Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Does setting adolescent-friendly standards improve the quality of care in clinics? Evidence from South Africa.

OBJECTIVE To determine whether setting and implementing adolescent-friendly standards improves the quality of adolescent services in clinics. DESIGN The evaluation used a quasi-experimental case-control design. SETTING/PARTICIPANTS Eleven public health clinics involved in the adolescent-friendly program [The National Adolescent Friendly Clinic Initiative (NAFCI)] and 11 control clinics. INTERVENTION This included implementation of a set of 10 adolescent-friendly standards and 41 corresponding criteria. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Percentage scores were achieved for each standard and criterion. Clinics were awarded a Gold Star if they achieved an overall clinic score (average standard score) of >or=90%, a Silver Star for a score between 60 and 89% and a Bronze Star for a score between 30 and 59%. RESULTS The NAFCI clinics performed better than the control clinics on most criteria. The combined average overall clinic score of all the NAFCI clinics (79.9%) was significantly higher (P = 0.005) than the overall score for the control group clinics (60.9%). Results showed that the longer NAFCI was implemented at a clinic, the higher the score and the more likely that clinic would be accredited as an 'adolescent friendly' clinic. NAFCI clinics performed significantly better than the control clinics on criteria specific to the provision of adolescent-friendly services including knowledge of adolescent rights and non-judgmental attitudes of staff. CONCLUSION Setting and implementing standards and criteria improves the quality of adolescent services in clinics. The standards and criteria should be set on the basis of the characteristics of adolescent-friendly services and quality of care indicators. Best results are achieved when a facilitator trained in quality improvement methodologies supports clinics.
Prenatal Exposure to DEHP Affects Spermatogenesis and Sperm DNA Methylation in a Strain-Dependent Manner

Di-(2-ethylhexyl)phtalate (DEHP) is a plasticizer with endocrine disrupting properties found ubiquitously in the environment and altering reproduction in rodents. Here we investigated the impact of prenatal exposure to DEHP on spermatogenesis and DNA sperm methylation in two distinct, selected, and sequenced mice strains. FVB/N and C57BL/6J mice were orally exposed to 300 mg/kg/day of DEHP from gestation day 9 to 19. Prenatal DEHP exposure significantly decreased spermatogenesis in C57BL/6J (fold-change = 0.6, p-value = 8.7*10-4), but not in FVB/N (fold-change = 1, p-value = 0.9). The number of differentially methylated regions (DMRs) by DEHP-exposure across the entire genome showed increased hyper- and decreased hypo-methylation in C57BL/6J compared to FVB/N. At the promoter level, three important subsets of genes were massively affected. Promoters of vomeronasal and olfactory receptors coding genes globally followed the same trend, more pronounced in the C57BL/6J strain, of being hyper-methylated in DEHP related conditions. In contrast, a large set of micro-RNAs were hypo-methylated, with a trend more pronounced in the FVB/N strain. We additionally analyze both the presence of functional genetic variations within genes that were associated with the detected DMRs and that could be involved in spermatogenesis, and DMRs related with the DEHP exposure that affected both strains in an opposite manner. The major finding in this study indicates that prenatal exposure to DEHP can decrease spermatogenesis in a strain-dependent manner and affects sperm DNA methylation in promoters of large sets of genes putatively involved in both sperm chemotaxis and post-transcriptional regulatory mechanisms.
A landscape genetic analysis of important agricultural pest species in Tunisia: The whitefly Bemisia tabaci

Combining landscape ecology and genetics provides an excellent framework to appreciate pest population dynamics and dispersal. The genetic architectures of many species are always shaped by environmental constraints. Because little is known about the ecological and genetic traits of Tunisian whitefly populations, the main objective of this work is to highlight patterns of biodiversity, genetic structure and migration routes of this pest. We used nuclear microsatellite loci to analyze B. tabaci populations collected from various agricultural areas across the country and we determine their biotype status. Molecular data were subsequently interpreted in an ecological context supplied from a species distribution model to infer habitat suitability and hereafter the potential connection paths between sampling localities. An analysis of landscape resistance to B. tabaci genetic flow was thus applied to take into account habitat suitability, genetic relatedness and functional connectivity of habitats within a varied landscape matrix. We shed light on the occurrence of three geographically delineated genetic groups with high levels of genetic differentiation within each of them. Potential migration corridors of this pest were then established providing significant advances toward the understanding of genetic features and the dynamic dispersal of this pest. This study supports the hypothesis of a long-distance dispersal of B. tabaci followed by infrequent long-term isolations. The Inference of population sources and colonization routes is critical for the design and implementation of accurate management strategies against this pest.
Short amino acid sequences derived from C1q receptor (C1q‐R) show homology with the alpha chains of fibronectin and vitronectin receptors and collagen type IV

The human C1q receptor (C1q‐R) is a 65–70‐kd, highly acidic, hydrophobic glycoprotein that is expressed on a wide variety of cell surfaces. Although the C1q‐R itself appears to bind preferentially to C1q, the region of the ligand to which C1q‐R binds is the primary binding site for several other molecules, including fibronectin, laminin, and C1q inhibitor (chondroitin 4‐sulfate proteoglycan) as well as the complement C1r2C1s2 tetramer. In order to further characterize the C1q‐R molecule with regard to its structure and function, highly purified C1q‐R was obtained from Raji cells using DEAE‐Sephacel and C1q‐Sepharose CL‐4B chromatography. Studies performed with 125I‐labeled C1q‐R demonstrated that whereas the C1q‐R molecule binds poorly to a variety of human collagens including types II, III, and V, markedly enhanced binding is observed with type IV collagen and moderately enhanced binding with type I collagen. Amino acid composition studies show that the C1q‐R molecule contains approximately 44% hydrophobic and 12.6% hydrophilic residues with a ratio of negatively charged to positively charged residues of about 2:1. Treatment of 125I‐labeled C1q‐R with endoglycosidase F lowers the apparent molecular size from 70 to 58 kd, whereas endoglycosidase H lowered the size to 64 kd. Treatment with neuraminidase, on the other hand, shifted the size of C1q‐R to 60 kd. These results suggest the presence of several highly sialylated complex‐type or high mannose–type N‐linked oligosaccharide side chains. Because purified C1q‐R has a blocked amino terminus, amino acid sequences representing internal fragments of the molecule were generated by electroblotting and in situ enzymatic digestion. When these short sequences were searched against the National Biomedical Research Foundation computer data base, a seven‐amino‐acid sequence, VSWQGQI, showed significant homology (100% and 80% in a five‐amino‐acid overlap, respectively) with the α chains of the human fibronectin (α5β1) and vitronectin (αvβ3) receptors, and to a lesser degree with epidermal growth factor receptor and T cell receptor. A second sequence, ISEDNIR, showed homology with mouse collagen type IV (86% in a six‐amino‐acid overlap), calmodulin (60% in a seven‐amino‐acid overlap), and a Leishmania major surface antigen, gp63. These observations seem to predict that C1q‐R has pockets of conserved sequences that are similar to those not only present in its ligand(s) but also in other cell surface receptors that may, in part, fulfill similar functions.
What impact does ‘conventional’ economic evaluation have on patient access to new orphan medicines? A comparative study of their reimbursement in Australia (2005–2012)

Background: Orphan medicines used to treat patients with rare diseases often come at high costs with lower levels of clinical evidence. We compared the likelihood and timeliness of reimbursement for orphan medicines with non-orphan medicines in Australia between 2005 and 2012. Methods: We developed two key assessment metrics to compare submissions and outcomes for new orphan medicines with those for new non-orphan medicines, viz., the likelihood of submissions being recommended by the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee (PBAC) (success rate) and the time from Therapeutic Goods Administration registration to reimbursement (overall timeliness). Results: Thirty eight out of 95 outcomes for orphan medicines (40%) received a PBAC recommendation compared to 257/481 (53%) for non-orphan medicines (p = 0.17). The PBAC recommendations that resulted in listings were comparable between the orphan and non-orphan categories (33/38 [87%] vs 218/257 [85%], respectively, p = 0.74). Conclusion: The results suggested orphan medicines were not accorded any special status for reimbursement.
A novel device-to-device discovery scheme for underlay cellular networks

Tremendous growing demand for high data rate services such as video, gaming and social networking in wireless cellular systems, attracted researchers' attention to focus on developing proximity services. In this regard, device-to-device (D2D) communications as a promising technology for future cellular systems, plays crucial rule. The key factor in D2D communication is providing efficient peer discovery mechanisms in ultra dense networks. In this paper, we propose a centralized D2D discovery scheme by employing a signaling algorithm to exchange D2D discovery messages between network entities. In this system, potential D2D pairs share uplink cellular users' resources with collision detection, to initiate a D2D links. Stochastic geometry is used to analyze system performance in terms of success probability of the transmitted signal and minimum required time slots for the proposed discovery scheme. Extensive simulations are used to evaluate the proposed system performance.
A DCT-Based Speech Enhancement System With Pitch Synchronous Analysis

Discrete cosine transform (DCT) has been proven to be a good approximation to the Karhunen-Loeve Transform (KLT) and has similar properties to the discrete Fourier transform (DFT). It also possesses a better energy compaction capability which is advantageous for speech enhancement. However, frame to frame variations of DCT coefficients even for a perfectly stationary signal can be observed. Therefore a DCT-based speech enhancement system with pitch synchronous analysis is proposed to overcome this problem. It reduces the drawbacks of fixed window shift and the amount of shift in the analysis window is now based on the pitch period, thus increasing the inter-frame similarities. Furthermore, a Wiener filter using the a priori signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) with an adaptive parameter is also derived and implemented as an advanced noise reduction filter. This proposed speech enhancement system is evaluated in terms of several objective measures and the experimental results demonstrate the good performance of the proposed system.
Neuritogenesis Induced by Thyroid Hormone-treated Astrocytes Is Mediated by Epidermal Growth Factor/Mitogen-activated Protein Kinase-Phosphatidylinositol 3-Kinase Pathways and Involves Modulation of Extracellular Matrix Proteins*

Thyroid hormone (T3) plays a crucial role in several steps of cerebellar ontogenesis. By using a neuron-astrocyte coculture model, we have investigated the effects of T3-treated astrocytes on cerebellar neuronal differentiation in vitro. Neurons plated onto T3-astrocytes presented a 40–60% increase on the total neurite length and an increment in the number of neurites. Treatment of astrocytes with epidermal growth factor (EGF) yielded similar results, suggesting that this growth factor might mediate T3-induced neuritogenesis. EGF and T3 treatment increased fibronectin and laminin expression by astrocytes, suggesting that astrocyte neurite permissiveness induced by these treatments is mostly due to modulation of extracellular matrix (ECM) components. Such increase in ECM protein expression as well as astrocyte permissiveness to neurite outgrowth was reversed by the specific EGF receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitor, tyrphostin. Moreover, studies using selective inhibitors of several transduction-signaling cascades indicated that modulation of ECM proteins by EGF is mainly through a synergistic activation of mitogen-activated protein kinase and phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase pathways. In this work, we provide evidence of a novel role of EGF as an intermediary factor of T3 action on cerebellar ontogenesis. By modulating the content of ECM proteins, EGF increases neurite outgrowth. Our data reveal an important role of astrocytes as mediators of T3-induced cerebellar development and partially elucidate the role of EGF and mitogen-activated protein kinase/phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase pathways on this process.
Exploring perceptions behaviors and awareness: water and water pollution in South Africa.

Understanding the relationships among perceptions behaviors and awareness of environment problems is of increasing interest to both policy makers and social scientists. There is however limited consensus among scholars as to the reasons for differences and similarities among population groups in their attitudes and behaviors regarding environmental conditions. South Africa which has established a constitutional right to a safe environment together with the presence of parallel first and third world populations and substantial public environmental programs offers an unusual setting in which to look at these issues. Using the 2004 South African General Household Survey the similarities and differences between the African and non-African households with respect to the perceptions behaviors and awareness of environmental conditions related to water and sanitation and that are associated with place of residence specific living conditions level of education and related factors are examined. (authors)
The Impact of Land Use Activities on Vegetation Cover and Water Quality in the Lake Victoria Watershed

The impact of land use activities on loss of vegetation cover and water quality was assessed in three selected sites within the Lake Victoria Basin using remote sensing technologies and standard water quality analysis techniques. The three study sites were: (i) Nzoia River Basin (Kenya), (ii) Nakivubo Wetland (Uganda) and (iii) Simiyu drainage basin (Tanzania). Lake Victoria is the second largest fresh water lake in the world and is served by a drainage basin area of over 193,000 km 2 , traversing five East African Community States; Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi. This paper examines the impact of land use activities on vegetation cover and water quality based on remote sensing and Geographical Information Systems analysis combined with chemical and physical water analysis. The quality of the effluent generated by the industries found within the study sites and their effects on downstream discharge was also determined. Pesticide residues in soil and water samples were determined using analytical standard methods. Soils from some selected fields in Nzoia River basin showed high levels of compounds such as aldrin, dieldrin, endosulfan, DDT, and endrin which are together referred to as persistent organic pollutants (POPs). The physical and chemical analysis of water quality revealed high levels of phosphates and nitrates along the agricultural zones of River Nzoia Basin. The satellite images revealed that in all the three study sites land vegetation cover has continuously reduced in size. The extent of environmental degradation caused by agricultural, domestic and industrial wastes and how this affects loss of vegeta- tion cover and water quality is discussed.
Design by Extension and Inheritance of Behavior in Dynamical Systems

The paper introduces a formal definition of inheritance, which is a cardinal concept in object-oriented software, for dynamical systems. The proposed definition exploits the coalgebraic description of software artifacts to provide a connection between the behavioral approach for modeling dynamical systems and the object-oriented approach for software modeling and design. This definition allows to apply the design by extension methodology, widely used in software engineering, to the design of components of manufacturing systems
Protocadherin‐17 function in Zebrafish retinal development

Cadherin cell adhesion molecules play crucial roles in vertebrate development including the development of the retina. Most studies have focused on examining functions of classic cadherins (e.g. N‐cadherin) in retinal development. There is little information on the function of protocadherins in the development of the vertebrate visual system. We previously showed that protocadherin‐17 mRNA was expressed in developing zebrafish retina during critical stages of the retinal development. To gain insight into protocadherin‐17 function in the formation of the retina, we analyzed eye development and differentiation of retinal cells in zebrafish embryos injected with protocadherin‐17 specific antisense morpholino oligonucleotides (MOs). Protocadherin‐17 knockdown embryos (pcdh17 morphants) had significantly reduced eyes due mainly to decreased cell proliferation. Differentiation of several retinal cell types (e.g. retinal ganglion cells) was also disrupted in the pcdh17 morphants. Phenotypic rescue was achieved by injection of protocadherin‐17 mRNA. Injection of a vivo‐protocadherin‐17 MO into one eye of embryonic zebrafish resulted in similar eye defects. Our results suggest that protocadherin‐17 plays an important role in the normal formation of the zebrafish retina. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Develop Neurobiol, 2013
Relationship between Different Species of Helminths and Atopy: A Study in a Population Living in Helminth-Endemic Area in Sulawesi, Indonesia

Background: The association between allergen skin sensitization and helminth infection has been debated for years. Here, we sought to estimate the prevalence of atopic sensitization of residents living in area endemic for lymphatic filariasis and intestinal helminths and to investigate the association between these different species of helminths with allergen skin test reactivity to allergens. Methods: Five hundred and eighty-three individuals living in an area endemic for Brugia malayi and for intestinal helminths were skin prick tested using 3 allergens. Microfilariae were enumerated by filtration of 1 ml nocturnally collected blood, and 442 stool samples were examined for the presence of intestinal helminth eggs. Results: The prevalence of skin prick test positivity to any allergen was 23.5% (to cockroach 20.6%, to house dust mite 6.2% and to grass pollen 1.2%). Individuals with B. malayi infection had a significantly reduced risk for atopic reactivity to cockroach (adjusted odds ratio 0.56, 95% CI 0.35–0.88). In the same population, no association was found between the presence of intestinal helminths and any skin test reactivity. Conclusions: In a general population, across all ages in a rural area of Indonesia, the prevalence of skin test reactivity to house dust mite is as low as in other non-affluent countries, and infection with B. malayi appears to reduce the risk of skin reactivity to cockroach. On the other hand, we found no association between infection with intestinal helminths and skin test reactivity to aeroallergens.
Investigating maize subirrigation strategies for three northwest Ohio soils

Drought during maize (Zea mays L.) growing season in the US Midwest can be mitigated using drainage and runoff water recycling through subirrigation. Limited information regarding subirrigation timing and intensity hinder its promotion across the region. Seven water table management strategies were simulated using DRAINMOD calibrated for three locations with different soil series in northwest Ohio, under 1984 to 2013 climate conditions, and were compared based on annual relative yield, subirrigation water volume, relative water discharge, and management intensity. Annual relative yields ranged between 63.1% and 64.4% at the Defiance site and were not significantly different between the water table management strategies. Under subirrigation, relative yields ranged from 87.3% to 93.2% and 80.4% to 90.8%, respectively, at the Fulton and Van Wert sites and were significantly larger than under free subsurface drainage. Annual subirrigation water volumes were significantly lower under continuous subirrigation from V3 stage at all three locations. Subirrigation water volumes at the Fulton and Van Wert sites were particularly lower with continuous subirrigation starting at V9. Relative water discharges were similar across all water table management strategies at the Defiance site and larger under free subsurface drainage at the Fulton and Van Wert sites. Free subsurface drainage was the most appropriate option for the Defiance site in terms of water table management because subirrigation did not improve the relative yield but consumed water (and, consequently, energy for pumping). For the Fulton and Van Wert sites, continuously subirrigating from V9, with the control weir set at 61 cm below ground surface and raised to 35 cm below ground surface at tasseling improved the relative yield while using less subirrigation water volumes and generating no greater relative water discharge (hence no greater dissolved nutrient loads) than the other subirrigation options. This strategy potentially reduces labor costs at locations where subirrigation is appropriate, enhancing the economic viability of subirrigation, and is the most applicable strategy to other major maize-growing areas in the Midwest. Results indicate water table management and subirrigation will benefit Midwestern maize production under projected climates, which suggests increased potential for water stress in most growing seasons by 2041 to 2070. Future studies, extending this approach to more diverse regions, accompanied by more in-depth economic assessments, are needed to further evaluate potential benefits of subirrigation.