Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Pharmacological approach and therapeutic options for SARS-Cov-2 infection. Fast update

In these months the diffusion of a novel human RNA betacoronavirus, known as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), is causing a worldwide public health emergency, originated in Wuhan, China. The disease caused by this new coronavirus, called "COVID-19", is very contagious and, although most of infected subjects are asymptomatic or have mild flu-like symptoms, the rapid spread of the virus has resulted in a significant amount of serious interstitial pneumonia that may quickly develop into severe acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), septic shock, sepsis-induced coagulopathy and fatal multiorgan dysfunction. Hence, the unabated spread of the disease demands an immediate need to explore all the plausible therapeutic and prophylactic strategies for reducing the high morbidity and mortality of this infection. At present, there is no vaccine or certainly effective antiviral treatment for human SARS-Cov-2 and the mainstay of clinical management is prevalently symptomatic treatment combined with therapy based on a panel of drugs having variable and uncertain efficacy. Unfortunately, no many drugs have yet been approved to treat human SARS-Cov-2 infection and many agents are administered in off label route; several options are being studied to control or prevent clinical manifestations of this infection, including monoclonal antibodies, antiviral and anti-cytokine agents, antibiotics, and other drugs. The effort of this narrative review is to quickly summarize the main therapeutic agents that are currently employed in daily clinical practice for the drug treatment of COVID-19; moreover, purpose of this work is to provide “first-line” physicians a consultation tool to tackle this health emergency.
The Effect of Continuity of Care and Provider Volume on Late Presentation of Glaucoma: A Nested Case-Control Study.

PURPOSE Late presentation of glaucoma often causes blindness. Continuity of care (COC) has been the central element in primary care. We investigated whether COC, frequency of visits to ophthalmology departments, and provider experience can reduce late presentation. METHODS We conducted a nested case-control study on patients aged >20 years with confirmed glaucoma diagnosis. Claims data from the Taiwan's National Health Insurance Research Database during 2007 to 2016 were linked to the Disability Registry (n=231,330) to identify patients with glaucoma late presentation. Physician experience was proxied using service volume. Logistic regression was estimated using matched samples. RESULTS A total of 111 patients satisfied the definition of late presentation. Patients with a low frequency of visits had lower odds of being in the late-presentation group (OR=0.39, 95% CI=0.18-0.81). Continuity of care index did not statistically affect late presentation. Old age and lower socioeconomic status were significantly associated with higher odds of late presentation. A statistically significant negative association was observed between physician volume and odds of late presentation. CONCLUSION Late presentation for glaucoma can be reduced by promoting more frequent physician visits. However, enhancement from the provider-side, such as spreading awareness and offering routine tests, also play essential role in reducing late presentation.
Specificity and detail in autobiographical memory retrieval: a multi-site (re)investigation

ABSTRACT This investigation examined conflicting suggestions regarding the association between problems retrieving specific autobiographical memories and the tendency to retrieve the details of these memories. We also examined whether these tendencies are differentially related to depression symptoms. U.S., Belgian, Hong Kong and Japanese participants retrieved memories related to cue words. Responses were coded for if they referred to a specific event (i.e., an event lasting less than 24 h) and their details (What? Where? Who? ). Across sites, and in meta-analyses, the retrieval of more specific memories was associated with retrieval of more details. Memories that were specific included more detail than non-specific memories. Across sites, retrieval of more specific memories and more detail was associated with less severe depression symptoms. Episodic specificity and detailedness are related but separable constructs. Future investigations of autobiographical memory specificity, and methods for alleviating problematic specificity, should consider measures of episodic detailedness.
Securitization of Climate and Environmental Protection in China’s New Normal

Around 2009, China’s economy has become the largest greenhouse-gas emitter. Climate protection policies have gradually entered the ‘high politics’ sphere in China particularly when climate and environmental protection have proved to be effective tools in achieving other political goals. When Xi Jinping came to power in 2012, China has entered into the “new normal” with a more comprehensive economic strategy that includes or even elevates a wide range of climate and environmental protection policies. China’s economic development is now shifting the balance of growth away from heavy-industrial investment and toward a more sustainable growth. Why – and how – did China change its tune? The key driver of change on the political importance of climate and environmental protection is China’s effort to recentralize governance. At the same time, while acknowledging that centralization is itself not the end but also a means to other political goals, this paper focuses on how the securitization of climate change and environmental protection has effectively served multiple purposes. It serves as a guiding principle on socioeconomic development and it serves as legitimacy to reestablish control by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) with Xi at the helm. With the linkage of climate and environmental protection to these political goals, China’s experience becomes distinct from the usual securitization process. Also, China shows that while most political processes do not formally include democratic deliberation or the direct approval of an audience, climate and environmental protection does encourage more latent forms of participation not only of citizens, but of experts. Therefore, the process of securitization is also feasible in non-democratic societies
Guns and Butter? Fighting Violence with the Promise of Development

There is growing awareness that development-oriented government policies may be an important counterinsurgency strategy, but existing papers are usually unable to disentangle various mechanisms. Using a regression-discontinuity design, we analyze the impact of one of the world's largest anti-poverty programs, India's NREGS, on the intensity of Maoist conflict. We find short-run increases of insurgency-related violence, police-initiated attacks, and insurgent attacks on civilians. We discuss how these results relate to established theories in the literature. One mechanism consistent with the empirical patterns is that NREGS induces civilians to share more information with the state, improving police effectiveness.
Diagnostic value of autoantibodies against citrullinated peptide antigens in rheumatoid arthritis: Comparison of different commercial kits

©2011 Turkish League Against Rheumatism. All rights reserved. Amaç: Bu çalışmada romatoid faktörün (RF), anti-siklik sitrülin peptit (anti-CCP) antikorunun ve anti-mutat sitrülin vimentin (anti-MCV) antikorunun iki farklı ticari kitinin, ticari kitlerin performansları arasında önemli farklılıklar bulunabileceğini de göz önünde bulundurarak, romatoid artritteki (RA) tanısal değerleri test edildi. Hastalar ve yöntemler: Ekim 2008 ile Şubat 2009 tarihleri arasında romatoloji polikliniğimize başvuran 34 RA’lı hasta ve 24 sağlıklı kontrol çalışmaya alındı. Romatoid artritli hastaların ve sağlıklı gönüllülerin serumlarında iki farklı ticari kitle RF, antiCCP-2, anti-MCV-548 ve anti-MCV-248 otoantikorları çalışıldı. Romatoid artritli hastalarda hastalık aktiviteleri, hastalık aktivite skoru 28 (DAS-28)’e göre belirlendi. Romatoid artritli hastalarda eklem dışı tutulumlar değerlendirildi. Bulgular: Otoantikorların tanısal duyarlılık ve özgüllüğünü belirlemek için yapılan alıcı işletim karakteristiği (ROC) eğrisi analizinde en yüksek eğri altında kalan alan değeri anti-CCP-2’ye aitti. Duyarlılık ve özgüllük RF için %88 ve %90, anti-CCP-2 için %84 ve %100, anti-MCV-548 için %80 ve %90 ve anti-MCV-248 için %84 ve %100 idi. DAS-28 ile anti-CCP-2 (r=0.623), anti-MCV-548 (r=0.481) ve anti-MCV-248 (r=0.408) arasında zayıf bir korelasyon vardı. Ekstraartiküler tutulumu olan ve olmayan hastaların ve DAS-28’e göre düşük veya orta şiddette hastalık aktivitesi olan hastaların RF, anti-CCP-2, anti-MCV-548 ve anti-MCV-248 değerleri arasında istatistiksel olarak anlamlı bir fark yoktu. Sonuç: Anti-CCP, RF ve anti-MCV otoantikorları RA’nın ayırıcı tanısında faydalıdır. Fakat, anti-CCP antikoru diğer otoantikorlarla karşılaştırıldığında daha üstün bir tanısal değere sahiptir. Anti-MCV antikorunun tespitinde kullanılan anti-MCV-248 kitinin duyarlılık ve özgüllüğü anti-MCV-548 kitine göre daha yüksek olarak bulundu. Bu bulgular farklı ticari kitlerin farklı performans sergileyebileceğini akla getirmektedir. Bununla birlikte sonuçlarımızın daha fazla hastanın dahil edildiği çalışmalarla desteklenmesi gerekmektedir.
Validating and modelling technological pedagogical content knowledge framework among Asian preservice teachers

The Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPCK) framework has been adopted by many educational technologists and teacher educators for the research and development of knowledge about the pedagogical uses of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in classrooms. While the framework is potentially very important, efforts to survey teachers' TPCK efficacy has yet to identify all seven factors postulated by the framework. This study attempted to validate a TPCK efficacy survey by implementing it on an Asian group of 550 preservice teachers from China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan. The seven factors underlying the TPCK framework were identified which suggested the research instrument to be valid and reliable. The structural equation model proposed based on the TPCK framework supported eight out of 12 hypotheses about the relationships between TPCK constructs. The results indicate that the positive effects of the basic knowledge factors of CK, PK, and TK were indirect, occurring through the second layer of knowledge factors (TPK, TCK, and PCK). Implications for preservice teacher professional developments are discussed.
Some Diagnostic Aspect with Overall Clinical Expression of AsymmetricDimethylarginine as an Hallmark for Evaluation of Subclinic Athrosclerosis inPatients with Rheumatoid Arthritis with Aspect on Abnormal Nitric OxidMetabolism and Some Pharmacological Aspects of the Most Used Drugs in RA

Introduction: To evaluate the diagnostic test for Asymmetric Dimethyl Arginine (ADMA), rheumatoid factor (RF), C-reactive protein (CRP), Disease Activity Score with 28 joint (DAS 28 index), and to define the effect of untreated rheumatoid arthritis on endothelial function. In order to determine whether ADMA changes depending on the disease evolution, ADMA was used as an indicator for endothelial dysfunction in subclinical atherosclerosis. Methods: Using an ELISA technology of DLD-Diagnostic-GMBH for detection of ADMA, the samples of serum and urine have been examined in 70 participants (35 RA who were not treated, 35 healthy controls). RF was defined with the test for agglutination (Latex RF test) in the same participants. Results: Out of 35 examined patients with RA, RF appeared in 18 patients (sensitivity of the test 48.57%), while ADMA is positive in 20 patients (sensitivity of the test 57.14%) in the same group. In 23 of the 35 examined patients with RA, we found presence of anti-circulated peptide antibodies (anti-CCP2) from the second generation (anti- CCP2 antibodies) (sensitivity of the test 65.71%). There is association between ADMA and anti-circulated peptide antibodies (anti-CCP2) from the second generation in early RA (p<0.05). Conclusion: ADMA higher sensitivity than RF in the detection of asymptomatic subclinical lesions in untreated RA. ADMA has equal sensitivity and specificity from RF in untreated RA.
Income Divergence? Evidence of Non−linearity in the East Asian Economies

This study examines the issue of income convergence in the East-Asian economies from the non-linear point of view. It is shown in this study that the income gaps between Japan and the rest of the East-Asian economies exhibit nonlinearities. It is further shown that after taking non-linearity into consideration, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines exhibit divergence behaviour with respect to Japan's income, whereas Hong Kong, Korea, Taiwan and Singapore show otherwise.
AttractRank: District Attraction Ranking Analysis Based on Taxi Big Data

The city's district attraction ranking plays an essential role in the city's government because it can be used to reveal the city's district attraction and, thus, help government make decisions for urban planning in terms of the smart city. The traditional methods for urban planning mainly rely on the district's GDP, employment rate, population density, information from questionnaire surveys, and so on. However, as a comparison, such information is becoming relatively less informative as the explosion of an increasing amount of urban data. What is more, there is a serious shortcoming in these methods, i.e., they are independent representations of the attraction of a district and do not take into account the interaction among districts. With the development of urban computing, it is possible to make good use of urban data for urban planning. To this end, based on taxi big data obtained from Guangzhou, China, this article proposes a district attraction ranking approach called AttractRank, which for the first time uses taxi big data for district ranking. An application system is developed for demonstration purposes. First, the entire Guangzhou city is divided into a number of districts by using constrained K-means. Second, the original PageRank algorithm is extended to integrate with the taxi's origin–destination ($OD$) points to establish the $OD$ matrix, whereby the attraction ranking of each district can be calculated. Finally, by visualizing the results and case studies obtained from AttractRank, we can successfully obtain the pattern of how attractions of districts change over time and interesting discoveries on urban lives; therefore, it has wide applications in urban planning and urban data mining.
Stress symptoms and reactions to COVID-19: A multinational survey from six Asian regions

People may experience a heightened level of stress reactions during a pandemic event and in an isolated social environment. A multi-national survey about such mental health information about COVID-19 was conducted in May 2020 across six Asian regions: Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand. Data were collected from a population representative sample of 11,895 adults on their stress symptoms and reactions to COVID-19 and the related public health measures. 59.1% of the respondents showed at least one substantial stress symptom. The situation was particularly worrying in South Korea, where 75% of the respondents reported substantial stress symptoms. Respondents who were young, educated, lived in an urban area, had a high socio-economic status, had a history of chronic illness or mental illness, or who lived with a pregnant woman, elderly or children were most vulnerable to stress during the pandemic. Stress reactions showed a positive relationship with the amount of time spent following news about the COVID-19 outbreak. Asian adults coped with their stress by preparing safety equipment and extra daily commodities (62.4%) and by following government-issued public health measures (60.1%). Most Asian (71%) also frequently checked on the safety of family members and friends to keep each other safe. The COVID-19 pandemic and the associated stringent public health measures have largely increased the prevalence of substantial stress symptoms across multiple Asian regions. Governments should prepare this mental health pandemic and the associated social repercussions.
Systematic revision of the widespread species Sarcodia ceylanica (Sarcodiaceae, Rhodophyta) in the Indo-Pacific Oceans, including S. suiae sp. nov.

Abstract: The marine red algal genus Sarcodia possesses single to several flattened blades, composed of a central layer of medullary filaments, with some stellate cells remaining, flanked by two layers of subspherical to stellate cortical cells. Among the described species, S. ceylanica, previously regarded as a synonym of S. montagneana, is characterised by erect thalli composed of subdichotomously branched blades and has been widely reported from the Indian and western Pacific Oceans. Collections from various localities in the Indo-Pacific regions included many specimens fitting this broad concept of S. ceylanica but differed in blade morphology and were difficult to assign to any named species with confidence. In order to delineate the species boundaries within the suite of the specimens that morphologically resemble S. ceylanica and to clarify the phylogenetic significance of the morphological features used for separating species of Sarcodia, we used rbcL sequences to infer phylogenetic relationships among the available specimens. RbcL sequence analyses showed that the distribution of S. ceylanica is most likely restricted to its type locality Sri Lanka. The collections of S. ‘ceylanica’ analysed from Taiwan, Japan and Kenya were split into four clades and were genetically different from those collections of S. ceylanica from Sri Lanka. The molecular results also suggested that S. montagneana is distributed only in New Zealand. In addition, one new species, S. suiae S. -M. Lin & Rodríguez-Prieto, is described to accommodate specimens of S. ‘ceylanica’ from Taiwan. Records of S. ‘ceylanica’ and S. ‘montagneana’ from other locations in the Indo-Pacific regions should be regarded as doubtful until detailed morphological studies and molecular analyses of freshly collected specimens become available.
Clinical significance of wound infiltration with ropivacaine for elderly patients in china underwent total laparoscopic radical gastrectomy

Abstract The study aimed to evaluate analgesic effects and postoperative recovery of ropivacaine wound infiltration for elderly patients in China after total laparoscopic radical gastrectomy. We retrospectively received clinical data of 132 elderly patients who received total laparoscopic gastrectomy and tracheal intubation general anesthesia from cancer center of First Affiliated Hospital of Xiamen University between September 2014 and September 2017, patients were divided into 2 groups according to local injection of drug: group I (ropivacaine group, 0.5% ropivacaine, 40 mL in total, n = 69), group II (control group, no analgesic, n = 63). The demographics, postoperative pain using numeric ratings scale (NRS), rescue analgesics as well as incidence of complications were investigated. Significantly lower pain scores were observed in group I than in group II at 6, 12, 24, and 48 h postoperatively; the use of remedy analgesia was less in group I than in group II; there was no statistical significance in the incidence of surgical-related complications between the 2 groups. The recovery time were shorter in group I than in group II, meanwhile, postoperative hospital stay, medical expenses, and anesthesia-related complications were significantly less in group I than in group II. This is a review of ropivacaine infiltration use in the elderly patients underwent total laparoscopic radical gastrectomy. This analysis describes the postoperative analgesic effect and postoperative recovery of wound infiltration with ropivacaine. Multicentered large sample prospective randomized controlled study is needed to evaluate the feasibility, security, and economic practicality.
Shared epitope and polymorphism of MICA and NKG2D encoding genes in Greek and Polish patients with rheumatoid arthritis

The present study aimed to analyse and compare the distribution of MICA (rs1051792) and NKG2D/KLRK1 (rs1154831, rs1049174, rs2255336) polymorphisms in 61 Greek and 100 Polish patients with rheumatoid arthritis in relation to the presence of the HLA-DRB1 shared epitope and clinical parameters. Genotyping of selected polymorphism was performed using real-time PCR. HLA-DRB1 shared epitope alleles segregated differently in Greek and Polish patients but in both populations were detected in over 60% of cases. The rs1051792-A variant was more common among SE-positive Polish patients (p = 0.003) while the rs1049174-G allele was more frequently observed in Greeks than in Poles (p < 0.001). Moreover, among Greek patients, the rs1051792-GG homozygotes more frequently presented with anti-CCP antibodies and rheumatoid factor (RF), while carriers of the rs1049174-G variant and rs1154831-CC homozygotes were characterized by lower disease activity scores (p < 0.05 in all cases). These results imply that, in addition to the HLA-DRB1 SE alleles, MICA and NKG2D polymorphisms may also play a role in rheumatoid arthritis.
Marriage and risk of dementia: systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies

This JNNP meta-analysis, which included 15 studies with 812 047 participants, showed an elevated dementia risk in lifelong single (42%) and widowed (20%) but not divorced persons compared with those who were married.1 Although one study from Sweden contributed the vast majority (92%) of participants, the other studies were also broadly in agreement and, importantly, came from a wide range of countries across the world: Europe (France, Germany, Italy, Sweden), North and South America (Brazil, USA) and Asia (China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan). Furthermore, the robustness of the association was shown by sensitivity analyses for demographic factors (sex, whether study subjects were born before or after 1927) and study methodology (type, quality). However, the association with dementia subtypes was not significant likely …