Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Completion of Treatment for Latent Tuberculosis Infection with Monthly Drug Dispensation Directly through the Tuberculosis Clinic

Setting An Australian metropolitan TB clinic where treatment for latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI) comprises six months of isoniazid, self-administered but dispensed monthly by the clinic. Objective To determine the proportion of patients who complete treatment for LTBI and to identify factors associated with non-completion. Methods Clinical files of all patients receiving treatment for LTBI between 01/2000 and 12/2010 were reviewed. The study population comprised all patients who were commenced on isoniazid as treatment for LTBI. Odds ratios (OR) for completing treatment were estimated by logistic regression. Results Of 216 patients who commenced isoniazid treatment for LTBI, 16 (75%) completed six months treatment. Fifty-three percent of the 53 patients who did not complete treatment dropped out after three months treatment. The mean (SD) age of the patients was 27 (16) years and 123 (57%) were female. The majority of patients (59%) were born overseas and 69% received treatment for LTBI because they were contacts of patients with TB. Patients' sex, age, country of birth, time since immigration for overseas born people, health care worker status, TST conversion status, chest x-ray findings, language, employment status and the indication for which treatment of LTBI was prescribed were not significantly related to treatment completion. Conclusion In a setting where isoniazid is dispensed monthly by the TB clinic, a relatively high proportion of patients who commence treatment for LTBI complete the six month scheduled course of treatment. The study did not identify any patient characteristics that predicted treatment completion. Interventions to improve completion rates should extend over the whole duration of treatment.
A latent profile analysis of trait emotional intelligence to identify beneficial and risk profiles in well-being and job performance: a study among Japanese eldercare nurses

Trait emotional intelligence (EI) is a noteworthy psychological resource in nursing. However, its effects on well-being and job performance are inconsistent. Thus, we explored the latent beneficial and risk profiles of trait EI among 461 Japanese eldercare nurses. Latent profile analysis revealed six latent profiles. In addition, multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) showed that the profile with the highest overall scores on the trait EI dimensions was associated with the most beneficial outcomes (better well-being, higher job performance). In contrast, the profiles with lower overall scores on the trait EI dimensions showed negative outcomes. Moreover, a disproportional profile, characterised by higher interpersonal EI and lower situational EI, also showed poorer outcomes. The findings indicate that trait EI is associated with subjective well-being and job performance, depending both on the overall levels of trait EI and on the dimensionality of the sub-factors within the different trait EI profiles.
Experimental-Formal Analysis of Kinship

The experimental method, in its most important sense, is a prescription for conducting a system of experiments, each answering questions raised by others until the analysis seems complete. I previously published an experimental method for the field elicitation of kinship terminologies, but did not demonstrate the chain of experimental procedures by which the elicitation and final results are connected. These analyses show the logical structure of kinship terminologies and how kinship systems are built on them. This article describes that chain and those developed by colleagues that deepen the analysis. It is the most complete and accurate account of the field data of kinship. It applies equally well to other cultural systems, and in showing the fundamental conceptual structures of kinship, it allows us to see how the power of conceptual systems like kinship rest in the rational basis of culture and, conversely, the cultural basis of rationality.
EEG-Based Emotion Recognition Using Statistical Measures and Auto-Regressive Modeling

In this paper, a novel approach towards classification of various human emotions based on statistically weighed autoregressive modeling of Electroencephalogram (EEG) signals is discussed. The proposed algorithm was proven to be superior to many related works, in distinguishing different emotions such as happiness, fear, sadness etc. The findings discussed are based on the results obtained using benchmark emotion based EEG database called DEAP. In this work, epochs were extracted from data using statistical measures such as Shannon Entropy and higher order auto-regressive model was fit to the extracted features. The model was used for classifying human emotions by feeding it into a multi-class Support Vector Machine (MCSVM). The proposed algorithm is proven to be more efficient than existing algorithms as a classification accuracy of 94.097% was obtained.
Quantitative proton MR spectroscopic findings of cortical reorganization in the auditory cortex of musicians.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Brain has a capacity for reorganization that enables use-dependent adaptations to acquire skills. Previous studies demonstrated morphometric and functional use-dependent changes in the brains of musicians. The purpose of this study was to investigate the differences in metabolite concentrations in the planum temporale, an area strongly associated with the processing of music perception, between trained musicians and non-musicians. We hypothesized that the microscopic changes leading to use-dependent adaptations in brain might cause neurometabolite changes that could be detected with quantitative proton MR spectroscopy. METHODS We performed quantitative proton MR spectroscopy in the left planum temporale of 10 musicians (six men and four women; age range, 20-37 years) and in those of 10 age- and sex-matched control subjects who had no musical training. We calculated the major metabolite concentrations in the left planum temporale. RESULTS The difference in N-acetylaspartate (NAA) concentrations between the musicians and the non-musician control subjects was statistically significant (P <.01). No significant difference was noted in the choline and creatine concentrations between the musicians and the non-musician control subjects (P >.05). The NAA concentration of the musicians correlated with the total duration of musical training and activity (r=0.733, P <.05). CONCLUSION Long-term, professional musical activity caused significant changes in the neurometabolite concentrations that might reflect the physiologic mechanism(s) of use-dependent adaptation in the brains of musicians.
Differential visual short term memory performance between young and healthy older adults

7 List of Figures . 9 List of Tables . 10 Chapter 1 . 12 Introduction . 12 Working Memory: Definitions and concepts . 16 Cognitive Ageing: Methods and theories . 36 Variation in Working Memory Performance . 48 Age-Related variation in Working Memory Performance . 60 Development of Rationale . 71 Chapter 2 . 76 Experiment 1 . 76 Methods . 81 Results . 83 Discussion . 86 Experiment 2 . 89 Methods . 91 Results . 96 Discussion . 100 Experiment 3 . 104 Methods . 107 Results . 110 Discussion . 112 A recap of Chapter 2 . 115 Chapter 3 . 119 Experiment 4 . 126 Methods . 128 Results . 131
Survey Molecular pathogenesis of influenza A virus infection and virus-induced regulation of cytokine gene expression

Despite vaccines and antiviral substances influenza still causes significant morbidity and mortality world wide. Better understanding of the molecular mechanisms of influenza virus replication, pathogenesis and host immune responses is required for the development of more efficient means of prevention and treatment of influenza. Influenza A virus, which replicates in epithelial cells and leukocytes, regulates host cell transcriptional and translational systems and activates, as well as downregulates apoptotic pathways. Influenza A virus infection results in the production of chemotactic (RANTES, MIP-1 , MCP-1, MCP-3, and IP-10), pro-inflammatory (IL-1 , IL-6, IL-18, and TNF), and antiviral (IFN/ ) cytokines. Cytokine gene expression is associated with the activation of NFB, AP-1, STAT and IRF signal transducing molecules in influenza A virus-infected cells. In addition of upregulating cytokine gene expression, influenza A virus infection activates caspase-1 enzyme, which is involved in the proteolytic processing of proIL-1 and proIL-18 into their biologically active forms. Influenza A virus-induced IFN/ is essential in host’s antiviral defence by activating the expression of antiviral Mx, PKR and oligoadenylate synthetase genes. IFN/ also prolongs T cell survival, upregulates IL-12 and IL-18 receptor gene expression and together with IL-18 stimulates NK and T cell IFNproduction and the development of Th1-type immune response. © 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
A Primal Dual Active Set with Continuation Algorithm for the \ell^0-Regularized Optimization Problem

We develop a primal dual active set with continuation algorithm for solving the \ell^0-regularized least-squares problem that frequently arises in compressed sensing. The algorithm couples the the primal dual active set method with a continuation strategy on the regularization parameter. At each inner iteration, it first identifies the active set from both primal and dual variables, and then updates the primal variable by solving a (typically small) least-squares problem defined on the active set, from which the dual variable can be updated explicitly. Under certain conditions on the sensing matrix, i.e., mutual incoherence property or restricted isometry property, and the noise level, the finite step global convergence of the algorithm is established. Extensive numerical examples are presented to illustrate the efficiency and accuracy of the algorithm and the convergence analysis.
The Magazine of Food, Farm and Resource Issues How Much Ghg Can Be Mitigated in Agriculture and Forestry, and at What Price? Overview of Agricultural and Forestry Ghg Offsets on the Us Landscape

The articles in this issue by Reilly and Alig et al. have focused primarily on the potential impacts of climate change in the agriculture and forest sectors, respectively. However, as discussed in the introductory article by Sohngen and McCarl, agriculture and forestry could also play a role in actions to mitigate greenhouse gases (GHGs) and forestall the threat of climate change. This article provides a brief overview of the types of agricultural and forestry activities that could be undertaken to seques-ter or reduce GHG emissions as well as their technical and economic potential to offset emissions from other sectors of the economy. The co-effects of these mitigation actions on other (noncli-mate) environmental outcomes are discussed in the article US agriculture and forestry operate on an extensive land base; thus, the biophysical potential for GHG mitigation in these sectors is quite large. Under current conditions, US agricultural soils and forests sequester about 700 million tonnes (metric tons) of CO 2 equivalent per year (EPA, 2004), over 90% of which is from forest carbon sequestration. Although this amount alone offsets about one tenth of national GHG emissions, various actions can be taken to enhance sequestration above these baseline levels. Estimates of the biophysical carbon seques-tration potential from changing management practices on the nation's cropland alone range from 300 to 550 million tonnes of CO 2 equivalent per year (Paustian et al., 2001). That is equal to the amount of CO 2 emitted annually by about 25–45 million cars. There is also ample potential to enhance carbon sequestration through afforestation, which can store up to 5–10 tonnes CO 2 per acre per year over a timber rotation (20–50 years in the most productive forests of the Southern and Pacific Northwestern U.S.). Given the amount of land available for conversion from agriculture to forest, this could amount to tens or hundreds of millions of tonnes CO 2 of additional annual carbon sequestration. Moreover, long-term storage of carbon in harvested wood products is possible for several decades at least, though not all accounting frameworks would necessary include this as a creditable form of sequestration (e.g., Kyoto). As a major emitter of CH 4 and N 2 O, approximately 470 million tonnes CO 2 equivalent per year (EPA, 2004) or 7% of the total of all GHG emissions , substantial opportunity may exist to reduce these gases through changes in crop and livestock management if the …
Maternal protein restriction induces alterations in hepatic tumor necrosis factor-α/CYP7A1 signaling and disorders regulation of cholesterol metabolism in the adult rat offspring

It is well recognized that adverse events in utero impair fetal development and lead to the development of obesity and metabolic syndrome in adulthood. To investigate the mechanisms linking impaired fetal growth to increased cholesterol, an important clinical risk factor characterizing the metabolic syndrome and cardiovascular disease, we examined the impact of maternal undernutrition on tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α)/c-jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) signaling pathway and the cholesterol 7α-hydroxylase (CYP7A1) expression in the livers of the offspring with a protein restriction model. The male offspring with intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) caused by the isocaloric low-protein diet showed decreased liver weight at birth and augmented circulation and hepatic cholesterol levels at 40 weeks of age. Maternal undernutrition significantly upregulated cytokine TNF-α expression and JNK phospholytion levels in the livers from fetal age to adulthood. Elevated JNK phospholytion could be linked to downregulated hepatocyte nuclear factor-4α and CYP7A1 expression, subsequently led to higher hepatic cholesterol. This work demonstrated that intrauterine malnutrition-induced IUGR might result in intrinsic disorder in hepatic TNF-α/CYP7A1 signaling, and contribute to the development of hypercholesterolemia in later life.
Quantification of Dissolved and Particulate Polyunsaturated Aldehydes in the Adriatic Sea

Polyunsaturated aldehydes (PUA) are supposed to play critical roles in chemically-mediated plankton interactions. Laboratory studies suggest that they act as mediators of chemical defense and chemical communication. PUA are oxylipins containing an α,β,γ,δ–unsaturated aldehyde structure element and are mainly found in diatoms. We present here a detailed surface mapping of PUA during a spring bloom of the diatom Skeletonema marinoi in the Adriatic Sea. We monitored dissolved PUA, as well as particulate PUA, which are produced by phytoplankton after cell disintegration. Our survey revealed a patchy distribution of PUA and shows that at most stations S. marinoi is the major contributor to the overall PUA. Our data also suggest that lysis of a diatom bloom can contribute significantly to the dissolved PUA concentrations and that other producers, which are smaller in cell size compared to diatoms, have to be taken into account as well if the total PUA content of marine samples is considered. The analyses of samples collected in deeper water suggests that diatom contribution to PUA decreases with depth, while smaller-sized unidentified organisms take place as dominant contributors to the PUA concentrations.
ccnSim: An highly scalable CCN simulator

Research interest about Information Centric Networking (ICN) has grown at a very fast pace over the last few years, especially after the 2009 seminal paper of Van Jacobson et al. describing a Content Centric Network (CCN) architecture. While significant research effort has been produced in terms of architectures, algorithms, and models, the scientific community currently lacks common tools and scenarios to allow a fair cross-comparison among the different proposals. The situation is particularly complex as the commonly used general-purpose simulators cannot cope with the expected system scale: thus, many proposals are currently evaluated over small and unrealistic scale, especially in terms of dominant factors like catalog and cache sizes. As such, there is need of a scalable tool under which different algorithms can be tested and compared. Over the last years, we have developed and optimized ccnSim, an highly scalable chunk-level simulator especially suitable for the analysis of caching performance of CCN network. In this paper, we briefly describe the tool, and present an extensive benchmark of its performance. To give an idea of ccnSim scalability, a common off-the-shelf PC equipped with 8GB of RAM memory is able to simulate 2-hours of a 50-nodes CCN network, where each nodes is equipped with 10GB caches, serving a 1PB catalog in about 20 min CPU time.
Growth From Birth to Adulthood and Bone Phenotype in Early Old Age: A British Birth Cohort Study

There is growing evidence that early growth influences bone mass in later life but most studies are limited to birth weight and/or early infant growth and dual‐energy X‐ray absorptiometry (DXA) measurements. In a British birth cohort study with prospective measures of lifetime height and weight, we investigated the growth trajectory in relation to bone in males (M) and females (F) at 60 to 64 years old. Outcomes were DXA measures of hip and spine areal bone density (aBMD) (n = 1658) and pQCT measures of distal and diaphyseal radius cross‐sectional area (CSA), strength, and volumetric bone density (vBMD) (n = 1350 of the 1658). Regression models examined percentage change in bone parameters with standardized measures of birth weight, height, and weight. A series of conditional growth models were fitted for height and weight gain (using intervals: birth–2, 2–4, 4–7, 7–15, 15–20, 20–36, and 36–64 years) and height gain (using intervals: 2–4, 4–7, 7–15, and 15–36 years). Birth weight was positively related to bone CSA (M: 1.4%; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.3%–2.5%; F: 1.3%; 95% CI, 0.3%–2.4% per 1 SD increase in birth weight for diaphyseal CSA) and strength (M: 1.8%; 95% CI, 0.3–3.4; F: 2.0%; 95% CI, 0.5–3.5). No positive associations were found with trabecular, total, or cortical vBMD. One SD change in prepubertal and postpubertal height and weight velocities were associated with between 2% and 5% greater bone CSA and strength. Height gain in later years was negatively associated with trabecular vBMD. Weight gain velocity during the adult years was positively associated with up to 4% greater trabecular and total BMD, and 4% greater aBMD at hip and spine. In a cohort born in the early post‐war period, higher birth weight, gaining weight and height faster than others, particularly through the prepubertal and postpubertal periods, was positively related to bone strength, mostly through greater bone CSA, at 60 to 64 years. © 2014 The Authors. Journal of Bone and Mineral Research published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research.
Overconfidence Bias, Trading Volume and Returns Volatility: Evidence from Pakistan

Investor overconfidence has been proposed to explain various anomalous findings in security markets. The theory of investor overconfidence provides testable implications assuming investor overestimation of their abilities and private information and biased self-attributions. High (low) trading activity following market gains (losses) and excessive volatility are the two testable implications among others. We test these implications in Karachi Stock Exchange, Pakistan using multivariate time series analysis. Consistent with overconfidence hypothesis predictions, we find significant positive relationship between current trading activity and past returns after controlling for returns dispersion and returns volatility. However, we do not find significant positive contribution of overconfidence related trading to conditional returns volatility.
Complementary Sensory and Associative Microcircuitry in Primary Olfactory Cortex

The three-layered primary olfactory (piriform) cortex is the largest component of the olfactory cortex. Sensory and intracortical inputs converge on principal cells in the anterior piriform cortex (aPC). We characterize organization principles of the sensory and intracortical microcircuitry of layer II and III principal cells in acute slices of rat aPC using laser-scanning photostimulation and fast two-photon population Ca2+ imaging. Layer II and III principal cells are set up on a superficial-to-deep vertical axis. We found that the position on this axis correlates with input resistance and bursting behavior. These parameters scale with distinct patterns of incorporation into sensory and associative microcircuits, resulting in a converse gradient of sensory and intracortical inputs. In layer II, sensory circuits dominate superficial cells, whereas incorporation in intracortical circuits increases with depth. Layer III pyramidal cells receive more intracortical inputs than layer II pyramidal cells, but with an asymmetric dorsal offset. This microcircuit organization results in a diverse hybrid feedforward/recurrent network of neurons integrating varying ratios of intracortical and sensory input depending on a cell's position on the superficial-to-deep vertical axis. Since burstiness of spiking correlates with both the cell's location on this axis and its incorporation in intracortical microcircuitry, the neuronal output mode may encode a given cell's involvement in sensory versus associative processing.
Short-term and medium-term survival of critically ill patients with solid tumours admitted to the intensive care unit: a retrospective analysis

Objectives Patients with cancer frequently require unplanned admission to the intensive care unit (ICU). Our objectives were to assess hospital and 180-day mortality in patients with a non-haematological malignancy and unplanned ICU admission and to identify which factors present on admission were the best predictors of mortality. Design Retrospective review of all patients with a diagnosis of solid tumours following unplanned admission to the ICU between 1 August 2008 and 31 July 2012. Setting Single centre tertiary care hospital in London (UK). Participants 300 adult patients with non-haematological solid tumours requiring unplanned admission to the ICU. Interventions None. Primary and secondary outcomes Hospital and 180-day survival. Results 300 patients were admitted to the ICU (median age 66.5 years; 61.7% men). Survival to hospital discharge and 180 days were 69% and 47.8%, respectively. Greater number of failed organ systems on admission was associated with significantly worse hospital survival (p<0.001) but not with 180-day survival (p=0.24). In multivariate analysis, predictors of hospital mortality were the presence of metastases (OR 1.97, 95% CI 1.08 to 3.59), Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation II (APACHE II) Score (OR 1.07, 95% CI 1.01 to 1.13) and a Glasgow Coma Scale Score <7 on admission to ICU (OR 5.21, 95% CI 1.65 to 16.43). Predictors of worse 180-day survival were the presence of metastases (OR 2.82, 95% CI 1.57 to 5.06), APACHE II Score (OR 1.07, 95% CI 1.01 to 1.13) and sepsis (OR 1.92, 95% CI 1.09 to 3.38). Conclusions Short-term and medium-term survival in patients with solid tumours admitted to ICU is better than previously reported, suggesting that the presence of cancer alone should not be a barrier to ICU admission.