Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Open Access Research Article Comparison of Three Methods for Ascertainment of Contact Information Relevant to Respiratory Pathogen Transmission in Encounter Networks

Background: Mathematical models of infection that consider targeted interventions are exquisitely dependent on the assumed mixing patterns of the population. We report on a pilot study designed to assess three different methods (one retrospective, two prospective) for obtaining contact data relevant to the determination of these mixing patterns. Methods: 65 adults were asked to record their social encounters in each location visited during 6 study days using a novel method whereby a change in physical location of the study participant triggered data entry. Using a cross-over design, all participants recorded encounters on 3 days in a paper diary and 3 days using an electronic recording device (PDA). Participants were randomised to first prospective recording method. Results: Both methods captured more contacts than a pre-study questionnaire, but ascertainment using the paper diary was superior to the PDA (mean difference: 4.52 (95% CI 0.28, 8.77). Paper diaries were found more acceptable to the participants compared with the PDA. Statistical analysis confirms that our results are broadly consistent with those reported from large-scale European based surveys. An association between household size (trend 0.14, 95% CI (0.06, 0.22), P < 0.001) and composition (presence of child 0.37, 95% CI (0.17, 0.56), P < 0.001) and the total number of reported contacts was observed, highlighting the importance of sampling study populations based on household characteristics as well as age. New contacts were still being recorded on the third study day, but compliance had declined, indicating that the optimal number of sample days represents a trade-off between completeness and quality of data for an individual. Conclusions: The study's location-based reporting design allows greater scope compared to other methods for examining differences in the characteristics of encounters over a range of environments. Improved parameterisation of dynamic transmission models gained from work of this type will aid in the development of more robust decision support tools to assist health policy makers and planners. Background Mathematical models of infection are useful decision support tools for health policy makers choosing between alternative interventions to limit the spread of infectious diseases [1]. Increased focus on influenza pandemic preparedness and response in recent years has stimulated the development of agent-based models exploring alternative containment and mitigation strategies [2-4] that may be
ASSOCIATIONS BETWEEN CHILDHOOD TRAUMA, BULLYING AND PSYCHOTIC SYMPTOMS AMONG A SCHOOL-BASED ADOLESCENT SAMPLE

Background Children and adolescents who report psychotic symptoms appear to be at increased risk for psychotic disorders in adulthood – a putative ‘symptomatic’ high-risk group. However, little research has investigated whether those in this high-risk population have increased rates of exposure to traumatic events in childhood, as seen in patients who have a psychotic illness. Aims To examine whether adolescents with psychotic symptoms have an increased rate of traumatic experiences. Method Psychiatric interviews were carried out with 211 adolescents aged between 12 and 15 years and their parents as part of a population-based study. The interview enquired about a number of early traumatic events including physical and sexual abuse, exposure to domestic violence and bullying. Results Fourteen adolescents (6.6% of those interviewed) reported experiencing at least one psychotic symptom. Adolescents who reported psychotic symptoms were significantly more likely to have been physically abused in childhood, to have been exposed to domestic violence and to be identified as a bully/victim (that is, both a perpetrator and victim of bullying) than those who did not report such symptoms. These findings were not confounded by comorbid psychiatric illness or family history of psychiatric history. Conclusions Our findings suggest that childhood trauma may increase the risk of psychotic experiences. The characteristics of bully/victims deserve further study.
A Hypomagnetic Field Aggravates Bone Loss Induced by Hindlimb Unloading in Rat Femurs

A hypomagnetic field is an extremely weak magnetic field—it is considerably weaker than the geomagnetic field. In deep-space exploration missions, such as those involving extended stays on the moon and interplanetary travel, astronauts will experience abnormal space environments involving hypomagnetic fields and microgravity. It is known that microgravity in space causes bone loss, which results in decreased bone mineral density. However, it is unclear whether hypomagnetic fields affect the skeletal system. In the present study, we aimed to investigate the complex effects of a hypomagnetic field and microgravity on bone loss. To study the effects of hypomagnetic fields on the femoral characteristics of rats in simulated weightlessness, we established a rat model of hindlimb unloading that was exposed to a hypomagnetic field. We used a geomagnetic field-shielding chamber to generate a hypomagnetic field of <300 nT. The results show that hypomagnetic fields can exacerbate bone mineral density loss and alter femoral biomechanical characteristics in hindlimb-unloaded rats. The underlying mechanism might involve changes in biological rhythms and the concentrations of trace elements due to the hypomagnetic field, which would result in the generation of oxidative stress responses in the rat. Excessive levels of reactive oxygen species would stimulate osteoblasts to secrete receptor activator of nuclear factor-κB ligand and promote the maturation and activation of osteoclasts and thus eventually cause bone resorption.
Ageing and international capital flows

Ageing will have an impact on both savings and investment, potentially leading to substantial international capital flows. This CPB Document provides a comprehensive overview, by considering various questions. What are the differences in the demographic process of ageing across countries? Does ageing lead to a capital outflow? How mobile is capital? What are the effects of a lower rate of return on (pension) savings?
In the Wrong Place at the Wrong Time: The Extent of Frictional and Structural Unemployment

A major cause of unemployment, distinct from inadequate aggregate demand and instability of workers, is the instability of jobs themselves. In an average year about one in every nine jobs disappear and one in every eight is newly created. This is based on an analysis of year to year employment changes among the private employers of Wisconsin between 1977 and 1982. This job loss may account for roughly 2.2 percentage points, or one quarter, of the average unemployment rate. As much as half of the transitions of workers from employment to non-employment may be accounted for by the destruction of jobs. Establishments appear to adjust their employment quickly, largely within one year. Employment growth rates one year apart are negatively correlated, and thereafter nearly follow a random walk. Establishments exhibit considerable heterogeneity in employment growth rates, with some positive cyclical variations, but little industry effect. Employment shifts across establishments within an industry are of far greater magnitude than shifts across industry lines.
Gene expression and extracellular matrix ultrastructure of a mineralizing chondrocyte cell culture system

Conditions were defined for promoting cell growth, hypertrophy, and extracellular matrix mineralization of a culture system derived from embryonic chick vertebral chondrocytes. Ascorbic acid supplementation by itself led to the hypertrophic phenotype as assessed by respective 10- and 15-fold increases in alkaline phosphatase enzyme activity and type X synthesis. Maximal extracellular matrix mineralization was obtained, however, when cultures were grown in a nutrient-enriched medium supplemented with both ascorbic acid and 20 mM beta- glycerophosphate. Temporal studies over a 3-wk period showed a 3-4-fold increase in DNA accompanied by a nearly constant DNA to protein ratio. In this period, total collagen increased from 3 to 20% of the cell layer protein; total calcium and phosphorus contents increased 15-20- fold. Proteoglycan synthesis was maximal until day 12 but thereafter showed a fourfold decrease. In contrast, total collagen synthesis showed a greater than 10-fold increase until day 18, a result suggesting that collagen synthesis was replacing proteoglycan synthesis during cellular hypertrophy. Separate analysis of individual collagen types demonstrated a low level of type I collagen synthesis throughout the 21-d time course. Collagen types II and X synthesis increased during the first 2 wk of culture; thereafter, collagen type II synthesis decreased while collagen type X synthesis continued to rise. Type IX synthesis remained at undetectable levels throughout the time course. The levels of collagen types I, II, IX, and X mRNA and the large proteoglycan core protein mRNA paralleled their levels of synthesis, data indicating pretranslational control of synthesis. Ultrastructural examination revealed cellular and extracellular morphology similar to that for a developing hypertrophic phenotype in vivo. Chondrocytes in lacunae were surrounded by a well-formed extracellular matrix of randomly distributed collagen type II fibrils (approximately 20-nm diam) and extensive proteoglycan. Numerous vesicular structures could be detected. Cultures mineralized reproducibly and crystals were located in extracellular matrices, principally associated with collagen fibrils. There was no clear evidence of mineral association with extracellular vesicles. The mineral was composed of calcium and phosphorus on electron probe microanalysis and was identified as a very poorly crystalline hydroxyapatite on electron diffraction. In summary, these data suggest that this culture system consists of chondrocytes which undergo differentiation in vitro as assessed by their elevated levels of alkaline phosphatase and type X collagen and their ultrastructural appearance. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
An accurate analytical approximation for the price of a European-style arithmetic Asian option

For discrete arithmetic Asian options the payoff depends on the price average of the underlying asset. Due to the dependence structure between the prices of the underlying asset, no simple exact pricing formula exists, not even in a Black-Scholes setting. In the recent literature, several approximations and bounds for the price of this type of option are proposed. One of these approximations consists of replacing the distribution of the stochastic price average by an ad hoc distribution (e.g. Lognormal or Inverse Gaussian) with the same first and second moment. In this paper we use a different approach and combine a lower and upper bound into a new analytical approximation. This approximation can be calculated efficiently, turns out to be very accurate and moreover, it has the correct first and second moment. Since the approximation is analytical, we can also calculate the corresponding hedging Greeks and construct a replicating strategy.
Temporal fluctuations in the differential rotation of cool active stars

This paper reports positive detections of surface differential rotation on two rapidly rotating cool stars at several epochs, using stellar surface features (both cool spots and magnetic regions) as tracers of the large-scale latitudinal shear that distorts the convective envelope in this type of star. We also report definite evidence that this differential rotation is different when estimated from cool spots or magnetic regions, and that it undergoes temporal fluctuations of potentially large amplitude on a time-scale of a few years. We consider these results as further evidence that the dynamo processes operating in these stars are distributed throughout the convective zone rather than being confined at its base, as in the Sun. By comparing our observations with two very simple models of the differential rotation within the convective zone, we obtain evidence that the internal rotation velocity field of the stars we investigated is not like that of the Sun, and may resemble what we expect for rapid rotators. We speculate that the changes in differential rotation result from the dynamo processes (and from the underlying magnetic cycle) that periodically converts magnetic energy into kinetic energy and vice versa. We emphasize that the technique outlined in this paper corresponds to the first practical method for investigating the large-scale rotation velocity field within convective zones of cool active stars, and offers several advantages over asteroseismology for this particular purpose and this specific stellar class.
Flip-Flop of Fluorescently Labeled Phospholipids in Proteoliposomes Reconstituted with Saccharomyces cerevisiae Microsomal Proteins

ABSTRACT A phospholipid flippase activity from the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) of the model organism Saccharomyces cerevisiae has been characterized and functionally reconstituted into proteoliposomes. Analysis of the transbilayer movement of acyl-7-nitrobenz-2-oxa-1,3-diazol-4-yl (acyl-NBD)-labeled phosphatidylcholine in yeast microsomes using a fluorescence stopped-flow back exchange assay revealed a rapid, ATP-independent flip-flop (half-time, <2 min). Proteoliposomes prepared from a Triton X-100 extract of yeast microsomal membranes were also capable of flipping NBD-labeled phospholipid analogues rapidly in an ATP-independent fashion. Flippase activity was sensitive to the protein modification reagents N-ethylmaleimide and diethylpyrocarbonate. Resolution of the Triton X-100 extract by velocity gradient centrifugation resulted in the identification of a ∼4S protein fraction enriched in flippase activity as well as of other fractions where flippase activity was depleted or undetectable. We estimate that flippase activity is due to a protein(s) representing ∼2% (wt/wt) of proteins in the Triton X-100 extract. These results indicate that specific proteins are required to facilitate ATP-independent phospholipid flip-flop in the ER and that their identification is feasible. The architecture of the ER protein translocon suggests that it could account for the flippase activity in the ER. We tested this hypothesis using microsomes prepared from a temperature-sensitive yeast mutant in which the major translocon component, Sec61p, was quantitatively depleted. We found that the protein translocon is not required for transbilayer movement of phospholipids across the ER. Our work defines yeast as a promising model system for future attempts to identify the ER phospholipid flippase and to test and purify candidate flippases.
Cognitive Weighted Method Hiding Factor Complexity Metric

Method hiding plays a key role by serving the foundation for several guidelines in object-oriented software design. It brings about plethora of benefits such as easy comprehension, secured accessibility, modifiability without side-effects, modular testing, higher reliability etc. But, it has to be handled carefully since very low method hiding may result in insufficiently abstracted implementation and very high method hiding will lead to very little functionality. Hence, the method hiding factor has to be measured accurately in order to produce quality software. This article, proposes a new Cognitive Weighted Method Hiding Factor (CWMHF) complexity metric. It measures not only the software structural complexity, but also the cognitive complexity on the basis of type. The cognitive weights are calibrated based on 27 empirical studies with 120 persons. A case study and experimentation of the new software metric shows encouraging results. Further, a comparative study is made and the correlation test has proved that CWMHF complexity metric is a better, more realistic, and more comprehensive indicator of the software complexity than the existing Abreu’s Method Hiding Factor complexity metric.
Diffusion weighted MR imaging in the differential diagnosis of haemangiomas and metastases of the liver

Diffusion weighted MR imaging in the differential diagnosis of haemangiomas and metastases of the liver Background. The purpose of the study was to evaluate the value of diffusion-weighted imaging in the differential diagnosis of haemangiomas from metastases of the liver. Patients and methods. We analyzed 69 lesions in 38 patients (33 haemangiomas; 36 metastases) in the retrospective study. Diffusion-weighted imaging was performed using a breath-hold single-shot echo-planar spin echo sequence with three b factors (0, 500 and 1000 sec/mm2), and apparent diffusion coefficients (ADCs) were calculated. For the quantitative evaluation, signal intensity of the lesions, lesion-to-liver signal intensity ratios, ADC of the lesions, and lesion-to-liver ADC ratios were compared between the groups. The statistical significance was determined by student's-t test. Results. With the b factor 500 sec/mm2, no statistical significance was achieved (p>0.05). With the b factor of 1000 sec/mm2, both the signal intensity and lesion-to-liver signal intensity ratio of the metastases were significantly higher than those for haemangiomas (p<0.001). The cut-off value at 2.6 yielded a sensitivity of 86% and a specificity of 82% for the lesion-to-liver signal intensity ratio. The ADC, and lesion-to-liver ADC ratio of the metastases were significantly lower than those of haemangiomas (p<0.001). With cut-off value of 1.7, ADC ratio had a sensitivity of 88% and a specificity of 72% for ADC lesion/liver. Conclusions. Diffusion-weighted imaging with high b value may help in the differential diagnosis of metastases from haemangiomas of the liver.
Retinoic Acid and Rapamycin Differentially Affect and Synergistically Promote the Ex Vivo Expansion of Natural Human T Regulatory Cells

Natural T regulatory cells (Tregs) are challenging to expand ex vivo, and this has severely hindered in vivo evaluation of their therapeutic potential. All trans retinoic acid (ATRA) plays an important role in mediating immune homeostasis in vivo, and we investigated whether ATRA could be used to promote the ex vivo expansion of Tregs purified from adult human peripheral blood. We found that ATRA helped maintain FOXP3 expression during the expansion process, but this effect was transient and serum-dependent. Furthermore, natural Tregs treated with rapamycin, but not with ATRA, suppressed cytokine production in co-cultured effector T cells. This suppressive activity correlated with the ability of expanded Tregs to induce FOXP3 expression in non-Treg cell populations. Examination of CD45RA+ and CD45RA− Treg subsets revealed that ATRA failed to maintain suppressive activity in either population, but interestingly, Tregs expanded in the presence of both rapamycin and ATRA displayed more suppressive activity and had a more favorable epigenetic status of the FOXP3 gene than Tregs expanded in the presence of rapamycin only. We conclude that while the use of ATRA as a single agent to expand Tregs for human therapy is not warranted, its use in combination with rapamycin may have benefit.
Overview of Opinion Analysis Pilot Task at NTCIR-6

Abstract This paper describes an overview of the OpinionAnalysis Pilot Task from 2006 to 2007 at the Sixth NT-CIR Workshop. We created test collection for 32, 30,and 28 topics (11,907, 15,279, and 8,379 sentences)in Chinese, Japanese and English. Using this test col-lection, we conducted opinion extraction subtask. Thesubtask was deﬁned from four perspectives: (a) opin-ionated sentence judgment, (b) opinion holder extrac-tion, (c) relevance sentence judgment, and (d) polarityjudgment. 21 run results were submitted by 14 partici-pants with ﬁve results submitted by the organizers. Weshow the evaluation results of the groups participatingin opinion extraction subtask. Keywords: Opinion Extraction, Opinion Holder, Rel-evance, Polarity, and NTCIR. 1 Introduction This paper describes an overview of the OpinionAnalysis Pilot Task [5] from 2006 to 2007 at the SixthNTCIR Workshop [4] (NTCIR-6 Opinion). This wasthe ﬁrst effort to produce a multi-lingual test collectionfor evaluating opinion extraction at NTCIR.Opinion and sentiment analysis has been receivinga lot of attention in the natural language processing re-search community recently [2, 9, 7]. With the broadrange of information sources available on the web,and rapid increase in the uptake of social community-oriented websites that foster user-generated contentthere has been further interest by both commercial andgovernmental parties in trying to automatically ana-lyze and monitor the tide of prevalent attitudes on theweb. As a result, interest in automatically detectingsentences in which an opinion is expressed ([12] etc.),the polarity of the expression ([13] etc.), targets, andopinion holders ([1] etc.) has been receiving more at-tention in the research community. Applications in-clude tracking response to and opinions about com-mercial products, governmental policies, tracking blogentries for potential political scandals and so on.In the Sixth NTCIR Workshop, a new pilot task foropinion analysis has been introduced. The pilot taskhas tracks in three languages: Chinese, English, andJapanese. In this paper, we present an overview of thetest collection, task design, and evaluation results us-ing the test collection across the Chinese, Japanese,and English data.We believe that this pilot task presents a unique op-portunity to expand the study of opinionated text anal-ysis across languages due to the comparable nature ofthe corpus. The documents have been carefully se-lected based on the manual relevance judgments as-signed in a cross-lingual Information Retrieval task,ensuring a high quality corpus that is relevant in allthree languages.This paper is organized as follows. In Section 2,we explain the task design for the
Oral pharmacokinetics of acetaminophen to evaluate gastric emptying profiles of Shiba goats

The pharmacokinetics of acetaminophen was investigated following oral dosing to Shiba goats in order to evaluate the properties of gastric emptying. Acetaminophen was intravenously and orally administered at 30 mg/kg body weight to goats using a crossover design with a 3-week washout period. The stability of acetaminophen in rumen juice was also assessed. Acetaminophen concentrations were measured by HPLC. Since acetaminophen was stable in rumen juice for 24 hr, the extremely low bioavailability (16%) was attributed to its hepatic extensive first-pass effect. The mean absorption time and absorption half-life were unexpectedly short (4.93 and 3.35 hr, respectively), indicating its marked absorption from the forestomach, which may have been due to its smaller molecular weight. Therefore, acetaminophen was considered to be unsuitable for evaluating gastric emptying in Shiba goats.
IWHT 2013-001 Thermal Analysis of a Compressor for Application to Compressed Air Energy Storage

In this paper, the topic of Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES) is discussed and a program in which it is being applied to a wind turbine system for leveling power supplied to the grid is described. Noted is the importance of heat transfer in the design of the compressor and its effect on performance. Presented is a design for minimizing the temperature rise in the compressor during compression. The design requires modeling regenerative heat transfer from the compressed air to solid material inserted in the compression space. Modeling requires characterizing pressure drop through the porous insert, interfacial heat transfer between solid and fluid in the matrix, and thermal dispersion within the porous regions. Computation and experimentation are applied for developing correlations for such terms. Two types of porous media are applied, interrupted plates and open-cell metal foams. Cases with foam inserts are computed and the results are discussed. Discovered in the results are some complex secondary flow features in spaces above the porous inserts.