Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Human papillomavirus vaccination and cervical cancer screening by socioeconomic status, Victoria

TO THE EDITOR: From 2007 to 2009 in Australia, a three-dose course of quadrivalent human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine was offered to all females aged 12–26 years through school and primary health care settings, with coverage recorded on the National HPV Vaccination Program Register (NHVPR). Women of lower socioeconomic status are at higher risk of cervical cancer in Australia.1 Inequities in cervical cancer screening have also been recognised by numerous studies nationally and internationally.1-3 If females in lower socioeconomic groups have lower participation in HPV vaccination, existing inequities in cervical cancer risk could widen. We analysed Victorian data on participation in HPV vaccination and cervical cancer screening (obtained from the NHVPR and the Victorian Cervical Cytology Registry) by socioeconomic status (based on Australian Bureau of Statistics 2006 Index of Relative Socio-economic Disadvantage for statistical local areas). From 1 July 2006 to 30 June 2008, participation in cervical screening was 58.7% in the most disadvantaged areas compared with 68.9% in the least disadvantaged areas (Box 1). A strong association was found between living in an area with higher average socioeconomic status and higher cervical screening rates in Victoria (P < 0.001). In contrast, HPV vaccination coverage from 2007 to 2009 showed a less pronounced socioeconomic gradient (Box 2). For the cohort of schoolgirls aged 12–17 years in 2007, three-dose coverage ranged from 73.1% in the most disadvantaged areas to 75.9% in the least disadvantaged areas (P < 0.001); for the cohort of women aged 18–26 years in 2007, coverage was 33.4% in the most disadvantaged areas and 38.0% in the least disadvantaged areas (P < 0.001). The National Cervical Screening Program is delivered mainly through primary health care services by general practitioners and nurses. The government-funded HPV vaccination program, delivered through schools, has contributed to a fairly equitable uptake across Victoria. Similar results have been found in the United Kingdom, which also has a schoolbased program,4 but not in the United States, where vaccination is not school based and universal government funding is not provided.5 Prevention of cervical cancer using school-based vaccination programs may result in more equitable cervical cancer prevention for females across the community than screening as currently accessed in Victoria. This ecological analysis should be supplemented by local monitoring of HPV vaccination coverage within and between schools at the area level, to ensure a reduction in inequities in cervical cancer incidence and mortality.
Comparison between scalpel technique and electrosurgery for depigmentation: A case series

A beautiful smile definitely enhances the personality of an individual and reveals self-confidence. The harmony of the smile is determined not only by the shape, position, and color of the teeth but also by the gingival tissues. Gingival pigmentation results from melanin granules which are produced by melanoblasts. Although melanin pigmentation of the gingiva is a completely benign condition and does not pose any medical problem, complaints of “black gums” are common particularly in patients having a very high smile line. The different treatment modalities that have been reported for depigmentation are bur abrasion, partial thickness flap, cryotherapy, electrosurgery, and lasers. In this paper we have compared the results of electrosurgery and scalpel technique, i.e., partial thickness flap.
Lifetime occupational and recreational physical activity and risk of benign prostatic hyperplasia

To investigate the relation between occupational and recreational physical activity (PA) in different periods of life and the risk of benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), we conducted a hospital‐based, case‐control study in Italy. The study included 1,369 histologically confirmed BPH and 1,451 controls, admitted to the same hospitals for acute, nonneoplastic diseases. Odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) of BPH, according to lifetime PA, were obtained by unconditional multiple logistic regression models, including terms for age, study center and education. Compared to the lowest level of occupational PA, the multivariate ORs for BPH for the heavy/strenuous level were 0.6 (95% CI, 0.4–0.8) at age 15–19, 0.6 (95% CI, 0.4–0.8) at age 30–39 and 0.7 (95% CI, 0.5–0.9) at age 50–59. Moreover, compared to <2 hr/week of recreational PA, the ORs for BPH for the highest level (≥≥5 hr/week) were 0.5 (95% CI, 0.4–0.7) at age 15–19, 0.6 (95% CI, 0.5–0.8) at age 30–39, and 0.7 (95% CI, 0.5–0.8) at age 50–59. All inverse trends in risk were significant, and no heterogeneity was found by reason of BPH‐diagnosis, age at diagnosis, and body mass index (BMI). The inverse association between PA and BPH risk may be due to favorable hormonal correlates of PA, but residual confounding by socioeconomic covariates cannot be excluded. A moderate PA at any ages may help reducing a sizeable number of BPH. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Identification of Regions and Residues in Feline Junctional Adhesion Molecule Required for Feline Calicivirus Binding and Infection

ABSTRACT The feline junctional adhesion molecule A (fJAM-A) is a functional receptor for feline calicivirus (FCV). fJAM-A is a member of the immunoglobulin superfamily (IgSF) and consists of two Ig-like extracellular domains (D1 and D2), a membrane-spanning domain, and a short cytoplasmic tail. To identify regions of fJAM-A that interact with FCV, we purified recombinant fJAM-A ectodomain and D1 and D2 domains. We found that preincubation of FCV with the ectodomain or D1 was sufficient to inhibit FCV infection in plaque reduction assays. In enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays, FCV binding to fJAM-A ectodomain was concentration dependent and saturable; however, FCV bound D1 alone weakly and was unable to bind D2. To characterize FCV binding to surface-expressed fJAM-A, we transfected truncated and chimeric forms of fJAM-A into a nonpermissive cell line and assayed binding by flow cytometry. Only D1 was necessary for FCV binding to cells; all other domains could be replaced. Using a structure-guided mutational approach, we identified three mutants of fJAM-A within D1 (D42N, K43N, and S97A) that exhibited significantly decreased capacities to bind FCV. In contrast to our finding that D1 mediated FCV binding, we found that all domains of fJAM-A were necessary to confer susceptibility to FCV infection. Furthermore, surface expression of fJAM-A was not sufficient to permit FCV infection by all of the isolates we investigated. This indicates that (i) other cellular factors are required to permit productive FCV infection and (ii) individual FCV isolates differ in the factors they require.
Burden of infectious diseases in South Asia

Infectious diseases are a major cause of death in South Asia, with children incurring a disproportionate share of the burden. This review discusses the underlying causes of some of the more common diseases and strategies to improve their detection and control Preventable infections are a major cause of deaths and disabilities in South Asia. Over two thirds of the estimated 3.7 million deaths in children in South Asia in the year 2000 were attributable to infections such as pneumonia, diarrhoea, and measles.1 2 India now has the second largest population with AIDS and HIV infection in the world, and tuberculosis and chronic hepatitis continue to threaten the lives of millions. Of the overall burden of deaths related to infectious disease in the region, around 63% are in children aged under 5 years.3 Serious effort should be devoted to the control of infectious disease if South Asian countries are to meet their millennium development goal of two thirds reduction in child mortality by 2015. Sri Lanka alone among South Asian countries has made remarkable progress in reducing the burden of infectious disease, despite civil war and meagre resources. This review describes the burden of infectious diseases of public health importance in South Asia, the underlying risk factors, and strategies to improve detection and control. We searched PubMed and the databases of the World Health Organization and Unicef for information on infectious diseases of public health importance in South Asia. We also reviewed the bibliographies of key references and reviews for relevant information. People in South Asia are at a higher risk of developing infectious diseases and dying from their illness than people in industrialised countries.3 The root causes are poverty and its associated problems of unhygienic living conditions, malnutrition, illiteracy, and poor access to clean water, toilet facilities, …
The role of psychological interventions in the management of patients with chronic pain

Chronic pain can be best understood from a biopsychosocial perspective through which pain is viewed as a complex, multifaceted experience emerging from the dynamic interplay of a patient’s physiological state, thoughts, emotions, behaviors, and sociocultural influences. A biopsychosocial perspective focuses on viewing chronic pain as an illness rather than disease, thus recognizing that it is a subjective experience and that treatment approaches are aimed at the management, rather than the cure, of chronic pain. Current psychological approaches to the management of chronic pain include interventions that aim to achieve increased self-management, behavioral change, and cognitive change rather than directly eliminate the locus of pain. Benefits of including psychological treatments in multidisciplinary approaches to the management of chronic pain include, but are not limited to, increased self-management of pain, improved pain-coping resources, reduced pain-related disability, and reduced emotional distress – improvements that are effected via a variety of effective self-regulatory, behavioral, and cognitive techniques. Through implementation of these changes, psychologists can effectively help patients feel more in command of their pain control and enable them to live as normal a life as possible despite pain. Moreover, the skills learned through psychological interventions empower and enable patients to become active participants in the management of their illness and instill valuable skills that patients can employ throughout their lives.
CNN-Based Phone Segmentation Experiments in a Less-Represented Language

These last years, there has been a regain of interest in unsupervised sub-lexical and lexical unit discovery. Speech segmentation into phone-like units may be a first interesting step for such a task. In this article, we report speech segmentation experiments in Xitsonga, a less-represented language spoken in South Africa. We chose to use convolutional neural networks (CNN) with FBANK static coefficients as input. The models take binary decisions whether a boundary is present or not at each signal sliding frame. We compare the use of a model trained exclusively on Xitsonga data to the use of a bootstrap model trained on a larger corpus of another language, the BUCKEYE U.S. English corpus. Using a two-convolution-layer model, a 79% F-measure was obtained on BUCKEYE, with a 20 ms error tolerance. This performance is equal to the human inter-annotator agreement rate. We then used this bootstrap model to segment Xitsonga data and compared the results when adapting it with 1 to 20 minutes of Xitsonga data.
Ionization-Enhanced AlGaN Heterostructure Avalanche Photodiodes

A heterostructure multiplication region consisting of high/low-Al-content AlGaN layers instead of the conventional high-Al-content AlGaN homogeneous layer was proposed to increase the average hole ionization coefficient and to realize a higher gain in AlGaN avalanche photodiodes (APDs) based on separate absorption and multiplication structures. The fabricated APDs with the Al<sub>0.2</sub>Ga<sub>0.8</sub>N/Al<sub>0.45</sub>Ga<sub>0.55</sub>N heterostructure multiplication region exhibit very steep breakdowns and a maximum gain of <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$5.5\times 10^{4}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> at a reverse bias of 109 V. Meanwhile, the large potential barrier to the conduction band formed at the Al<sub>0.2</sub>Ga<sub>0.8</sub>N/Al<sub>0.45</sub>Ga<sub>0.55</sub>N heterostructure interface can suppress the electron-initiated multiplication, and hence, reduce the noise of the APDs by impeding the transport of electrons. The simulation of noise confirms this effect from the heterostructure.
Circulatory model in metabolic studies of rapidly renewed hormones: application to ANP kinetics.

In an attempt to identify and quantify the sites of atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP) degradation, a new tracer experiment has been developed.125I-ANP was injected as a bolus just upstream from the right atrium, and blood was sampled from two different sites (pulmonary artery and aorta) in eight cardiac patients. Data were analyzed using a physiologically based circulatory model consisting of three blocks in series (right heart, lungs and left heart, and periphery) supplied by the same flow (cardiac output, measured by thermodilution); the extraction coefficients of the three blocks and of the whole body could be determined from the areas under tracer concentration curves in plasma (AUCs). The values for AUCs (means ± SD) were 64.8 ± 9.4 and 65.5 ± 10.7% dose ⋅ l-1 ⋅ min-1for pulmonary artery and aorta curves, respectively; the area under the pulmonary artery curve could be subdivided into the area under the first-pass curve (30.6 ± 4.7% dose ⋅ l-1 ⋅ min-1) and the area under the recirculating curve (34.0 ± 7.7% dose ⋅ l-1 ⋅ min-1). The metabolic clearance rate of125I-ANP, computed as dose divided by the area under the recirculating curve, was 3.1 ± 0.7 l/min, and the whole body extraction was 47.6 ± 6.6%. In our patients with myocardial dysfunction, neither right heart block nor lungs and left heart block significantly extracted ANP, and periphery block accounted for almost all removal of the hormone from the blood.
Appliance Displays: Accessibility Challenges and Proposed Solutions

People who are blind or visually impaired face difficulties using a growing array of everyday appliances because they are equipped with inaccessible electronic displays. We report developments on our --Display Reader-- smartphone app, which uses computer vision to help a user acquire a usable image of a display and have the contents read aloud, to address this problem. Drawing on feedback from past and new studies with visually impaired volunteer participants, as well as from blind accessibility experts, we have improved and simplified our user interface and have also added the ability to read seven-segment digit displays. Our system works fully automatically and in real time, and we compare it with general-purpose assistive apps such as Be My Eyes, which recruit remote sighted assistants (RSAs) to answer questions about video captured by the user. Our discussions and preliminary experiment highlight the advantages and disadvantages of fully automatic approaches compared with RSAs, and suggest possible hybrid approaches to investigate in the future.
Phylogenetic Distribution of the Capsid Assembly Protein Gene (g20) of Cyanophages in Paddy Floodwaters in Northeast China

Numerous studies have revealed the high diversity of cyanophages in marine and freshwater environments, but little is currently known about the diversity of cyanophages in paddy fields, particularly in Northeast (NE) China. To elucidate the genetic diversity of cyanophages in paddy floodwaters in NE China, viral capsid assembly protein gene (g20) sequences from five floodwater samples were amplified with the primers CPS1 and CPS8. Denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) was applied to distinguish different g20 clones. In total, 54 clones differing in g20 nucleotide sequences were obtained in this study. Phylogenetic analysis showed that the distribution of g20 sequences in this study was different from that in Japanese paddy fields, and all the sequences were grouped into Clusters α, β, γ and ε. Within Clusters α and β, three new small clusters (PFW-VII∼-IX) were identified. UniFrac analysis of g20 clone assemblages demonstrated that the community compositions of cyanophage varied among marine, lake and paddy field environments. In paddy floodwater, community compositions of cyanophage were also different between NE China and Japan.
On the Ability of Neural Nets to Express Distributions

Deep neural nets have caused a revolution in many classification tasks. A related ongoing revolution---also theoretically not understood---concerns their ability to serve as generative models for complicated types of data such as images and texts. These models are trained using ideas like variational autoencoders and Generative Adversarial Networks. We take a first cut at explaining the expressivity of multilayer nets by giving a sufficient criterion for a function to be approximable by a neural network with $n$ hidden layers. A key ingredient is Barron's Theorem \cite{Barron1993}, which gives a Fourier criterion for approximability of a function by a neural network with 1 hidden layer. We show that a composition of $n$ functions which satisfy certain Fourier conditions ("Barron functions") can be approximated by a $n+1$-layer neural network. For probability distributions, this translates into a criterion for a probability distribution to be approximable in Wasserstein distance---a natural metric on probability distributions---by a neural network applied to a fixed base distribution (e.g., multivariate gaussian). Building up recent lower bound work, we also give an example function that shows that composition of Barron functions is more expressive than Barron functions alone.
Calculation of drift velocities and diffusion coefficients of Xe/sup +/ ions in gaseous xenon

Elastic collision cross-sections for Xe+ ions with neutral Xe atoms are calculated using a modified Tang-Toennies ion-atom potential and a semi-classical approximation with phase shifts calculated by the Jeffreys-Wentzel-Kramers-Brillouin approximation. Results are presented for integral and differential cross sections at center-of-mass energies in the 1 meV to 10 eV energy range. The cross sections were then used to calculate the drift velocities and diffusion coefficients of Xe+ ions in gaseous xenon at atmospheric pressures and reduced electric fields, E/N, in the 3 to 300 Td range (N is the neutral gas number density and 1 Td=10-17 Vcm2 ) using Monte Carlo technique. The results obtained are compared and discussed with limited experimental data available from previous studies
Evaluation of immunomodulatory effect of three herbal plants growing in Egypt

A group of medicinal plant including Silene (Silene nocturna), Black seed (Nigella sativa) and Chamomile (Matricaria chamomilla) growing in Egypt were examined for their immunomodulatory effect in Balb/c mice. Treatment (intraperitoneal injection) with five doses of methanolic extract for each plant was found to enhance the total white blood cells count (up to 1.2 × 104 cells/mm3). Bone marrow cellularity also increased significantly (P < 0.01) after the administration of the extract of each of three test plants. Furthermore, spleen weight of the treated groups was significantly increased (P < 0.01). Two groups of mice were immunosuppressed with cyclophosphamide, the one which pretreated with the plants extracts significantly (P < 0.01) restored their resistance against lethal infection with the predominately granulocyte-dependant Candida albicans. These results confirm the immunomodulatory activity of Silene, Black seed, and Chamomile extracts and may have therapeutical implications in prophylactic treatment of opportunistic infections and as supportive treatment in oncogenic cases.
The role of the polymer host on reversible photodegradation in Disperse Orange 11 dye

The photodegradation and recovery process in anthraquinone chromophores have been characterized using am plified spontaneous emission (ASE) in several Anthraquinone derivatives doped in poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA). To understand the mechanisms of self healing in disperse orange 11 (DOll) doped in PMMA and the role of the host polymer, we investigated reversible photodegradation in DOll doped in copolymer composed of different percentages of methyl methacrylate (MMA) and Styrene. The results suggest that the host polymer is an important factor in determining the distribution of domain sizes of dye molecules.
The Rhizobium etli σ70 (SigA) factor recognizes a lax consensus promoter

A collection of Rhizobium etli promoters was isolated from a genomic DNA library constructed in the promoter-trap vector pBBMCS53, by their ability to drive the expression of a gusA reporter gene. Thirty-seven clones were selected, and their transcriptional start-sites were determined. The upstream sequence of these 37 start-sites, and the sequences of seven previously identified promoters were compared. On the basis of sequence conservation and mutational analysis, a consensus sequence CTTGACN16–23TATNNT was obtained. In this consensus sequence, nine on of twelve bases are identical to the canonical Escherichia coli σ70 promoter, however the R.etli promoters only contain 6.4 conserved bases on average. We show that the R.etli sigma factor SigA recognizes all R.etli promoters studied in this work, and that E.coli RpoD is incapable of recognizing them. The comparison of the predicted structure of SigA with the known structure of RpoD indicated that regions 2.4 and 4.2, responsible for promoter recognition, are different only by a single amino acid, whereas the region 1 of SigA contains 72 extra residues, suggesting that the differences contained in this region could be related to the lax promoter recognition of SigA.
Elasticity, Anelasticity and Yield Strength of Al-Si Alloys Obtained by Directional Crystallization

Acoustic measurements of Young’s modulus and internal friction at frequencies of longitudinal vibrations of about 100 kHz were made in the (5×10-7 to 2×10-4) vibration strain amplitude range for Al-Si alloys. Quasi-static bending stress-strain diagrams were studied as well. The samples of the alloy were prepared using a directional crystallization by Stepanov’s method. The compositions varied from 8 to 25 wt. %Si. The micro-plastic deformation of the materials (acoustic experiments) is explained by dislocation motion in grains of α solid solution. The micro-plastic yield stress has a minimum near the eutectic composition; the flow stress of plastic bending increases smoothly when the Si content increases.
Structural insights into the recognition of β3 integrin cytoplasmic tail by the SH3 domain of Src kinase

Src kinase plays an important role in integrin signaling by regulating cytoskeletal organization and cell remodeling. Previous in vivo studies have revealed that the SH3 domain of c‐Src kinase directly associates with the C‐terminus of β3 integrin cytoplasmic tail. Here, we explore this binding interface with a combination of different spectroscopic and computational methods. Chemical shift mapping, PRE, transferred NOE and CD data were used to obtain a docked model of the complex. This model suggests a different binding mode from the one proposed through previous studies wherein, the C‐terminal end of β3 spans the region in between the RT and n‐Src loops of SH3 domain. Furthermore, we show that tyrosine phosphorylation of β3 prevents this interaction, supporting the notion of a constitutive interaction between β3 integrin and Src kinase.