Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effectiveness of chlamydia screening: systematic review.

BACKGROUND Screening programmes are promoted to control transmission of and prevent female reproductive tract morbidity caused by genital chlamydia. The objective of this study was to examine the effectiveness of register-based and opportunistic chlamydia screening interventions. METHODS We searched seven electronic databases (Cinahl, Cochrane Controlled Trials Register, DARE, Embase, Medline, PsycINFO and SIGLE) without language restrictions from January 1990 to October 2007 and reference lists of retrieved articles to identify studies published before 1990. We included studies examining primary outcomes (pelvic inflammatory disease, ectopic pregnancy, infertility, adverse pregnancy outcomes, neonatal infection, chlamydia prevalence) and harms of chlamydia screening in men and non-pregnant and pregnant women. We extracted data in duplicate and synthesized the data narratively or used random effects meta-analysis, where appropriate. RESULTS We included six systematic reviews, five randomized trials, one non-randomized comparative study and one time trend study. Five reviews recommended screening of women at high risk of chlamydia. Two randomized trials found that register-based screening of women at high risk of chlamydia and of female and male high school students reduced the incidence of pelvic inflammatory disease in women at 1 year. Methodological inadequacies could have overestimated the observed benefits. One randomized trial showed that opportunistic screening in women undergoing surgical termination of pregnancy reduced post-abortal rates of pelvic inflammatory disease compared with no screening. We found no randomized trials showing a benefit of opportunistic screening in other populations, no trial examining the effects of more than one screening round and no trials examining the harms of chlamydia screening. CONCLUSION There is an absence of evidence supporting opportunistic chlamydia screening in the general population younger than 25 years, the most commonly recommended approach. Equipoise remains, so high-quality randomized trials of multiple rounds of screening with biological outcome measures are still needed to determine the balance of benefits and harms of chlamydia screening.
Systematic review of studies of patient satisfaction with telemedicine

Abstract Objective: To review research into patient satisfaction with teleconsultation, specifically clinical consultations between healthcare providers and patients involving real time interactive video. Design: Systematic review of telemedicine satisfaction studies. Electronic databases searched include Medline, Embase, Science Citation Index, Social Sciences Citation Index, Arts and Humanities Citation Index, and the TIE (Telemedicine Information Exchange) database. Subjects: Studies conducted worldwide and published between 1966 and 1998. Main outcome measures: Quality of evidence about patient satisfaction. Results: 32 studies were identified. Study methods used were simple survey instruments (26 studies), exact methods not specified (5), and qualitative methods (1). Study designs were randomised controlled trial (1 trial); random patient selection (2); case-control (1); and selection criteria not specified or participants represented consecutive referrals, convenience samples, or volunteers (28). Sample sizes were20 (10 trials),100 (14), >100 (7), and not specified (1). All studies reported good levels of patient satisfaction. Qualitative analysis revealed methodological problems with all the published work. Even so, important issues were highlighted that merit further investigation. There is a paucity of data examining patients' perceptions or the effects of this mode of healthcare delivery on the interaction between providers and clients. Conclusions: Methodological deficiencies (low sample sizes, context, and study designs) of the published research limit the generalisability of the findings. The studies suggest that teleconsultation is acceptable to patients in a variety of circumstances, but issues relating to patient satisfaction require further exploration from the perspective of both clients and providers.
How do you defend a network

Modern economies rely heavily on their infrastructure networks. These networks face threats ranging from natural disasters to human attacks. As networks are pervasive, the investments needed to protect them are very large; this motivates the study of targeted defence. What are the ‘key’ nodes to defend to maximize functionality of the network? What are the incentives of individual nodes to protect themselves in a networked environment and how do these incentives correspond to collective welfare? We provide a characterization of equilibrium attack and defence in terms of two classical concepts in graph theory – separators and transversals. We use this characterization to study the intensity of conflict (the resources spent on attack and defence) and the prospects of active conflict (when both adversary and defender target nodes for action) in networks. Finally, we show that welfare costs of decentralized defence can be very large
The iPad as a Research Tool for the Understanding of English Plurals by English, Chinese, and Other L1 Speaking 3- and 4-Year-Olds

Learning about what young children with limited spoken language know about the grammar of their language is extremely challenging. Researchers have traditionally used looking behavior as a measure of language processing and to infer what overt choices children might make. However, these methods are expensive to setup, require specialized training, are time intensive for data analysis and can have considerable dropout rates. For these reasons, we have developed a forced choice task delivered on an iPad based on our eye-tracking studies with English monolinguals (Davies et al., 2016, under review). Using the iPad we investigated 3- and 4-year-olds’ understanding of the English plural in preschool centers. The primary aim of the study was to provide evidence for the usefulness of the iPad as a language research tool. We evaluated the usefulness of the iPad with second language (L2) learning children who have limited L2 language skills. Studies with school aged Chinese-speaking children show below native performance on English inflectional morphology despite 5–6 years of immersion (Jia, 2003; Jia and Fuse, 2007; Paradis et al., 2016). However, it is unclear whether this is specific only to children who speak Chinese as their first language (L1) or if younger preschoolers will also show similar challenges. We tested three groups of preschoolers with different L1s (English, Chinese, and other languages). L1 Chinese children’s performance was below both English monolinguals and children speaking Other L1 languages, providing evidence that English inflections are specifically challenging for Chinese-speaking children. The results provide further evidence to support previous eye-tracking findings with monolinguals and studies with older bilinguals. The study provides evidence for the usefulness of iPads as research tool for studying language acquisition. Implications for future application of the iPad as a teaching and intervention tool, and limitations for the method, are discussed.
Being cooperatively (im)polite: Grice’s model in the context of (im)politeness theories

Grice (1989a [1975], 1989b [1978], 1989c) is widely known to have launched one of the most important pragmatic models of conversation, which can be applied to all forms of human communication (e.g. speeches, letters or advertisements). In his seminal lecture published as an article, Grice (1989a [1975]) propounds the Cooperative Principle (CP) and several subordinate maxims captured under four categories (Quality, Quantity, Relation and Manner), the flouting (overt violation) of which gives rise to (conversational) implicatures (Grice’s neologism for “implying”, commonly used in reference to the meaning implied). The model of conversation based on the CP, together with the notion of speaker/utterer meaning (Grice 1957 [1989d]), provides the backdrop for a large proportion of the pragmatic literature on politeness, both the well-entrenched theories (Lakoff 1973, 1977, 1989; Leech 1983, 2003, 2005; Brown and Levinson 1987, 19871) and more recent developments (e.g. Haugh 2002, 2007; Pfister 2010); as well as the complementary impoliteness2 frameworks (e.g. Lachenicht 1980; Culpeper 1996, 2005, 2008, 2011; Culpeper et al. 2003; Bousfield 2008a, 2008b, 2010). As will be shown here, the literature on (im)politeness is replete with controversial claims consequent upon the authors’ misinterpretations of the Gricean philosophy. In addition, inspired by Grice’s notions of implicature and maxims, authors offer debatable extensions regarding politeness, notably politeness as invariably couched in implicitness (not Grice’s what is said, which is equal to speaker-intended literal/explicit meaning), politeness as implicature, and a politeness maxim. With a few notable exceptions (e.g. Fraser 1990, 2005; Braun 1988; Held 1992; Watts 1992a; Terkourafi 2003; Bousfield 2008a; Dynel 2009b),
Surveillance of Aedes aegypti: Comparison of House Index with Four Alternative Traps

Introduction The mosquito Aedes aegypti, vector of dengue, chikungunya and yellow fever viruses, is an important target of vector control programs in tropical countries. Most mosquito surveillance programs are still based on the traditional household larval surveys, despite the availability of new trapping devices. We report the results of a multicentric entomological survey using four types of traps, besides the larval survey, to compare the entomological indices generated by these different surveillance tools in terms of their sensitivity to detect mosquito density variation. Methods The study was conducted in five mid-sized cities, representing variations of tropical climate regimens. Surveillance schemes using traps for adults (BG-Sentinel, Adultrap and MosquiTRAP) or eggs (ovitraps) were applied monthly to three 1 km2 areas per city. Simultaneously, larval surveys were performed. Trap positivity and density indices in each area were calculated and regressed against meteorological variables to characterize the seasonal pattern of mosquito infestation in all cities, as measured by each of the four traps. Results The House Index was consistently low in most cities, with median always 0. Traps rarely produced null indices, pointing to their greater sensitivity in detecting the presence of Ae. aegypti in comparison to the larval survey. Trap positivity indices tend to plateau at high mosquito densities. Despite this, both indices, positivity and density, agreed on the seasonality of mosquito abundance in all cities. Mosquito seasonality associated preferentially with temperature than with precipitation even in areas where temperature variation is small. Conclusions All investigated traps performed better than the House Index in measuring the seasonal variation in mosquito abundance and should be considered as complements or alternatives to larval surveys. Choice between traps should further consider differences of cost and ease-of-use.
Phylogeny Trumps Chemotaxonomy: A Case Study Involving Turicella otitidis

The genus Turicella was proposed to harbor clinical strains isolated from middle-ear fluids of patients with otitis media. 16S rRNA phylogeny showed that it belonged to the mycolic acid-containing actinobacteria, currently classified in the order Corynebacteriales, and was closely related to the genus Corynebacterium. A new genus was proposed for the organisms as unlike corynebacteria they lacked mycolic acids and had different menaquinones. Here, we carried out large-scale comparative genomics on representative strains of the genera Corynebacterium and Turicella to check if this chemotaxonomic classification is justified. Three genes that are known to play an essential role in mycolic acid biosynthesis were absent in Turicella and two other mycolate-less Corynebacterium spp. , explaining the lack of mycolic acids resulted from the deletion of genes and does not confer any phylogenetic context. Polyphasic phylogenetic analyses using 16S rRNA, bacterial core genes and genes responsible for synthesizing menaquinones unequivocally indicate that Turicella is a true member of the genus Corynebacterium. Here, we demonstrate that menaquinone and mycolic acid that have been used as critical taxonomic markers should be interpreted carefully, particularly when genome-based taxonomy is readily available. Based on the phylogenetic analysis, we propose to reclassify Turicella otitidis as Corynebacterium otitidis comb. nov.
Professional Skepticism in Practice : An Examination of the Influence of Accountability on Professional Skepticism

SUMMARY Professional skepticism (PS) is an important component of the auditor's mindset and exercising appropriate PS is an essential characteristic of a quality auditor. However, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) suggests that auditors may not be consistently or diligently applying PS. While existing literature (Hurtt, Brown-Liburd, Earley, and Krishnamoorthy 2013) suggests that PS can be affected by various internal and external factors, the question arises regarding how PS is currently being operationalized and employed in practice. Since PS is a multifaceted construct, we employ an in-depth survey using both quantitative and qualitative questions to elicit perceptions of numerous factors promoting or inhibiting PS. Using Peecher, Solomon and Trotman's (2013) accountability framework, we examine responses from 77 auditors of varying experience to gain insight into individual, firm, and regulatory sources of accountability and their perceived effects on auditor skepticism. We also conduct six interviews with respondents to explore the issues in depth. Results indicate that professionals believe PS is a necessary but not sufficient condition for being an effective auditor. Our data suggests that sources of accountability that can be traced to an individual more strongly promote auditor skepticism. Conversely, time budget pressure and excessive documentation may attenuate an auditor's PS. We present implications for research and practice.
Job Stressors and Organizational Citizenship Behavior: The Roles of Organizational Commitment and Social Interaction

This study investigates the relationships of two job stressors (work overload and interpersonal conflict) with organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), as well as the potential mediating effect of organizational commitment and the moderating effect of social interaction in these relationships. Multisource data from employees and their supervisors in a Mexican-based organization reveal that organizational commitment fully mediates the relationship between work overload and OCB. Empirical support also emerges for a direct negative relationship between interpersonal conflict and OCB, as well as a partial mediation effect of organizational commitment in this relationship. Further, social interaction moderates the negative effects of the two job stressors on organizational commitment, such that the relationships are attenuated when social interaction increases. Finally, the results indicate support for the presence of moderated mediation, in that the indirect effects of work overload and interpersonal conflict on OCB are attenuated at higher levels of social interaction. Human resource professionals aiming to instill OCB among their employees thus can counter the inherent pitfalls of stressful work conditions by promoting social relationships among their employees.
Data Staging on NFS

Due to the storage limitation and imperfect prediction, mobile computing devices may experience large delays when accessing data on the distributed file systems. Flinn et al. [4] have proposed a novel architecture, called Data Staging, in which nearby untrusted and unmanaged surrogates are used as the secondary file cache for the client to reduce the remote file operation latency. A prototype system built on top of the Coda file system, Data Staging on Coda (DS-CODA), has been developed and its success has been demonstrated in preliminary experiments. In this project, we implemented Data Staging on the widely deployed Sun Network File System [15] (DS-NFS) and evaluated its performance. Although there are significant differences in the design of Coda and NFS, DS-NFS is able to show an improvement of read performance by up to 42.8% based on the synthetic PostMark benchmark [8]. In addition, we show that delaying writes in DS-NFS has little effect on the performance given the current Linux NFS client implementation. This study, coupled with previous studies on DS-CODA, demonstrates that Data Staging is a valid architecture for improving performance of data accessing across different distributed file systems over the wide area network.
Impact of PCB and p,p′-DDE Contaminants on Human Sperm Y:X Chromosome Ratio: Studies in Three European Populations and the Inuit Population in Greenland

Objective Recent studies indicate that persistent organohalogen pollutants (POPs) may contribute to sex ratio changes in offspring of exposed populations. Our aim in the present study was to investigate whether exposure to 2,2′,4,4′,5,5′-hexachlorobiphenyl (PCB-153) and dichlorodiphenyldichloroethene (p,p′-DDE) affects sperm Y:X chromosome distribution. Subjects and methods We obtained semen and blood for analysis of PCB-153 and p,p′-DDE levels from 547 men from Sweden, Greenland, Poland (Warsaw), and Ukraine (Kharkiv), with regionally different levels of POP exposure. The proportion of Y- and X-chromosome–bearing sperm in the semen samples was determined by two-color fluorescence in situ hybridization analysis. Results Swedish and Greenlandic men had on average significantly higher proportions of Y sperm (in both cohorts, 51.2%) and correspondingly higher lipid-adjusted concentrations of PCB-153 (260 ng/g and 350 ng/g, respectively) compared with men from Warsaw (50.3% and 22 ng/g) and Kharkiv (50.7% and 54 ng/g). In the Swedish cohort, log-transformed PCB-153 and log-transformed p,p′-DDE variables were significantly positively associated with Y-chromosome fractions (p-values 0.04 and < 0.001, respectively). On the contrary, in the Polish cohort PCB-153 correlated negatively with the proportion of Y-bearing fraction of spermatozoa (p = 0.008). Conclusions The present study indicates that POP exposure might be involved in changing the proportion of ejaculated Y-bearing spermatozoa in human populations. Intercountry differences, with different exposure situations and doses, may contribute to varying Y:X chromosome ratios.
Improved limit on direct α decay of the Hoyle state.

The current evaluation of the triple-α reaction rate assumes that the α decay of the 7.65 MeV, 0+ state in 12C, commonly known as the Hoyle state, proceeds sequentially via the ground state of 8Be. This assumption is challenged by the recent identification of two direct α-decay branches with a combined branching ratio of 17(5)%. If correct, this would imply a corresponding reduction in the triple-α reaction rate with important astrophysical consequences. We have used the 11B(3He,d) reaction to populate the Hoyle state and measured the decay to three α particles in complete kinematics. We find no evidence for direct α-decay branches, and hence our data do not support a revision of the triple-α reaction rate. We obtain an upper limit of 5×10(-3) on the direct α decay of the Hoyle state at 95% C.L. , which is 1 order of magnitude better than a previous upper limit.
The Effect of Early Fieldwork on Mathematics Efficacy Beliefs for Pre-Service Teachers.

O the last twenty years, more and more focus has been placed on understanding a mathematics topic conceptually rather than simply being able to complete blind calculations in order to get the answer in the back of the book. This change in focus requires that teachers understand mathematics at a deeper level. Standards issued by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, a national organization that has a vision to bring reform to the traditional way that mathematics is taught, envision students not only able to acquire basic skills but to look for patterns, to explore and investigate, and to think logically (National Council for Teachers of Mathematics, 2000).
Inertial-vision sensor fusion for pedestrian localization

The localization of an ambulatory individual, a.k. a. a pedestrian, is a quickly-developing domain with the potential to permeate into a variety of applications, as knowledge of an individual's location within an environment becomes ever-more useful. In order to automate the localization task, positioning modules are prime candidates for inclusion in a system. Such modules are expected to reduce both the effort and time incurred during the localization process while improving the accuracy and organization of the exchanged data. Building on and combining recent developments in the fields of step detection using inertial measurement units and structure from motion using a camera rig, the work presented in this paper is an implementation of a pedestrian localization system targeted specifically at infrastructure-less indoor localization. The inertial measurement unit and camera rigs are respectively attached to the mobile user's foot and waist, and the collected data is processed by the localization module to obtain a current position. The focus of this paper is the implementation and preliminary testing of this localization module's components.
Monetary Policy Transmission in an Emerging Market Setting

Some emerging economies have a relatively ineffective monetary policy transmission owing to weaknesses in the domestic financial system and the presence of a large and segmented informal sector. At the same time, small open economies can have a substantial monetary policy transmission through the exchange rate channel. In order to understand this setting, we explore a unified treatment of monetary policy transmission and exchangerate pass-through. The results for an emerging market, India, suggest that the most effective mechanism through which monetary policy impacts inflation runs through the exchange rate.
Global Decomposition of a Lorentzian Manifold as a Generalized Robertson-walker Space

Generalized Robertson-Walker spaces constitute a quite important family in Lorentzian geometry, therefore it is an interesting question to know whether a Lorentzian manifold can be decomposed in such a way. The existence of a suitable vector field guaranties the local decomposition of the manifold, but the global one is a delicate topological problem. In this paper, we give conditions on the curvature which ensure a global decomposition and apply them to several situations where local decomposition appears naturally. Finally, we study the uniqueness question, obtaining that the de Sitter spaces are essentially the only complete Lorentzian manifolds with more than one decomposition. Moreover, we show that the Friedmann Cosmological Models admit an unique Generalized Robertson-Walker decomposition, even locally.