Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Health Locus of Control and Health Behaviour

A representative sample of 11,632 people completed a questionnaire measuring health locus of control, health value and a number of health behaviours as part of the 1989 Health in Wales Survey. Measures of smoking, alcohol consumption, exercise and diet were combined to form a health behaviour index, representing key 'lifestyle' indicators. In line with predictions, scores on this measure were positively associated with internal health locus of control scores, and negatively associated with scores on the chance and powerful others dimensions. Classifying respondents according to Wallston and Wallston's (1981) health locus of control typology revealed that 'pure internals' performed the most health behaviours. Some evidence was found to suggest that health value moderates the relationship between health locus of control and health behaviour, although overall the health locus of control construct was found to be a weak predictor of health behaviour. The results are discussed in relation to the need to consider other expectancy beliefs when predicting health behaviour.
Signature Channels of Excitability no More: L-Type Channels in Immune Cells

Although the concept of Ca2+ as a universal messenger is well established, it was assumed that the regulatory mechanisms of Ca2+-signaling were divided along the line of electric excitability. Recent advances in molecular biology and genomics have, however, provided evidence that non-excitable cells such as immunocytes also express a wide and diverse pool of ion channels that does not differ as significantly from that of excitable cells as originally assumed. Ion channels and transporters are involved in virtually all aspects of immune response regulation, from cell differentiation and development to activation, and effector functions such as migration, antibody-secretion, phagosomal maturation, or vesicular delivery of bactericidal agents. This comprises TRP channel family members, voltage- and Ca2+-gated K+- and Na+-channels, as well as unexpectedly, components of the CaV1-subfamily of voltage-gated L-type Ca2+-channels, originally thought to be signature molecules of excitability. This article provides an overview of recent observations made in the field of CaV1 L-type channel function in the immune context, as well as presents results we obtained studying these channels in B-lymphocytes.
Clinical Relevance of Direct Quantification of pp65 Antigenemia Using Flow Cytometry in Solid Organ and Stem Cell Transplant Recipients

ABSTRACT A total of 1,305 blood samples from 85 solid organ transplant (SOT) recipients and 25 stem cell transplant (SCT) recipients at risk for cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection were prospectively collected and tested using the shell vial assay (SVA) and a leukocytic qualitative PCR (q-PCR). Of these, 462 specimens were further tested by direct quantification of CMV antigenemia by flow cytometry (FC-Ag), 125 were tested with a quantitative competitive PCR, and 200 were tested for pp65 antigenemia using the slide method (S-Ag). Laboratory data were statistically analyzed according to the presence of CMV-related symptoms. In SOT and SCT recipients, active CMV infection occurred in 63.5 and 36%, respectively, and CMV disease occurred in 53 and 24%, respectively. FC-Ag results correlated better with q-PCR and S-Ag than with SVA. The first test found to be positive during follow-up was FC-Ag in 73% of cases. In SOT recipients, FC-Ag showed the highest sensitivity and negative predictive value for the diagnosis of any grade of CMV disease. For FC-Ag, the threshold beyond which CMV disease was highly probable seemed to lie at 0.20% positive polymorphonuclear leukocytes. FC-Ag appears to be a useful test for the early detection of CMV infection and the prediction of CMV disease.
Evaluation of the Safety, Tolerability, and Immunogenicity of an Oral, Inactivated Whole-Cell Shigella flexneri 2a Vaccine in Healthy Adult Subjects

ABSTRACT Shigella causes high morbidity and mortality worldwide, but there is no licensed vaccine for shigellosis yet. We evaluated the safety and immunogenicity of a formalin-inactivated whole-cell Shigella flexneri 2a vaccine, Sf2aWC, given orally to adult volunteers. In a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, 82 subjects were randomized to receive three doses of vaccine in dose escalation (2.6 ± 0.8 × 108, × 109, × 1010, and × 1011 vaccine particles/ml). Vaccine safety was actively monitored, and antigen-specific systemic and mucosal immune responses were determined in serum, antibody in lymphocyte supernatant (ALS), and fecal samples. Cytokines were measured in the serum. Sf2aWC was well tolerated and generally safe at all four dose levels. The vaccine resulted in a dose-dependent immune response. At the highest dose, the vaccine induced robust responses to lipopolysaccharide (LPS) in both serum and ALS samples. The highest magnitude and frequency of responses occurred after the first dose in almost all samples but was delayed for IgG in serum. Fifty percent of the vaccinees had a >4-fold increase in anti-LPS fecal antibody titers. Responses to invasion plasmid antigens (Ipa) were low. The levels of interleukin-17 (IL-17), IL-2, gamma interferon (IFN-γ), tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α), and IL-10 were increased, and IL-8 was decreased immediately after first dose, but these changes were very transient. This phase I trial demonstrated that the Sf2aWC vaccine, a relatively simple vaccine concept, was safe and immunogenic. The vaccine elicited immune responses which were comparable to those induced by a live, attenuated Shigella vaccine that was protective in prior human challenge studies.
Bacterial leaching patterns on pyrite crystal surfaces

Selected pyrite crystals were placed as a bacterial energy source into stationary cultures of Thiobacillus ferroxidans. Scanning electron microscope studies performed after a period of 2 years on these crystals revealed bacterial etching pits in characteristic patterns; they include pit arrangements in loose statistical disorder, in pairs, in clusters, and most remarkably in pearl-string-like chains. It has previously been confirmed that the chemical processes of bacterial leaching occur mainly in the region of contact between bacteria and the sulfide surface. The evidence presented in this experiment strongly suggests that the observed bacterial distributions are critically dependent on crystal structure and on deviations in the crystal order (fracture lines, dislocations) of the leachable substrate.
ClinicalTime: Identification of Patients with Acute Kidney Injury using Temporal Abstractions and Temporal Pattern Matching

Introduction The rising cost of providing healthcare services creates an extreme pressure to know what works best in medicine. Traditional methods of generating clinical evidence are expensive and time consuming. The availability of electronic clinical data generated during routine patient encounters provides an opportunity to use that information to generate new clinical evidence. However, electronic clinical data is frequently marred by inadequate quality that impedes such secondary uses. This study provides a proof-of-concept and tests the classification accuracy of ClinicalTime—a temporal query system—to identify patient cohorts in clinical databases. Methods we randomly selected a sample of medical records from the MIMIC-II database, an anonymized database of intensive care patients. Records were manually classified as having an acute kidney injury or not according to the AKIN criteria. Those records were then blindly classified using ClinicalTime to represent the AKIN criteria. Classification accuracy was measured. Results ClinicalTime correctly classified 88% of all patients, with a sensitivity of 0.93 and specificity of 0.84. Its performance was superior to simply using ICD-9 codes, which correctly classified 66% of all patients. Conclusions ClinicalTime, a temporal query system, is a valid method to add to the currently available ones to identify patient phenotypes in patient databases and, thus, improving our ability to re-use routinely collected electronic clinical data for secondary purposes.
Optimization Strategies for High-Performance Computing of Optical-Flow in General-Purpose Processors

In this paper, we describe the high-performance implementation of an optical-flow algorithm that takes advantage of the processor's architecture. Tuning the code, i.e., adapting it to take full advantage of the processor, is challenging, time consuming, and requires efficient programming at different levels but can lead to significant improvements in performance. The optimized implementation presented here is highly interesting for a number of applications since it delivers real-time motion estimations at high-image resolution on a PC or in an embedded system based on a general-purpose processor. In a 2.83 GHz Core 2 Quad PC, it achieves a speedup of 14 compared to our first code version and 2052.7f/s for the well-known 252 times 316 Yosemite sequence, and a speedup of 17.6 and 68.5 f/s for a 1016 times 1280 sequence. But the description of how this high-performance is achieved goes beyond a specific application since the paper presented here illustrates how inherently dense, low-level visual algorithms (pixel-wise computation) can be structured and improved to take full advantage of a standard processor. The implementation is compared with other hardware (based on FPGAs and GPUs) and software (based on clusters, PCs, and special-purpose processors) optical-flow implementations, showing that it outperforms them.
Exploring Genealogical Roots and Family History and Their Influence on College Student Development: A Qualitative Study

Exploring Genealogical Roots and Family History and Their Influence on College Student Development: A Qualitative Study Matthew L. Reiser Department of Counseling Psychology and Special Education, BYU Doctor of Philosophy Family genealogy research has grown exponentially over the past decade, making it an area worthy of scholarly inquiry (Smith, 2010). Genealogy is now one of the world’s most popular hobbies, with hundreds of millions of people worldwide actively engaged in some form of family research (Veale, 2004). In the United States, there has recently been a significant increase in the interest of searching out one’s genealogical roots (Triseliotis, 1998). For most young people, the years from late teens to early twenties represent a period of profound change (Arnett, 2000). Many young adults search for and solidify their identity during the years they attend college (Muuss, 1996). Few research studies have examined the experience of searching one’s genealogy and the impact it might have on college student development. This study focused on the experiences of college students who were searching their own personal ancestry in an undergraduate class on family history/genealogy. Participants reported that researching their family history (a) ignited or intensified a strong interest in genealogical research, (b) developed connections, closeness, and bonds to ancestors which motivated them in their lives, (c) discovered shared physical and personality characteristics, (d) impacted their current relationships with living relatives, (e) stimulated spiritual experiences, and (f) influenced their identity development.
An ADD-based Approach to Evaluating Charge Sharing in Custom CMOS Circuits

Full custom circuits such as dynamic logic are very popular in today’s microprocessor designs. However, special care must be taken to ensure that these circuits do not experience reliability problems, such as those due to charge sharing. The degree of charge sharing depends on the logical values of the inputs into the circuit, or channel-connected region (CCR). Traditional analysis techniques may try to find a worst-case input condition to check for functional failures due to excessive charge sharing. However, unless the analysis takes into account specific input constraints, or exclusivities, for the circuit, the results may be overly pessimistic. In this paper we approach this noise analysis problem symbolically using Algebraic Decision Diagrams (ADDs), which allows us to efficiently analyze charge sharing within a CCR as a function of its inputs. Input constraints are naturally handled within the analysis. The effectiveness of our approach is verified on circuits used in the design of the Alpha 21264 and 21364 microprocessors. By considering the exclusivities, the results show large improvement in voltage drop estimates due to charge sharing. This improvement could potentially lead to significant savings in verification time.
Sensor-Management for Multitarget Filters via Minimization of Posterior Dispersion

This paper presents a new sensor management method for multitarget filtering, that is designed based on maximizing a measure of confidence in accuracy of the multitarget state estimate. Confidence of estimation is quantified by optimal subpattern assignment-based dispersion of the multitarget posterior about its statistical mean. Implementation of the algorithm for generic multitarget filters is presented. Simulation studies with labeled multi-Bernoulli filter demonstrate excellent performance in challenging sensor control scenarios.
Malignant rhabdoid tumor shows a unique neural differentiation as distinct from neuroblastoma

Malignant rhabdoid tumors (MRT) show a multiphenotypic diversity, including a neural phenotype. To elucidate the difference in neural characteristics between MRT and neuroblastoma, we examined the expression of synapsin I, neuron‐restrictive silencer factor (NRSF), neurofilament medium‐size (NF‐M) and chromogranin A (CGA) in five MRT cell lines (TM87–16, STM91–01, TTC549, TTC642 and YAM‐RTK1) and five neuroblastoma cell lines under differentiation‐induction with 12‐O‐tetradecanoylphorbol‐13‐acetate (TPA). Our results showed TM87–16 and TTC642 cells, expressed synapsin I and NF‐M before TPA induction, had a neural phenotype. After differentiation‐induction, only TM87–16 cells expressed CGA. Among all neuroblastoma cells, expression of NF‐M and CGA was stable at a high level throughout TPA‐induced differentiation. In TM87–16 and TTC642 MRT cells, synapsin I mRNA promptly increased after TPA differentiation, with the peak level at 6 h, and thereafter, synapsin I mRNA rapidly decreased in a time‐dependent manner. The decreased expression of synapsin I correlated with an increased expression of NRSF during differentiation‐induction. In contrast, in some neuroblastoma cells, a significant up‐regulation of synapsin I was observed concurrently with a down‐regulation of NRSF. The inverse relationship between NRSF and synapsin I expression in TM87–16 and TTC642 MRT cells was opposite to that of neuroblastoma cells. Our results showed that the neural characteristics of these MRT cells are fairly distinct from those of neuroblastoma cells. These MRT cells appeared to have only limited capability for neural differentiation, and were still in an extremely early stage of neural differentiation. (Cancer Sci 2003; 94: 37–42)
External Sandhi and its Relevance to Syntactic Treebanking

Externai sandhi is a linguistic phenomenon which refers to a set of sound changes that occur at word boundaries. These changes are similar to phonological processes such as assimilation and fusion when they apply at the level of prosody, such as in connected speech. External sandhi formation can be orthographically reflected in some languages. External sandhi formation in such languages, causes the occurrence of forms which are morphologically unanalyzable, thus posing a problem for all kind of NLP applications. In this paper, we discuss the implications that this phenomenon has for the syntactic annotation of sentences in Telugu, an Indian language with agglutinative morphology. We describe in detail, how external sandhi formation in Telugu, if not handled prior to dependency annotation, leads either to loss or misrepresentation of syntactic information in the treebank. This phenomenon, we argue, necessitates the introduction of a sandhi splitting stage in the generic annotation pipeline currently being followed for the treebanking of Indian languages. We identify one type of external sandhi widely occurring in the previous version of the Telugu treebank (version 0.2) and manually split all its instances leading to the development of a new version 0.5. We also conduct an experiment with a statistical parser to empirically verify the usefulness of the changes made to the treebank. Comparing the parsing accuracies obtained on versions 0. 2 and 0. 5 of the treebank, we observe that splitting even just one type of external sandhi leads to an increase in the overall parsing accuracies
Resonant activation in single and coupled stochastic FitzHugh-Nagumo elements

The response of a noisy FitzHugh-Nagumo (FHN) neuron-like model to weak periodic forcing is analyzed. The mean activation time is investigated as a function of noise intensity and of the parameters of the external signal. It is shown by numerical simulation that there exists a frequency range within which the phenomenon of resonant activation occurs; resonant activation is also observed in coupled FHN elements. The mean activation time with small noise intensity is compared with the theoretical results.
Are AES x86 cache timing attacks still feasible?

We argue that five recent software and hardware developments - the AES-NI instructions, multicore processors with per-core caches, complex modern software, sophisticated prefetchers, and physically tagged caches - combine to make it substantially more difficult to mount data-cache side-channel attacks on AES than previously realized. We propose ways in which some of the challenges posed by these developments might be overcome. We also consider scenarios where side-channel attacks are attractive, and whether our proposed workarounds might be applicable to these scenarios.
Eukaryotic initiation factor 2α phosphorylation is required for B-cell maturation and function in mice

Background The control of translation initiation is a crucial component in the regulation of gene expression. The eukaryotic initiation factor 2α (eIF2α) mediates binding of the initiator transfer-messenger-RNA to the AUG initiation codon, and thus controls a rate-limiting step in translation initiation. Phosphorylation of eIF2α at serine 51 is linked to cellular stress response and attenuates translation initiation. The biochemistry of translation inhibition mediated by eIF2α phosphorylation is well characterized, yet the physiological importance in hematopoiesis remains only partially known. Design and Methods Using hematopoietic stem cells carrying a non-phosphorylatable mutant form of eIF2α (eIF2αAA), we examined the efficiency of reconstitution in wild-type and B-cell-deficient microMT C57BL/6 recipients in two independent models. Results We provide evidence that phosphorylation-deficient eIF2α mutant hematopoietic stem cells may repopulate lethally irradiated mice but have a defect in the development and maintenance of newly formed B cells in the bone marrow and of naïve follicular B cells in the periphery. The mature B-cell compartment is markedly reduced in bone marrow, spleen and peripheral blood, and B-cell receptor-mediated proliferation in vitro and serum immunoglobulin secretion in vivo are impaired. Conclusions The data suggest that regulation of translation through eIF2α phosphorylation is dispensable in hematopoietic reconstitution but essential during late B-cell development.
Rich, Poor and Growth-Miracle Nations: Multiple Equilibria Revisited

This paper presents a two-sector growth model of international trade that can account for the key features of the postwar world development experience. Two sectors represent traditional primitive production and modern sophisticated production. Due to increasing returns in the modern sector, the open-economy version of our model gives rise to three different equilibria: one in which the country produces only primitive goods and converges to a low-income steady state; another in which it produces both primitive and sophisticated goods and converges to the world-average steady state; and a third in which it specializes in the production of sophisticated goods and converges to a balanced growth path. We argue that the development experiences of poor, rich and growth-miracle countries are well described by these three equilibria.
Biliary Dyskinesia in Children: A Systematic Review

ABSTRACT Cholecystectomy rates for biliary dyskinesia in children are rising in the United States, but not in other countries. Biliary dyskinesia is a validated functional gallbladder disorder in adults, requiring biliary colic in the diagnosis. In contrast, most studies in children require upper abdominal pain, absent gallstones on ultrasound, and an abnormal gallbladder ejection fraction (GBEF) on cholecystokinin-stimulated cholescintigraphy for diagnosis. We aimed to systematically review existing literature in biliary dyskinesia in children, determine the validity and reliability of diagnostic criteria, GBEF, and to assess outcomes following cholecystectomy. We performed a systematic review following the PRISMA checklist and searched 7 databases including PubMed, Scopus, Embase, Ovid, MEDLINE, ProQuest, Web of Science, and the Cochrane library. Bibliographies of articles were screened for additional studies. Our search terms yielded 916 articles of which 28 were included. Three articles were manually added from searched references. We reviewed 31 peer-reviewed publications, all retrospective chart reviews. There was heterogeneity in diagnostic criteria and GBEF values. Outcomes after laparoscopic cholecystectomy varied from 34% to 100% success, and there was no consensus concerning factors influencing outcomes. The observational, retrospective study designs that comprised our review limited interpretation of safety and efficacy of the investigations and treatment in biliary dyskinesia in children. Symptoms of biliary dyskinesia overlapped with functional dyspepsia. There is a need for consensus on symptoms defining biliary dyskinesia, validation of testing required for diagnosis of biliary dyskinesia, and randomized controlled trials comparing medical versus surgical management in children with upper abdominal pain.
Effectiveness of diabetes mellitus screening recommendations

Screening guidelines proposed by the Expert Committee on the Diagnosis and Classification of Diabetes Mellitus have been endorsed by several medical societies. However, one-third of cases are undiagnosed, and complications at the time of diagnosis indicate that disease may have been present for several years before diagnosis. This study evaluates the effectiveness of the guidelines for detecting new cases of diabetes mellitus. By using a cross-sectional, representative sample of the United States (National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey, NHANES III), the guidelines are tested on adults, 20 years and older without a prior diagnosis of diabetes. Individuals are classified as nondiabetics (n = 6,241) or as having undiagnosed diabetes (n = 274) based on their blood glucose. Screening when one risk factor is present, as stated in the guidelines, has a true-positive rate of 100% and would require that 83% of the population be tested. Screening when two risk factors are present is more efficient, with a comparable true-positive rate (98%), but requires that only 59% of the population be tested. A notable finding is the earlier age of onset among minorities, which may be associated with other health disparities. Because diabetes occurs at younger ages in minorities, screening whites who are ≥40 and minorities ≥30 years of age has a high true-positive rate (95%) and also reduces testing (60%). The screening guidelines would be effective, if followed, and would essentially eliminate undiagnosed cases of diabetes.