Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Gene Xpert MTB / RIF Assay – An Effortless Tool for the Rapid Detection of Pulmonary and Extra-Pulmonary Tuberculosis with Detection of Rifampicin ( RIF ) Resistance

DOI: 10.21276/sjams.2018. 6.12. 51 Abstract: Tuberculosis (TB) is one of the major concerns of health policy and rapid detection of M. tuberculosis and detection of rifampicin (RIF) resistance in infected patients are essential for disease management. Multi-drug resistance (MDR) TB is defined as tuberculosis (TB) disease caused by a strain of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) that was resistant to at least isoniazid and rifampicin (RIF). The aim of this study was to evaluate the importance of GeneXpert MTB/RIF for detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) with detection of rifampicin (RIF) resistance. In this study 320suspected cases of pulmonary and extra-pulmonary TB were included. Their sputum and other (Pus, CSF, tissue, etc.,) samples were collected and subjected to smear microscopy test followed by GeneXpert MTB/RIF assay. Of total 320 suspected cases, Mycobacteria were detected in 152 patients (47.5%) by GeneXpert MTB/RIF and ZN stain. Among all, the highest detection rate of MTB was found by Genexpert 148(46.2%) followed by ZN smear 114(35.6%). Four ZN smear positive cases were negative by Genexpert MTB/RIF. However, RIF’s resistance was detected in only 08 cases (5.4%) by GeneXpert MTB/RIF. GeneXpert MTB/RIF assay is efficient and reliable technique for the rapid diagnostic of TB. The GeneXpert MTB/RIF assay is a simple, high sensitivity and specificity for RIF resistance detection implies for diagnosis of MTB and RIF resistance in MDR cases as well as suspected smear negative and extra-pulmonary cases.
Effect of a cataract simulation on clinical and real world vision.

AIMS/BACKGROUND: Many reports have indicated that some patients with cataract can retain good visual acuity but complain of significant visual problems. This is the first in a series of papers trying to determine what causes these symptoms and whether other clinical tests can predict the real world vision loss. METHODS: The effect of a cataract simulation with a similar angular distribution of light scatter as real cataract on clinical (visual acuity, contrast sensitivity, and disability glare) and real world vision (face recognition, reading speed, and mobility orientation) was investigated. RESULTS: The simulation had a relatively small effect on visual acuity (6/6 with the simulation), but much larger effects on contrast sensitivity and low contrast acuity with and without glare. The simulation had no effect on high luminance and high contrast real world tasks, such as mobility orientation in room light and optimal reading speed. A small, but significant deterioration was found for the slightly lower contrast task of face and expression recognition. However, under low luminance conditions, substantial defects in mobility orientation were obtained (despite 6/6 acuity). CONCLUSIONS: Although the relative effect of the cataract simulation on acuity and contrast tasks is not typical of the average cataract, it can be found in those cataract patients with visual problems despite good visual acuity. This corroborates the suggestion that it is large amounts of wide angle light scatter (forward and/or backward) which are at least partly responsible for visual disability in cataract patients with good visual acuity. A patient's reported visual disability may depend on the percentage of time he or she spends under low contrast and/or low luminance conditions, such as walking or reading in dim illumination, and walking or driving at night, in fog, or heavy rain.
Prototype vector machine for large scale semi-supervised learning

Practical data mining rarely falls exactly into the supervised learning scenario. Rather, the growing amount of unlabeled data poses a big challenge to large-scale semi-supervised learning (SSL). We note that the computational intensiveness of graph-based SSL arises largely from the manifold or graph regularization, which in turn lead to large models that are difficult to handle. To alleviate this, we proposed the prototype vector machine (PVM), a highly scalable, graph-based algorithm for large-scale SSL. Our key innovation is the use of "prototypes vectors" for efficient approximation on both the graph-based regularizer and model representation. The choice of prototypes are grounded upon two important criteria: they not only perform effective low-rank approximation of the kernel matrix, but also span a model suffering the minimum information loss compared with the complete model. We demonstrate encouraging performance and appealing scaling properties of the PVM on a number of machine learning benchmark data sets.
Grammar induction and PP attachment disambiguation

The task of parsing is one of the oldest tasks in the field of computational linguistics, facing two major fundamental problems: attachment disambiguation and grammar construction. The former problem commonly manifests itself als the “PP attachment disambiguation problem”, where the decision wether the prepositional phrase attaches to the verb or noun is ambiguous. The latter problem can be solved by inducing grammar from a corpus, “grammar induction”. While the literature is rich on both subjects, this paper gives an survey on the literature on both tasks, wher PP-attachment disambiguation.
The Influence of the Structure and Culture of Medical Group Practices on Prescription Drug Errors

Background:This project was designed to identify the magnitude of prescription drug errors in medical group practices and to explore the influence of the practice structure and culture on those error rates. Seventy-eight practices serving an upper Midwest managed care (Care Plus) plan during 2001 were included in the study. Methods:Using Care Plus claims data, prescription drug error rates were calculated at the enrollee level and then were aggregated to the group practice that each enrollee selected to provide and manage their care. Practice structure and culture data were obtained from surveys of the practices. Data were analyzed using multivariate regression. Results:Both the culture and the structure of these group practices appear to influence prescription drug error rates. Seeing more patients per clinic hour, more prescriptions per patient, and being cared for in a rural clinic were all strongly associated with more errors. Conversely, having a case manager program is strongly related to fewer errors in all of our analyses. The culture of the practices clearly influences error rates, but the findings are mixed. Practices with cohesive cultures have lower error rates but, contrary to our hypothesis, cultures that value physician autonomy and individuality also have lower error rates than those with a more organizational orientation. Our study supports the contention that there are a substantial number of prescription drug errors in the ambulatory care sector. Even by the strictest definition, there were about 13 errors per 100 prescriptions for Care Plus patients in these group practices during 2001. Conclusions:Our study demonstrates that the structure of medical group practices influences prescription drug error rates. In some cases, this appears to be a direct relationship, such as the effects of having a case manager program on fewer drug errors, but in other cases the effect appears to be indirect through the improvement of drug prescribing practices. An important aspect of this study is that it provides insights into the relationships of the structure and culture of medical group practices and prescription drug errors and provides direction for future research. Research focused on the factors influencing the high error rates in rural areas and how the interaction of practice structural and cultural attributes influence error rates would add important insights into our findings. For medical practice directors, our data show that they should focus on patient care coordination to reduce errors.
Income distribution trends and future food demand

This paper surveys the theoretical literature on the relationship between income distribution and food demand, and identifies main gaps of current food modelling techniques that affect the accuracy of food demand projections. At the heart of the relationship between income distribution and food demand is Engel's law. Engel's law establishes that as income increases, households' demand for food increases less than proportionally. A consequence of this law is that the particular shape of the distribution of income across individuals and countries affects the rate of growth of food demand. Our review of the literature suggests that existing models of food demand fail to incorporate the required Engel flexibility when (i) aggregating different food budget shares among households; and (ii) changing budget shares as income grows. We perform simple simulations to predict growth in food demand under alternative income distribution scenarios taking into account nonlinearity of food demand. Results suggest that (i) distributional effects are to be expected from changes in between-countries inequality, rather than within-country inequality; and (ii) simulations of an optimistic and a pessimistic scenario of income inequality suggest that world food demand in 2050 would be 2.7 per cent higher and 5.4 per cent lower than distributional-neutral growth, respectively.
Enabling Frequency Reuse for Licensed-Assisted Access with Listen-Before-Talk in Unlicensed Bands

Licensed-Assisted Access (LAA) which allows LTE to be deployed in unlicensed spectrum is a promising technique currently under standardization in 3GPP Rel-13. To guarantee a peaceful coexistence of LAA with the incumbent systems such as WiFi, listen-before-talk (LBT) which requires the node to sense the medium before data transmission is introduced. On the other hand, LBT also prevents simultaneous transmission from neighbouring nodes of the same LAA operator. In order to increase the spectral efficiency of LAA, frequency reuse for transmission by neighbouring nodes of the same operator has been agreed to be one target of LAA design. In this paper we evaluate the performance of LAA in an indoor scenario assuming both one and two LAA networks deployed by different operators. It is shown that LBT is indeed needed to ensure good performance with multiple LAA operators, especially at high load. And frequency reuse between neighbouring nodes of the same LAA operator can further improve the performance.
Thinking Styles and Academic Achievement Among Filipino Students

Abstract The authors' objective in this study was to determine whether the precepts of R. J. Sternberg's (1988, 1997) theory of mental self-government apply to a non-Western culture. They administered R. J. Sternberg and R. K. Wagner's (1992) Thinking Styles Inventory, which is based on the theory of mental self-government, to 429 Filipino university students. The results of item analysis, scale intercorrelations, and factor analysis were consistent with the general provisions of the theory. Correlational analysis between thinking styles and grade point average showed that thinking styles are related to academic achievement. The results are explained with respect to the concepts and practices of Philippine culture and schools and discussed in relation to the developmental assumptions of the theory of mental self-government.
Test-retest variability of frequency-doubling perimetry and conventional perimetry in glaucoma patients and normal subjects.

PURPOSE To compare the test-retest variability characteristics of frequency-doubling perimetry, a new perimetric test, with those of conventional perimetry in glaucoma patients and normal control subjects. METHODS The study sample contained 64 patients and 47 normal subjects aged 66.16+/-11.86 and 64.26+/-7.99 years (mean +/- SD), respectively. All subjects underwent frequency-doubling perimetry (using the threshold mode) and conventional perimetry (using program 30-2 of the Humphrey Field Analyzer; Humphrey Instruments, San Leandro, CA) in one randomly selected eye. Each test was repeated at 1-week intervals for five tests with each technique over 4 weeks. Empirical 5th and 95th percentiles of the distribution of threshold deviations at retest were determined for all combinations of single tests and mean of two tests, stratified by threshold deviation. The influence of visual field eccentricity and overall visual field loss on variability also were examined. RESULTS Mean test time with frequency-doubling perimetry in patients and normal control subjects was 5.90 and 5.25 minutes, respectively, and with conventional perimetry was 17.20 and 14.01 minutes, respectively. In patients, there was a significant correlation between the results of the two techniques, in the full field and in quadrants, whereas in normal subjects there was no such correlation. In patients, the retest variability of conventional perimetry in locations with 20-dB loss was 120% (single tests) and 127% (mean tests) higher compared with that in locations with 0-dB loss. Comparative figures for frequency-doubling perimetry were 40% and 47%, respectively. Variability also increased more with threshold deviation in normal subjects tested with conventional perimetry. In both patients and normal subjects, variability increased with visual field eccentricity in conventional perimetry, but not in frequency-doubling perimetry. Both techniques showed an increase in variability with overall visual field damage. CONCLUSIONS Frequency-doubling perimetry has different test-retest variability characteristics than conventional perimetry and may have potential for monitoring glaucomatous field damage.
Effect of Body Wash with Tea Tree Oil on the Prevention of Methicillin–Resistant Staphylococcus aureus in Critically Ill Patients at a university hospital in Egypt

MRSA is a major nosocomial pathogen that causes severe morbidity and mortality rate in many hospitalized patients especially critically ill patients and considered one of the main causes of the death worldwide [1]. It is the leading cause of life threating problems such as bloodstream infection, pneumonia, surgical site infection, arthritis, osteomyelitis, and endocarditis if not treated quickly; MRSA can cause sepsis and death [2,3]. Moreover, MRSA infection leads to increased hospitalization length and health care costs [4]. Its prevalence in Egypt is high compared to other African countries. Its prevalence of HA-MRSA increased from 48.5% in 2005 to 69.1% in 2013 and CA-MRSA 23.3% to 60% [5]. Furthermore, about two billion people worldwide carry Staphylococcus aureus, between 2 million and 53 million people in the United States (USA) carry MRSA [6]. Mortality rate due to MRSA is 50 % and higher for patients infected with MRSA in intensive care unit [7]. According to centers for disease control and Prevention (CDC) approximately 2.3 million individuals in the USA diagnosed with MRSA, approximately 86% of persons diagnosed with MRSA *Corresponding author: Nahla Shaaban Khalil, Assist professor at Critical Care and Emergency Nursing, Cairo University, Egypt. Received Date: April 01, 2019 Published Date: April 24, 2019 Iris Journal of Nursing & Care Open Access
Performance of fractionally spread multicarrier CDMA in AWGN as well as slow and fast Nakagami-m fading channels

In multicarrier code-division multiple-access (MC-CDMA), the total system bandwidth is divided into a number of subbands, where each subband may use direct-sequence (DS) spreading and each subband signal is transmitted using a subcarrier frequency. In this paper, we divide the symbol duration into a number of fractional subsymbol durations also referred to here as fractions, in a manner analogous to subbands in MC-CDMA systems. In the proposed MC-CDMA scheme, the data streams are spread at both the symbol-fraction level and at the chip level by the transmitter, and hence the proposed scheme is referred to as the fractionally spread MC-CDMA arrangement, or FS MC-CDMA. Furthermore, the FS MC-CDMA signal is additionally spread in the frequency (F)-domain using a spreading code with the aid of a number of subcarriers. In comparison to conventional MC-CDMA schemes, which are suitable for communications over frequency-selective fading channels, our study demonstrates that the proposed FS MC-CDMA is capable of efficiently exploiting both the frequency-selective and the time-selective characteristics of wireless channels.
Voltage‐dependent potassium currents in hypertrophied rat astrocytes after a cortical stab wound

Changes in the membrane properties of reactive astrocytes in gliotic cortex induced by a stab wound were studied in brain slices of 21–28‐day‐old rats, using the patch‐clamp technique and were correlated with changes in resting extracellular K+ concentration ([K+]e) measured in vivo using K+‐selective microelectrodes. Based on K+ current expression, three types of astrocytes were identified in gliotic cortex: A1 astrocytes expressing a time‐ and voltage‐independent K+ current component and additional inwardly rectifying K+ currents (KIR); A2 astrocytes expressing a time‐ and voltage‐independent K+ current component and additional delayed outwardly rectifying K+ currents (KDR); and complex astrocytes expressing KDR, KIR, and A‐type K+ (KA) currents and Na+ currents (INa). Nestin/bromodeoxyuridine (BrdU)‐negative A1 astrocytes were found further than ∼100 μm from the stab wound and showed an upregulation of KIR currents within the first day post‐injury (PI), correlating with an increased resting [K+]e. Their number declined from 62% of total astrocytes in control rats to 41% in rats at 7 days PI. Nestin/BrdU‐positive A2 astrocytes were found only within a distance of ∼100 μm from the stab wound and, in comparison to those in control rats, showed an upregulation of KDR currents. Their number increased from 8% of the total number of astrocytes in control rats to 39% 7 days PI. Both A1 and A2 astrocytes showed hypertrophied processes and increased GFAP staining, but an examination of cell morphology revealed greater changes in the surface/volume ratio in A2 astrocytes than in A1 astrocytes. Complex astrocytes did not display a hypertophied morphology; KIR currents in these cells were upregulated within 1 day PI, while the KDR, KA, and INa currents were increased only 6 h PI. We conclude that two electrophysiologically, immunohistochemically, and morphologically distinct types of hypertrophied astrocytes are present at the site of a stab wound, depending on the distance from the lesion, and may have different functions in ionic homeostasis and/or regeneration. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Generalized Lagrangian Duals and Sums of Squares Relaxations of Sparse Polynomial Optimization Problems

Sequences of generalized Lagrangian duals and their sums of squares (SOS) of polynomials relaxations for a polynomial optimization problem (POP) are introduced. The sparsity of polynomials in the POP is used to reduce the sizes of the Lagrangian duals and their SOS relaxations. It is proved that the optimal values of the Lagrangian duals in the sequence converge to the optimal value of the POP using a method from the penalty function approach. The sequence of SOS relaxations is transformed into a sequence of semidefinite programing (SDP) relaxations of the POP, which correspond to duals of modification and generalization of SDP relaxations given by Lasserre for the POP.
Collaborative Verification of Information Flow for a High-Assurance App Store

Current app stores distribute some malware to unsuspecting users, even though the app approval process may be costly and time-consuming. High-integrity app stores must provide stronger guarantees that their apps are not malicious. We propose a verification model for use in such app stores to guarantee that the apps are free of malicious information flows. In our model, the software vendor and the app store auditor collaborate -- each does tasks that are easy for her/him, reducing overall verification cost. The software vendor provides a behavioral specification of information flow (at a finer granularity than used by current app stores) and source code annotated with information-flow type qualifiers. A flow-sensitive, context-sensitive information-flow type system checks the information flow type qualifiers in the source code and proves that only information flows in the specification can occur at run time. The app store auditor uses the vendor-provided source code to manually verify declassifications. We have implemented the information-flow type system for Android apps written in Java, and we evaluated both its effectiveness at detecting information-flow violations and its usability in practice. In an adversarial Red Team evaluation, we analyzed 72 apps (576,000 LOC) for malware. The 57 Trojans among these had been written specifically to defeat a malware analysis such as ours. Nonetheless, our information-flow type system was effective: it detected 96% of malware whose malicious behavior was related to information flow and 82% of all malware. In addition to the adversarial evaluation, we evaluated the practicality of using the collaborative model. The programmer annotation burden is low: 6 annotations per 100 LOC. Every sound analysis requires a human to review potential false alarms, and in our experiments, this took 30 minutes per 1,000 LOC for an auditor unfamiliar with the app.
THE ULTRAPRODUCT CONSTRUCTION

This is a brief survey of the ultraproduct construction, which is meant to provide background material for the readers of this volume. The ultraproduct construction is a uniform method of building models of first order theories which has applications in many areas of mathematics. It is attractive because it is algebraic in nature, but preserves all properties expressible in first order logic. The idea goes back to the construction of nonstandard models of arithmetic by Skolem (51) in 1934. In 1948, Hewitt (16) studied ultraproducts of fields. For first order structures in general, the ultraproduct construction was defined by Los (37) in 1955. The subject developed rapidly beginning in 1958 with a series of abstracts by Frayne, Morel, Scott, and Tarski, which led to the 1962 paper (14). Other early papers are (31) by Kochen, and (18) by the author. The groundwork for the application of ultraproducts to mathematics was laid in the late 1950's through the 1960's. The purpose of this article is to give a survey of the classical results on ultraproducts of first order structures in order to provide some background for the papers in this volume. Over the years, many generalizations of the ultraproduct construction, as well as applications of ultraproducts to non-first order structures, have appeared in the literature. To keep this paper of reasonable length, we will not include such generalizations in this survey. For earlier surveys of ultraproducts see (7), (12), (24). For much more about ultraproducts see the books (9), (10), (49), and (54). We assume familiarity with a few basic concepts from model theory. For the convenience of the reader we give a crash course here. The cardinality of a set X is denoted by |X|. The cardinality of N is denoted by ω. The set of all subsets of a set I is denoted by P(I), and the set of finite subsets of I by Pω(I). Given mappings f : X → Y and g : Y → Z, the composition g ◦ f : X → Z is the mapping x 7→ g(f (x)). A rst