IS1 transposase promotes transposition as well as production of miniplasmids from a plasmid carrying IS1 by deletion of the region adjacent to IS1. The IS1 transposase also promotes production of IS1 circles consisting of the entire IS1 sequence and a sequence, 6–9 bp in length, as a spacer between terminal inverted repeats of IS1. The biological significance of the generation of IS1 circles is not known.
Self and social functions: Individual autobiographical memory and collective narrative

The personal functions of autobiographical memory build on the basic biological functions of memory common to most mammals that, however, do not have the kind of episodic memories that compose human autobiographical memory according to present theory. The thesis here is that personal autobiographical memory is functionally and structurally related to the use of cultural myths and social narratives, and that the relative emphasis put on the self in different cultural and social contexts influences the form and function of autobiographical memory and the need for developing a uniquely personal life narrative in those contexts. Historical and cross-cultural trends revealed in psychological and literary research are invoked to support this thesis.
Immunocytochemistry of cell surface heparan sulfate proteoglycan in mouse tissues. A light and electron microscopic study.

The core protein of the proteoglycan at the cell surface of NMuMG mouse mammary epithelial cells bears both heparan and chondroitin sulfate chains and is recognized by the monoclonal antibody 281-2. Using this antibody and the peroxidase-antiperoxidase staining technique in adult mouse tissues, we found that the antibody recognizes the antigen in a highly restricted distribution, staining a variety of epithelial cells but no cells derived from embryonic mesoderm or neural crest. The antibody fails to stain any stromal (mesenchymal) or neuronal cells, with the exception of plasma cells and Leydig cells. Squamous and transitional epithelia stain intensely over their entire surfaces, whereas cuboidal and columnar epithelia stain moderately and only at the lateral surface of the basal cells. Within squamous and transitional epithelial tissues that undergo physiological regeneration (e.g., epidermis), the most superficial and differentiated cell types fail to stain. Within glandular and branched epithelia (e.g., pancreas), the secretory alveolar cells fail to stain. When evaluated by electron microscopy, granular deposits of stain are seen on the plasma membrane, especially on lateral surfaces, but none are noted within the cells or the basement membrane. These results indicate that in adult tissues the core protein of this heparan sulfate-rich proteoglycan is expressed almost exclusively at epithelial cell surfaces. Expression appears to be lost as the cells become either mature or highly differentiated.
Tax Avoidance: A Threat to Corporate Legitimacy? An Examination of Companies’ Financial and CSR Reports

While there have been regular debates on corporate tax avoidance, a distinguishing feature of the current interest is the involvement of a wider audience which includes society in general. By analysing both tax related disclosures in company annual reports and corporate social responsibility reports the authors examine how managers of companies who have been subject to specific criticism of their alleged tax avoidance respond to such criticism. Using a legitimacy theory framework to identify four disclosure themes: explicit tax philosophy, implicit tax philosophy, tax conduct and tax contribution, companies’ reports for the 11 year period 2004–2005 to 2014–2015 have been analysed. The authors have found what appears to be evidence of inconsistency on the part of managers in identifying appropriate responses which the authors attribute to uncertainty as to the status of tax avoidance. The uncertainty is apparent in variation over time both within companies and between companies and is reflected in the incidence of disclosures, their content, and in some cases the absence of a disclosure. This uncertainty is most probably part of a wider reluctance to respond directly to the criticism or to enter into debate and reflects societal ambiguity as regards the legitimacy of tax avoidance. The authors conclude that governments cannot rely on managerial attitudes or voluntary frameworks if they wish to change the behaviour of managers in relation both to tax avoidance or to tax more widely.
Chinese soft-shelled turtle egg powder lowers serum cholesterol, increases faecal neutral steroids and bile acid excretion, and up-regulates liver cytochrome P450 mRNA level in rats

The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of Chinese soft-shelled turtle whole egg powder (TE) on cholesterol metabolism in Sprague–Dawley rats to determine whether it has a cholesterol-lowering effect. Forty male Sprague–Dawley rats were fed a high-fat diet supplemented with TE (0, 0·75, 1·50 or 3·00 g/kg body weight) administrated by gavage for 24 weeks. Serum total cholesterol (TC), HDL-cholesterol (HDL-C), LDL-cholesterol (LDL-C) and faecal total bile acids levels were determined by enzymatic methods. Faecal steroid concentrations were measured by GC. Means and standard deviations were calculated where appropriate for values, and the data were tested by one-way ANOVA. After 24 weeks of feeding a high-fat diet with TE supplementation, serum TC and LDL-C levels, liver cholesterol and liver lipid levels were reduced in rats. TE supplementation did not affect the faecal output, but significantly increased steroid concentrations in faeces, indicating increased steroids excretion. The faecal bile acid excretion was also increased as evidence by elevated mRNA level of liver cytochrome P450, family 7, subfamily A, polypeptide 1. Our results demonstrated that the TE does have a cholesterol-lowering effect by increasing the excretion of total bile acids and neutral steroids.
Biodegradation of BTEX mixture by Pseudomonas putida YNS1 isolated from oil‐contaminated soil

The presence of mixed contaminants, such as BTEX (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene isomers) can affect the biodegradation, fate and environmental impacts of each compound. To understand the influence of interactions among BTEX compounds on their biodegradation, four bacteria were isolated from oil‐contaminated soil and assayed for BTEX biodegradation in vitro. The isolate exhibiting maximum biodegradation was identified as Pseudomonas putida based on the 16S rDNA sequence. The biodegradation of the BTEX compounds was greatly influenced by pH, temperature, and salinity. Substrate mixture studies (binary, tertiary and quaternary) revealed that the presence of toluene increased the biodegradation rate of benzene, ethylbenzene, and xylene.
Control of flexor motoneuron activity during single leg walking of the stick insect on an electronically controlled treadwheel.

In the present study, motoneurons innervating the flexor tibiae muscle of the stick insect (Cuniculina impigra) middle leg were recorded intracellularly while the single leg performed walking-like movements on a treadwheel. Different levels of belt friction (equivalent to a change in load) were used to study the control of activity of flexor motoneurons. During slow leg movements no fast motoneurons were active, but a recruitment of these neurons could be observed during faster leg movements. The firing rate of slow and fast motoneurons increased with incremented belt friction. Also, the force applied to the treadwheel at different frictional levels was adapted closely to the friction of the treadwheel to be overcome. The motoneurons innervating the flexor tibiae were recruited progressively during the stance phase, with the slow motoneurons being active earlier than the fast (half-maximal spike frequency after 10-15% and 50-60% of the stance phase, respectively). The resting membrane potential was more hyperpolarized in fast motoneurons (64.6 +/- 6.5 mV) than in slow motoneurons (-52.9 +/- 5.4 mV). However, the threshold for the initiation of action potentials was not statistically significantly different in both types of flexor motoneurons. Therefore, action potentials were generated in fast motoneurons after a longer period of depolarization and thus later during the stance phase than in slow motoneurons. We show that motoneurons of the flexor tibiae receive substantial common excitatory inputs during the stance phase and that the difference in resting membrane potential between slow and fast motoneurons is likely to play a crucial role in their consecutive recruitment.
Disparity map quality for image-based rendering based on multiple metrics

While a wide range of disparity estimation algorithms exists, only few methods are available to analyze the quality of a disparity map. We present a new two-dimensional approach to disparity map evaluation using the stereo matching error and the temporal error. These measures give a good indication of stereo or multi-view performance on a 3D display. Results are illustrated on a ground truth disparity map with multiple distortions as well as on a commercially available disparity estimator using varying post-processing settings on a real stereoscopic video sequence.