Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Main Risk Factors for Ectopic Pregnancy: A Case-Control Study in A Sample of Iranian Women

Background Although the risk factors of ectopic pregnancy have been determined in previous studies, the main risk factors of ectopic pregnancy are different in various countries due to different cultural and social characteristics. Determination of main risk factors of ectopic pregnancy leads to a rapid diagnosis and an improvement in strategies for its prevention. The purpose of this study was to determine the main risk factors of ectopic pregnancy in a sample of Iranian women. Materials and Methods We designed a case-control study to include 150 cases and 300 controls and to compare them by the following factors: socio-demographic characteristics, contraceptive methods, prior tubal surgery, tubal pathology, prior ectopic pregnancy, prior caesarean section, prior abortion, prior infertility, and prior abdominal/pelvic surgery. Results The case and control groups were significantly similar in term of education and parity. There was an association between ectopic pregnancy and age which was disappeared after controlling for the main risk factors (adjusted OR=2.45, 95% CI: 0.86-6.97). There was no statistically significant relation between ectopic pregnancy and prior tubal surgery, tubal pathology, prior abortion, prior infertility, assisted reproductive technology, and oral contraceptive method (p>0.05). However, there was a significant association between prior ectopic pregnancy, prior tubal ligation, use of intrauterine device, and prior abdominal/pelvic surgery with ectopic pregnancy (p<0.05). The risk of ectopic pregnancy increased with the use of intrauterine device and tubal ligation, whereas decreased with use of oral contraception. Conclusion This study identified prior ectopic pregnancy, prior tubal ligation, use of intrauterine device, and prior pelvic/abdominal surgery as the main risk factors for ectopic pregnancy in a sample of Iranian women. Our findings can be useful for early diagnosis of ectopic pregnancy and for improvement in strategies of its prevention through medical therapy instead of unnecessarily surgical treatment.
E-Government Systems in Developing Countries : Stakeholders and Conflict

With the widespread deployment of e-government systems in developing countries, and also their high failure rates, it is important to understand the complex processes that underlie successful implementations of large-scale information systems. MIS theory has explicated the nature of conflict in the design of information systems and the reasons why systems are resisted by stakeholders. In this context, it is important to have a nuanced reading of stakeholders in the e-government systems domain to understand the origin of conflict and resistance to such systems. This paper develops a framework for stakeholder groups and uses this to analyze conflict and resistance in four case examples of implemented e-government systems in India.
Joint Source-Channel Secrecy Using Analog Coding: Towards Secure Source Broadcast

This paper investigates joint source-channel secrecy for Gaussian broadcast communication in Shannon cipher system. We use a recently proposed secrecy measure, list secrecy, to measure secrecy, in which an eavesdropper is allowed to produce a list of reconstruction sequences and the secrecy is measured by the minimum distortion over the entire list. For achievability part, we propose a novel joint source-channel secrecy scheme, which cascades the traditional linear joint source-channel coding (analog coding) with a random orthogonal transform. For this scheme, we characterize the set of achievable tuples (secret key rate, list rate, eavesdropper distortion, distortions of all legitimate users). Besides, one of existing schemes, sign-change based scheme, is analyzed, and by comparison the proposed scheme outperforms this sign-change based scheme. For the converse part, we provide a necessary condition on the achievability of any tuple, and comparing this converse with the achievability result of the proposed scheme shows that the proposed scheme is optimal under some certain conditions. Besides, we also extend the proposed scheme and the corresponding achievability result to vector Gaussian communication scenario. No matter for scalar or vector Gaussian communication case, the codebook in the proposed scheme consists of a sequence of random matrices. This is very different from the traditional construction of codebook in information theory that usually consists of a sequence of random samples.
Assessing Self-Assessed Health Data

Abstract One of the most often available micro data on health is self-assessed self-reportedhealth status. Many studies have used these data to examine the determinants ofhealth status and the effects of health status on broad areas of human behavior.Given the subjectivity and possible measurement errors imbedded in self-assessedhealth data, we consider the reliability and usefulness of this type of data. A mainconclusion is that cross-country or cross-region health comparisons based on self-assessed data are extremely unreliable due to the predominant effect of culture andsocial environment. Even within a same population, two surveys carried out in asimilar time period with only slight differences in survey design producesignificantly different health status outcome. On the other hand, education level,along with age, appears to affect persistently individual health status acrosscountry. Resumen :Uno de los micro datos disponibles sobre salud es la valoracion del estado de saludpor parte de los propios encuestados. Varios estudios han utilizado estos resultadospara examinar los determinantes del estado de salud de los individuos en general, ysus efectos sobre distintas areas del comportamiento humano. Dada la subjetividady los posibles errores de medida que una autovaloracion del estado de salud puedepresentar, en este trabajo estudiamos la fiabilidad y utilidad de este tipo de datos.Una de las principales conclusiones que obtenemos es que la comparacion delestado de salud entre los distintos paises o regiones, carece de demasiada fiabilidad,debido a que los factores mas determinantes en los resultados son efectos culturaleso el entorno social. Incluso dentro de un mismo pais, dos encuestas realizadas en unperiodo de tiempo similar, pero que presentan pequenas diferencias en el diseno dela muestra, proporcionan resultados significativamente distintos. Por otro lado, elnivel educativo afecta sustancialmente al estado de salud declarado por losindividuos en todos los paises.Acknowledgement: Financial support from the European Commission to AGIR(Ageing, Health and Retirement in Europe) project under the FP5.
CP asymmetries in scalar bottom quark decays

We propose CP asymmetries based on triple product correlations in the decaysm → t˜ χ − with subsequent decays of t and ˜ χ 0, and we assume that the momentum of the W boson can be measured. Our framework is the minimal supersymmetric standard model with complex parameters. The proposed CP asymmetries are non-vanishing due to non-zero phases for the parametersand/or Ab. We present numerical results and estimate the observability of these CP asymmetries.
Vaccinia virus lacking the Bcl-2-like protein N1 induces a stronger natural killer cell response to infection

The vaccinia virus (VACV) N1 protein is an intracellular virulence factor that has a Bcl-2-like structure and inhibits both apoptosis and signalling from the interleukin 1 receptor, leading to nuclear factor kappa B activation. Here, we investigated the immune response to intranasal infection with a virus lacking the N1L gene (vΔN1L) compared with control viruses expressing N1L. Data presented show that deletion of N1L did not affect the proportion of CD4+ and CD8+ T cells infiltrating the lungs or the cytotoxic T-cell activity of these cells. However, vΔN1L induced an increased local natural killer cell activity between days 4 and 6 post-infection. In addition, in the absence of N1 the host inflammatory infiltrate was characterized by a reduced proportion of lymphocytes bearing the early activation marker CD69. Notably, there was a good correlation between the level of CD69 expression and weight loss. The implications of these findings are discussed.
A Traffic-Aware MAC Protocol Based on Dynamic Contention Windows in Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor networks are formed by a great deal of sensor nodes, which are generally battery-powered and may not be recharged easily. Consequently, how to save energy is an important issue when designing protocol in wireless sensor network. However, lowering the energy consumption may result in higher latency. To address such a tradeoff, this paper proposes a MAC protocol supported dynamic contention window size. Compared with S-MAC using fixed contention window sizes, TrawMAC adaptively adjusts the contention window size, based on some relevant network statistics. Those statistics guides the strategy of adjusting the CW size. The experiment results show that TrawMAC saves energy about 85.19% and reduce latency by 66.86% from S-MAC in a chain topology. In the cross topology, it also achieves 81.11%energy saving and 37.2%latency reduction from S-MAC.
Dark Side of Incentives: Evidence From a Randomized Control Trial in Uganda

Throughout our lives, we are routinely offered different incentives as a way to motivate us. Many researchers have studied the effects of incentives on people’s performance. There can also be important psychological outcomes in terms of stress and happiness. The current paper contributes to the literature by explicitly accounting for this performance-versus-well-being trade-off introduced by incentives. I implement two types of social comparative feedback regimes, within and across-class group comparisons, and two types of incentive regimes, financial and reputation rewards. The results show that rewards can improve performance up to 0.28 standard deviations, but at a cost of higher stress and lower happiness, whereas comparative feedback alone (without rewards) increases performance only mildly, by 0.09 to 0.13 standard deviations, but without impact on student’s stress and happiness. More stressed students exert less effort, perform worse and are absent by 29 percent more compared to those who are stressed minimally. The results also help to identify gender-specific responses to incentives. While boys strongly react to rewards, girls do so only if they are also provided with feedback. Final contribution comes from a rich dataset of more than 5000 primary and secondary school students in Uganda, who were repeatedly tested and interviewed over one academic year.
Broadband Shifts in Local Field Potential Power Spectra Are Correlated with Single-Neuron Spiking in Humans

A fundamental question in neuroscience concerns the relation between the spiking of individual neurons and the aggregate electrical activity of neuronal ensembles as seen in local field potentials (LFPs). Because LFPs reflect both spiking activity and subthreshold events, this question is not simply one of data aggregation. Recording from 20 neurosurgical patients, we directly examined the relation between LFPs and neuronal spiking. Examining 2030 neurons in widespread brain regions, we found that firing rates were positively correlated with broadband (2–150 Hz) shifts in the LFP power spectrum. In contrast, narrowband oscillations correlated both positively and negatively with firing rates at different recording sites. Broadband power shifts were a more reliable predictor of neuronal spiking than narrowband power shifts. These findings suggest that broadband LFP power provides valuable information concerning neuronal activity beyond that contained in narrowband oscillations.
Dead-band self-triggered PI control for processes with dead-time

Current implementations of digital controllers assume that sensing, control and actuation are performed in a periodic fashion. In classic control schemes, where sensors and controllers are directly connected, periodicity does not provide particular drawbacks, but, in the case of wireless sensor networks, such a choice may be questionable. One of the driving constraints in the design of wireless sensor networks is represented by its energy efficiency, and it has been shown that the main cause of energy consumption is due to the radio activities of the sensor nodes. By using periodic implementations, the sensor nodes are enforced to keep on transmitting measurements to the controller even if it is not really needed, thus wasting energy. To cope with these problems, self-triggered control was recently introduced. This technique aims at reducing the conservativeness of periodic implementations providing an adaption of the inter-sampling intervals based on the current output of the system. Existing work on self-triggered control considers linear systems controlled by state feedback controllers under the assumption of small time-delays. In this paper the problem of designing a self-triggered control scheme that applies to first-order processes with large dead-times controlled by PI controllers is addressed. Moreover, the proposed self-triggered scheme is robust with respect to set-point changes and external disturbances, which are typical in process industry. The results are validated by simulations.
Downregulation of β-actin and its regulatory gene HuR affect cell migration of human corneal fibroblasts

Purpose In an earlier study, we showed that human antigen R (HuR) and β-actin expression levels were downregulated in fibroblasts isolated from human keratoconus stroma compared to normal corneal stroma. To further extend the finding, we determined whether HuR expression affects β-actin gene expression and in turn affects corneal fibroblast migration and wound healing. Methods Stromal keratocytes from normal human corneas were cultured in the presence of serum. Cells were transfected with siRNA specific for β-actin or HuR. SiRNAs specific for GAPDH or a scrambled sequence were used as positive and negative controls (siCTR) for transfection, respectively. The effects of gene silencing were analyzed at the transcriptional and translational levels. Specific proteins were immunohistochemically localized using confocal imaging. The effects of gene silencing on cell migration and cell proliferation were analyzed using a modified Boyden chamber and with a wound healing assay, respectively. Results Reverse-transcription PCR (RT–PCR) and western blot analyses showed that when the HuR gene was silenced, β-actin expression was significantly downregulated. This was further confirmed at the translational level with immunohistochemical-confocal analysis. However, when the β-actin gene was silenced, its expression was significantly decreased but showed no effect on HuR gene expression. When the β-actin or HuR gene was individually silenced, the motility and proliferation of corneal fibroblasts were significantly reduced. Conclusions The results show that downregulation of the HuR gene results in decreased β-actin gene expression, which in turn results in decreased motility and proliferation of corneal fibroblasts. We conclude that decreased β-actin expression in normal corneal stroma clearly disrupts the cytoskeletal structure and functions, including keratocyte motility and wound healing.
New York City Principals’ Satisfaction with the Public School Network Support at One At-Risk Network Over a Three-Year Period, 2009-2010, 2010-2011, and 2011-2012

This study investigated New York City (NYC) principals’ satisfaction with network school support provided by School Support Organizations (SSOs) in one network in the NYC public school system over a three-year period from 2009 through 2012. The SSOs or networks were created in New York City for the purpose of increasing student performance, enhancing graduation/promotion rates, and improving teacher pedagogy. This quantitative study analyzed trend data in network principals’ satisfaction ratings, as measured by the annual Principal Satisfaction Survey (PSS), within one at-risk network from the perspective of 17 principals regarding network school support in three functional areas: 1) operations, 2) instructional/professional development, and 3) student achievement. Using independent t-tests with repeated measures, the present study examined whether there were differences in principal satisfaction ratings with network school support across the three major functional areas. The independent, repeated-measures t-tests revealed that there were no statistically significant differences in principal satisfaction ratings with network support related to all of the three functional areas from one year to the next. The Excel principals reported they were consistently satisfied with the network support with regard to instructional/professional development and student achievement during the falls of 2009 and 2010, and they were consistently very satisfied with the network support with regard to operations both during the falls of 2009 and 2010. The results of this study signal to practitioners that the network structure reform supports NYC schools toward improvement in the areas mentioned. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Education (EdD) Department Executive Leadership First Supervisor Janice Kelly Second Supervisor Byron Hargrove Subject Categories Education This dissertation is available at Fisher Digital Publications: http://fisherpub.sjfc. edu/education_etd/151 New York City Principals’ Satisfaction with the Public School Network Support at One At-Risk Network Over a Three-Year Period, 2009-2010, 2010-2011, and 2011-2012
The Impact of Demographic Variables and Consumer Shopping Orientations on the Purchasing Preference for Different Product Categories in the Context of Online Grocery Shopping

This study examines the impact of demographic variables and consumer shopping orientations on the purchasing preference for different product categories in the context of online grocery shopping within the UK. The data for this study was primarily collected from a web-based survey of consumers in the UK using a questionnaire. The quantitative data was enhanced by qualitative data in form of semi-structured interviews to enhance the quantitative results. A structural equation model (SEM) was used to analyse the quantitative data and to measure the relationships between the respective constructs. The findings show that the purchasing preferences vary by product category. Keywords: Demographic Variables, Consumer Shopping Orientations, Product Categories, UK, and Structure Equation Modelling. DOI : 10.7176/JMCR/52-05
Comparison of scintigraphy and ultrasound imaging in patients with primary, secondary and tertiary hyperparathyroidism – own experience

Abstract Background The imaging techniques most commonly used in the diagnosis of hyperparathyroidisms are ultrasound and scintigraphy. The diagnostic algorithms vary, depending mainly on the population, and experience of physicians. Aim Aim of the present research was to determine the usefulness of parathyroid scintigraphy and ultrasonography in patients diagnosed for hyperparathyroidism in own material. Material and method In the present research, 96 operated patients with documented primary, secondary and tertiary hyperparathyroidism were retrospectively analyzed. All patients underwent a 99mTc hexakis-2-methoxyisobutylisonitrile scintigraphy of the neck with the use of subtraction and two-phase examinations. Ultrasonography of the neck was performed in all the patients in B mode 2D presentation. A total number of 172 parathyroid glands were analyzed. Results The sensitivity and specificity of scintigraphy was 68% and 60%, respectively. The sensitivity of ultrasound was 49% and specificity 85%. Both techniques allowed visualization of 76 parathyroid glands. Ultrasound revealed 19 glands that were not visible in scintigraphy. Scintigraphy showed 76 parathyroid glands that were not visualized on ultrasound. Having combined the results of scintigraphy and ultrasound, the sensitivity of 76% and specificity of 50% were obtained. Considering the ability to locate the parathyroid glands in both techniques as a positive result, the sensitivity decreased to 37% and specificity rose to 95%. Conclusions Scintigraphy showed greater sensitivity than ultrasound in the localization of enlarged parathyroid glands. Ultrasound, in turn, was characterized by a higher specificity. The combined use of scintigraphy and ultrasonography allowed to obtain the specificity of 95%. In the light of obtained results, scintigraphy and ultrasonography are complementary and should be used together.
Optimal cue aggregation in the absence of criterion knowledge

J Behav Dec Making. 2019;1–16. Abstract The study of multi‐cue judgment investigates how decision makers aggregate cues to predict the value of a criterion variable. We consider a multi‐cue judgment task in which decision makers have prior knowledge of inter‐cue relationships but are ignorant of how the cues correlate with the criterion. In this setting, a naive judgment strategy prescribes weighting the cues equally. Although many participants are well described via an equal weighting scheme, we find that a substantial minority of participants make predictions consistent with a weighting scheme based on a low‐ dimensional projection of the cue space that optimally takes into account inter‐cue correlations. The use of such a weighting scheme is consistent with minimizing maximal error in prediction when the cue‐criterion relationships are unknown.
Kinship and Leprosy in the Contacts of Leprosy Patients: Cohort at the Souza Araújo Outpatient Clinic, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, 1987–2010

A broad variety of factors have been associated with leprosy among contacts, including socioeconomic, epidemiological, and genetic characteristics. Data from 7,174 contacts of leprosy patients from a leprosy outpatient clinic in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1987–2010, were analyzed to investigate the effects of kinship, individual, and contextual factors on leprosy. Multivariate analyses were performed using a robust estimation method. In the prevalence analysis, close kinship (sibling OR = 2.75, offspring OR = 2.00, and other relatives OR = 1.70), socioeconomic factors, and the duration of exposure to the bacillus were associated to leprosy. In the incidence analysis, significant risks were found for all categories of kinship (parents RR = 10.93, spouse, boyfriend/girlfriend, and bride/groom RR = 7.53, sibling RR = 7.03, offspring RR = 5.34, and other relatives RR = 3.71). Once the treatment of the index case was initiated, other factors lost their significance, and the index case bacteriological index and BCG (Bacillus Calmette-Guérin vaccine) protection had a greater impact. Our findings suggested that both genetic susceptibility and physical exposure play an important role in the epidemiology of leprosy, but it was not possible establishing the role of genetic factor. Analyses of other factors related to the genotype of individuals, such as genetic polymorphisms, are needed.