Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Long-term outcomes of a pediatric HIV treatment program in Maputo, Mozambique: a cohort study

Objective To describe long-term treatment outcomes of a pediatric HIV cohort in Mozambique. Design Retrospective analysis of routine monitoring data. Setting Secondary health care facilities in the Chamanculo Health District of Maputo. Subjects A total of 1,335 antiretroviral treatment (ART) naïve children <15 years of age enrolled in HIV care between 2002 and 2010. Intervention HIV care, ART (since 2003), task shifting to lower cadre nurses, counseling by lay counselors, active patient tracing, nutritional support, support by a psychologist, targeted viral load testing, and switch to second-line treatment. Main outcome measures Kaplan–Meier estimates for retention in care (RIC), CD4 cell percentage, body mass index for age z-score, and adjusted incidence rate ratios for attrition (death or loss to follow-up) as calculated by Poisson regression. Results The RIC at 6 years in the pre-ART cohort was 44% (95% confidence interval: 38–49), and the one at 8 years in the ART cohort was 70% (64–75). Risk factors for attrition included young age, low CD4 percentage, underweight, active tuberculosis, and enrollment/treatment initiation after 2006. The mean CD4 percentage increased strongly at 1 year on treatment and remained high thereafter. The body mass index for age z-score sharply increased at 1 year after treatment initiation before stabilizing at pre-ART levels thereafter. Conclusions Good clinical and immunological treatment outcomes up to 8 years of follow-up on ART can be achieved in a context of shortage of health workers and a high level of task-shifting approach.
Evidence of Bacteroides fragilis Protection from Bartonella henselae-Induced Damage

Bartonella henselae is able to internalize endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs), which are resistant to the infection of other common pathogens. Bacteroides fragilis is a gram-negative anaerobe belonging to the gut microflora. It protects from experimental colitis induced by Helicobacter hepaticus through the polysaccharide A (PSA). The aim of our study was to establish: 1) whether B. fragilis colonization could protect from B. henselae infection; if this event may have beneficial effects on EPCs, vascular system and tissues. Our in vitro results establish for the first time that B. fragilis can internalize EPCs and competes with B. henselae during coinfection. We observed a marked activation of the inflammatory response by Real-time PCR and ELISA in coinfected cells compared to B. henselae-infected cells (63 vs 23 up-regulated genes), and after EPCs infection with mutant B. fragilis ΔPSA (≅90% up-regulated genes) compared to B. fragilis. Interestingly, in a mouse model of coinfection, morphological and ultrastructural analyses by hematoxylin-eosin staining and electron microscopy on murine tissues revealed that damages induced by B. henselae can be prevented in the coinfection with B. fragilis but not with its mutant B. fragilis ΔPSA. Moreover, immunohistochemistry analysis with anti-Bartonella showed that the number of positive cells per field decreased of at least 50% in the liver (20±4 vs 50±8), aorta (5±1 vs 10±2) and spleen (25±3 vs 40±6) sections of mice coinfected compared to mice infected only with B. henselae. This decrease was less evident in the coinfection with ΔPSA strain (35±6 in the liver, 5±1 in the aorta and 30±5 in the spleen). Finally, B. fragilis colonization was also able to restore the EPC decrease observed in mice infected with B. henselae (0.65 vs 0.06 media). Thus, our data establish that B. fragilis colonization is able to prevent B. henselae damages through PSA.
Computer Use in the Management of Aphasia: A Survey of Practice Patterns and Opinions

Computers are involved in many facets of daily life, and studies have shown computers to be effective tools in aphasia rehabilitation. However, the degree to which speech-language pathologists (SLPs) use computers in aphasia management is unclear. This study surveyed SLPs to determine patterns and frequency of computer use associated with aphasia rehabilitation. The survey was distributed to SLPs in health care settings through e-mail and traditional mail. Surveys were analyzed for frequency and patterns of computer use in direct therapy and for other related purposes. Responses were received from 107 SLPs. Survey results indicated that SLPs use computers more often for indirect or supplemental purposes than for direct therapy. When SLPs implemented computers in direct treatment, the
Measurement Equivalence of Paper‐and‐Pencil and Internet Organisational Surveys: A Large Scale Examination in 16 Countries

In multinational surveys, mixed-mode administration modes (e.g. combining Internet and paper-and-pencil administration) are increasingly used. To date, no studies have investigated whether measurement equivalence exists between Internet data collection and data collection using the conventional paper-and-pencil method in organisational surveys which include a large number of countries. This paper examined the measurement equivalence of a truly global organisational survey across Internet and paper-and-pencil survey administrations. Data from an organisational survey in 16 countries (N = 52,461) across the globe were used to assess the measurement equivalence of an organisational climate measure within each country in which the survey was administered. The empirical data provided strong indications which support the measurement equivalence of the multi-item survey instrument across Internet and paper-and-pencil surveys in virtually all countries in which the survey was conducted. These findings suggest that merging data obtained through Internet and paper-and-pencil data administration in a particular country is legitimate as no evidence was found for differential effects across both modes of data collection.
Data collection mode and social desirability bias in self-reported religious attendance : Church attendance in the United States

Compared to conventional interviewer-administered questions about attendance at religious services, self-administered items and time-use items should minimize social desirability pressures. In fact, they each reduce claims of weekly religious attendance by about one-third. This difference in measurement approach does not generally affect associations between attendance and demographic characteristics. It does, however, alter the observed trend in religious attendance over time : in contrast to the almost constant attendance rate recorded by conventional interviewer-administered items, approaches minimizing social desirability bias reveal that weekly attendance has declined continuously over the past three decades. These results provide support for the hypothesis that America has become more secularized, and they demonstrate the role of mode of administration in reducing measurement error
Behavioral Responses to Threatened Ethnic Identity in a Sports Setting

Boxing competitions with two rounds between French and Arab students (N = 58) were used to investigate intergroup relations and social identity. Behavioral measures were observed in two rounds of the competition to assess possible changes depending on threat conditions and strength of ethnic identification. Analyses showed that behavioral effort in round 2 was not influenced by the degree of ethnic identification or threat conditions. However, behavioral competitiveness (the number of initiatives and ripostes attempted relative to the opponent's) in round 2 was greater in the higher threat condition for high ethnic identifiers. Behavioral competitiveness decreased slightly from the no-threat to the threat condition for low ethnic identifiers. The results are discussed in terms of the social identity processes that might influence behavioral responses in naturalistic intergroup settings.
Semantic Representation

In recent years, there has been renewed interest in the NLP community in genuine language understanding and dialogue. Thus the long-standing issue of how the semantic content of language should be represented is reentering the communal discussion. This paper provides a brief "opinionated survey" of broad-coverage semantic representation (SR). It suggests multiple desiderata for such representations, and then outlines more than a dozen approaches to SR — some long-standing, and some more recent, providing quick characterizations, pros, cons, and some comments on implementations.
Sustainability as a provocation to rethink management education: Building a progressive educative practice

An important aim of critical management education is to stand in critique of mainstream educative practice, while engaging in ideas of new possibility and proposals for alternative action. Opportunities for critique can be opened by identifying paradox or the appearance of contradiction in the imperatives underpinning conventional approaches to management and management education. One such contradiction is the “sustainability paradox”: our dominant approaches to wealth creation degrades both the ecological systems and the social relationships upon which their very survival depends. In this article, we offer, from within a critical management education frame, an alternative vision of management education as a progressive educative practice: one that embraces our embeddedness in the natural world and our social relation to one another. We conclude with ideas for redirecting the contextual, organizational, curricular, and pedagogical dimensions of management education toward such a vision.
Stability of Sequence-Based Control With Random Delays and Dropouts

We study networked control of nonlinear systems where system states and tentative plant input sequences are transmitted over unreliable communication channels. The sequences are calculated recursively by using a pre-designed nominally stabilizing state-feedback control mapping to plant state predictions. The controller does not require receipt acknowledgments or knowledge of delay or dropout distributions. For the i.i. d. case, in which case the numbers of consecutive dropouts are geometrically distributed, we show how the resulting closed loop system can be modeled as a Markov nonlinear jump system and establish sufficient conditions for stochastic stability.
Cerebral Ischemia as a Presenting Feature of Intracranial Aneurysms: A Negative Prognostic Indicator in the Management of Aneurysms

OBJECTIVE:Cerebral ischemia (stroke) can be a presenting clinical feature of intracranial aneurysms and may herald poor prognosis. METHODS:A retrospective review of admissions for aneurysms over a 6-year period revealed that 12 patients (5%) had stroke or stroke-like presentations among 236 patients with intracranial aneurysms. Patient demographics, characteristics of aneurysms, and management were analyzed. RESULTS:Of 12 patients reviewed, nine had anterior circulation aneurysms. Two patients presented with subarachnoid hemorrhage and 10 with unruptured aneurysms. Eleven patients had stroke at the time of presentation, and five had a previous history of transient ischemic attacks. Ten patients had hypertension and eight were active smokers. The mean size of 10 aneurysms was 11.8 mm. Surgical extirpation of the aneurysms was performed in all cases. Four cases revealed thrombus in the aneurysm and one was atherosclerotic. The 6-month outcome was good in seven patients (58%) and fair in four patients (33%). One patient died. This outcome was significantly worse (P < 0.01) compared to that of good grade aneurysms in our database. Hypertension was a significant indicator of poor outcome (P < 0.02). CONCLUSION:Ischemic episodes as a presenting feature of intracranial aneurysms could be indicators of poor prognosis. Routine evaluation of stroke patients for aneurysms may help in early diagnosis. In addition, surgical obliteration of aneurysms could prevent subsequent strokes and neurological deficits.
Young children's well-being in Finnish stepfamilies

Changing family relationships as a result of divorce are considered a potential threat to children's well-being. This study investigates the well-being of children under the age of eight years in Finnish stepfamilies from the viewpoint of the mother. The goal of this study is to explore how the structural characteristics of the stepfamily and the functioning of its various relationships are linked to a child's well-being. The survey data used in this research are drawn from a sample of 667 stepfamilies. The results indicate that a child's well-being was best supported by the well-functioning relationships within the stepfamily: there was a distinct connection between a child's problems and negative quality of relationships.
Effect of Influent Nitrogen Speciation on Organic Nitrogen Occurrence in Activated Sludge Process Effluents

The effect of influent nitrogen composition on organic nitrogen production in a sequencing batch reactor (SBR) activated sludge process was investigated. A laboratory‐scale SBR was fed with three different type synthetic wastewaters with varying nitrogen compositions (phase I = nitriloacetic acid + ammonium [NH4‐N], phase II = NH4‐N, and phase III = amino acid mixture + NH4‐N) was operated. The effluent contained approximately 1 to 2 mg N/L organic nitrogen, even though there was no organic nitrogen in influent. The effluent organic nitrogen increased to approximately 4 mg N/L when the influent composition was changed and then stabilized at <2 mg N/L. The maximum nitrifier growth rate constants (μN) were calculated as 0.91±0.10 to 1.14±0.08 day−1, 0.82 ±0.13 day−1, and 0.89±0.08 day−1 at 20°C for the three different influent compositions. The effluent colloidal organic nitrogen (CON) was negligible, suggesting that the effluent CON found in full‐scale plants may be the result of influent‐derived suspended matter.
Seeking density and mix in the suburbs: challenges for mid-sized cities

Examining patterns in suburban density and mix in a mid-sized Canadian city illustrates the challenges of trying to achieve planning targets for urban intensification and mixed use in mid-sized cities with relatively slow rates of growth. A mixed methods study documents trends in Halifax over a 50-year period. Although planning theory and policy often promote growth nodes and corridors, the case study illustrates the ways in which market forces, conflicting regulations, demographic shifts, and local conditions may undermine efforts to increase densities and generate fine-grained mixing of uses and housing types in suburban areas.
Mercury Isotope Study of Sources and Exposure Pathways of Methylmercury in Estuarine Food Webs in the Northeastern U.S.

We measured mercury (Hg) isotope ratios in sediments and various estuarine organisms (green crab, blue mussel, killifish, eider) to investigate methylmercury (MMHg) sources and exposure pathways in five Northeast coast (U.S.) estuaries. The mass independent Hg isotopic compositions (MIF; Δ199Hg) of the sediments were linearly correlated with the sediment 1/Hg concentrations (Δ199Hg: r2 = 0.77, p < 0.05), but the mass dependent isotope compositions (MDF; δ202Hg) were not (r2 = 0.26, p = 0.16), reflecting inputs of anthropogenic Hg sources with varying δ202Hg. The estuarine organisms all display positive Δ199Hg values (0.21 to 0.98 ‰) indicating that MMHg is photodegraded to varying degrees (5–12%) prior to entry into the food web. The δ202Hg and Δ199Hg values of most organisms can be explained by a mixture of MMHg and inorganic Hg from sediments. At one contaminated site mussels have anomalously high δ202Hg, indicating exposure to a second pool of MMHg, compared to sediment, crabs and fish. Eiders have similar Δ199Hg as killifish but much higher δ202Hg, suggesting that there is an internal fractionation of δ202Hg in birds. Our study shows that Hg isotopes can be used to identify multiple anthropogenic inorganic Hg and MMHg sources and determine the degree of photodegradation of MMHg in estuarine food webs.
Homologous Binding Sites in Yeast Isocitrate Dehydrogenase for Cofactor (NAD+) and Allosteric Activator (AMP)*

Yeast NAD+-specific isocitrate dehydrogenase (IDH) is an allosterically regulated octameric enzyme composed of two types of homologous subunits designated IDH1 and IDH2. Based on sequence comparisons and structural models, both subunits are predicted to have adenine nucleotide binding sites. This was tested by alanine replacement of residues in putative sites in each subunit. Targets included adjacent aspartate/isoleucine residues implicated as important for determining cofactor specificity in related dehydrogenases and a residue in each IDH subunit in a position occupied by histidine in other cofactor binding sites. The primary kinetic effects of D286A/I287A and of H281A replacements in IDH2 were found to be a dramatic reduction in apparent affinity of the holoenzyme for NAD+ and a concomitant reduction inV max. Ligand binding assays also showed that the H281A mutant enzyme fails to bind NAD+ under conditions that are saturating for the wild-type enzyme. In contrast, the primary effect of corresponding D279A/D280A and of R274A replacements in IDH1 is a reduction in holoenzyme binding of AMP, with concomitant alterations in kinetic and isocitrate binding properties normally associated with activation by this allosteric effector. These results suggest that the nucleotide cofactor binding site is primarily contributed by the IDH2 subunit, whereas the homologous nucleotide binding site in IDH1 has evolved for regulatory binding of AMP. These results are consistent with previous studies demonstrating that the catalytic isocitrate binding sites are comprised of residues primarily contributed by IDH2, whereas sites for regulatory binding of isocitrate are contributed by analogous residues of IDH1. In this study, we also demonstrate that a prerequisite for holoenzyme binding of NAD+ is binding of isocitrate/Mg2+ at the IDH2 catalytic site. This is comparable to the dependence of AMP binding upon binding of isocitrate at the IDH1 regulatory site.
Natural Language Processing by Reasoning and Learning ( draft for comment )

This paper proposes a new approach toward natural language processing in a general-purpose intelligent system. The major features that diﬀers this approach from the traditional ones are: natural language understanding and production are not carried out by a separate module in the system, but by the reasoning-learning mechanism responsible for all kinds of cognitive functions; furthermore, when a sentence in a natural language is processed, its syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic aspects are taken into consideration altogether. This approach has been formalized in the form of a logic
Relationships between Nutrient-Related Plant Traits and Combinations of Soil N and P Fertility Measures

Soil fertility and nutrient-related plant functional traits are in general only moderately related, hindering the progress in trait-based prediction models of vegetation patterns. Although the relationships may have been obscured by suboptimal choices in how soil fertility is expressed, there has never been a systematic investigation into the suitability of fertility measures. This study, therefore, examined the effect of different soil fertility measures on the strength of fertility–trait relationships in 134 natural plant communities. In particular, for eight plot-mean traits we examined (1) whether different elements (N or P) have contrasting or shared influences, (2) which timescale of fertility measures (e.g. mineralization rates for one or five years) has better predictive power, and (3) if integrated fertility measures explain trait variation better than individual fertility measures. Soil N and P had large mutual effects on leaf nutrient concentrations, whereas they had element-specific effects on traits related to species composition (e.g. Grime's CSR strategy). The timescale of fertility measures only had a minor impact on fertility–trait relationships. Two integrated fertility measures (one reflecting overall fertility, another relative availability of soil N and P) were related significantly to most plant traits, but were not better in explaining trait variation than individual fertility measures. Using all fertility measures together, between-site variations of plant traits were explained only moderately for some traits (e.g. 33% for leaf N concentrations) but largely for others (e.g. 66% for whole-canopy P concentration). The moderate relationships were probably due to complex regulation mechanisms of fertility on traits, rather than to a wrong choice of fertility measures. We identified both mutual (i.e. shared) and divergent (i.e. element-specific and stoichiometric) effects of soil N and P on traits, implying the importance of explicitly considering the roles of different elements to properly interpret fertility–trait relationships.
Compulsive Buying: A Phenomenological Exploration

Compulsive buying is framed within the larger category of compulsive consumption, and both quantitative and qualitative data are used to provide a phenomenological description. Results indicate people who buy compulsively are more likely to demonstrate compulsivity as a personality trait, have lower self-esteem, and are more prone to fantasy than more normal consumers. Their primary motivation appears to be the psychological benefits derived from the buying process itself rather than from the possession of purchased objects. Consequences of compulsive buying include extreme levels of debt, anxiety and frustration, the subjective sense of loss of control, and domestic dissension.
Prosody modification using instants of significant excitation

Prosody modification involves changing the pitch and duration of speech without affecting the message and naturalness. This paper proposes a method for prosody (pitch and duration) modification using the instants of significant excitation of the vocal tract system during the production of speech. The instants of significant excitation correspond to the instants of glottal closure (epochs) in the case of voiced speech, and to some random excitations like onset of burst in the case of nonvoiced speech. Instants of significant excitation are computed from the linear prediction (LP) residual of speech signals by using the property of average group-delay of minimum phase signals. The modification of pitch and duration is achieved by manipulating the LP residual with the help of the knowledge of the instants of significant excitation. The modified residual is used to excite the time-varying filter, whose parameters are derived from the original speech signal. Perceptual quality of the synthesized speech is good and is without any significant distortion. The proposed method is evaluated using waveforms, spectrograms, and listening tests. The performance of the method is compared with linear prediction pitch synchronous overlap and add (LP-PSOLA) method, which is another method for prosody manipulation based on the modification of the LP residual. The original and the synthesized speech signals obtained by the proposed method and by the LP-PSOLA method are available for listening at http://speech.cs. iitm.ernet. in/Main/result/prosody.html.