Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Failure of PCR to Detect Treponema pallidum ssp. pertenue DNA in Blood in Latent Yaws

Yaws, caused by Treponema pallidum ssp. pertenue, is a neglected tropical disease closely related to venereal syphilis and is targeted for eradication by 2020. Latent yaws represents a diagnostic challenge, and current tools cannot adequately distinguish between individuals with true latent infection and individuals who are serofast following successful treatment. PCR on blood has previously been shown to detect T. pallidum DNA in patients with syphilis, suggesting that this approach may be of value in yaws. We performed real-time PCR for Treponema pallidum ssp. pertenue on blood samples from 140 children with positive T. pallidum Particle Agglutination (TPPA) and Rapid Plasma Reagin (RPR) tests and 7 controls (negative serology), all collected as part of a prospective study of yaws in the Solomon Islands. All samples were also tested by a nested PCR for T. pallidum. 12 patients had clinical evidence of active yaws whilst 128 were considered to have latent yaws. 43 children had high titre rapid plasma reagins (RPRs) of ≥1:32. PCR testing with both assays gave negative results in all cases. It is possible that the failure to detect T. pallidum ssp. pertenue in blood reflects lower loads of organism in latent yaws compared to those in latent infection with T. pallidum ssp. pertenue, and/or a lower propensity for haematogenous dissemination in yaws than in syphilis. As the goal of the yaws control programme is eradication, a tool that can differentiate true latent infection from individuals who are serofast would be of value; however, PCR of blood is not that tool.
Looking in the mouth for Crohn's disease

Abstract: It is widely acknowledged among gastroenterologists that the oral cavity may be involved in Crohn's disease (CD). However, the specific manifestations are poorly appreciated. Although oral aphthous ulceration is probably not diagnostically useful in patients with suspected CD, disease‐specific manifestations do occur and are particularly common in children presenting with CD. These manifestations can be subtle, often are subclinical, yet commonly harbor diagnostically useful material (granulomas). Orofacial granulomatosis (OFG) is conventionally used to describe patients with overt oral disease without obvious involvement of the gastrointestinal tract. However, many patients with OFG have subclinical intestinal CD or will progress to develop overt intestinal CD with time. The management of severe oral disease is challenging and lacks a clear evidence base. Inflamm Bowel Dis 2009
A Comparative Analysis of Influenza Vaccination Programs

Background The threat of avian influenza and the 2004–2005 influenza vaccine supply shortage in the United States have sparked a debate about optimal vaccination strategies to reduce the burden of morbidity and mortality caused by the influenza virus. Methods and Findings We present a comparative analysis of two classes of suggested vaccination strategies: mortality-based strategies that target high-risk populations and morbidity-based strategies that target high-prevalence populations. Applying the methods of contact network epidemiology to a model of disease transmission in a large urban population, we assume that vaccine supplies are limited and then evaluate the efficacy of these strategies across a wide range of viral transmission rates and for two different age-specific mortality distributions. We find that the optimal strategy depends critically on the viral transmission level (reproductive rate) of the virus: morbidity-based strategies outperform mortality-based strategies for moderately transmissible strains, while the reverse is true for highly transmissible strains. These results hold for a range of mortality rates reported for prior influenza epidemics and pandemics. Furthermore, we show that vaccination delays and multiple introductions of disease into the community have a more detrimental impact on morbidity-based strategies than mortality-based strategies. Conclusions If public health officials have reasonable estimates of the viral transmission rate and the frequency of new introductions into the community prior to an outbreak, then these methods can guide the design of optimal vaccination priorities. When such information is unreliable or not available, as is often the case, this study recommends mortality-based vaccination priorities.
Voltage-clamp frequency domain analysis of NMDA-activated neurons.

1. Voltage and current-clamp steps were added to a sum of sine waves to measure the tetrodotoxin-insensitive membrane properties of neurons in the intact lamprey spinal cord. A systems analysis in the frequency domain was carried out on two types of cells that have very different morphologies in order to investigate the structural dependence of their electrophysiological properties. The method explicitly takes into account the geometrical shapes of (i) nearly spherical dorsal cells with one or two processes and (ii) motoneurons and interneurons that have branched dendritic structures. Impedance functions were analysed to obtain the cable properties of these in situ neurons. These measurements show that branched neurons are not isopotential and, therefore, a conventional voltage-clamp analysis is not valid. 2. The electrophysiological data from branched neurons were curve-fitted with a lumped soma-equivalent cylinder model consisting of eight equal compartments coupled to an isopotential cell body to obtain membrane parameters for both passive and active properties. The analysis provides a quantitative description of both the passive electrical properties imposed by the geometrical structure of neurons and the voltage-dependent ionic conductances determined by ion channel kinetics. The model fitting of dorsal cells was dominated by a one-compartment resistance and capacitance in parallel (RC) corresponding to the spherical, non-branched shape of these cells. Branched neurons required a model that contained both an RC compartment and a cable that reflected the structure of the cells. At rest, the electrotonic length of the cable was about two. Uniformly distributed voltage-dependent ionic conductance sites were adequate to describe the data at different membrane potentials. 3. The frequency domain admittance method in conjunction with a step voltage clamp was used to control and measure the oscillatory behavior induced by N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) on lamprey spinal cord neurons. Voltage-clamp currents and impedance functions were measured at different membrane potentials. The impedance functions had a voltage-dependent resonance and phase shift characteristic of a negative conductance. These measurements provide a quantitative analysis of the conductances induced by NMDA in central neurons of the lamprey spinal cord and directly establish the basis of the non-linear oscillatory behavior previously observed in the presence of NMDA. NMDA was shown specifically to activate a negative and a positive conductance, both of which were markedly affected by the membrane potential. It is shown that the net current in the presence of NMDA must be considered as the algebraic sum of currents in opposite directions. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
Spatial Sorting

We investigate the role of skill complementarities in production and mobility across cities. The nature of the complementarities determines the equilibrium skill distribution across cities. With extreme-skill complementarity, the skill distribution has thicker tails in large cities; with top-skill complementarity, there is first-order stochastic dominance. Using wage and housing price data, we find robust evidence of thick tails in large cities: large cities disproportionately attract both high- and low-skilled workers, while average skills are constant across city size. This pattern of spatial sorting is consistent with extreme-skill complementarity, where the productivity of high-skilled workers and of the providers of low-skilled services are mutually enhanced.
Effect of continuous versus episodic amiodarone treatment on quality of life in persistent atrial fibrillation.

AIMS Amiodarone is associated with significant adverse effects. We hypothesized that episodic amiodarone treatment would be associated with better quality of life (QoL) compared with continuous treatment in the prevention of recurrent atrial fibrillation (AF). METHODS AND RESULTS Quality of life was assessed in 158 patients from the Continuous vs. Episodic Prophylactic Treatment with Amiodarone for the Prevention of AF (CONVERT) study, using the Short Form (SF)-36 health survey and University of Toronto AF Severity Scale (AF severity scale) questionnaires at baseline and 1 year. The episodic group received amiodarone 1 month peri-cardioversion, the continuous group continued amiodarone. Patients were assessed for major adverse events and maintenance of sinus rhythm during follow-up (i.e. no AF recurrences at every follow-up visit). Quality of life (assessed by SF-36 and AF severity scale) was comparable between both treatment groups at baseline and 12 months, with similar incidence rates of major adverse events. Fewer patients in the episodic group had maintenance of sinus rhythm during follow-up [27 (36%) vs. 49 (59%), P = 0.004]. In the episodic group, maintenance of sinus rhythm was associated with a significant improvement on four SF-36 subscales and AF severity scale at 12 months. In contrast, in the continuous group no significant differences in QoL were seen between patients with continued maintenance of sinus rhythm compared with those with AF recurrence at the end of follow-up. CONCLUSION Quality of life was comparable in the episodic and continuous treated group after 12 months of follow-up. Continued maintenance of sinus rhythm was associated with an improvement in QoL in the episodic but not the continuous treated group.
Preparation of organoclay, its copolymerization with MMA, and use to produce PVC nanocomposites

Two quaternary ammonium compounds with polymerizable vinyl group were designed and synthesized for use as clay modifiers. Copolymerization of quaternary ammonium compounds modified MMT platelets with methyl methacrylate was studied under a range of different reaction conditions and two kinds of polymeric surfactant-modified MMTs were prepared. These polymeric surfactant-modified MMTs were introduced to produce a series of PVC/MMT composites by melt compounding. XRD, TEM, and TGA confirmed that the better organic coverage of the platelets and the bigger interlayer spacing could be obtained for the copolymer of long-chain quaternary ammonium compounds modified MMT and methyl methacrylate (PMMA-H-MMT). The platelet fillers with better organic coverage represented much more useful functional fillers than the conventional ammonium-treated fillers due to their potential to exfoliate to a greater extent when melt-compounded with the PVC matrices. The experiment proved that PMMA-H-MMT shows better performance in increasing thermal stability of PVC/MMT composites.
Comorbid conditions associated with Parkinson's disease: A population‐based study

The burden of comorbidity in Parkinson's disease (PD) remains unclear. All Olmsted County, Minnesota, residents with incident PD in 1976–1995 (n = 197) plus one age‐ and sex‐matched non‐PD referent subject per case were followed for all clinical diagnoses from 5 years before through 15 years after index (i.e., year of PD onset for each case and same year for the referent subject). Both members of a case–referent pair were censored at death or emigration of either member to ensure equivalent follow‐up. Cases and referent subjects were compared for summary comorbidity (Charlson index) and for the likelihood of having one or more diagnoses within each International Classification of Diseases chapter/subchapter. Before index, the groups were similar for all comparisons. After index, cases had a higher likelihood of diagnoses within the chapters “Mental Disorders” and “Diseases of the Genitourinary System,” and within the subchapters “Organic Psychotic Conditions,” “Other Psychoses,” “Neurotic/Personality/Other Nonpsychotic Disorders,” “Hereditary/Degenerative Diseases of Central Nervous System,” “Symptoms,” “Other Diseases of Digestive System,” “Other Diseases of Urinary System,” “Diseases of Veins/Lymphatics/Other Circulatory System Diseases,” “Fractures of Lower Limb,” “Other Diseases of Skin/Subcutaneous Tissue,” “Osteopathies/Chrondropathies/Acquired Musculoskeletal Deformities,” and “Pneumonia and Influenza. ” The excess morbidity and mortality observed for persons with PD are consistent with recognized PD sequelae. © 2005 Movement Disorder Society
A Graph-Based Framework for Composition of Stateless Web Services

During the past few years, Web services composition has been one of the ongoing research activities in the software engineering area. It is simply defined as finding a composition of available Web services that provides a requested behavior. In this paper, we study this problem for stateless Web services; i.e., Web services with a two-step workflow: receiving some inputs and returning some outputs as the result. Using a graph model we represent the behavior of available Web services in terms of their input-output information, as well as semantic information about the Web data. We also introduce a process algebra to specify the behavior of composite Web services based on the behavior of simpler ones. Using the graph and the process algebra, we explain how to find useful Web services for a request and how to compose them to obtain the expected behavior. We discuss the complexity of this approach and show that although it is a naturally complex process, by applying some simplifications, a reasonable overall complexity can be achieved
Is Information Technology Solely to Blame? The Influence of Work-home Conflict Dimensions on Work Exhaustion

Using information technology (IT) can blur the boundaries between work and private life and contribute to an IT-based work-home conflict (WHC). Organizations and governments treat IT usage as the main source of WHC and have implemented laws and policies to restrict access to IT to reduce WHC. In this paper, we investigate the effect of IT usage-related and work-based dimensions of WHC: time, strain, and behavior-based WHC. Understanding the dimensions of WHC can help organizations and governments move beyond IS usage restrictions to identify and prevent the negative consequences of each dimension for employees, such as work exhaustion. We distinguish IT-from work-based dimensions and theorize their effect on work exhaustion. The results of a study of 542 employees show that the IT-based dimension of WHC only indirectly influences work exhaustion, whereas time-and strain-based WHC contribute significantly and directly to work exhaustion. Implications for research and practice are suggested.
Silicon reduces impact of plant nitrogen in promoting stalk borer (Eldana saccharina) but not sugarcane thrips (Fulmekiola serrata) infestations in sugarcane

The stalk borer Eldana saccharina Walker (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae) is a major limiting factor in South African sugarcane production, while yield is also reduced by sugarcane thrips Fulmekiola serrata Kobus (Thysanoptera: Thripidae). Borer management options include appropriate nitrogen (N) and enhanced silicon (Si) nutrition; the effect of N on sugarcane thrips is unknown. We tested the effects of these nutrients, in combination with resistant (N33) and susceptible (N27) sugarcane cultivars, on E. saccharina and F. serrata infestation. Two pot trials with three levels of N (60, 120, and 180 kg ha-1) and two levels each of calcium silicate and dolomitic lime (5 and 10 t ha-1) were naturally infested with thrips, then artificially water stressed and infested with borer. Higher N levels increased borer survival and stalk damage, while Si reduced these compared with controls. Silicon significantly reduced stalk damage in N27 but not in N33; hence, Si provided relatively greater protection for susceptible cultivars than for resistant ones. High N treatments were associated with greater thrips numbers, while Si treatments did not significantly influence thrips infestation. The reduction in borer survival and stalk damage by Si application at all N rates indicates that under field conditions, the opportunity exists for optimizing sugarcane yields through maintaining adequate N nutrition, while reducing populations of E. saccharina using integrated pest management (IPM) tactics that include improved Si nutrition of the crop and reduced plant water stress. Improved management of N nutrition may also provide an option for thrips IPM. The contrasting effects of Si on stalk borer and thrips indicate that Si-mediated resistance to insect herbivores in sugarcane has mechanical and biochemical components that are well developed in the stalk tissues targeted by E. saccharina but poorly developed in the young leaf spindles where F. serrata occurs.
Adaptive Cross-Device Gait Recognition Using a Mobile Accelerometer

Mobile authentication/identification has grown into a priority issue nowadays because of its existing outdated mechanisms, such as PINs or passwords. In this paper, we introduce gait recognition by using a mobile accelerometer as not only effective but also as an implicit identification model. Unlike previous works, the gait recognition only performs well with a particular mobile specification (e.g., a fixed sampling rate). Our work focuses on constructing a unique adaptive mechanism that could be independently deployed with the specification of mobile devices. To do this, the impact of the sampling rate on the preprocessing steps, such as noise elimination, data segmentation, and feature extraction, is examined in depth. Moreover, the degrees of agreement between the gait features that were extracted from two different mobiles, including both the Average Error Rate (AER) and Intra-class Correlation Coefficients (ICC), are assessed to evaluate the possibility of constructing a device-independent mechanism. We achieved the classification accuracy approximately for both devices, which showed that it is feasible and reliable to construct adaptive cross-device gait recognition on a mobile phone.
How do Humans Evaluate Machine Translation

In this paper, we take a closer look at the MT evaluation process from a glass-box perspective using eye-tracking. We analyze two aspects of the evaluation task ‐ the background of evaluators (monolingual or bilingual) and the sources of information available, and we evaluate them using time and consistency as criteria. Our findings show that monolinguals are slower but more consistent than bilinguals, especially when only target language information is available. When exposed to various sources of information, evaluators in general take more time and in the case of monolinguals, there is a drop in consistency. Our findings suggest that to have consistent and cost effective MT evaluations, it is better to use monolinguals with only target language information.
More Than Meets the Eye: The Merging of Perceptual and Conceptual Knowledge in the Anterior Temporal Face Area

An emerging body of research has supported the existence of a small face sensitive region in the ventral anterior temporal lobe (ATL), referred to here as the “anterior temporal face area”. The contribution of this region in the greater face-processing network remains poorly understood. The goal of the present study was to test the relative sensitivity of this region to perceptual as well as conceptual information about people and objects. We contrasted the sensitivity of this region to that of two highly-studied face-sensitive regions, the fusiform face area (FFA) and the occipital face area (OFA), as well as a control region in early visual cortex (EVC). Our findings revealed that multivoxel activity patterns in the anterior temporal face area contain information about facial identity, as well as conceptual attributes such as one’s occupation. The sensitivity of this region to the conceptual attributes of people was greater than that of posterior face processing regions. In addition, the anterior temporal face area overlaps with voxels that contain information about the conceptual attributes of concrete objects, supporting a generalized role of the ventral ATLs in the identification and conceptual processing of multiple stimulus classes.
Healthcare-associated pneumonia: principles and emerging concepts on management

Healthcare-associated pneumonia (HCAP) is a relatively new entity that includes pneumonia occurring in healthcare settings other than acute-care hospitals. Many patients with HCAP are at greater risk for colonization and infection with multi-drug resistant (MDR) bacteria such as Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Gram-negative bacilli-producing extended-spectrum β-lactamases and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. Infections with these MDR pathogens require different empiric antibiotic therapy. To avoid initiation of inappropriate antibiotic therapy that may result in poorer patient outcomes, new principles for HCAP management were outlined in the 2005 American Thoracic Society and Infectious Diseases Society of America guidelines. These guidelines were suggested for patients assessed in acute-care hospitals and clinics, and may not be applicable for all patients with suspected HCAP in nursing homes and other long-term care settings. This review article addresses HCAP management strategies in both clinical settings.
Intrathecal release of pro‐ and anti‐inflammatory cytokines during stroke

A growing body of evidence points out the potential role of inflammatory mechanisms in the pathophysiology of ischaemic brain damage. We have recently demonstrated that stroke patients display an intrathecal production of proinflammatory cytokines, such as IL‐1β and IL‐6 already within the first 24 h after the beginning of symptoms (Tarkowski et al., 1995). The aim of the present study was to investigate patterns of local inflammatory responses as a consequence of acute stroke. Thirty stroke patients were studied prospectively on days 0–3, 7–9, 21–26 and after day 90 with clinical evaluations, radiological assessments and analysis of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) cytokine levels. In addition, 15 healthy control CSF samples were used. Significantly increased CSF levels of IL‐8, granulocyte‐macrophage colony‐stimulating factor (GM‐CSF) and IL‐10 were observed early during the stroke with a peak on day 2 for the proinflammatory cytokines IL‐8 and GM‐CSF, and on day 3 for the immunoregulatory cytokine IL‐10. Patients with a brain infarct predominantly located in the white matter showed significantly higher levels of IL‐8 in CSF than patients with an infarct mainly located in the grey matter. Also, high levels of intrathecal tumour necrosis factor‐alpha (TNF‐α) were associated with the presence of white matter disease. Our study demonstrates an intrathecal production of proinflammatory and immunoregulatory cytokines in patients with stroke, supporting the notion of localized immune response to the acute brain lesion. A better understanding of the inflammatory response in stroke may lead to new treatment strategies.