Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Intussusception surveillance in a rural demographic surveillance area in bangladesh.

BACKGROUND Rotavirus is the leading cause of diarrhea-related morbidity and mortality in developing countries, including Bangladesh. The licensed vaccine Rotashield was withdrawn from the market because of an increased risk of intussusception. This study was undertaken to estimate the background incidence rates of intussusception among children aged <2 years, using retrospective and prospective studies in a rural demographic surveillance area in Bangladesh. METHODS All hospital charts of children aged <2 years who presented to the Matlab Hospital and 2 other treatment centers of the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (ICDDR,B), during January 2001-August 2004 were reviewed retrospectively. A prospective surveillance was performed from August 2004 through December 2006 at the 3 treatment centers of ICDDR,B serving Matlab, 4 district and subdistrict government hospitals, and 3 district-based private clinics, to determine population-based rates of intussusception with use of Brighton Collaboration case definitions. All suspected cases of intussusception were referred to the Matlab Hospital by community health research workers for further assessment by a trained medical officer, including performance of an ultrasound examination. RESULTS In total, 2856 charts of children aged <2 years were reviewed retrospectively, and 4 probable cases and 19 possible cases of intussusception were identified. In the prospective surveillance, of 1508 potential cases, including 41 referred by community health research workers, only 2 cases met the case definition of probable intussusception, and 1 case met the definition of possible intussusception. A total of 123 patients had ultrasound examinations performed. The population-based rates of probable and possible cases of intussusception among children aged <2 years were 0-17.8 and 17.7-81.7 cases per 100,000 children per year, respectively. In the retrospective and prospective surveillance, the rates were 0-18.7 and 0-97 cases per 100,000 children per year, respectively. CONCLUSIONS The incidence of intussusception was low among children in Bangladesh. A surveillance system for intussusception has been fully established in the Matlab surveillance area to diagnose, treat, and refer potential cases. This study provides useful information for detection of intussusception during future studies of new-generation rotavirus vaccines and also provides background incidence rates for comparison when rotavirus vaccines are introduced.
The COG database: new developments in phylogenetic classification of proteins from complete genomes

The database of Clusters of Orthologous Groups of proteins (COGs), which represents an attempt on a phylogenetic classification of the proteins encoded in complete genomes, currently consists of 2791 COGs including 45 350 proteins from 30 genomes of bacteria, archaea and the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih. gov/COG). In addition, a supplement to the COGs is available, in which proteins encoded in the genomes of two multicellular eukaryotes, the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans and the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, and shared with bacteria and/or archaea were included. The new features added to the COG database include information pages with structural and functional details on each COG and literature references, improvements of the COGNITOR program that is used to fit new proteins into the COGs, and classification of genomes and COGs constructed by using principal component analysis.
The Blame Game: An investigation of Grammatical Aspect and Blame Judgments

Imperfective aspect (i.e., Mark was punching John) is interpreted by the language processing system as a dynamic, unfolding sequence of actions, whereas perfective aspect (i.e., Mark punched John) is interpreted as a complete whole. A recent study showed that grammatical aspect can influence perceptions of intentionality for criminal actions (Hart & Albarracin, 2011). The current study builds on this finding. Five experiments examine whether grammatical aspect can also influence perceptions of blame, a concept related to intentionality. There were no effects of grammatical aspect on judgments of blame but the results showed an effect of narrated order (Experiments 1–3). First-mentioned actions made the agent more to blame for the outcomes than last-mentioned actions. This effect was not due to the order of the blame questions (Experiment 2) or influenced by the chronological order of the events (Experiment 3). Experiments 4 and 5 showed strong effects of grammatical aspect on temporal dynamics and revealed an interesting new finding. Grammatical aspect can influence the mental representation of a non-mentioned action. We discuss our results in light of the current literature on grammatical aspect effects.
Teasing and weight-control behaviors in adolescent girls

OBJECTIVE: To analyze the association between weight teasing, body satisfaction and weight control behaviors. METHODS: Cross-sectional study based on adaptation and validity research of a North American questionnaire for adolescent girls about physical activity, nutrition, body image, perceptions, and behaviors. The variables used to conduct the study were weight control behaviors, body satisfaction and presence of teasing by family members. Descriptive analyses were carried out by chi-square test, being significant p<0.05. RESULTS: A total of 159 adolescent girls, with 16.2±1.3 years old were enrolled in this study. Of the total, 60.1% reported that family members did not tease them. The teasing was associated with weight dissatisfaction (p<0.001), body shape (p=0.006), belly (p=0.001), waist (p=0.001), face (p=0.009), arms (p=0.014) and shoulders (p=0.001). As a consequence, there was association with unhealthy weight control behaviors (p<0.001), vomiting (p=0,011), diet (p=0.002) and use of laxatives (p=0.035). CONCLUSIONS: The teasing about body image by family members was associated with risk for unhealthy weight control behaviors in female adolescents.
Clinical Predictors of Fidelis Lead Failure: Report From the Canadian Heart Rhythm Society Device Committee

Background— Approximately 268 000 Fidelis leads were implanted worldwide until distribution was suspended because of a high rate of early failure. Careful analyses of predictors of increased lead failure hazard are required to help direct future lead design and also to inform decision making on lead replacement. We sought to perform a comprehensive analysis of all potential predictors in a multicenter study. Methods and Results— A total of 3169 Sprint Fidelis leads were implanted in 11 centers with a total of 251 failures. Lead failure rates at 3, 4, and 5 years were 5.3%, 10.6%, and 16.8%, respectively. The rate of lead failure continues to accelerate (P<0.001). There were 4 independent predictors of failure: center, sex, access vein, and previous lead failure. Women had a higher hazard of failure (hazard ratio 1.51; 95% confidence interval, 1.14–2.04; P=0.005). Both axillary and subclavian access increased the hazard of failure (P=0.007); hazard ratio for axillary was 1.94, (95% confidence interval, 1.23–3.04) and for subclavian 1.63 (95% confidence interval, 1.08–2.46). Previous lead failure increased the hazard of a subsequent Fidelis failure with a hazard ratio of 3.12 (95% confidence interval, 1.80–5.41; P<0.001). Conclusions— The rate of Fidelis failure continues to increase over time, with failures approaching 17% at 5 years. Women, patients with leads inserted via the subclavian or axillary vein, and those with a previous lead fracture were at greatest risk of Fidelis failure. Our data suggest that Fidelis replacement should be strongly considered at the time of generator replacement.
On the benefits of leaf merging in quad-tree motion models

In the field of image coding, it has recently been shown that quad-tree schemes for representing geometric image features are unable to obtain the optimal exponentially decaying rate-distortion behaviour - a problem which can be rectified by following R-D optimal tree pruning with a leaf merging step. Inspired by such results, we note that quad-tree based motion representations for video compression suffer from the same fundamental shortcomings, which can again be overcome by leaf merging. Based on these observations, we describe a non-iterative low complexity extension to the existing motion model used by H.264, demonstrating significant improvements in overall compression performance. At low to moderate bit-rates, our experimental implementation yields reductions of 10% or more in overall bit-rate, relative to H.264. Perhaps more importantly, this paper reinforces the importance of leaf merging as a general tool for quad-tree based modeling schemes.
Repeated Physical Training and Environmental Enrichment Induce Neurogenesis and Synaptogenesis Following Neuronal Injury in an Inducible Mouse Model

Neuronal loss as a consequence of brain injury, stroke and neurodegenerative disorders causes functional impairments ranging from cognitive impairments to physical disabilities. Extensive rehabilitation and trainning may lead to neuroprotection and promote functional recovery, although little is known about the molecular and cellular mechanisms driving this event. To investigate the underlying mechanisms and levels of functional recovery elicited by repeated physical training or environmental enrichment, we generated an inducible mouse model of selective CA1 hippocampal neuronal loss. Following the CA1 neuronal injury, mice underwent one of the above mentioned conditions for 3 months. Exposure to either of these stimuli promoted functional cognitive recovery, which was associated with increased neurogenesis in the subgranular zone of dentate gyrus and enhanced synaptogenesis in the CA1 subfield. Notably, a significant correlation was found between the functional recovery and increased synaptogenesis among survived CA1 neurons. Collectively, these results support the utilization of cognitive and physical stimulation as approaches to promote recovery after neuronal loss and demonstrate the potential of this novel mouse model for the development of therapeutic strategies for various neurological disorders associated with focal neuronal loss.
Resonance width in crossed electric and magnetic field

We study the spectral properties of a charged particle confined to a two-dimensional plane and submitted to homogeneous magnetic and electric fields and an impurity potential V. We use the method of complex translations to prove that the lifetimes of resonances induced by the presence of electric field are at least Gaussian as long as the electric field tends to zero.
Robust Vowel Detection

Human listeners can detect and recognize speech with relatively little hindrance of background noises [1]. It is well known that human listeners apply knowledge to derive a coherent interpretation of ambiguous input. But human listeners might also benefit from the robustness of formant patterns. Formants are part of the perceptual features that are hypothesized to be used by humans in speech processing [2, 3, 4] and correspond to the resonance frequencies of the vocal tract. Shape changes of the vocal tract influence the formants and lead to their development over time. The temporal development of formants is generally thought to characterize vowels. These developing formant patterns, are noticeable in the acoustic signal as amplified energy of the harmonics of the speech sound and are as such robust to noise.
KERNEL ESTIMATORS OF ASYMPTOTIC VARIANCE FOR ADAPTIVE MARKOV CHAIN MONTE CARLO

We study the asymptotic behavior of kernel estimators of asymptotic variances (or long-run variances) for a class of adaptive Markov chains. The convergence is studied both in L p and almost surely. The results also apply to Markov chains and improve on the existing literature by imposing weaker conditions. We illustrate the results with applications to the GARCH(1, 1) Markov model and to an adaptive MCMC algorithm for Bayesian logistic regression.
Can Gender Parity Break the Glass Ceiling?: Evidence from a Repeated Randomized Experiment

This paper studies whether the gender composition of recruiting committees matters. We make use of the unique evidence provided by Spanish public examinations, where the allocation of candidates to evaluating committees is random. We analyze how the chances of success of 150,000 female and male candidates for positions in the four main Corps of the Spanish Judiciary from 1987 to 2007 were a®ected by the gender of their evaluators. We find that a female (male) candidate is significantly less likely to be hired whenever she (he) is randomly assigned to a committee where the share of female (male) evaluators is relatively greater. Evidence from multiple choice tests suggests that this is due to the fact that female majority committees overestimate the quality of male candidates.
iCOP: Automatically Identifying New Child Abuse Media in P2P Networks

The increasing levels of child sex abuse (CSA) media being shared in peer-to-peer (P2P) networks pose a significant challenge for law enforcement agencies. Although a number of P2P monitoring tools to detect offender activity in such networks exist, they typically rely on hash value databases of known CSA media. Such an approach cannot detect new or previously unknown media being shared. Conversely, identifying such new previously unknown media is a priority for law enforcement - they can be indicators of recent or on-going child abuse. Furthermore, originators of such media can be hands-on abusers and their apprehension can safeguard children from further abuse. The sheer volume of activity on P2P networks, however, makes manual detection virtually infeasible. In this paper, we present a novel approach that combines sophisticated filename and media analysis techniques to automatically flag new previously unseen CSA media to investigators. The approach has been implemented into the iCOP toolkit. Our evaluation on real case data shows high degrees of accuracy while hands-on trials with law enforcement officers highlight iCOP's usability and its complementarity to existing investigative workflows.
The Importance of Ethics in Branding: Mediating Effects of Ethical Branding on Company Reputation and Brand Loyalty

This study aims to develop an ethical branding framework that determines whether a corporate brandâ€™s functional and emotional values, that is, product, service quality, and perceived price (antecedents), influence ethical branding and, consequently, company reputation and brand loyalty (consequences) among industrial buyers of electronic office equipment in Malaysia. Using structural equation modelling, the article demonstrates the effects of perceived price, quality of product and service on ethical branding, company reputation, and brand loyalty. The results reveal that product quality directly influences ethical brand perceptions and, consequently, company reputation. Perceived price and service quality do not directly affect company reputation; instead, they affect its identification through ethical branding. The findings thus demonstrate that product quality, perceived price, and service quality affect company reputation through the mediation of ethical branding. This highlights that an ethical brand is effective for companies to maintain their reputation among industrial buyers.
An analytical Gamma mixture based Rate-Distortion model for lattice vector quantization

Here we propose a new blockwise Rate-Distortion (R-D) model dedicated to lattice vector quantization (LVQ) of sparse and structured signals. We first show that the clustering properties leads to a distribution of the norm Lα of source vectors close to a mixture of Gamma density. From this issue, we derive the joint distribution of vectors as a mixture of multidimensional generalized gaussian densities. This data modelling not only allows us to compute more accurate analytical R-D model for LVQ but provides a new theoretical framework to the design of codebooks better suited to data like dead zone LVQ [5, 12].
Psychoeducation Group on Improving Quality of Life of Mild Cognitive Impaired Elderly

Purpose: This research study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of a psychoeducation group, which is founded on an Eastern approach to health care, in improving the quality of life of Chinese people with mild cognitive impairment (PwMCI). Method: In a randomized controlled trial (RCT), 40 Chinese PwMCI were randomly assigned to either a 10-session psychoeducation group or the control group. Results: A paired sample t test indicated that the treatment group (n = 18) showed significant improvement in their World Health Organization Quality of Life Measure (WHOQOL) score, while the control group (n = 22) did not. Moreover, an independent t test showed that the treatment group was more effective than the control group to improve their WHOQOL score. A reduction in the depressive symptoms was related to the improvement in WHOQOL score. Conclusions: This RCT provides evidence to support the feasibility and effectiveness of psychoeducation groups for improving the overall quality of life of PwMCI.
A Coexistence Model of IEEE 802.15.4 and IEEE 802.11b/g

IEEE 802.15. 4 was developed to meet the needs for low-rate wireless communication. However, due to its low power, IEEE 802.15. 4 is potentially vulnerable to interference by other wireless technologies having much higher power and working in the same industrial, scientific, and medical (ISM) band such as IEEE 802.11 b/g. The paper therefore focuses on the coexistence impact of IEEE 802.11 b/g on the IEEE 802.15. 4. In this paper, we present a coexistence model of IEEE 802.15. 4 and IEEE 802.11 b/g, which exposes the interactive behavior between these two standards and therefore accurately explains their coexistence performance. The model focuses on two aspects, namely power and timing. These two aspects jointly impose different impacts on the performance of IEEE 802.15. 4 networks, depending on coexistence situations. To classify the coexistence situations, we introduce a concept of coexistence range, by extending the concept of sensing and interference ranges across different wireless standards. We characterize the coexistence behavior in each coexistence range and identify for each range the underlying coexistence mechanism and protocol interactions. Analytical models are proposed for the case of saturated traffic and simulation results are presented to validate the model.
Is the giant elliptical galaxy NGC 5018 a post-merger remnant?

NGC 5018, one of the weakest UV emitters among giant ellipticals (gE) observed with IUE, appears to consist of an optical stellar population very similar to that of the compact, dwarf elliptical M 32, which is several magnitudes fainter in luminosity than NGC 5018 and whose stellar population is known to be ∼3 Gyr old. Here we show that the mid-UV spectra of these two galaxies are also very similar down to an angular scale hundreds times smaller than the IUE large aperture (as probed by HST/FOS UV spectra obtained through 0.86 �� apertures). This implies a reasonably close match of the populations dominating their mid-UV light (namely, their main-sequence turnoff stars). These data indicate that NGC 5018 has, in its inner regions, a rather uniform dominance of a ∼3 Gyr-old stellar population, probably a bit different in metallicity from M 32. Combined with the various structures that indicate that NGC 5018 is the result of a recent major merger, it appears that almost all of stars we see in its center regions were formed about 3 Gyr ago, in that merger event. NGC 5018 is likely the older brother of NGC 7252, the canonical gE-in-formation merger. As such, NGC 5018 is perhaps the best galaxy which can tell us how a merger works, after the fireworks subside, to form a gE galaxy today. For this reason alone, the stellar populations in NGC 5018 at all radii are worth studying in detail.
Metaphoric Conceptualizations of Death in Gĩkũyũ

Using the dictum that metaphor is a conceptual mapping from a concrete source domain to an abstract target domain, this paper identifies and categorizes the metaphors of death in Gĩkũyũ using the Conceptual Metaphor Theory. To achieve this objective, a purposive sample of twenty speakers of Gĩkũyũ was interviewed. The study collected 47 metaphors of death as the target domain. Having employed the mnemonics “TARGET DOMAIN IS SOURCE DOMAIN” as posited by Lakoff and Johnson (1980), the study identified four conceptual metaphors of death in Gĩkũyũ as follows: DEATH IS A JOURNEY; DEATH IS THE END; DEATH IS A REST; and DEATH IS A SUMMON. The study concludes that the Cognitive linguistics model provides tools for understanding, interpreting and accounting for metaphors of death in Gĩkũyũ.
Stochastic linear quadratic control with regional pole placement

This paper is concerned with the state-feedback linear quadratic (LQ) control of stochastic systems with multiplicative noises constrained by regional pole placement. By using the Lagrange multiplier method, necessary conditions are presented to guarantee the existence of optimal controllers that satisfy α-stability (α, β)-stability in continuous-time case and α-stability in discrete-time case, respectively.
Disruption of experience-dependent synaptic modifications in striate cortex by infusion of an NMDA receptor antagonist

To assess the possibility that NMDA receptors play a special role in visual cortical plasticity, the selective antagonist 2-amino-5- phosphonovaleric acid (APV) was continuously infused into the striate cortex of kittens as the visual environment was manipulated during the critical period. The cortex was studied using single-unit recording from sites between 3 and 6 mm from the infusion cannulae. One week of D,L-APV infusion coincident with monocular deprivation or “reverse suture” produced a concentration-dependent increase in the percentage of neurons that (1) lacked normal orientation selectivity and (2) were responsive to stimulation of the deprived eye. These effects outlasted the presence of the drug in the tissue. APV treatment also prevented the acquisition of selectivity and visual responsiveness that normally results from monocular visual experience after dark-rearing. Lasting effects of chronic APV infusion were not observed in adult striate cortex. The effects of APV on kitten striate cortex depended on the presence of the D stereoisomer as infusion of L-APV was without effect. Estimates of extracellular concentration using 3H-APV indicated that significant effects could be obtained with concentrations as low as 20 microM D,L-APV. Recordings from units during infusion indicated that visual responses were reduced by APV. Nonetheless, a normal percentage of visually responsive neurons was found at sites greater than or equal to 3 mm from the infusion cannula. There was no evidence that chronic APV infusion affected the sampling frequency of recorded neurons or disrupted cytoarchitecture at the sites further than 3 mm from the infusion cannula. Taken together, the data indicate that the effects of APV on kitten striate cortex are likely due specifically to the blockade of NMDA receptors. These data are considered in relation to several hypotheses concerning the role of NMDA receptors in the experience-dependent development of striate cortex.