Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Domestic Asbestos Exposure: A Review of Epidemiologic and Exposure Data

Inhalation of asbestos resulting from living with and handling the clothing of workers directly exposed to asbestos has been established as a possible contributor to disease. This review evaluates epidemiologic studies of asbestos-related disease or conditions (mesothelioma, lung cancer, and pleural and interstitial abnormalities) among domestically exposed individuals and exposure studies that provide either direct exposure measurements or surrogate measures of asbestos exposure. A meta-analysis of studies providing relative risk estimates (n = 12) of mesothelioma was performed, resulting in a summary relative risk estimate (SRRE) of 5.02 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 2.48–10.13). This SRRE pertains to persons domestically exposed via workers involved in occupations with a traditionally high risk of disease from exposure to asbestos (i.e., asbestos product manufacturing workers, insulators, shipyard workers, and asbestos miners). The epidemiologic studies also show an elevated risk of interstitial, but more likely pleural, abnormalities (n = 6), though only half accounted for confounding exposures. The studies are limited with regard to lung cancer (n = 2). Several exposure-related studies describe results from airborne samples collected within the home (n = 3), during laundering of contaminated clothing (n = 1) or in controlled exposure simulations (n = 5) of domestic exposures, the latter of which were generally associated with low-level chrysotile-exposed workers. Lung burden studies (n = 6) were also evaluated as a surrogate of exposure. In general, available results for domestic exposures are lower than the workers’ exposures. Recent simulations of low-level chrysotile-exposed workers indicate asbestos levels commensurate with background concentrations in those exposed domestically.
The Neutron Structure of Urate Oxidase Resolves a Long-Standing Mechanistic Conundrum and Reveals Unexpected Changes in Protonation

Urate oxidase transforms uric acid to 5-hydroxyisourate without the help of cofactors, but the catalytic mechanism has remained enigmatic, as the protonation state of the substrate could not be reliably deduced. We have determined the neutron structure of urate oxidase, providing unique information on the proton positions. A neutron crystal structure inhibited by a chloride anion at 2.3 Å resolution shows that the substrate is in fact 8-hydroxyxanthine, the enol tautomer of urate. We have also determined the neutron structure of the complex with the inhibitor 8-azaxanthine at 1.9 Å resolution, showing the protonation states of the K10–T57–H256 catalytic triad. Together with X-ray data and quantum chemical calculations, these structures allow us to identify the site of the initial substrate protonation and elucidate why the enzyme is inhibited by a chloride anion.
The presence of hospital-based palliative care programs: A resource dependence perspective

Background: The presence of hospital-based palliative care programs has risen over time in the United States. Nevertheless, organizational and environmental factors that contribute to the presence of hospital-based palliative care programs are unclear. Purpose: The aim of this study was to examine the role of organizational and environmental factors associated with the presence of hospital-based palliative care programs using resource dependence theory. Methodology: Panel data from 2000 to 2009 American Hospital Association Annual Survey and the Area Resource File were used in this study. A random-effect logistic regression was used to analyze the relationship between organizational and environmental factors and the presence of hospital-based palliative care programs. Findings: Hospitals with higher Medicare inpatient days, located in counties with higher Medicare managed penetration, and larger hospitals had greater odds of having a hospital-based palliative care program. Although hospitals in counties that have a higher percentage of individuals 65 years and older, for-profit and government hospitals were less likely to have a hospital-based palliative care program. Practice Implications: Hospitals will vary in the organizational resources available to them, as such, administrators’ awareness of the relationship between resources and palliative care programs can help determine the relevance of a program in their hospital.
Assessing the Acceptability of Problem-Solving Procedures by School Teams: Preliminary Development of the Pre-Referral Intervention Team Inventory

The responses of 472 educators were used to develop the Pre-Referral Intervention Team Inventory (PRITI), a 24-item Likert scale. Principal axis analyses resulted in a one-dimensional structure with high internal consistency that explained 57% of the total variance. Acceptability of team procedures was strongly and positively correlated with a measure of team members' interaction practices and negatively related to professional stress. These results suggest that (a) pending further analyses and development, the PRITI may prove useful for assessing school staff acceptability perceptions of pre-referral team consultation procedures and (b) team process variables are important predictors of the acceptability of pre-referral team consultation procedures to educators. Directions for future research are proposed.
An analysis of news sources used in reports on slavery in the Sudan in the New York Times and Washington Post between 1986 and 2001

Abstract For over 25 years the Sudan and the United States have had a contentious relationship. In 1986 several international human rights organisations pointed to the re-emergence of the practice of slavery in the Sudan. Past research by American media has shown that journalists tend to use routine channels and American government officials, especially those from the ‘golden triangle’ (the White House, Pentagon and State Department) when covering stories related to foreign countries. However, in the case of the Sudan there was no clear American foreign policy for an extended period of time. Consequently, there was a stark absence of reporting on the slavery issue in the two elite American newspapers (the New York Times and the Washington Post) examined in this study. Furthermore, even when the topic was covered the sources used defined the issue through an American perspective, rather than within an historical and geopolitical context.
Phylogenetic Characterization and In Situ Detection of a Cytophaga-Flexibacter-Bacteroides Phylogroup Bacterium in Tuber borchii Vittad. Ectomycorrhizal Mycelium

ABSTRACT Mycorrhizal ascomycetous fungi are obligate ectosymbionts that colonize the roots of gymnosperms and angiosperms. In this paper we describe a straightforward approach in which a combination of morphological and molecular methods was used to survey the presence of potentially endo- and epiphytic bacteria associated with the ascomycetous ectomycorrhizal fungus Tuber borchii Vittad. Universal eubacterial primers specific for the 5′ and 3′ ends of the 16S rRNA gene (16S rDNA) were used for PCR amplification, direct sequencing, and phylogenetic analyses. The 16S rDNA was amplified directly from four pure cultures of T. borchii Vittad. mycelium. A nearly full-length sequence of the gene coding for the prokaryotic small-subunit rRNA was obtained from each T. borchii mycelium studied. The 16S rDNA sequences were almost identical (98 to 99% similarity), and phylogenetic analysis placed them in a single unique rRNA branch belonging to theCytophaga-Flexibacter-Bacteroides (CFB) phylogroup which had not been described previously. In situ detection of the CFB bacterium in the hyphal tissue of the fungus T. borchii was carried out by using 16S rRNA-targeted oligonucleotide probes for the eubacterial domain and the Cytophaga-Flexibacter phylum, as well as a probe specifically designed for the detection of this mycelium-associated bacterium. Fluorescent in situ hybridization showed that all three of the probes used bound to the mycelium tissue. This study provides the first direct visual evidence of a not-yet-cultured CFB bacterium associated with a mycorrhizal fungus of the genusTuber.
Personality traits of a music teacher

In the context of individual musical instrument teaching, pedagogical abilities of a music teacher and the atmosphere he creates, result from his personality traits and can be of crucial importance for the initial and further progress of his students. The paper seeks to: describe the personality of a music instrument teacher, determine the differences in comparison to a group of non-musicians, and determine the position of personal characteristics in the structure of general and professional teacher profile. The sample comprised 60 individuals, teaching various musical instruments in five primary music schools. The research method is explorative and based on the use of the five-factor personality model (NEO PI-R was administered). The findings show that music teachers display a higher level of: openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness. The degree of congruence with the findings of other research is discussed and certain similarities were found, as well as differences stemming from professional and cultural specificities. Differences are proved to exist in relation to gender, musical instrument, working experience, degree of musical education and active public performance. Compared to non-musical population, it is confirmed that teachers of instrument in musical education represent a distinctive group. There are also differences between teachers who are oriented to pedagogic work only and those who, in addition, actively perform in public. Selection of teachers, according to characteristics which may be connected to students’ accomplishment, is a practical implication relevant for the music education.
Commentary: With a little help from my enteric microbial friends

In a recent mini-review published in Frontiers in Medicine, Ben Berkhout pointed out that the interactions between co-localizing viruses and commensal bacteria in the gastric tract are important for the survival and transmission of a number of virus families (Berkhout, 2015). These viruses are part of the virome or viral metagenome that constitutes the total collection of viruses found in and on a multicellular organism (Wylie et al., 2012). Moreover, he highlighted that these close interactions between bacteria and viruses that constitute the microbiome are important also because they may provide opportunities for treatment or even prevention of disease through the modulation of these interactions. The mini-review furnishes a number of examples of interactions between viruses and bacteria in the gut, including the retrovirus mouse mammary tumor virus (MMTV), the archetypal milk borne virus. As mentioned in the review article, MMTV is a member of the Retroviridae that notably also includes the human disease associated members human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and human T-cell leukemia virus (HTLV), both of which can also be transmitted to infants by breast feeding. Transmission can occur either by infection with free virions or by delivery of infected cells/cell associated virus where the virus is then transferred through virological synapses that are formed between an infected source cell and a susceptible target cell (Komarova and Wodarz, 2013). Berkhout's mini-review is interesting and to our knowledge is the first time that the cross virus family relevance of interaction between viruses that infect multicellular eukaryotes and commensal bacteria has been highlighted as a possible general phenomenon. However, we feel that some additional information and some novel points can be brought to the table, specifically with respect to retroviruses. Moreover, the situation with respect to bacterial interaction may be more complicated than was presented, at least for retroviruses and possibly also for other members of the virome.
Barrett's Esophagus: Emerging Knowledge and Management Strategies

The incidence of esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC) has increased exponentially in the last 3 decades. Barrett's esophagus (BE) is the only known precursor of EAC. Patients with BE have a greater than 40 folds higher risk of EAC compared with the general population. Recent years have witnessed a revolution in the clinical and molecular research related to BE. However, several aspects of this condition remain controversial. Data regarding the true prevalence of BE have varied widely. Recent studies have suggested a lower incidence of EAC in nondysplastic BE (NDBE) than previously reported. There is paucity of prospective data showing a survival benefit of screening or surveillance for BE. Furthermore, the ever-increasing emphasis on healthcare cost containment has called for reexamination of the screening and surveillance strategies for BE. There is a need for identification of reliable clinical predictors or molecular biomarkers to risk-stratify patients who might benefit the most from screening or surveillance for BE. Finally, new therapies have emerged for the management of dysplastic BE. In this paper, we highlight the key areas of controversy and uncertainty surrounding BE. The paper discusses, in detail, the current literature about the molecular pathogenesis, biomarkers, histopathological diagnosis, and management strategies for BE.
The stability of a good clustering

If we have found a "good" clustering C of a data set, can we prove that C is not far from the (unknown) best clustering C opt of these data? Perhaps surprisingly, the answer to this question is sometimes yes. This paper proves spectral bounds on the distance d(C;C opt ) for the case when \goodness" is measured by a quadratic cost, such as the squared distortion of K-means clustering, or the Normalized Cut criterion of spectral clustering. The bounds exist if the data admits a \good", low-cost clustering.
When Should Sellers Use Auctions?

A bidding process can be organized so that offers are submitted simultaneously or sequentially. In the latter case, potential buyers can condition their behavior on previous entrants' decisions. The relative performance of these mechanisms is investigated when entry is costly and selective, meaning that potential buyers with higher values are more likely to participate. A simple sequential mechanism can give both buyers and sellers significantly higher payoffs than the commonly used simultaneous bid auction. The findings are illustrated with parameters estimated from simultaneous entry USFS timber auctions where our estimates predict that the sequential mechanism would increase revenue and efficiency.
Kilosort: realtime spike-sorting for extracellular electrophysiology with hundreds of channels

Advances in silicon probe technology mean that in vivo electrophysiological recordings from hundreds of channels will soon become commonplace. To interpret these recordings we need fast, scalable and accurate methods for spike sorting, whose output requires minimal time for manual curation. Here we introduce Kilosort, a spike sorting framework that meets these criteria, and show that it allows rapid and accurate sorting of large-scale in vivo data. Kilosort models the recorded voltage as a sum of template waveforms triggered on the spike times, allowing overlapping spikes to be identified and resolved. Rapid processing is achieved thanks to a novel low-dimensional approximation for the spatiotemporal distribution of each template, and to batch-based optimization on GPUs. A novel post-clustering merging step based on the continuity of the templates substantially reduces the requirement for subsequent manual curation operations. We compare Kilosort to an established algorithm on data obtained from 384-channel electrodes, and show superior performance, at much reduced processing times. Data from 384-channel electrode arrays can be processed in approximately realtime. Kilosort is an important step towards fully automated spike sorting of multichannel electrode recordings, and is freely available (github.com/cortex-lab/Kilosort).
Conditioning factors of an organizational learning culture

Purpose – The aim of this study is to assess the relationship between some variables (organizational structure, organizational dimension and age, human resource characteristics, the external environment, strategy and quality) and organizational learning culture and evaluate the way they interact with this kind of culture.Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected from 107 Portuguese companies, where a total of 1,122 workers were asked about learning culture through a questionnaire. Data about the other organizational variables of this study were collected in official documents, from scales and also from a structured interview with top managers.Findings – The results revealed that an organic structure, an approach to total quality principles, and highly educated employees, could act as facilitators of the development of a learning culture in organizations. On the other hand, quality certification, firm dimension and age, as well as workers' age, could act as inhibitors of this type of cultural orien.
Optimal Traffic Sensor Location for Origin–Destination Estimation Using a Compressed Sensing Framework

A series of flow estimation problems, especially origin–destination estimation, involves optimally locating sensors on a transportation network to measure traffic counts. As compressed sensing (CS) provides a new method to solve the estimation problem, its sensor location strategy needs to be researched in order to facilitate the reconstruction. This paper first points out that the accurate flow recovery is difficult by introducing a necessary condition, and then categorizes the location determination into two cases: sensor number with restriction and without restriction. For both cases, we elucidate their theoretical foundations of locating methods and propose an algorithm based on column coherence minimization, which optimally facilitates the reconstruction for CS framework. Numerical experiments indicate that the selected sensor locations fit the flow recovery and the proposed algorithm, compared with other methods, can lead to a slightly better result under certain observations.
Sero-Epidemiology as a Tool to Screen Populations for Exposure to Mycobacterium ulcerans

Background Previous analyses of sera from a limited number of Ghanaian Buruli ulcer (BU) patients, their household contacts, individuals living in BU non-endemic regions as well as European controls have indicated that antibody responses to the M. ulcerans 18 kDa small heat shock protein (shsp) reflect exposure to this pathogen. Here, we have investigated to what extent inhabitants of regions in Ghana regarded as non-endemic for BU develop anti-18 kDa shsp antibody titers. Methodology/Principal Findings For this purpose we determined anti-18 kDa shsp IgG titers in sera collected from healthy inhabitants of the BU endemic Densu River Valley and the Volta Region, which was so far regarded as BU non-endemic. Significantly more sera from the Densu River Valley contained anti-18 kDa shsp IgG (32% versus 12%, respectively). However, some sera from the Volta Region also showed high titers. When interviewing these sero-responders, it was revealed that the person with the highest titer had a chronic wound, which was clinically diagnosed and laboratory reconfirmed as active BU. After identification of this BU index case, further BU cases were clinically diagnosed by the Volta Region local health authorities and laboratory reconfirmed. Interestingly, there was neither a difference in sero-prevalence nor in IS2404 PCR positivity of environmental samples between BU endemic and non-endemic communities located in the Densu River Valley. Conclusions These data indicate that the intensity of exposure to M. ulcerans in endemic and non-endemic communities along the Densu River is comparable and that currently unknown host and/or pathogen factors may determine how frequently exposure is leading to clinical disease. While even high serum titers of anti-18 kDa shsp IgG do not indicate active disease, sero-epidemiological studies can be used to identify new BU endemic areas.
Interviewing Suspects of Fraud: An In-Depth Analysis of Interviewing Skills

Whereas much of the limited research concerning the actual investigative interviewing of suspects has involved police interviews, almost no research has involved other agencies who regularly undertake criminal investigations (for example, those various government agencies that conduct investigations regarding benefit fraud). This study examined a sample of 142 of the more demanding interviews, (both from audiotapes and transcripts of actual interviews with suspects) and it revealed that, while investigators generally displayed ethical interviewing standards and tended to use open questioning techniques, few interviews were skilled. Shortcomings were particularly found in terms of rapport development, summarizing, flexibility, and how investigators brought interviews to closure. Given this frequency of ineffective interviewing, it is recommended that further training of interviewers is required and that additional research is required into the reasons for the mediocre performance.
Reflexive Dispossession and the Self: Constructing a Processual Theory of Identity

Based on phenomenological interviews with consumers who voluntarily engaged in the process of dispossession, the study develops an emerging processual theory of identity, which emphasizes four main stages: sensitization, separation, socialization, and striving. Each phase corresponds to evolving consumers' perceptions of the world and positioning of the self, and characterizes distinct meanings and experiences of consumption. Furthermore, our analysis shows that, although there is no possible self‐making outside of consumer culture, its normative background is not fixed, but rather fluid, and can be deconstructed when it no longer operates within the realm of consumers' world‐view.
Early childhood teachers' understanding of inclusive education and associated practices: reflections from Greece

This paper focuses on Greek regular and special preschool teachers' understanding of inclusion; their views about the engagement of children with disabilities in typical day routines/activities; and their preferred strategies for facilitating children's engagement in classroom activities. Data were gathered through semi-structured interviews with 77 teachers (45 regular and 32 special educators) drawn from 47 preschool mainstream settings in Greece. The analysis revealed that teachers hold conflicting and restrictive beliefs about inclusive education. Further, the teachers' accounts indicated that most of the children with disabilities were experiencing significant difficulties in their engagement during free-play as well as structured/semi-structured activities. Lastly, teachers identified a range of strategies that they deployed for promoting children's involvement in classroom activities. The paper concludes by highlighting the need to shift away from a narrow individualistic-deficit assumption of disability towards a socio-constructivist conceptualisation of ‘diversity’ and the establishment of genuinely inclusive school cultures.
Blind Synchronization in Diffusion-Based Molecular Communication Channels

Synchronization is an essential feature of any communication system. Due to the very low throughput of molecular communications systems, blind synchronization is preferred in order to reduce communications overhead. In this paper, we present the first blind synchronization algorithm for the diffusion-based molecular communication channel. Considering a diffusion-based physical channel model, we use the non-decision directed maximum likelihood criterion for estimating the channel delay. We then derive the Cramer-Rao lower bound and evaluate the performance of the proposed synchronization algorithm by investigating its mean square error.