Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
RISK FACTORS FOR LATENT TUBERCULOSIS INFECTION AMONG HEALTH-CARE WORKERS IN NORTHEASTERN THAILAND.

Health-care workers (HCWs) are a high-risk population for acquiring Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection. Understanding the risk factors for latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI) could provide information to facilitate an appropriate tuberculosis (TB) control program. We aimed to determine the prevalence of, and risk factors for LTBI among HCWs in northeastern Thailand. Between 1 November 2013 and 30 September 2015, we examined 112 HCWs at Srinagarind Hospital, Khon Kaen Province in northeastern Thailand using the QuantiFERON®-TB Gold In-Tube (QFT) assay. Twenty-one [18.8%; 95% confidence interval (CI): 11.5- 26.0%] HCWs had a positive QFT result — all of whom were determined to have LTBI. The exposure risks and demographic data obtained from a questionnaire were compared between the 21 subjects who had a positive QFT assay and the 91 subjects who had a negative QFT assay. Multivariate analysis showed factors significantly associated with a positive QFT assay were: age ≥30 years (OR=18.88; 95%CI: 1.52-234.36), having worked as a nurse (OR=2.78; 95%CI: 1.19-6.49), having been employed at that job for ≥10 years (OR=8.78; 95%CI: 1.26-61.29) and having been exposed to known TB patients (OR=13.32: 95%CI: 1.61-110.04). Appropriate guidelines need to be developed, especially for these at-risk workers to prevent LTBI. These high-risk workers should also be considered for regular TB screening.
Universitet Virus-like-vaccines against HIV

Protection against chronic infections has necessitated the development of ever-more potent vaccination tools. HIV seems to be the most challenging foe, with a remarkable, poorly immunogenic and fragile surface glycoprotein and the ability to overpower the cell immune system. Virus-like-particle (VLP) vaccines have emerged as potent inducers of antibody and helper T cell responses, while replication-deficient viral vectors have yielded potent cytotoxic T cell responses. Here, we review the emerging concept of merging these two technologies into virus-like-vaccines (VLVs) for the targeting of HIV. Such vaccines are immunologically perceived as viruses, as they infect cells and produce VLPs in situ, but they only resemble viruses, as the replication defective vectors and VLPs cannot propagate an infection. The inherent safety of such a platform, despite robust particle production, is a distinct advantage over live-attenuated vaccines that must balance safety and immunogenicity. Previous studies have delivered VLVs encoded in modified Vaccinia Ankara vectors and we have developed the concept into a single-reading adenovirus-based technology capable of eliciting robust CD8+ and CD4+ T cells responses and trimer binding antibody responses. Such vaccines offer the potential to display the naturally produced immunogen directly and induce an integrated humoral and cellular immune response.
The nuts and bolts of the Haloferax CRISPR-Cas system I-B

ABSTRACT Invading genetic elements pose a constant threat to prokaryotic survival, requiring an effective defence. Eleven years ago, the arsenal of known defence mechanisms was expanded by the discovery of the CRISPR-Cas system. Although CRISPR-Cas is present in the majority of archaea, research often focuses on bacterial models. Here, we provide a perspective based on insights gained studying CRISPR-Cas system I-B of the archaeon Haloferax volcanii. The system relies on more than 50 different crRNAs, whose stability and maintenance critically depend on the proteins Cas5 and Cas7, which bind the crRNA and form the Cascade complex. The interference machinery requires a seed sequence and can interact with multiple PAM sequences. H. volcanii stands out as the first example of an organism that can tolerate autoimmunity via the CRISPR-Cas system while maintaining a constitutively active system. In addition, the H. volcanii system was successfully developed into a tool for gene regulation.
The Roles of Harsh and Fluctuating Conditions in the Dynamics of Ecological Communities

Harsh conditions (e.g., mortality and stress) reduce population growth rates directly; secondarily, they may reduce the intensity of interactions between organisms. Near‐exclusive focus on the secondary effect of these forms of harshness has led ecologists to believe that they reduce the importance of ecological interactions, such as competition, and favor coexistence of even ecologically very similar species. By examining both the costs and the benefits, we show that harshness alone does not lessen the importance of species interactions or limit their role in community structure. Species coexistence requires niche differences, and harshness does not in itself make coexistence more likely. Fluctuations in environmental conditions (e.g., disturbance, seasonal change, and weather variation) also have been regarded as decreasing species interactions and favoring coexistence, but we argue that coexistence can only be favored when fluctuations create spatial or temporal niche opportunities. We argue that important diversity‐promoting roles for harsh and fluctuating conditions depend on deviations from the assumptions of additive effects and linear dependencies most commonly found in ecological models. Such considerations imply strong roles for species interactions in the diversity of a community.
Dry sliding wear behavior of Al-SiO2 composites

Abstract Al-base composites with different amount of silica (5, 10, 15 and 20 wt.%) were developed using powder metallurgy route and compacts were sintered at 550 °C for 2 h. XRD analysis of all compositions was conducted for phases and amount of the second phase present. Morphology of the composites shows quite uniform distribution of the SiO2 particles but at higher percentage of SiO2 particles the clustering starts. Mechanical properties such as uniaxial compressive strength (UCS) and hardness were evaluated and it is seen that among all compositions, composite with 10 wt. % SiO2 has maximum UCS and hardness. Wear behavior of all composites was studied with sliding distance, applied loads, sliding velocity and composition. All composites show a linear increase in cumulative wear with distance and load. Wear rate with load increases continuously for all compositions, however, composite with 10 wt. % SiO2 revealed minimum wear rate with distance, sliding velocity and loads. Wear rate with sliding velocity increases sharply after attaining minima at 3 m/s sliding velocity. SEM analysis of wear tracks is in agreement with wear results. Al-10 wt. %SiO2 also shows minimum wear coefficient values for all loads, however, wear coefficient decreases with load for all compositions.
Slow and Stale Gradients Can Win the Race

Distributed Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) when run in a synchronous manner, suffers from delays in runtime as it waits for the slowest workers (stragglers). Asynchronous methods can alleviate stragglers, but cause gradient staleness that can adversely affect the convergence error. In this work, we present a novel theoretical characterization of the speedup offered by asynchronous methods by analyzing the trade-off between the error in the trained model and the actual training runtime (wallclock time). The main novelty in our work is that our runtime analysis considers random straggling delays, which helps us design and compare distributed SGD algorithms that strike a balance between straggling and staleness. We also provide a new error convergence analysis of asynchronous SGD variants without bounded or exponential delay assumptions. Finally, based on our theoretical characterization of the error-runtime trade-off, we propose a method of gradually varying synchronicity in distributed SGD and demonstrate its performance on the CIFAR10 dataset.
Diabetes-Related Emergency Medical Service Activations in 23 States, United States 2015

Abstract Objective: The use of emergency medical services (EMS) for diabetes-related events is believed to be substantial but has not been quantified nationally despite the diverse acute complications associated with diabetes. We describe diabetes-related EMS activations in 2015 among people of all ages from 23 U.S. states. Methods: We used data from 23 states that reported ≥95% of their EMS activations to the U.S. National Emergency Medical Services Information System (NEMSIS) in 2015. A diabetes-related EMS activation was defined using coded EMS provider impressions of “diabetes symptoms” and coded complaints recorded by dispatch of “diabetic problem. ” We described activations by type of location, urbanicity, U.S. Census Division, season, and time of day; and patient-events by age category, race/ethnicity, disposition, and treatment with glucose. Crude and age-adjusted diabetes-related EMS patient-level event rates were calculated for adults ≥18 years of age with diagnosed diabetes using the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System to estimate the population denominator. Results: Of 10,324,031 relevant EMS records, 241,495 (2.3%) were diabetes-related activations, which involved over 235,000 hours of service. Most activations occurred in urban or suburban environ- ments (86.4%), in the home setting (73.5%), and were slightly more frequent in the summer months. Most patients (72.6%) were ≥45 years of age and over one-half (55.4%) were transported to the emergency department. The overall age-adjusted diabetes-related EMS event rate was 33.9 per 1,000 persons with diagnosed diabetes; rates were highest in patients 18–44 years of age, males, and non-Hispanic blacks and varied by U.S. Census Division. Conclusions: Diabetes results in a substantial burden on EMS resources. Collection of more detailed diabetes complication information in NEMSIS may help facilitate EMS resource planning and prevention strategies.
A common brain network links development, aging, and vulnerability to disease

Significance Many evolutionary–developmental models have attempted to relate development and aging, with one popular hypothesis proposing that healthy age-related brain decline mirrors developmental maturation. But this elegant hypothesis has so far lacked clear and direct data to support it. Here, we describe intrinsic, entirely data-driven evidence that healthy brain degeneration and developmental process mirror one another in certain brain regions. Specifically, a data-driven decomposition of structural brain images in 484 healthy participants reveals a network of mainly higher-order regions that develop relatively late during adolescence, demonstrate accelerated degeneration in old age, and show heightened vulnerability to disorders that impact on brain structure during adolescence and aging. These results provide a fundamental link between development, aging, and disease processes in the brain. Several theories link processes of development and aging in humans. In neuroscience, one model posits for instance that healthy age-related brain degeneration mirrors development, with the areas of the brain thought to develop later also degenerating earlier. However, intrinsic evidence for such a link between healthy aging and development in brain structure remains elusive. Here, we show that a data-driven analysis of brain structural variation across 484 healthy participants (8–85 y) reveals a largely—but not only—transmodal network whose lifespan pattern of age-related change intrinsically supports this model of mirroring development and aging. We further demonstrate that this network of brain regions, which develops relatively late during adolescence and shows accelerated degeneration in old age compared with the rest of the brain, characterizes areas of heightened vulnerability to unhealthy developmental and aging processes, as exemplified by schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s disease, respectively. Specifically, this network, while derived solely from healthy subjects, spatially recapitulates the pattern of brain abnormalities observed in both schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s disease. This network is further associated in our large-scale healthy population with intellectual ability and episodic memory, whose impairment contributes to key symptoms of schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s disease. Taken together, our results suggest that the common spatial pattern of abnormalities observed in these two disorders, which emerge at opposite ends of the life spectrum, might be influenced by the timing of their separate and distinct pathological processes in disrupting healthy cerebral development and aging, respectively.
Wage returns to university disciplines in Greece: are Greek higher education degrees Trojan Horses?

This paper examines the wage returns to qualifications and academic disciplines in the Greek labour market. Exploring wage responsiveness across various degree subjects in Greece is interesting, as it is characterised by high levels of graduate unemployment, which vary considerably with the field of study, and relatively low levels of wage flexibility. Using micro-data from recently available waves (2002–2003) of the Greek Labour Force Survey, the returns to academic disciplines are estimated by gender and public/private sector. Quantile regressions and cohort interactions are also used to capture the heterogeneity in wage returns across the various disciplines. The results show considerable variation in wage premiums across the fields of study, with lower returns for those that have a marginal role to play in an economy with a rising services/shrinking public sector. Educational reforms that pay closer attention to the future prospects of university disciplines are advocated.
The Spot Market Matters: Evidence on Implicit Contracts from Britain

Based on the methodology of Beaudry and DiNardo (1991), this paper investigates the relative importance of the spot market and implicit contracts in the determination of British real wages. Empirical work is carried out separately for males and females with individual-level data taken from the New Earnings Survey Panel for the years 1976 to 2001. In contrast to previous studies that used North American data, the spot market is found to be more important than implicit contracts in determining real wages. Indeed, there is very little support for implicit contracts in these data. Further evidence is provided through the analysis of individual wage sequences. These suggest that the downwardly rigid wage sequences implied by implicit contracts with costless worker mobility are not prevalent in Britain.
NetChain: Scale-Free Sub-RTT Coordination

Coordination services are a fundamental building block of modern cloud systems, providing critical functionalities like configuration management and distributed locking. The major challenge is to achieve low latency and high throughput while providing strong consistency and fault-tolerance. Traditional server-based solutions require multiple round-trip times (RTTs) to process a query. This paper presents NetChain, a new approach that provides scale-free sub-RTT coordination in datacenters. NetChain exploits recent advances in programmable switches to store data and process queries entirely in the network data plane. This eliminates the query processing at coordination servers and cuts the end-to-end latency to as little as half of an RTT—clients only experience processing delay from their own software stack plus network delay, which in a datacenter setting is typically much smaller. We design new protocols and algorithms based on chain replication to guarantee strong consistency and to efficiently handle switch failures. We implement a prototype with four Barefoot Tofino switches and four commodity servers. Evaluation results show that compared to traditional server-based solutions like ZooKeeper, our prototype provides orders of magnitude higher throughput and lower latency, and handles failures gracefully.
Assessing connectivity in salmonid fishes with DNA microsatellite markers

Connectivity is a key consideration for the management and conservation of any species, but empirical characterizations of connectivity can be extremely challenging. Assessments of connectivity require biologically realistic classifications of landscape structure (Kotliar and Wiens 1990), and an understanding of how landscape structure affects migration, dispersal, and population dynamics (Dunning et al. 1992; Rosenberg et al. 1997; Hanski 1999; Taylor et al. Chapter 2). Empirical assessments of connectivity may be accomplished by studying spatial patterns of habitat occupancy through time (Sjögren-Gulve and Ray 1996; Hanski 1999; Moilanen and Hanski Chapter 3), spatially correlated changes in population demography (Bjornstad et al. 1999; Isaak et al. 2003; Carroll Chapter 15), and individual movements (Millspaugh and Marzluff 2001; Tracey Chapter 14). These approaches have provided important insights for many species, but they can be difficult to implement for species with slow population dynamics or turnover (extinction and recolonization), complex life histories, and long-distance migrations. For species with these characteristics, molecular genetic markers represent a valuable tool for understanding processes that influence connectivity (Avise 1994; Frankham et al. 2004; Frankham Chapter 4). In this chapter, we review applications of molecular genetic markers to assess connectivity in salmonid fishes, a group of relatively well-studied species with
Effect of substrate cooling and droplet shape and composition on the droplet evaporation and the deposition of particles

Sessile droplets are liquid droplets resting on a flat substrate. During the evaporation of small sessile droplets, the contact line of the droplet undergoes two different stages: pinned stage with fixed contact area and de-pinned stage with fixed contact angle. An evaporation with a pinned contact line produces a flow inside the droplet toward the contact line. This flow carries particles and deposits them near the contact line. This causes the commonly observed “coffee-ring” phenomenon. This thesis provides a study of the evaporation process and the evaporation-induced flow of sessile droplet and brings insights into the deposition of particles from colloidal suspensions. Here we first study the evaporation of small sessile droplets and discuss the importance of the thermal conductivity of the substrate on the evaporation process. We show how current evaporation models produce a significant error for droplet sizes below 500 μm. Our model includes thermal effects, in particular, it includes the thermal conductivity of the substrate that provides heat to the droplet to balance the latent heat of evaporation. It considers the whole time of evaporation with the pinned and the de-pinned stages by defining a virtual movement of the contact line that is related to the evolution of the contact angle and is based on experimental results. Our model is in agreement with experimental results for droplets smaller than 500 μm with an error below 2%. Furthermore, we study the evaporation of line droplets with finite sizes and discuss the complex behavior of the contact lines during evaporation. We apply an energy formulation and show that the contact line starts receding from the two ends of line droplets with a contact angle above the receding contact angle of spherical droplets. And then we show the evaporation-induced flow inside the line droplets.
Two problems of P. Erdős on matchings in set families

The families $\mathcal F_1,\ldots, \mathcal F_s\subset 2^{[n]}$ are called \textit{$q$-dependent} if there are no pairwise disjoint $F_i\in \mathcal F_i,\ i=1,\ldots, s,$ satisfying $|F_1\cup\ldots\cup F_s|\le q. $ We determine $\max |\mathcal F_1|+\ldots +|\mathcal F_s| $ for \textit{all} values $n\ge q,s\ge 2$. The result provides a far-reaching generalization of an important classical result of Kleitman. The uniform case $\mathcal F_1 = \ldots = \mathcal F_s\subset {[n]\choose k}$ of this problem is the so-called Erd\H os Matching Conjecture. After more than 50 years its full solution is still not in sight. In the present paper we provide a Hilton-Milner-type stability theorem for it in a relatively wide range, in particular, for $n\ge (2+o(1))sk$ with $o(1)$ depending on $s$. This is a considerable improvement of a result due to Bollob\'as, Daykin and Erd\H os. We apply our results to advance in an anti-Ramsey-type problem, proposed by \"Ozkahya and Young. They asked for the minimum number $ar(n,k,s)$ of colors in the coloring of the $k$-element subsets of $[n]$ that do not contain a \textit{rainbow matching} of size $s$, that is, $s$ sets of different colors that are pairwise disjoint. We prove a stability result for the problem, which allows to determine $ar(n,k,s)$ for all $k\ge 3$ and $n\ge sk+(s-1)(k-1). $ Some other consequences of our results are presented as well.
CSTB-Projet Environnement et ambiances : effet des basses fréquences sur le confort acoustique-tests psychoacoustiques

At the european and international levels, proposals to harmonize building acoustic performance indices are currently under study (ISO 16717-1 and -2 projects). In this context, questions have been raised concerning the choice of these indices as well as the integration of low frequencies theses indices calculation (third octave bands 50, 63 and 80 Hz). In order to assess the relevance of different existing indices, listening tests are carried on a panel of more than twenty participants. Sound samples are prepared by modelling the transmission of noise through different types of façade walls or separating walls or floors, for typical noise sources outside or inside the building. Annoyance is then rated and correlated to performance indices. Results tend to show that the new proposals of indices are not better suited to evaluate annoyance.
Traditional coping mechanisms for climate change of pastoralists in South Omo, Ethiopia

Pastoral groups in the Horn of Africa are marginalized and live under extreme poverty. Climate change brings newer and more complicated challenges. It is expected that the frequency and severity of extreme weather events will increase in the region. This will have devastating consequences for the peoples of the region in general and the pastoral communities in particular. This paper examines traditional coping mechanisms that the Dassanech and Nyangatom pastoral groups of the South Omo valley, southern Ethiopia use. These include: migration, herd diversification, herd splitting, income diversification, restocking and local alliances. The interventions of governmental and non-governmental actors by and large overlook the capacity of such traditional mechanisms. The Ethiopian government focuses on settlement in its development intervention and believes that settling pastoral communities through introduction of irrigation schemes would bring them a more ‘stable’ way of life. However, we contend that introduction of large-scale irrigation in the Omo valley would bring pastoral communities more challenges than opportunities. The paper’s major conclusion is that the adoption of viable policies to cope with the adverse impacts of climate change in the Omo valley requires a concerted effort to recognize and to utilize efficiently the traditional knowledge of pastoral groups.