Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Non-fatal injuries resulting in activity limitations in Estonia—risk factors and association with the incidence of chronic conditions and quality of life: a retrospective study among the population aged 20–79

Objectives Evidence about the health and quality-of-life outcomes of injuries is obtained mainly from follow-up studies of surviving trauma patients; population-based studies are rarer, in particular for countries in Eastern Europe. This study examines the incidence, prevalence and social variation in non-fatal injuries resulting in activity limitations and outcomes of injuries in Estonia. Design A retrospective population-based study. Setting Estonia. Participants 7855 respondents of the face-to-face interviews of the second round of the Estonian Family and Fertility Survey conducted between 2004 and 2005 based on the nationally representative probability sample (n=11 192) of the resident population of Estonia aged 20–79. Primary and secondary outcome measures The cumulative incidence and prevalence of injuries leading to activity limitations was estimated. Survival models were applied to analyse variations in the injury risk across sociodemographic groups. The association between injuries and the development of chronic conditions and quality of life was examined using survival and logistic regression models. Results 10% (95% CI 9.4 to 10.7) of the population aged 20–79 had experienced injuries leading to activity limitations; the prevalence of activity limitations due to injuries was 4.4% (95% CI 3.9% to 4.9%). Significant differences in injury risk were associated with gender, education, employment, marital status and nativity. Limiting injury was associated with a doubling of the likelihood of having chronic conditions (adjusted HR 1.97, 95% CI 1.58 to 2.46). Injury exhibited a statistically significant negative association with most quality-of-life measures. Although reduced, these effects persisted after recovery from activity limitations. Conclusions Substantial variation in injury risk across population groups suggests potential for prevention. Men and workers in manual occupations constitute major target groups for injury prevention in Estonia. The association of injury with the development of chronic conditions and reduced quality of life warrants further investigation.
Risk factors for “late-to-test” HIV diagnosis in Riverside County, California

AbstractPatients diagnosed late in the course of HIV infection are at an increased risk of negative health outcomes and are more likely to transmit HIV to others. Using the CDC's definition for AIDS, we analyzed case report data from persons diagnosed with AIDS within 12 months of an HIV diagnosis (“late-to-test”) in Riverside County, CA, between 2009 and 2014. Of 1385 HIV cases, 422 (30.5%) were late-to-test. Factors associated with late-to-test were: having no insurance (P = 0.005), being Hispanic (P = 0.002) and being between 45 and 64 years of age (P < 0.001). Females (P = 0.013) and those in the eastern region of Riverside County (P = 0.002) were less likely to be late-to-test. In the absence of universal HIV testing, interventions to decrease late testing are needed.
Paying Refugees to Leave

States are increasingly paying refugees to repatriate, hoping to decrease the number of refugees residing within their borders. Drawing on in-depth interviews from East Africa and data from Israeli Labour Statistics, I provide a description of such payment schemes and consider whether they are morally permissible. In doing so, I address two types of cases. In the first type of case, governments pay refugees to repatriate to high-risk countries, never coercing them into returning. I argue that such payments are permissible if refugees’ choices are voluntary and if states allow refugees to return to the host country in the event of an emergency. I then describe cases where states detain refugees, and non-governmental organisations provide their own payments to refugees wishing to repatriate. In such cases, non-governmental organisations are only permitted to provide payments if the funds are sufficient to ensure post-return safety and if providing payments does not reinforce the government’s detention policy.
Algebraic Quantum Field Theory: A Status Report

Algebraic quantum field theory is an approach to relativistic quantum physics, notably the theory of elementary particles, which complements other modern developments in this field. It is particularly powerful for structural analysis but has also proven to be useful in the rigorous treatment of models. In this contribution a non-technical survey is given with emphasis on interesting recent developments and future perspectives. Topics covered are the relation between the algebraic approach and conventional quantum field theory, its significance for the resolution of conceptual problems (such as the revision of the particle concept) and its role in the characterization and possibly also construction of quantum field theories with the help of modular theory. The algebraic approach has also shed new light on the treatment of quantum field theories on curved spacetime and made contact with recent developments in string theory (algebraic holography).
A novel autosomal recessive TERT T1129P mutation in a dyskeratosis congenita family leads to cellular senescence and loss of CD34+ hematopoietic stem cells not reversible by mTOR-inhibition

The TERT gene encodes for the reverse transcriptase activity of the telomerase complex and mutations in TERT can lead to dysfunctional telomerase activity resulting in diseases such as dyskeratosis congenita (DKC). Here, we describe a novel TERT mutation at position T1129P leading to DKC with progressive bone marrow (BM) failure in homozygous members of a consanguineous family. BM hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) of an affected family member were 300-fold reduced associated with a significantly impaired colony forming capacity in vitro and impaired repopulation activity in mouse xenografts. Recent data in yeast suggested improved cellular checkpoint controls by mTOR inhibition preventing cells with short telomeres or DNA damage from dividing. To evaluate a potential therapeutic option for the patient, we treated her primary skin fibroblasts and BM HSCs with the mTOR inhibitor rapamycin. This led to prolonged survival and decreased levels of senescence in T1129P mutant fibroblasts. In contrast, the impaired HSC function could not be improved by mTOR inhibition, as colony forming capacity and multilineage engraftment potential in xenotransplanted mice remained severely impaired. Thus, rapamycin treatment did not rescue the compromised stem cell function of TERTT1129P mutant patient HSCs and outlines limitations of a potential DKC therapy based on rapamycin.
Ecological speciation in the tropics: insights from comparative genetic studies in Amazonia

Evolution creates and sustains biodiversity via adaptive changes in ecologically relevant traits. Ecologically mediated selection contributes to genetic divergence both in the presence or absence of geographic isolation between populations, and is considered an important driver of speciation. Indeed, the genetics of ecological speciation is becoming increasingly studied across a variety of taxa and environments. In this paper we review the literature of ecological speciation in the tropics. We report on low research productivity in tropical ecosystems and discuss reasons accounting for the rarity of studies. We argue for research programs that simultaneously address biogeographical and taxonomic questions in the tropics, while effectively assessing relationships between reproductive isolation and ecological divergence. To contribute toward this goal, we propose a new framework for ecological speciation that integrates information from phylogenetics, phylogeography, population genomics, and simulations in evolutionary landscape genetics (ELG). We introduce components of the framework, describe ELG simulations (a largely unexplored approach in ecological speciation), and discuss design and experimental feasibility within the context of tropical research. We then use published genetic datasets from populations of five codistributed Amazonian fish species to assess the performance of the framework in studies of tropical speciation. We suggest that these approaches can assist in distinguishing the relative contribution of natural selection from biogeographic history in the origin of biodiversity, even in complex ecosystems such as Amazonia. We also discuss on how to assess ecological speciation using ELG simulations that include selection. These integrative frameworks have considerable potential to enhance conservation management in biodiversity rich ecosystems and to complement historical biogeographic and evolutionary studies of tropical biotas.
Priority-based adaptive rate control for wireless sensor networks

In many real world environment, a wireless sensor node may have to gather different types of data obtained from a variety of sensors. Each of the data may have different priorities to be processed. Often, real time traffic could be one of the data to be handeled by the sensor node and to be successfully transmitted to the sink node. Therefore, rate control in wireless sensor node (WSN) plays a pivotal role. In this paper, we present a priority based rate control algorithm to take care of different data. The input traffic consists of real time as well as non-real time traffic data. The performance of the algorithms has been found to be superior to the algorithm proposed by Yaghmaee et al. with respect to throughput, delay, and loss.
Why Weight ? A Cluster-Theoretic Approach to Political Districting

Political districting has been one of the most contentious issues within American politics over the last two centuries. Since the landmark case of Baker v. Carr, in which the United States Supreme Court ruled that the constitutionality of a state’s legislated districting is within the jurisdiction of a federal court, many within academia have attempted to produce a rigorous system for determining a set of districts for a given state. In this paper, we attempt to improve upon these past efforts. We propose both a modified form of classical K-means clustering and an interesting algorithm called the shortest-splitline algorithm to accomplish impartial redistricting. As an example, we apply our methods to redistricting the state of New York, and, as further examples, to Texas and Colorado. Both methods use only population density data and state boundaries as inputs and run in a feasible amount of time. Our criteria for successful redistricting include contiguity, compactness, and sufficiently uniform population. The K-means method produces districts similar to convex polygons and the splitline method guarantees that the resulting districts have piecewise linear boundaries. The K-means method has the advantage of allowing seeding of the district centers. The centers of the generated districts then roughly correlate to the existing districts, by proper seeding, but the resulting boundaries are vastly simpler.
Sindbis virus expression vectors: packaging of RNA replicons by using defective helper RNAs

Since the recovery of infectious RNA transcripts from full-length cDNA clones, alphavirus genome RNAs have been engineered to allow expression of heterologous RNAs and proteins. The highest levels of expression of heterologous products are achieved when the viral structural genes are replaced by the heterologous coding sequences. Such recombinant RNAs are self-replicating (replicons) and can be introduced into cells as naked RNA, but they require trans complementation to be packaged and released from cells as infectious virion particles. In this report, we describe a series of defective Sindbis virus helper RNAs which can be used for packaging Sindbis virus RNA replicons. The defective helper RNAs contain the cis-acting sequences required for replication as well as the subgenomic RNA promoter which drives expression of the structural protein genes. In cells cotransfected with both the replicon and defective helper RNAs, viral nonstructural proteins translated from the replicon RNA allow replication and transcription of the defective helper RNA to produce the virion structural proteins. A series of defective helper RNAs were compared for the ability to package the replicon RNA as well as for the ability to be replicated and packaged. One defective helper RNA not only packaged the replicon but also was itself encapsidated and would be useful under conditions in which extensive amplification is advantageous. Other defective helper RNAs were able to package the replicon efficiently but were packaged very poorly themselves. These helpers should be useful for applications in which expression of the viral structural proteins or virus spread is not desired.
Here be dragons? The perils and promises of inter-resource lexical-semantic mapping

Lexical-semantic knowledges sources are a stock item in the language technologist’s toolbox, having proved their practical worth in many and diverse natural language processing (NLP) applications. In linguistics, lexical semantics comes in many flavors, but in the NLP world, wordnets reign more or less supreme. There has been some promising work utilizing Roget-style thesauruses instead, but wider experimentation is hampered by the limited availability of such resources. The work presented here is a first step in the direction of creating a freely available Roget-style lexical resource for modern Swedish. Here, we explore methods for automatic disambiguation of interresource mappings with the longer-term goal of utilizing similar techniques for automatic enrichment of lexical-semantic resources.
Canopy radiation‐ and water‐use efficiencies as affected by elevated [CO2]

This study used an environmentally controlled plant growth facility, EcoCELLs, to measure canopy gas exchanges directly and to examine the effects of elevated [CO2] on canopy radiation‐ and water‐use efficiencies. Sunflowers (Helianthus annus var. Mammoth) were grown at ambient (399 μmol mol−1) and elevated [CO2] (746 μmol mol−1) for 53 days in EcoCELLs. Whole canopy carbon‐ and water‐fluxes were measured continuously during the period of the experiment. The results indicated that elevated [CO2] enhanced daily total canopy carbon‐ and water‐fluxes by 53% and 11%, respectively, on a ground‐area basis, resulting in a 54% increase in radiation‐use efficiency (RUE) based on intercepted photosynthetic active radiation and a 26% increase in water‐use efficiency (WUE) by the end of the experiment. Canopy carbon‐ and water‐fluxes at both CO2 treatments varied with canopy development. They were small at 22 days after planting (DAP) and gradually increased to the maxima at 46 DAP. When canopy carbon‐ and water‐fluxes were expressed on a leaf‐area basis, no effect of CO2 was found for canopy water‐flux while elevated [CO2] still enhanced canopy carbon‐flux by 29%, on average. Night‐time canopy carbon‐flux was 32% higher at elevated than at ambient [CO2]. In addition, RUE and WUE displayed strong diurnal variations, high at noon and low in the morning or afternoon for WUE but opposite for RUE. This study provided direct evidence that plant canopy may consume more, instead of less, water but utilize both water and radiation more efficiently at elevated than at ambient [CO2], at least during the exponential growth period as illustrated in this experiment.
Rapid scale-up of antiretroviral therapy at primary care sites in Zambia: feasibility and early outcomes.

CONTEXT The Zambian Ministry of Health has scaled-up human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) care and treatment services at primary care clinics in Lusaka, using predominately nonphysician clinicians. OBJECTIVE To report on the feasibility and early outcomes of the program. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PATIENTS Open cohort evaluation of antiretroviral-naive adults treated at 18 primary care facilities between April 26, 2004, and November 5, 2005. Data were entered in real time into an electronic patient tracking system. INTERVENTION Those meeting criteria for antiretroviral therapy (ART) received drugs according to Zambian national guidelines. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Survival, regimen failure rates, and CD4 cell response. RESULTS We enrolled 21,755 adults into HIV care, and 16,198 (75%) started ART. Among those starting ART, 9864 (61%) were women. Of 15,866 patients with documented World Health Organization (WHO) staging, 11,573 (73%) were stage III or IV, and the mean (SD) entry CD4 cell count among the 15,336 patients with a baseline result was 143/microL (123/microL). Of 1142 patients receiving ART who died, 1120 had a reliable date of death. Of these patients, 792 (71%) died within 90 days of starting therapy (early mortality rate: 26 per 100 patient-years), and 328 (29%) died after 90 days (post-90-day mortality rate: 5.0 per 100 patient-years). In multivariable analysis, mortality was strongly associated with CD4 cell count between 50/microL and 199/microL (adjusted hazard ratio [AHR], 1.4; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.0-2.0), CD4 cell count less than 50/microL (AHR, 2.2; 95% CI, 1.5-3.1), WHO stage III disease (AHR, 1.8; 95% CI, 1.3-2.4), WHO stage IV disease (AHR, 2.9; 95% CI, 2.0-4.3), low body mass index (<16; AHR,2.4; 95% CI, 1.8-3.2), severe anemia (<8.0 g/dL; AHR, 3.1; 95% CI, 2.3-4.0), and poor adherence to therapy (AHR, 2.9; 95% CI, 2.2-3.9). Of 11,714 patients at risk, 861 failed therapy by clinical criteria (rate, 13 per 100 patient-years). The mean (SD) CD4 cell count increase was 175/microL (174/microL) in 1361 of 1519 patients (90%) receiving treatment long enough to have a 12-month repeat. CONCLUSION Massive scale-up of HIV and AIDS treatment services with good clinical outcomes is feasible in primary care settings in sub-Saharan Africa. Most mortality occurs early, suggesting that earlier diagnosis and treatment may improve outcomes.
An Integrated Approach to Thermal Management in High-Level Synthesis

Thermal effects are becoming an important factor in the design of integrated circuits due to the adverse impact of temperature on performance, reliability, leakage, and chip packaging costs. Making all phases of the design flow aware of this physical phenomenon helps in reaching faster design closure. In this paper, we present an integrated approach to thermal management in architectural synthesis. Our synthesis flow combines temperature-aware scheduling and binding based on feedback from thermal simulation. We show that our flow is effective in preventing hotspot formation and creating an even thermal profile of the resources. Our integrated thermal management technique on average reduces the peak temperature of the resources by 7.34 degC when compared to a thermal unaware flow without increasing the number of resources across our set of benchmarks
Submillimeter Evidence for the Coeval Growth of Massive Black Holes and Galaxy Bulges

The correlation, found in nearby galaxies, between black hole mass and stellar bulge mass implies that the formation of these two components must be related. Here we report submillimeter photometry of eight x-ray–absorbed active galactic nuclei that have luminosities and redshifts characteristic of the sources that produce the bulk of the accretion luminosity in the universe. The four sources with the highest redshifts are detected at 850 micrometers, with flux densities between 5.9 and 10.1 millijanskies, and hence are ultraluminous infrared galaxies. If the emission is from dust heated by starbursts, then the majority of stars in spheroids were formed at the same time as their central black holes built up most of their mass by accretion. This would account for the observed demography of massive black holes in the local universe. The skewed rate of submillimeter detection with redshift is consistent with a high redshift epoch of star formation in radio-quiet active galactic nuclei, similar to that seen in radio galaxies.
Image Denoising with Modified Wavelet Feature Restoration

Image denoising is the principle problem of image restoration and many scholars have been devoted to this area and proposed lots of methods. In this paper we propose modified feature restoration algorithm based on threshold and neighbor technique which gives better result for all types of noise. Because of some limits of conventional methods in image denoising, several drawbacks are seen in the conventional methods such as
A topological shooting method and the existence of kinks of the extended Fisher-Kolmogorov equation

For γ = 0 this equation reduces to the famous Fisher–Kolmogorov equation. For γ > 0 this fourth order diffusion equation has often been referred to as the Extended Fisher–Kolmogorov equation [DS] and has served as a model equation for the study of bi-stable systems arising in a variety of situations in physics [CER, CH, DS, HLS], such as second order phase transitions (Lifschitz points [Z]). The term “bi-stable” refers here to the fact that the uniform states u = ±1 are stable as solutions of the related equation
Predictors of depression for the male partner following miscarriage

Masters Research - Master of Clinical Psychology (MCIPsych)%%%%An abundance of research indicates that following miscarriage, both male and female partners can experience a grief reaction, similar in intensity to that which is felt following the loss of a loved one. There is less consideration of the possibility that miscarriage is a form of bereavement, with the potential to elicit complicated, long term grief that is associated with depression in both partners. This review evaluates the literature which indicates that expectant mothers and fathers become attached to the unborn foetus and argues that the strength of this emotional attachment may help explain why the loss of an unborn foetus can be so significant for the potential parents and can be included as an example of bereavement. Nevertheless, the literature on bereavement appears to have largely ignored miscarriage. Yet it is an experience of loss that shares risk factors, consistently associated with complicated grief reactions to bereavement including; being sudden and unexpected, involving the loss of a child (even if imagined) and a lack of social support. Despite this, the incidence of longer term psychological morbidity following miscarriage in either partner but particularly for males, has received scant attention. There is some evidence to suggest that a small group of males do experience depression and associated physical health problems. If this group of at risk males could be identified at an early stage, they may benefit from intervention and support. To that end, theories will be evaluated which suggest that moderating factors of this more complicated reaction in males may include; less active grief following miscarriage, higher levels of despair following miscarriage and a grief reaction that is incongruent with that of the female partner.