Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effectiveness of Implementation of Electronic Malaria Information System as the National Malaria Surveillance System in Thailand

Background In moving toward malaria elimination, one strategy is to implement an active surveillance system for effective case management. Thailand has developed and implemented the electronic Malaria Information System (eMIS) capturing individualized electronic records of suspected or confirmed malaria cases. Objective The main purpose of this study was to determine how well the eMIS improves the quality of Thailand’s malaria surveillance system. In particular, the focus of the study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the eMIS in terms of the system users’ perception and the system outcomes (ie, quality of data) regarding the management of malaria patients. Methods A mixed-methods technique was used with the framework based on system effectiveness attributes: data quality, timeliness, simplicity, acceptability, flexibility, stability, and usefulness. Three methods were utilized: data records review, survey of system users, and in-depth interviews with key stakeholders. From the two highest endemic provinces, paper forms matching electronic records of 4455 noninfected and 784 malaria-infected cases were reviewed. Web-based anonymous questionnaires were distributed to all 129 eMIS data entry staff throughout Thailand, and semistructured interviews were conducted with 12 management-level officers. Results The eMIS is well accepted by system users at both management and operational levels. The data quality has enabled malaria personnel to perform more effective prevention and control activities. There is evidence of practices resulting in inconsistencies and logical errors in data reporting. Critical data elements were mostly completed, except for a few related to certain dates and area classifications. Timeliness in reporting a case to the system was acceptable with a delay of 3-4 days. The evaluation of quantitative and qualitative data confirmed that the eMIS has high levels of simplicity, acceptability, stability, and flexibility. Conclusions Overall, the system implemented has achieved its objective. The results of the study suggested that the eMIS helps improve the quality of Thailand’s malaria surveillance system. As the national malaria surveillance system, the eMIS’s functionalities have provided the malaria staff working at the point of care with close-to-real-time case management data quality, covering case detection, case investigation, drug compliance, and follow-up visits. Such features has led to an improvement in the quality of the malaria control program; the government officials now have quicker access to both individual and aggregated data to promptly react to possible outbreak. The eMIS thus plays one of the key roles in moving toward the national goal of malaria elimination by the next decade.
Harvard John M. Olin Center for Law, Economics, and Business on Takeover Law and Regulatory Competition on Takeover Law and Regulatory Competition

This paper defends, and further develops, our earlier work on the effects of regulatory competition on takeover law. We have argued that competition for corporate charters provides incentives to states to protect incumbent managers from hostile takeovers, and that the empirical evidence is consistent with this account. To improve the performance of regulatory competition, we have put forward the possibility of choice-enhancing federal intervention; such intervention would expand shareholder choice, and encourage states to become more attentive to shareholder interests, without imposing any mandatory arrangements. Replying to Jonathan Macey's response to our work, we show that none of his claims weakens our analysis. ). We are grateful to Alma Cohen for many helpful conversations and for her collaboration with us in work on which we rely in this paper. We also wish to thank the John M. Olin Center for Law, Economics, and Business for its financial support.
Non-coding RNAs and Hypertension–Unveiling Unexpected Mechanisms of Hypertension by the Dark Matter of the Genome

Hypertension is a major risk factor of cardiovascular diseases and a most important health problem in developed countries. Investigations on pathophysiology of hypertension have been based on gene products from coding region that occupies only about 1% of total genome region. On the other hand, non-coding region that occupies almost 99% of human genome has been regarded as “junk” for a long time and went unnoticed until these days. But recently, it turned out that non-coding region is extensively transcribed to non-coding RNAs and has various functions. This review highlights recent updates on the significance of non-coding RNAs such as micro RNAs and long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) on the pathogenesis of hypertension, also providing an introduction to basic biology of non-coding RNAs. For example, microRNAs are associated with hypertension via neuro-fumoral factor, sympathetic nerve activity, ion transporters in kidneys, endothelial function, vascular smooth muscle phenotype transformation, or communication between cells. Although reports of lncRNAs on pathogenesis of hypertension are scarce at the moment, new lncRNAs in relation to hypertension are being discovered at a rapid pace owing to novel techniques such as microarray or next-generation sequencing. In the clinical settings, clinical use of non-coding RNAs in identifying cardiovascular risks or developing novel tools for treating hypertension such as molecular decoy or mimicks is promising, although improvement in chemical modification or drug delivery system is necessary.
PREDICTING BREAST CANCER SURVIVABILITY USING DATA MINING TECHNIQUES

In this paper we present an analysis of the prediction of survivability rate of breast cancer patients using data mining techniques. The data used is the SEER Public-Use Data. The preprocessed data set consists of 151,886 records, which have all the available 16 fields from the SEER database. We have investigated three data mining techniques: the Naive Bayes, the back-propagated neural network, and the C4.5 decision tree algorithms. Several experiments were conducted using these algorithms. The achieved prediction performances are comparable to existing techniques. However, we found out that C4.5 algorithm has a much better performance than the other two techniques.
An Essential Role for the IL-7 Receptor During Intrathymic Expansion of the Positively Selected Neonatal T Cell Repertoire1

Intrathymic T cell development is a multistage process involving discrete phases of proliferation as well as differentiation. From studies on IL-7 or IL-7Rα-deficient mice, it is clear that the IL-7 receptor (IL-7R) plays a critical role during the initial stages of intrathymic CD4−8− precursor development. In contrast, the role of IL-7R in later stages of thymocyte development are unclear. Here, we have used various approaches to investigate directly the role of the IL-7R in thymocyte positive selection and the recently described phase of postselection proliferation. First, we show that positive selection involves selective up-regulation of IL-7Rα- and IL-7Rγ-chains, with the majority of CD4+ and CD8+ cells being IL-7R+. Second, MHC class II+ thymic epithelium—which drives postselection proliferation—expresses IL-7 mRNA. Finally, analysis of positive selection and postselection proliferation in thymocytes from IL-7Rα−/− neonates shows that positive selection occurs normally, whereas postselection expansion is drastically reduced. Thus, our data provide the first evidence that, as well as playing a role during early phases of thymic development, IL-7R mediates intrathymic expansion of positively selected thymocytes, which may aid in establishment of the neonatal peripheral T cell pool.
The Structure and Motions of the 3C 120 Radio Jet on Scales of 0.6-300 Parsecs

Results are presented from long-term very long baseline interferometry monitoring of the parsec-scale radio jet in 3C 120 at 5 and 1.7 GHz. The 5 GHz sequence includes a few early epochs at 10.7 GHz. Superluminal features are seen leaving the core at intervals of less than a year, about as often as new features could be distinguished with the 0.6 pc resolution of the observations. The underlying jet is continuous but not smooth, and the measured features are simply the bright points in the convolution of the observing beam with brightness fluctuations that occur on many scales. The velocity of different features varies, but not by more than about a factor of 2. Clear variations in the velocity of an individual feature are not seen. Some features that were observed leaving the core in the 5 GHz observations with 0.6 pc resolution are followed at 1.7 GHz with 2.4 pc resolution to projected distances in excess of 25 pc from the core. Older features up to at least 150 pc in projection from the core are still moving at superluminal apparent speeds and are therefore presumed to be relativistic. Beyond that, the data are inadequate for motion measurements. The region where the jet slows to nonrelativistic speeds has not been found. There are suggestions of stationary features, or brightening and dimming regions, through which the moving features pass. These may be locations where there is interaction with the external medium, or they may simply be the result of variations in the jet angle to the line of sight. The observation of stationary features in an otherwise moving jet reinforces the idea that the lack of motion of the knot at 4'' (2 kpc), which has been found not to be superluminal in other observations, might not actually imply that the jet has slowed by that position. The structure of the jet in the vicinity of the most likely stationary feature is suggestive of a helical pattern seen in projection. The deprojected wavelength of the pattern is very long relative to the jet radius, unlike the situation in sources such as M87 (Owen and coworkers). If the 3C 120 jet does contain a slowly moving, helical structure, then theory suggests that the jet resides in a relatively cool medium, not in a relativistically hot cocoon or lobe.
Gender Differences and Role of Pregnancy in the History of Post-Surgical Women Affected by Tetralogy of Fallot

Background The aim of this study was to describe gender differences in patients operated on for TOF and to define the impact of pregnancy in late post-surgical follow-up in women. Methods In this research, we studied 145 patients after correction of TOF: 66 male, 79 women, 41 of which reported history of 68 pregnancies, means age 37±10 years, age at operation 7±8 years, mean duration of post-surgical follow-up 30±7 years. Selected variables were compared according to sex and according to history of pregnancy with statistical tests. Results Men had more severe hemodynamic impairment and a higher number of cardiac reoperations than females. 41% of patients had at least one complication during pregnancy; there were 16 (67%) abortions and 39 (74%) Caesarian delivers; the recurrence of congenital heart defect was 10%. After pregnancy, there was a shift from first to second functional class: unique pregnancy determined no differences in term of morpho-functional ventricular features compared to nulliparous, but they complained fatigue and palpitation and echocardiographyc dysfunction. Left ventricular dysfunction and QRS duration at ECG were independent predictors of ventricular arrhythmias in all patients. Conclusions There were no gender-specific differences in patients operated on for TOF using ventriculotomy. Pregnancy is an event in these patients at risk for the newborn, in terms of miscarriage, prematurity, and recurrence of birth defects, and for the mother in terms of ventricular dysfunction and electrical instability. At least a single pregnancy does not appear to significantly modify the natural history of post-surgical patients operated on for TOF.
The effect of soft tissue properties on overall biomechanical response of a human lumbar motion segment: A preliminary finite element study

This study investigates the relative effect of soft tissue properties on the overall response of a human spinal motion segment using an osseo-ligamentous FE model of the Visible Man L3-L4 intervertebral joint. Model geometry was obtained from the Visible Man CT dataset using custom built image processing software. Non-linear soft tissue properties were obtained from the literature. Displacement controlled simulations were performed in flexion, extension, lateral bending and axial rotation. The effect of each soft tissue structure (including the annular fibres) was assessed by removing it from the model and comparing the predicted overall stiffness to that of the intact segment. The results from this study showed that removal of the capsular ligaments and the collagen fibres in the annulus of the intervertebral disc have the largest effects on the overall stiffness of the motion segment. All other ligament structures had little impact on determining the motion response, with the exception of the anterior longitudinal ligament. Its removal caused the stiffness in extension to fall to 60 percent of the value reached for the intact model. It is concluded that correct representation of the mechanical properties of both the capsular ligament and annular fibres is most important in generating realistic FE models of the lumbar spine to predict motion segment biomechanics.
Adropin- A Novel Biomarker of Heart Disease: A Systematic Review Article

Background: Heart disease is one of the most common chronic disease and leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Adropin, a newly identified protein, is important for energy homeostasis and maintaining insulin sensitivity, and has been referred to as a novel regulator of endothelial cells. Endothelial dysfunction is a key early event in atherogenesis and onset of HD. Therefore, this review gives a systematic overview of studies investigating plasma adropin level in patient with heart disease. Methods: Data carried out in PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, Embase, Google scholar and MEDLINE, from the earliest available online indexing year through 2015. The search restricted to studies conducted in humans. The keyword search was adropin to apply in title, abstract and keywords. References lists of all original published articles were scanned to find additional eligible studies. Results: Heart failure (HF), coronary atherosclerosis acute myocardial infarction and Cardiac Syndrome X (CSX) were type of heart disease acknowledged in this study. Majority of evidences introduced low adropin as an independent risk factor of heart disease. In a case-control study, the plasma level of adropin increased with the severity of HF. Conclusion: Adropinmay be a potential serum biomarker for early diagnosis of HD.
On the use of structure functions to study blazar variability: caveats and problems

The extensive use of the structure function (SF) in the field of blazar variability across the electromagnetic spectrum suggests that characteristics time-scales are embedded in the light curves of these objects. We argue that for blazar variability studies, the SF results are sometimes erroneously interpreted leading to misconceptions about the actual source properties. Based on extensive simulations, we caution that spurious breaks will appear in the SFs of almost all light curves, even though these light curves may contain no intrinsic characteristic time-scales, i.e. having a featureless underlying power spectral density (PSD). We show that the time-scales of the spurious SF breaks depend mainly on the length of the artificial data set and also on the character of the variability i.e. the shape of the PSD. The SF is often invoked in the framework of shot-noise models to determine the temporal properties of individual shots. We caution that although the SF may be fitted to infer the shot parameters, the resultant shot-noise model is usually inconsistent with the observed PSD. As any model should fit the data in both the time and the frequency domain, the shot-noise model, in these particular cases, cannot be valid. Moreover, we show that the lack of statistical independence between adjacent SF points, in the standard SF formulation, means that it is not possible to perform robust statistical model fitting following the commonly used least-squares fitting methodology. The latter yields uncertainties in the fitting parameters (i.e. slopes, breaks) that are far too small with respect to their true statistical scatter. Finally, it is also commonly thought that SFs are immune to the sampling problems, such as data gaps, which affects the estimators of the PSDs. However, we show that SFs are also troubled by gaps which can induce artefacts.
Density profiles of galaxy groups and clusters from SDSS galaxy–galaxy weak lensing

We present results of a measurement of the shape of the density profile of galaxy groups and clusters traced by 43 335 Luminous Red Galaxies (LRGs) with spectroscopic redshifts from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). The galaxies are selected such that they are the brightest within a cylindrical aperture, split into two luminosity samples and modelled as the sum of stellar and dark matter components. We present a detailed investigation of many possible systematic effects that could contaminate our signal and develop methods to remove them, including a detected intrinsic alignment for galaxies within 100 h -1 kpc of LRGs which we remove using photometric redshift information. The resulting lensing signal is consistent with NFW (Navarro, Frenk & White) profile dark matter haloes; the singular isothermal sphere (SIS) profile is ruled out at the 96 (conservatively) and 99.96 per cent confidence level (CL) for the fainter and brighter lens samples (respectively) when we fit using lensing data between 0.4 and 2 h -1 Mpc with total signal-to-noise ratio of 19 and 25 for the two lens samples. The lensing signal amplitude suggests that the faint and bright sample galaxies typically reside in haloes of mass (2.9 ± 0.4) x 10 13 and (6.7 ± 0.8) x 10 13 h -1 M ⊙ , respectively, in good agreement with predictions based on halo spatial density with normalization lower than the 'concordance' σ 8 = 0.9. When fitting for the concentration parameter in the NFW profile, we find c = 5.0 ± 0.6 (stat) ± 1 (sys), and c = 5.6 ± 0.6 (stat) ± 1 (sys) for the faint and bright samples, consistent with A cold dark matter (CDM) simulations. We also split the bright sample further to determine masses and concentrations for cluster-mass haloes, finding mass (1.3 ± 0.2) x 10 14 h -1 M ⊙ for the sample of LRGs brighter than -22.6 in r. We establish that on average there is a correlation between the halo mass and central galaxy luminosity relation that scales as M α L 2 .
On the distributed evaluation of recursive queries over graphs

Logical formalisms such as first-order logic (FO) and fixpoint logic (FP) are well suited to express in a declarative manner fundamental graph functionalities required in distributed systems. We show that these logics constitute good abstractions for programming distributed systems as a whole, since they can be evaluated in a fully distributed manner with reasonable complexity upper-bounds. We first prove that FO and FP can be evaluated with a polynomial number of messages of logarithmic size. We then show that the (global) logical formulas can be translated into rule programs describing the local behavior of the nodes of the distributed system, which compute equivalent results. Finally, we introduce local fragments of these logics, which preserve as much as possible the locality of their distributed computation, while offering a rich expressive power for networking functionalities. We prove that they admit tighter upper-bounds with bounded number of messages of bounded size. Finally, we show that the semantics and the complexity of the local fragments are preserved over locally consistent networks as well as anonymous networks, thus showing the robustness of the proposed local logical formalisms.
Does avian magnetoreception rely on both magnetite and maghemite

Recently, a putative magnetoreceptor in the upper-beak skin of homing pigeons was chemically characterized using X-ray flourescence and absorbtion studies [Fleissner et al., 2007. A novel concept of Fe-mineral based magnetoreception: histological and physiochemical data from the upper beak of homing pigeons. Naturwissenschaften 94 (8), 631-642]. In this short communication we point out that the novel concept propagated is based on conclusions that are not supported by data and, in fact, stand in contradiction to previously published crystallographic and magnetic data.
Identification of the Effects of Diabetes Mellitus on the Brain

As more studies accumulate on the impact of diabetes mellitus on the central nervous system, they resound with the same conclusion-diabetes has a detrimental effect on cognition regardless of the presence of comorbidities. Less consistent however, are the specific mental processes wherein these declines are noticeable, and the structural changes that accompany these reductions in mental capacity. From global atrophy to changes in the volume of gray and white matter, to conflicting results regarding the effects of hypo-and hyperglycemic states on the development of the hippocampus, the studies display a variety of results. The goal of this research is to link the structural and compositional changes occurring in the diabetic brain with the clinical and behavioral findings highlighted in the literature, as well as to explore the potential mechanisms behind the pathologic brain state of diabetic encephalopathy. Using diabetic (OVE26) and non-diabetic wild type (FVB) mice as models, differences in the number of hippocampal neurons in the dentate gyrus, and cornu ammonis areas 1,2, and 3 were investigated through Nissl staining. Neurodegeneration was confirmed in those cells determined to be hyperchromatic in the diabetic model through staining with Fluoro-Jade C. Finally, the presence of progenitor cells in the hippocampus was compared in the diabetic and non-diabetic models using Musashi-1 antibodies, to determine whether neurogenesis in these areas is affected by diabetes. These experiments were performed to better understand the effect of DM on learning and memory, and could potentially explain the linkage between diabetes mellitus and the increased prevalence of Alzheimer's disease, vascular dementia, and depression in this subset of the population. iii DEDICATION To Baba, Mama, and Samuel, my pillars of strength and my role models, To Gido Samuel and Gido Aziz, whose lives have inspired me, To my friends who will always seem more like family, And to Pupsy and Mish-Mish, who were always there to listen. " Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you. " 1 Peter 5: 6-7 iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The Determinants of Capital Structure: Comparison between Before and After Financial Crisis

The financial crisis of 2008 provides an interesting opportunity to investigate the effect of the crisis on the capital structure decisions of firms. Over the years, capital structure choice has attracted considerable attention in the literature and is important to firms, investors and policy makers. We find that during the 2008 financial crisis, the coefficients of tangibility and market to book (MTB) ratio exert a stronger influence on capital structure choices than prior to 2008. We also find that the coefficient of profitability exerts less influence on capital structure choice than before the crisis. In addition, the sign of the coefficient of firm size is negative, which is exactly the opposite of the situation that existed before the crisis. Further analysis indicates that during the 2008 financial crisis, pecking order theory has more explanatory power than trade-off and market timing theory.