Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Sensitivity and Specificity of Loop-Mediated Isothermal Amplification (LAMP) Assay for Tuberculosis Diagnosis in Adults with Chronic Cough in Malawi

Background Current tuberculosis diagnostics lack sensitivity, and are expensive. Highly accurate, rapid and cheaper diagnostic tests are required for point of care use in low resource settings with high HIV prevalence. Objective To investigate the sensitivity and specificity, and cost of loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) assay for tuberculosis diagnosis in adults with chronic cough compared to Xpert® MTB/RIF, fluorescence smear microscopy. Methods Between October 2013 and March 2014, consecutive adults at a primary care clinic were screened for cough, offered HIV testing and assessed for tuberculosis using LAMP, Xpert® MTB/RIF and fluorescence smear microscopy. Sensitivity and specificity (with culture as reference standard), and costs were estimated. Results Of 273 adults recruited, 44.3% (121/273) were HIV-positive and 19.4% (53/273) had bacteriogically confirmed tuberculosis. The sensitivity of LAMP compared to culture was 65.0% (95% CI: 48.3% to 79.4%) with 100% (95% CI: 98.0% to 100%) specificity. The sensitivity of Xpert® MTB/RIF (77.5%, 95% CI: 61.5% to 89.2%) was similar to that of LAMP, p = 0.132. The sensitivity of concentrated fluorescence smear microscopy with routine double reading (87.5%, 95% CI: 73.2% to 95.8%) was higher than that of LAMP, p = 0.020. All three tests had high specificity. The lowest cost per test of LAMP was at batch size of 14 samples (US$ 9.98); this was lower than Xpert® MTB/RIF (US$ 13.38) but higher than fluorescence smear microscopy (US$ 0.65). Conclusion The sensitivity of LAMP was similar to Xpert® MTB/RIF but lower than fluorescence smear microscopy; all three tests had high specificity. These findings support the Malawi policy that recommends a combination of fluorescence smear microscopy and Xpert® MTB/RIF prioritised for people living with HIV, already found to be smear-negative, or being considered for retreatment of tuberculosis.
Scalable configuration of RED queue parameters

Active queue management policies and in particular random early drop (RED) are being pushed as additional mechanisms in Internet routers to control congestion and keep network utilization high. RED's performance is highly dependent on the settings of its control parameters. However, no firm guidelines exist on configuring RED parameters and the current suggestions fail to provide the desired performance scalability. We propose a mechanism to configure RED parameters based on evaluating the expected instantaneous length of a M/sup x//M/1/K queue. We show that by setting the RED parameters min/sub th/ and max/sub th/ to lie on either side of this expected queue length, we can ensure that the queue is not underutilized and flows cut their rates before the onset of congestion. This setting also allows the operating point to perform satisfactorily over a wide range of flow counts thereby allowing for a higher degree of scalability. We also show that our proposed mechanism increases the queue goodput, reduces losses and timeouts and increases the fairness when compared to existing guidelines. Our proposals have been verified using extensive simulations.
Probing the three-dimensional strain inhomogeneity and equilibrium elastic properties of single crystal Ni nanowires

We employ three dimensional x-ray coherent diffraction imaging to map the lattice strain distribution, and to probe the elastic properties of a single crystalline Ni (001) nanowire grown vertically on an amorphous SiO2∥Si substrate. The reconstructed density maps show that with increasing wire width, the equilibrium compressive stress in the core region decreases sharply while the surface tensile strain increases, and gradually trends to a nonzero constant. We use the retrieved projection of lattice distortion to predict the Young’s Modulus of the wire based on the elasticity theory.
Consistency Conditions for Beliefs and Intentions

Icard et al. introduce a semantics for actions over time, provide an axiomatization for this logic, and use this logic to define coherence conditions for a belief-intention database. First, we show incompleteness of their axiomatization and we adapt their semantics and provide a complete axiomatization for it. Second, we show that Icard et al.'s definition of coherence is too weak, and we define a stronger notion of coherence using our new logic.
Drought Tolerance of Several Tomato Genotypes Under Greenhouse Conditions

Growth and production of agricultural crops are greatly affected by water shortage. Thus, yield enhancement under drought conditions is a major goal of plant breeding. Four commercial tomato cultivars (Imperial, Pakmore VF, Strain-B and Tnshet Star), a drought-tolerant breeding line (L 03306) and their hybrid combinations were selected in this study to evaluate drought tolerance and to develop initial material for a drought tolerance breeding program. Four-weeks-old seedlings were transplanted into soil under greenhouse conditions. Six irrigation treatments (T = 20, T = 40, T = 60, T = 80, T (control) = 100 and T = 120% of the 12345 6 estimated evapotranspiration, ET ) were imposed during a 140-day growing period through a drip irrigation c system. Vegetative growth, flowering and yield traits were measured while water use efficiency (WUE) was determined. All vegetative and fruit traits decreased significantly as deficit irrigation levels increased. For T1 and T , yield was reduced by 46.7 and 33.5%, respectively, compared with T. WUE was increased significantly 25 as the amount of irrigation water decreased. The relationship between production and water amount was a second-degree polynomial. Significant differences among genotypes were found for all traits, suggesting that they could be taken into account when selecting for drought tolerance. Pakmore VF and the breeding line L 03306 had good yield performance under different deficit irrigation treatments. These genotypes could be selected for in a breeding program as recurrent (female) and donor (male) parents, respectively.
MRI Biomarkers for Hand-Motor Outcome Prediction and Therapy Monitoring following Stroke

Several biomarkers have been identified which enable a considerable prediction of hand-motor outcome after cerebral damage already in the subacute stage after stroke. We here review the value of MRI biomarkers in the evaluation of corticospinal integrity and functional recruitment of motor resources. Many of the functional imaging parameters are not feasible early after stroke or for patients with high impairment and low compliance. Whereas functional connectivity parameters have demonstrated varying results on their predictive value for hand-motor outcome, corticospinal integrity evaluation using structural imaging showed robust and high predictive power for patients with different levels of impairment. Although this is indicative of an overall higher value of structural imaging for prediction, we suggest that this variation be explained by structure and function relationships. To gain more insight into the recovering brain, not only one biomarker is needed. We rather argue for a combination of different measures in an algorithm to classify fine-graded subgroups of patients. Approaches to determining biomarkers have to take into account the established markers to provide further information on certain subgroups. Assessing the best therapy approaches for individual patients will become more feasible as these subgroups become specified in more detail. This procedure will help to considerably save resources and optimize neurorehabilitative therapy.
R‐wave Amplitude Variations During Acute Experimental Myocardial Ischemia: An Inadequate Index for Changes in Intracardiac Volume

The role of intracardiac volume in controlling electrocardiographic R-wave amplitude changes during acute myocardial ischemia was studied in 24 open-chest dogs. The R-wave amplitude in surface ECG leads 2, V. and Frank X, Y and Z leads were correlated with hemodynamic, echocardiographic and angiographic changes in a 5-minute circumflex coronary artery ligation and reperfusion model. After coronary ligation, left ventricular end-diastolic diameter and volume increased progressively above control, reached a peak and plateau at 120–130 seconds after ligation and did not return to control levels until more than 5 minutes after release of the occlusion. In contrast, the R-wave amplitude showed a biphasic response to acute ischemia, reaching a nadir (Σ = 18.2% below control) at 30 seconds after coronary ligation and only subsequently increased to reach a peak (ΣR 52% above control) at 150 seconds after ligation. In addition, R-wave amplitude returned immediately to control levels within 10 seconds after reperfusion. In six other dogs, both venae cavae were occluded for a 30-second period, beginning 180 seconds after coronary ligation. Although intracardiac volume decreased markedly, R-wave amplitudes increased even more. Thus, the demonstration of discordance between alterations in intracardiac volume and R-wave amplitude in these studies suggests that factors other than intracardiac volume determine R-wave amplitude changes in the course of acute myocardial ischemia.
TeV Blazar Gamma-Ray Emission Produced by a Cooling Pileup Particle Energy Distribution Function

We propose a time-dependent one-zone model based on a quasi-Maxwellian "pileup" distribution in order to explain the time-averaged high-energy emission of TeV blazars. The instantaneous spectra are the result of the synchrotron and synchrotron self-Compton emission of ultrarelativistic leptons. The particle energy distribution function is computed in a self-consistent way, taking into account an injection term of fresh particles, a possible pair creation term, and the radiative cooling of the particles. The source term is not a usual power law but rather a pileup distribution, which can result from the combination of stochastic heating via second-order Fermi processes and radiative cooling. To validate this approach, we have performed time-averaged fits of the well-known TeV emitter Mrk 501 during the 1997 flaring activity period, taking into account the attenuation of the high-energy component by cosmic diffuse infrared background and intrinsic absorption via the pair creation process. The model can reproduce very satisfactorily the observed spectral energy distribution. A high Lorentz factor is required to avoid strong pair production; in the case of smaller Lorentz factor, an intense flare in the GeV range is predicted because of the sudden increase of soft photon density below the Klein-Nishina threshold. The possible relevance of such a scenario is discussed.
Asthma in Rhinosinusitis: A Survey from Iran

Introduction: The coexistence of asthma and chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) is more common than expected given their individual prevalence in the general population and may affect patient’s quality of life. The aim of this study was to evaluate the prevalence of asthma in chronic rhinosinusitis in Mashhad, Northeast Iran. Materials and Methods: This study was performed in two university hospital from November 2012 for 12 months. In total, 153 patients with chronic rhinosinusitis were enrolled and referred to a particular pulmonologist for asthma evaluation. Results: The mean age of participants was 40.54±13.11 years, and 41.8% were male. In total, 63.4% of patients had the polypoid form of CRS. The proportion of patients in this study with asthma was 41.8%, compared with a general asthma prevalence in this region of 13.5%. Conclusion: There is a high prevalence of asthma among patients with CRS, but it often remains undiagnosed. Asthma in CRS patients should be diagnosed and treated in order to improve patient’s quality of life. We recommend an evaluation of the lower airways in all of these patients as well as further studies in this field.
Self-reported diabetes and health behaviors in remote indigenous communities in northern queensland, australia.

OBJECTIVE This study examines associations between self-reported diabetes and self-reported smoking, alcohol consumption, fruit consumption, and participation in adequate exercise in remote indigenous communities, using data from the Well Persons' Health Check (WPHC). RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS The WPHC was a cross-sectional survey of 2,862 indigenous individuals (1,602 Aborigines, 1,074 Torres Strait Islanders, and 186 persons of joint descent) aged > or =15 years. The study was conducted in 26 remote communities in northern Queensland, Australia, between March 1998 and October 2000. RESULTS A total of 32% of individuals with self-reported diabetes and 25% of other individuals reported eating enough fruit, according to National Health and Medical Research Council criteria: odds ratio (OR) 1.407 (95% CI 1.108-1.786), P = 0.006. After adjustment for age, sex, and ethnicity, no significant difference could be observed: adjusted OR 1.22 (0.944-1.574), P = 0.128. A total of 58% of participants who reported diabetes and 51% of others reported adequate exercise: OR 0.761 (0.609-0.952), P = 0.018. This difference was not significant after adjustment for age, sex, and ethnicity: adjusted OR 0.896 (0.705-1.14), P = 0.370. A total of 43% of individuals who reported diabetes and 72% of others reported consuming alcohol: OR 0.295 (0.235-0.369), P < 0.001. After adjustment for age, sex, and ethnicity, this difference was still significant: adjusted OR 0.550 (0.428-0.709), P < 0.001. Diabetic drinkers consumed alcohol at harmful levels similar to those of nondiabetic drinkers (P = 0.691). A total of 40% of individuals who reported diabetes and 63% of other persons were tobacco smokers: OR 0.403 (0.322-0.505), P < 0.001. Although this crude difference was attenuated by adjustment for age, sex, and ethnicity, persons with self-reported diabetes were still significantly less likely to smoke tobacco than other participants: adjusted OR 0.666 (0.521-0.852), P = 0.001. Smoking prevalence among the diabetic indigenous participants was more than double that in nondiabetic nonindigenous Australians. CONCLUSIONS This study suggests that indigenous individuals with diabetes living in rural and remote communities are not adopting lifestyle changes required for optimal self-management of the disease. This contributes to the large excess of mortality and morbidity experienced by this population.
Simulations of ITER Disruption and VDE scenarios with TSC and comparison with DINA results

Vertical Displacement Events (VDEs) and plasma current disruptions can seriously degrade the lifetime of in-vessel components in ITER, as large electromagnetic and thermal loads can be induced at such events. Hence, accurate modelling of such events is crucial for estimating disruption induced forces. In the past, ITER disruption modelling has been carried out using the DINA code. However, since predictive simulation of such events depend on a large number of model assumptions, the resultant predictions may contain significant error bars. It is important therefore to validate the code results with other models. With such an objective in mind, we have carried out VDE and Disruption simulations using the Tokamak Simulation Code (TSC) and the results are compared with the earlier DINA predictions. The two model predictions match reasonably well, especially in the early linear part of the vertical evolution, though there are some differences in the phase dominated by halo currents.
On the Support for the Goal Domain in Enterprise Modelling Approaches

This paper reviews the support for the goal domain in several enterprise modelling approaches and enterprise architecture frameworks, namely, ARIS, ISO RM-ODP Enterprise Language, DoDAF, MODAF, BPMN/BMM, ArchiMate and its ARMOR extension. We describe how these efforts propose to align goals with the remaining elements in enterprise architectures (with special attention to the alignment of goals and business processes). Our aims are twofold: (i) to provide an integrated overview of the support for goal-related concepts in existing enterprise modelling approaches of and, (ii) provide guidance for the selection of the frameworks with respect to the support for goal-related concepts.
Agreement detection in multiparty conversation

This paper presents a system for the automatic detection of agreements in multi-party conversations. We investigate various types of features that are useful for identifying agreements, including lexical, prosodic, and structural features. This system is implemented using supervised machine learning techniques and yields competitive results: Accuracy of 98.1% and a kappa value of 0.4. We also begin to explore the novel task of detecting the addressee of agreements (which speaker is being agreed with). Our system for this task achieves an accuracy of 80.3%, a 56% improvement over the baseline.
Validation of the Schizophrenia Quality of Life Scale Revision 4 (SQLS-R4) Among Patients with Schizophrenia

BACKGROUND: The main goal of psychiatric care is not to be focused only on reducing psychopathological symptoms, but on improvement of the patient’s quality of life. AIM: To examine validation and reliability SQLS-R4 among patients with schizophrenia. METHODS: The sample consisted of 61 outpatients with schizophrenia attending the Psychiatry Hospital “Skopje”. nclusion criteria for subject selection were: 1) age more than 18 years, 2) clinically stable (not acutely ill or has not been recently hospitalized at least for the past 3 months). They completed SQLS-R4 and SF36 questioners. RESULTS: The internal consistency reliability was satisfactory for both the psychosocial and vitality domains (Cronbach’s α = 0.928, 0.83). Most of the items were significantly correlated with own scale score (from 0.189 to 0.687). The average of the score for the psychosocial quality life was 39.9 ± 8.6 (sometimes), for the cognition and vitality was 26.5 ± 6.1 (sometimes) (SQLS-R4). There was moderate correlation between SF 36-energy with SQOLS - motivation and energy; SF 36-mental health correlation with SQOLS-psychosocial. CONCLUSION: SQLS-R4 appears to offer excellent potential as an easily administered and patient acceptable assessment and monitoring measure of quality of life (QoL). However, a principle psychometric criterion crucial to the use and validity of the instrument concerns the underlying factor structure.
Feeling Full or Empty Inside? Peran Perbedaan Individual dalam Struktur Pengalaman Afektif

Trait alexithymia dan rumination umumnya diteliti secara terpisah, namun dampak buruknya terhadap pengalaman afektif secara potensial dapat dihambat oleh trait self-control. Penelitian ini bertujuan memetakan struktur pengalaman afektif berdasarkan perbedaan individual dalam trait alexithymia, rumination, dan self-control. Pengalaman afektif partisipan (N = 85) dibangkitkan melalui teknik induksi visual International Affective Picture System (IAPS: Lang, Bradley, & Cuthbert, 2008) yang mencakup 60 foto dari kombinasi dua dimensi afektif, yaitu valence (positif vs. netral vs. negatif) dan arousal (tinggi vs. rendah). Rating valence dan arousal diberikan dalam bentuk label non-verbal Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM: Lang, 2008). Hasil penelitian menunjukkan (1) terdapat interkorelasi antara trait alexithymia, rumination, dan self-control, (2) dimensi-dimensi pada trait alexythimia dan rumination memiliki asosiasi dengan hipersensitivitas terhadap stimulus afektif, dan (3) afek negatif dibutuhkan sebagai sinyal untuk mengaktivasi trait self-control. Temuan ini menggarisbawahi bahwa peran ketiga trait tersebut dalam struktur pengalaman afektif tidak muncul secara global namun bersifat kontekstual dari perspektif kombinasi valence dan arousal. Abstrak : Trait alexithymia dan rumination umumnya diteliti secara terpisah, namun dampak buruknya terhadap pengalaman afektif secara potensial dapat dihambat oleh trait self-control. Penelitian ini bertujuan memetakan struktur pengalaman afektif berdasarkan perbedaan individual dalam trait alexithymia, rumination, dan self-control. Pengalaman afektif partisipan (N = 85) dibangkitkan melalui teknik induksi visual International Affective Picture System (IAPS,2008) yang mencakup 60 foto dari kombinasi dua dimensi afektif, yaitu valence (positif vs. netral vs. negatif) dan arousal (tinggi vs. rendah). Rating valence dan arousal diberikan dalam bentuk label non-verbal Self-Assessment Manikin. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan (1) terdapat interkorelasi antara trait alexithymia, rumination, dan self-control, (2) dimensi-dimensi pada trait alexythimia dan rumination memiliki asosiasi dengan hipersen­sitivitas terhadap stimulus afektif, dan (3) afek negatif dibutuhkan sebagai sinyal untuk mengaktivasi trait self-control. Temuan ini menggarisbawahi bahwa peran ketiga trait tersebut dalam struktur pengalaman afektif tidak muncul secara global namun bersifat kontekstual dari perspektif kombinasi valence dan arousal.
The Corrosion Behavior of Pure Iron under Solid Na2SO4 Deposit in Wet Oxygen Flow at 500 °C

The corrosion behavior of pure Fe under a Na2SO4 deposit in an atmosphere of O2 + H2O was investigated at 500 °C by thermo gravimetric, and electrochemical measurements, viz. potentiodynamic polarization, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), and surface characterization methods viz. X-ray diffraction (XRD), and scanning electron microscope (SEM)/energy dispersive spectroscopy(EDS). The results showed that a synergistic effect occurred between Na2SO4 and O2 + H2O, which significantly accelerated the corrosion rate of the pure Fe. Briefly, NaFeO2 was formed in addition to the customary Fe oxides; at the same time, H2SO4 gas was produced by introduction of water vapor. Subsequently, an electrochemical corrosion reaction occurred due to the existence of Na2SO4, NaFeO2, and H2O. When this coupled to the chemical corrosion reaction, the progress of the chemical corrosion reaction was promoted and eventually resulted in the acceleration of the corrosion of the pure Fe.
Pitch Imitation Ability in Mental Transformations of Melodies

Previous research suggests that individuals with a Vocal Pitch Imitation Deficit (VPID, a.k.a. “poor-pitch singers”) experience less vivid auditory images than accurate imitators (Pfordresher & Halpern, 2013), based on self-report. In the present research we sought to test this proposal directly by having accurate and VPID imitators produce or recognize short melodies based on their original form (untransformed), or after mentally transforming the auditory image of the melody. For the production task, group differences were largest during the untransformed imitation task. Importantly, producing mental transformations of the auditory image degraded performance for all participants, but were relatively more disruptive to accurate than to VPID imitators. These findings suggest that VPID is due partly to poor initial imagery formation, as manifested by production of untransformed melodies. By contrast, producing a transformed mental image may rely on working memory ability, which is more equally matched across participants. This interpretation was further supported by correlations with self-reports of auditory imagery and measures of working memory.