Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Evidence‐based practice in educational research: a critical realist critique of systematic review

The paper argues that a critical realist perspective can contribute to a critique of evidence‐based practice, while at the same time not abandoning the idea of evidence altogether. The paper is structured around a number of related themes: the sociopolitics of ‘evidence‐based’; epistemological roots and a critical realist critique; the debate in action based on the recent systematic review of personal development planning; and theory to practice gaps. The advocacy of evidence‐based practice is currently being used to undermine professional autonomy and to valorise the ‘gold‐standard’ of randomised controlled trials. However, the paper proposes that evidence can properly be claimed for critique and emancipatory projects, and that its current discursive location at the core of New Labour thinking is not the only one available. Moreover, thinking from a critical realist perspective liberates the space for theoretically informed work, whereby arguments about method, and in particular randomised controlled trials, do not become a proxy for the open examination of ontological and epistemological assumptions. One of the underlying themes in critical realism is that of critique and emancipation, and evidence properly understood aligned to clear theoretical argumentation is part of this project. Existing models of systematic review fall far short of this aspiration and are of little help to practitioners. As researchers and practitioners we have every reason to maintain a critical stance towards the way evidence is being deployed in debates about policy and practice.
Pap Smear Combined with HPV Testing: A Reasonable Tool for Women with High-grade Cervical Intraepithelial Neoplasia Treated by LEEP.

BACKGROUND To evaluate HPV testing by Hybrid Capture II (HCII) in conjunction with cytology in detecting the residual/recurrence disease after treatment of high-grade cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN II-III) with loop electrosurgical excision procedure (LEEP). MATERIALS AND METHODS A retrospective review of 158 patients with histologically confirmed CIN II-III who underwent LEEP between January 2011 and October 2012 was conducted. Post-treatment control was scheduled at the 3rd, 6th, 12th and 18th month. All patients were followed up by Pap smear and HR-HPV genotype and viral load testing. RESULTS Pre-treatment, HR-HPV DNA, was detected in all specimens of the patients. At follow-up, 25 patients were diagnosed as the residual/recurrent disease during the FU visit, among whom, 16 patients with positive margin: 13 patients (52%) with HR-HPV DNA+/cytology+, 2 patients (8%) with HR-HPV DNA+/cytology-, 1 patient (4%) with cytology+/ HR-HPV DNA-; 9 patients with clean margin--5 patients (55.6%) with HR-HPV DNA+/cytology+; 2 patients (22.2%) with HR- HPV DNA+/cytology-, 2 patients (22.2%) with cytology+/HR-HPV DNA-. None of them persisting HR-HPV DNA-/cytology- with positive or negative margin was identified as the residual/recurrent disease. The majority of residual/recurrent disease was detected at the 12th and 18th month FU, and there was almost no difference in the sensitivity and negative predictive value (NPV) between at the 3rd month and the 6th month FU visits. 14 residual/recurrence disease (14/46:30.4%) had pre-treatment high viral load (>5,000 RUL/PC) and 11 (11/112, 9.8%) with pre-treatment low viral load, P<0.05. CONCLUSIONS (1) The persistence HR-HPV DNA is the root cause of the residual/recurrent disease for the women treated for high-grade CIN; the pre-treatment viral load and margin can be seen as the predictor. (2) The FU visit beginning at the 6th month post-treatment and lasting at least 24 months with the combination of cytology and HPV testing. (3) Patients with high pre-treatment HPV load, which is considered as one risk of developing the residual/recurrent disease, should be paid more attention (especially above 500 RUL/PC) to by clinicians.
Prostate cancer detection at repeat biopsy: can pelvic phased-array multiparametric MRI replace saturation biopsy?

AIM Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) accuracy in prostate cancer (PCa) diagnosis in men submitted to saturation prostate biopsy (SPBx) was evaluated. MATERIALS AND METHODS From June 2011 to December 2012, 78 patients (median 63 years) underwent repeat SPBx (median 28 cores). Multiparametric MRI using a 3 Tesla pelvic phased-array coil was performed before SPBx and lesions suspicious for PCa were submitted to additional targeted biopsies. RESULTS A T1c PCa was found in 32 (41%) cases. SPBx vs. MRI-suspicious targeted biopsy diagnosed 28 (87.5%) vs. 26 (81.2%) PCa missing four (12.5%) and six (18.8%) cancers localized in the anterior zone and in the lateral margin of the prostate, respectively; moreover, MRI diameter lesions correlated with PCa diagnosis and Gleason score (p<0.05). CONCLUSION Multiparametric MRI improved SPBx accuracy in diagnosing PCa of the anterior zone; moreover, suspicious areas >10 mm resulted as highly predictive of cancer (about 70% of the cases).
How Has the Notion of Social Exclusion Developed in the European Discourse?

This paper reflects on the development of the idea of social exclusion in European and particularly in British discourses. When it first emerged, social exclusion seemed to add to little to poverty and in some guises carried a great deal of behaviourist ideological baggage, or blamed the poor. Over time, however, experience in the UK has shown that social exclusion has broadened the research agenda and opened up new possibilities for policy. This paper contributes to these debates by presenting new estimates of poverty and exclusion in Britain using data from the Poverty and Social Exclusion Survey. The estimates confirm that poverty and exclusion are related, but distinct concepts. There remains the question of whether social exclusion has not entered official discussions in Australia as a result of a ‘Howard effect’ or because of some more fundamental resistance in the Australian political — and academic — culture.
On Stochastic Controller Placement in Software-Defined Wireless Networks

Software-defined networking (SDN) abstracts and centralizes the network control functions in a software entity that runs on a server, known as SDN controller. The controller needs to respond to its controlled elements in a strictly timely manner, and the controller placement has a prominent effect on its response time. Originally, all SDN architectures assumed a physical wired connection between the SDN controller and its controlled elements, and the controller placement problem (CPP) has been only studied under such wired settings. Recently, novel SDN architectures have been proposed in which a direct wireless connection is assumed between the controller and its controlled elements. In this paper, we consider the 'wireless CPP,' when the link between the controller and the controlled element is wireless. Specifically, our contributions are as follows. First, we propose two joint controller placement and assignment formulations, assuming wired links between the controllers and their controlled elements; the first formulation considers an average response time constraint, whereas the second one considers a per-link response time constraint. Then, using chance- constrained stochastic programming (CCSP), we extend our formulation to the case when the links between the controllers and their controlled elements are wireless. Finally, we evaluate our joint placement and assignment schemes under various system parameters. Our results demonstrate the advantage of our joint scheme, in terms of reducing the required number of controllers, compared to a recent sequential assignment and placement scheme in the literature. They also show the ability of our CCSP-based scheme in probabilistically satisfying the controllers response time constraints.
From welfare nationalism to welfare chauvinism: Economic rhetoric, the welfare state and changing asylum policies in Finland

The article analyses the role and effects of economic cost and welfare state arguments in Finnish immigration politics and policies. It argues for a need to distinguish between welfare nationalist, welfare chauvinist and welfare exclusionist discourses. Through an examination of the immigration programmes of the political parties and parliamentary debates and policy documents mapping the changes in asylum policy in 2009–2011, the article shows that welfare nationalism strongly characterises the way asylum and non-Western migration is treated in Finnish politics. Welfare chauvinism is typical for right-wing populist argumentation, but is also used by individual politicians from other parties and by policy makers. Examples of welfare exclusionism were found in party programmes but not in the policy process. Moreover, it is argued that struggles over welfare benefits cannot be understood without an analysis of the cultural definitions of national belonging.
Low‐dose suramin in autism spectrum disorder: a small, phase I/II, randomized clinical trial

No drug is yet approved to treat the core symptoms of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Low‐dose suramin was effective in the maternal immune activation and Fragile X mouse models of ASD. The Suramin Autism Treatment‐1 (SAT‐1) trial was a double‐blind, placebo‐controlled, translational pilot study to examine the safety and activity of low‐dose suramin in children with ASD.
In vivo characterization of colorectal metastases in human liver using diffuse reflectance spectroscopy: toward guidance in oncological procedures

Abstract. There is a strong need to develop clinical instruments that can perform rapid tissue assessment at the tip of smart clinical instruments for a variety of oncological applications. This study presents the first in vivo real-time tissue characterization during 24 liver biopsy procedures using diffuse reflectance (DR) spectroscopy at the tip of a core biopsy needle with integrated optical fibers. DR measurements were performed along each needle path, followed by biopsy of the target lesion using the same needle. Interventional imaging was coregistered with the DR spectra. Pathology results were compared with the DR spectroscopy data at the final measurement position. Bile was the primary discriminator between normal liver tissue and tumor tissue. Relative differences in bile content matched with the tissue diagnosis based on histopathological analysis in all 24 clinical cases. Continuous DR measurements during needle insertion in three patients showed that the method can also be applied for biopsy guidance or tumor recognition during surgery. This study provides an important validation step for DR spectroscopy-based tissue characterization in the liver. Given the feasibility of the outlined approach, it is also conceivable to make integrated fiber-optic tools for other clinical procedures that rely on accurate instrument positioning.
Reading and Listening to Expository Text

Poor reading comprehension may result from a general comprehension problem, a decoding problem, or a combination of these problems. Using a counterbalanced design, 38 good and poor sixth-grade readers read aloud and listened to easy and hard texts. Immediately after reading and listening, students orally retold what they had read or heard. Their recalls were scored for number of idea units produced. Results indicated no difference in listening comprehension between good and poor readers for either easy or hard texts, but a significant difference in oral reading comprehension in favor of good readers on both easy and hard texts. The finding of no difference in listening suggests that the poor readers in this sample did not have a general comprehension problem, while their poor oral reading performance indicates that they did have a decoding problem. These findings support a more complex comprehension process model of listening and reading than has typically been described in the literature.
Nucleotide Excision Repair Proteins Rapidly Accumulate but Fail to Persist in Human XP‐E (DDB2 Mutant) Cells

The xeroderma pigmentosum (XP‐E) DNA damage binding protein (DDB2) is involved in early recognition of global genome DNA damage during DNA nucleotide excision repair (NER). We found that skin fibroblasts from four newly reported XP‐E patients with numerous skin cancers and DDB2 mutations had slow repair of 6‐4 photoproducts (6‐4PP) and markedly reduced repair of cyclobutane pyrimidine dimers (CPD). NER proteins (XPC, XPB, XPG, XPA and XPF) colocalized to CPD and 6‐4PP positive regions immediately (<0.1 h) after localized UV irradiation in cells from the XP‐E patients and normal controls. While these proteins persist in normal cells, surprisingly, within 0.5 h these repair proteins were no longer detectable at the sites of DNA damage in XP‐E cells. Our results indicate that DDB2 is not required for the rapid recruitment of NER proteins to sites of UV photoproducts or for partial repair of 6‐4PP but is essential for normal persistence of these proteins for CPD photoproduct removal.
Genetic Drivers of Multidrug Resistance in Candida glabrata

Both the incidence of invasive fungal infections and rates of multidrug resistance associated with fungal pathogen Candida glabrata have increased in recent years. In this perspective, we will discuss the mechanisms underlying the capacity of C. glabrata to rapidly develop resistance to multiple drug classes, including triazoles and echinocandins. We will focus on the extensive genetic diversity among clinical isolates of C. glabrata, which likely enables this yeast to survive multiple stressors, such as immune pressure and antifungal exposure. In particular, over half of C. glabrata clinical strains collected from U.S. and non-U.S. sites have mutations in the DNA mismatch repair gene MSH2, leading to a mutator phenotype and increased frequencies of drug-resistant mutants in vitro. Furthermore, recent studies and data presented here document extensive chromosomal rearrangements among C. glabrata strains, resulting in a large number of distinct karyotypes within a single species. By analyzing clonal, serial isolates derived from individual patients treated with antifungal drugs, we were able to document chromosomal changes occurring in C. glabrata in vivo during the course of antifungal treatment. Interestingly, we also show that both MSH2 genotypes and chromosomal patterns cluster consistently into specific strain types, indicating that C. glabrata has a complex population structure where genomic variants arise, perhaps during the process of adaptation to environmental changes, and persist over time.
Graph-based Word Sense Disambiguation of biomedical documents

MOTIVATION Word Sense Disambiguation (WSD), automatically identifying the meaning of ambiguous words in context, is an important stage of text processing. This article presents a graph-based approach to WSD in the biomedical domain. The method is unsupervised and does not require any labeled training data. It makes use of knowledge from the Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) Metathesaurus which is represented as a graph. A state-of-the-art algorithm, Personalized PageRank, is used to perform WSD. RESULTS When evaluated on the NLM-WSD dataset, the algorithm outperforms other methods that rely on the UMLS Metathesaurus alone. AVAILABILITY The WSD system is open source licensed and available from http://ixa2.si. ehu.es/ukb/. The UMLS, MetaMap program and NLM-WSD corpus are available from the National Library of Medicine https://www.nlm. nih.gov/research/umls/, http://mmtx.nlm. nih.gov and http://wsd.nlm. nih.gov. Software to convert the NLM-WSD corpus into a format that can be used by our WSD system is available from http://www.dcs. shef.ac. uk/∼marks/biomedical_wsd under open source license.
Microstructural disruption of white matter in heroin addicts revealed by diffusion tensor imaging: a controlled study.

OBJECTIVE To examine white matter integrity in heroin-dependent patients and matched normal controls with diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). METHODS The fractional anisotropy was compared between 15 heroin-dependent patients and 15 controls. RESULTS We found the fractional anisotropy was significantly decreased in specific brain regions of the heroin-dependent patients (P<0.001 uncorrected), including the frontal gyrus, the parietal lobule, the insula, and the corpus callosum. CONCLUSION The presence of microstructural abnormality is found in the white matter of several brain regions of heroin-dependent patients.
Expression of nuclear antigen Ki-67 in prostate cancer needle biopsy and radical prostatectomy specimens.

A good biomarker is defined as any test (molecular, morphometric, etc.) that adds independent information to standard prognostic indicators (e.g., patho-logic evaluation or clinical stage), that can be reliably reproduced in the labo-ratory setting, and that aids in choosing treatment options (1). The primary ob-jective of this study was to determine if the proliferation marker Ki-67, a nuclear antigen and molecular marker known to be associated with the progression of cancer, had significantly different levels of expression in normal prostate tissue, high-grade prostatic intraepithelial neoplasia (HGPIN), and prostate adenocarcinoma (PCA) (2). The secondary objec-tive was to determine the degree to which the Ki-67 biomarker expression in sextant needle biopsy specimens (i.e., sections that represent the standard sextant regions [right-apex, right-mid, right-base, left-apex, left-mid, and left-base]) accurately represents expression in wholemount radical prostatectomy (RP) specimens. If Ki-67 expression in corresponding tissue is the same in presurgical biopsy and RP specimens, then it should be possible to measure what happens to this biomarker in response to interventions in the neoadjuvant setting (i.e., treatments before surgery) and in chemoprevention trials intended for healthy men.
Ergodic grey relation between plasma renin activity and ambulatory blood pressure in non-dipper hypertensive males

To investigate the relationship between circadian rhythm of plasma renin activity (PRA) and ambulatory blood pressure (ABP) in non-dipper essential hypertensive males by employing ergodic grey relational analysis (EGRA). Twenty-nine non-dipper essential hypertensive males, aged 33-73 years (averaged at 52.35plusmn9.84 years), were underwent 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM). The systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) were automatically measured at 1:00PM, 5:00PM, 9:00PM, 1:00AM, 5:00AM and 9:00AM. PRA was simultaneous examined by using radioimmunoassay (RIA). PRA curve appeared a double peaks respectively at 1:00PM and 9:00AM and two troughs separately at 9:00PM and 5:00AM in non-dipper essential hypertensive males. The strongest grey relation interval between PRA and SBP either DBP existed for 8 hours. PRA was not the pacemaker of circadian rhythm of blood pressure PRA plays a lingering rather than parallel effect on SBP and DBP. EGRA is a wonderful method to analyze dynamic medical data.
Compartmental organization and chemical profile of dopaminergic and GABAergic neurons in the substantia nigra of the rat

The substantia nigra (SN) is a midbrain center composed of dopaminergic (DA‐) and gamma aminobutyric acid (GABA)ergic (GABA‐) neurons. In this study, we investigated the topographical relationship between both cell populations and their chemical profile by using single and double immunostaining for tyrosine hydroxylase (TH), glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD), cholecystokinin (CCK), calretinin (CR), calbindin (CB), parvalbumin (PV), and nitric oxide synthase (NOS). Our results showed that DA‐cells are arranged in two bands, one rostrodorsal that corresponds to the SN pars compacta (SNC), and another caudoventral that corresponds to the SN pars reticulata (SNR) and emits cell bridges that make contact with the rostrodorsal one. In the SNR, GABA‐cells are arranged in dorsoventrally elongated clusters that occupy DA‐cell free regions. According to cytoarchitectural, topographical, and chemical criteria, we identified ten different cell groups: five dopaminergic ones, and five GABAergic ones. Within DA‐cells, we found a cell group in the dorsomedial portion of the SNC which contains CCK, CR, and CB (dmSNC); DA‐cells in the SN pars lateralis (SNL) which also contain CCK, CR and CB; DA‐cells in the rostral half of the SNC containing CCK and CR (rSNC); DA‐cells in the SNR and the caudal half of the SNC which only express CR (cSNC‐SNR), and a DA‐cell group in the lateral part of the SNC that contains none of the markers studied (lSNC). Within GABA‐cells, we distinguished: large GABA‐cells in the SNL that contain PV; large GABA‐cells in the rostrolateral part of the SNR containing PV and NOS (rlSNR), small GABA‐cells in the caudomedial part of the SNR containing PV (cmSNR), and two groups of small GABA‐cells in the rostromedial portion of the SNR, one of them containing CR (rmcSNR), and the other containing NOS (rmnSNR). These data suggest that over a compartmental and complementary organization, DA‐ and GABA‐nigral cells form a mosaic of neurochemically different subnuclei which probably differ in their physiological and pharmacological properties and vulnerability to aggression. J. Comp. Neurol. 421:107–135, 2000. © 2000 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Uncertainty Shocks and Unemployment Dynamics: An Analysis of Post-WWII U.S. Recessions

We investigate the effects of uncertainty shocks on unemployment dynamics in the post-WWII U.S. recessions via non-linear (Smooth-Transition) VARs. The relevance of uncertainty shocks is found to be much larger than that predicted by standard linear VARs in terms of i) magnitude of the reaction of the unemployment rate to suck shocks, ii) welfare costs computed by considering conditional macroeconomic volatilities, iii) contribution to the variance of the prediction errors of unemployment at business cycle frequencies. We discuss the ability of different classes of DSGE models to replicate our results. Our findings reinforce the relevance of the trade-off between "correctness" and "timeliness" of policy makers' decisions.
Recombinant bovine GM‐CSF primes superoxide production but not degranulation induced by recombinant bovine interleukin‐1 β in bovine neutrophils

Bovine neutrophil activation, superoxide production, and β‐glucosaminadase release induced by various biological stimuli were examined. Plateletactivating factor (PAF) and recombinant bovine interleukin‐1 β (r‐BoIL‐1β) induced superoxide production and β‐glucosaminadase release in bovine neutrophils. When these two responses were compared, the dose requirement for maximum activation was similar for PAF (1 × 10−6 M). However, the concentration of r‐BoIL‐Ι β required for the maximum degranulation (2.5 × 10−7 M) was 100‐fold higher than that for the maximum superoxide production (2.5 × 10‐9 M). Furthermore, pretreatment of cells with recombinant bovine granulocyte‐ macrophage colony‐stimulating factor (r‐BoGM‐CSF) enhanced both superoxide production and β ‐glucosaminidase release induced by PAF. In contrast, whereas superoxide production induced by r‐BoIL‐1β was enhanced by r‐ BoGM‐CSF priming, β ‐glucosaminidase release induced by r‐BoIL‐lβ was significantly reduced by pretreatment with r‐BoGM‐CSF. CL 184,005, a PAF antagonist, inhibited PAF‐induced glucosaminidase release and superoxide production but did not inhibit r‐BoIL‐lβ ‐in‐ duced superoxide production and degranulation. In addition, it did not inhibit the priming effect of r‐BoGM‐ GSF on r‐BoIL‐lβ ‐induced superoxide production. These results suggest that (1) PAF and r‐BoIL‐1β activate bovine neutrophils by different mechanisms, (2) r‐BoGM‐CSF primes superoxide production and degranulation induced by PAF, (3) r‐BoGM‐CSF primes superoxide production but not degranulation induced by r‐BoIL‐lβ, and (4) the priming effect of r‐BoGM‐CSF is not mediated by PAF.