Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effectiveness of Haemophilus influenzae type b Conjugate vaccine introduction into routine childhood immunization in Kenya.

CONTEXT Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) conjugate vaccine is not perceived as a public health priority in Africa because data on Hib disease burden and vaccine effectiveness are scarce. Hib immunization was introduced in Kenyan infants in 2001. OBJECTIVE To define invasive Hib disease incidence and Hib vaccine program effectiveness in Kenya. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PATIENTS Culture-based surveillance for invasive Hib disease at Kilifi District Hospital from 2000 through 2005 was linked to demographic surveillance of 38,000 children younger than 5 years in Kilifi District, Kenya. Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection and Hib vaccination status were determined for children with Hib disease admitted 2002-2005. INTERVENTIONS Introduction of conjugate Hib vaccine within the routine childhood immunization program at ages 6, 10, and 14 weeks beginning November 2001. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Incidence of culture-proven Hib invasive disease before and after vaccine introduction and vaccine program effectiveness. RESULTS Prior to vaccine introduction, the median age of children with Hib was 8 months; case fatality was 23%. Among children younger than 5 years, the annual incidence of invasive Hib disease 1 year before and 1 and 3 years after vaccine introduction was 66, 47, and 7.6 per 100,000, respectively. For children younger than 2 years, incidence was 119, 82, and 16 per 100,000, respectively. In 2004-2005, vaccine effectiveness was 88% (95% confidence interval, 73%-96%) among children younger than 5 years and 87% (95% confidence interval, 66%-96%) among children younger than 2 years. Of 53 children with Hib admitted during 2002-2005, 29 (55%) were age-ineligible to have received vaccine, 12 (23%) had not been vaccinated despite being eligible, and 12 (23%) had received 2 or more doses of vaccine (2 were HIV positive). CONCLUSIONS In Kenya, introduction of Hib vaccine into the routine childhood immunization program reduced Hib disease incidence among children younger than 5 years to 12% of its baseline level. This impact was not observed until the third year after vaccine introduction.
Commodities, brands, love and kula

Can Marcel Mauss's insights into the relations between persons and things help make sense of the nature of branded commodities and the operation of long distance commodity chains? Can these insights, when coupled with Marxist critiques of fetishism and labor exploitation, underwrite a politics of value that mobilizes the practices of knowing consumers? This article reconsiders gift giving in order to understand how brands operate as media of exchange between companies and consumers. It compares the rhetoric of brand stewardship in current business literature with Nancy Munn's account of the exchange of Gawan canoes for kitomu, a category of kula shells over which owners exercise proprietary rights. In so doing, the article develops a framework for comparing processes of value creation and circulation that substitutes a series of partial analogues for a monolithic opposition between gifts and commodities. It concludes by taking up the question of a politics of ethical consumption, and the crucial role of knowledge in such a politics.
Cryo-EM structure of the Plasmodium falciparum 80S ribosome bound to the anti-protozoan drug emetine

Malaria inflicts an enormous burden on global human health. The emergence of parasite resistance to front-line drugs has prompted a renewed focus on the repositioning of clinically approved drugs as potential anti-malarial therapies. Antibiotics that inhibit protein translation are promising candidates for repositioning. We have solved the cryo-EM structure of the cytoplasmic ribosome from the human malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum, in complex with emetine at 3.2 Å resolution. Emetine is an anti-protozoan drug used in the treatment of ameobiasis that also displays potent anti-malarial activity. Emetine interacts with the E-site of the ribosomal small subunit and shares a similar binding site with the antibiotic pactamycin, thereby delivering its therapeutic effect by blocking mRNA/tRNA translocation. As the first cryo-EM structure that visualizes an antibiotic bound to any ribosome at atomic resolution, this establishes cryo-EM as a powerful tool for screening and guiding the design of drugs that target parasite translation machinery. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.7554/eLife.03080. 001
A phenomenographic approach to developing academics’ understanding of the nature of teaching and learning

Phenomenography is best known as an empirical research approach for investigating variation in conceptions of different educational phenomena – including learning, teaching and particular disciplinary concepts such as price in economics and motion in physics. It is less well-known for its theoretical basis, in terms of its epistemological and ontological claims (Marton and Booth 1997), and the variation theory of learning that has developed out of phenomenographic research and theory (Marton and Tsui 2004). This paper discusses what ‘conception’ and ‘conceptual development’ mean from a phenomenographic perspective and how phenomenography and variation theory can be combined with empirical research on academics’ conceptions of teaching to inform the design of a postgraduate course for academics, aimed at the development of academics’ understanding of the nature of teaching and learning.
The synthetic retinoid ST1926 as a novel therapeutic agent in rhabdomyosarcoma

Rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS) is the most frequent soft tissue sarcoma in children. Despite multiple attempts at intensifying chemotherapeutic approaches to treatment, only moderate improvements in survival have been made for patients with advanced disease. Retinoic acid is a differentiation agent that has shown some antitumor efficacy in RMS cells in vitro; however, the effects are of low magnitude. E−3‐(4′‐hydroxyl‐3′‐adamantylbiphenyl‐4‐yl) acrylic acid (ST1926) is a novel orally available synthetic atypical retinoid, shown to have more potent activity than retinoic acid in several types of cancer cells. We used in vitro and in vivo models of RMS to explore the efficacy of ST1926 as a possible therapeutic agent in this sarcoma. We found that ST1926 reduced RMS cell viability in all tested alveolar (ARMS) and embryonal (ERMS) RMS cell lines, at readily achievable micromolar concentrations in mice. ST1926 induced an early DNA damage response (DDR), which led to increase in apoptosis, in addition to S‐phase cell cycle arrest and a reduction in protein levels of the cell cycle kinase CDK1. Effects were irrespective of TP53 mutational status. Interestingly, in ARMS cells, ST1926 treatment decreased PAX3‐FOXO1 fusion oncoprotein levels, and this suppression occurred at a post‐transcriptional level. In vivo, ST1926 was effective in inhibiting growth of ARMS and ERMS xenografts, and induced a prominent DDR. We conclude that ST1926 has preclinical efficacy against RMS, and should be further developed in this disease in clinical trials.
Multimodality, multisensoriality and ethnographic knowing: social semiotics and the phenomenology of perception

In this article I consider the potential for combining multimodality and anthropologically informed sensory ethnographic methodologies. I focus on a comparison between anthropological and multimodality approaches to the senses, the relationships between images and words, and ethnography. In doing so I reveal some of the tensions and fundamental differences between these approaches before then considering if and/or how these might be reconciled.
Lamin-like analogues in plants: the characterization of NMCP1 in Allium cepa

The nucleoskeleton of plants contains a peripheral lamina (also called plamina) and, even though lamins are absent in plants, their roles are still fulfilled in plant nuclei. One of the most intriguing topics in plant biology concerns the identity of lamin protein analogues in plants. Good candidates to play lamin functions in plants are the members of the NMCP (nuclear matrix constituent protein) family, which exhibit the typical tripartite structure of lamins. This paper describes a bioinformatics analysis and classification of the NMCP family based on phylogenetic relationships, sequence similarity and the distribution of conserved regions in 76 homologues. In addition, NMCP1 in the monocot Allium cepa characterized by its sequence and structure, biochemical properties, and subnuclear distribution and alterations in its expression throughout the root were identified. The results demonstrate that these proteins exhibit many similarities to lamins (structural organization, conserved regions, subnuclear distribution, and solubility) and that they may fulfil the functions of lamins in plants. These findings significantly advance understanding of the structural proteins of the plant lamina and nucleoskeleton and provide a basis for further investigation of the protein networks forming these structures.
Speed-Security Tradeo s in Blockchain Protocols

Transaction processing speed is one of the major considerations in cryptocurrencies that are based on proof of work (POW) such as Bitcoin. At an intuitive level it is widely understood that processing speed is at odds with the security aspects of the underlying POW based consensus mechanism of such protocols, nevertheless the tradeo between the two properties is still not well understood. In this work, motivated by recent work [8] in the formal analysis of the Bitcoin backbone protocol, we investigate the tradeo between provable security and transaction processing speed viewing the latter as a function of the block generation rate. We introduce a new formal property of blockchain protocols, called chain growth, and we show it is fundamental for arguing the security of a robust transaction ledger. We strengthen the results of [8] in the following ways: we show how the properties of persistence and liveness of the ledger reduce in a black-box fashion in the underlying properties of the backbone protocol, namely common pre x, chain quality and chain growth, and we improve the security bounds showing that the robustness of the ledger holds for even the faster (than Bitcoin's) block generation rates which have been adopted by other alt-coins. We also present a theoretical attack against bitcoin which we validate in simulation that works when blockchain rate is highly accelerated. This presents a natural upper bound in the context of the speed-security tradeo . By combining our positive and negative results we map the speed/security domain for blockchain protocols and list open problems for future work. *Work performed while at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, supported by ERC project CODAMODA #25915.
Are in-dwelling catheters necessary for 24 hours after hysterectomy?

OBJECTIVE In-dwelling catheters for 24 hours after operation are used routinely in gynecologic surgery. This study assesses whether the immediate removal of an in-dwelling catheter after the operation affects the rate of recatheterization, febrile morbidity, symptomatic urinary tract infections, or subjective pain assessments. STUDY DESIGN This study was a prospective randomized controlled trial comprised of 250 women who underwent hysterectomy and who did not require bladder suspension or strict fluid treatment. The in-dwelling catheter was removed either immediately after the operation or on the first day after the operation. The association between clinical variables and the length of catheterization were assessed by chi-squared analysis. RESULTS Patients were assigned randomly into 2 groups, with no significant differences in the outcomes, only in the perception of pain. Clinical events included fever (>/=38.5 degrees C) that occurred in 6 patients in the in-dwelling catheter group compared with 5 patients in the early removal group (P=.01), symptomatic urinary tract infections in 3 patients in both groups (P=.99), and recatheterization in 3 patients in the in-dwelling catheter group compared with 5 patients in the early removal group (P=.17). Subjectively, patients in the early removal group reported significantly less pain than did the in-dwelling group (P<.001). CONCLUSION The early removal of in-dwelling catheters after operation was not associated with an increased rate of febrile events, urinary tract infections, or need for recatheterization. In addition, subjective pain assessment was significantly less in the early removal group. Early removal of an in-dwelling catheter immediately after operation is not associated with adverse events.
Analysis of microRNA expression profiles in human hepatitis B virus-related hepatocellular carcinoma.

BACKGROUND Increasing evidence has shown that the deregulation of microRNAs (miRNAs) is closely related to the development and progression of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). To screen for HCC-specific miRNAs, this study investigated the differentially expressed miRNAs between HCC and matched non-tumorous tissue (NT). METHODS This study analyzed the differential expression profiles of miRNAs in 11 pairs of HCC and matched NT from 11 hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection patients with the RT2 miRNA PCR array containing 88 human cancer-related miRNAs. The fold change value was more than two between the HCC and the matched NT, which indicated that there was deregulation of miRNAs. The down-regulated let-7a was validated in another sample set of 34 tissues with the TaqMan RT-qPCR method. RESULTS Compared with the matched NT tissues, 9 miRNAs were up-regulated in the HCC tissues, and three were considered statistically significant (p < 0.05): miR-96, miR-183, and miR-196a, which were up-regulated 4.746-, 7.127-, and 3.498-fold, respectively. Simultaneously, 9 miRNAs were down-regulated in the HCC tissues, and two were considered statistically significant: let-7c and miR-138, which were down-regulated 3.945- and 4.790-fold, respectively. The expression levels of let-7a were 1.071 +/- 0.401, 0.926 +/- 0.477, 0.881 +/- 1.214, and 0.535 +/- 0.719 in the healthy group, chronic hepatitis B(CHB) group, NT group, and HCC group, respectively (p > 0.05). CONCLUSIONS This study demonstrates that 18 miRNAs were deregulated in the HCC and matched NT tissues. The deregulated miRNAs suggest that further analyses with larger miRNA samples as a diagnostic marker are warranted.
Who integrates the networks of knowledge in Wikipedia?

In the study presented in this article we investigated two related knowledge domains, physiology and pharmacology, from the German version of Wikipedia. Applying the theory of knowledge building to this community, we studied the authors of integrative knowledge. Network analysis indices of betweenness and closeness centrality were calculated for the network of relevant articles. We compared the work of authors who wrote exclusively in one domain with that of authors who contributed to both domains. The position of double-domain authors for a knowledge building wiki community is outstanding. They are not only responsible for the integration of knowledge from a different background, but also for the composition of the single-knowledge domains. Predominantly they write articles which are integrative and central in the context of such domains.
Birthstrikes? Agency and Capabilities in the Reconciliation of Employment and Family

Summary The purpose of this article is to analyze women's agency and fertility decisions in the context of policy configurations in welfare states for reconciling employment with having and caring for children and the changing aspirations and expectations forgender equality in families. Employing the concept of birthstriking, inspired by Amartaya Sen's ideas on capabilities and agency freedom, we consider which individuals and families in the 1990s are delaying or not having children across 12 countries, representing four policy configuration models. Using household level data, we consider differences in education on the likelihood of having a first child. We find the clearest birthstriking effects in societies where there are weak reconciliation policies for motherhood and employment and few protections for families with uncertain economic futures.
Sport and human rights1

Following a brief introduction to current problems and concerns with regard to international human rights, this essay is structured around three overlapping themes: 1) the right to participate in sports; 2) the achievement of human rights through sport; and 3) sport and the human rights of specific classes of persons. The first considers various charters declaring the right to participate in sport, and the widespread endorsement of these charters by nations around the world; and points to the ways in which such rights have either not been addressed, or have often been addressed in ways that are neo-colonialist, leading, for example, to the loss of aboriginal cultures, or to the establishment of systems of sport that emphasize the development of high performance athletes rather than broad-based participation. The second points out that the only major human rights victory that may be attributed, at least in part, to sport is that of the anti-apartheid movement. The third combines the right to participate with the achievement of human rights through sport by considering the various ways that sport has been involved in the achievement of human rights by specific classes of persons (women, persons with a disability, aboriginal people, etc.). The essay concludes with a consideration of international foreign policy initiatives, and the ways in which they have, and could, further human rights in and through sports; briefly considers the place of sport in achieving the Millennium Development Goals; and argues that the status of children should be the next major international foreign policy initiative in sport.
Dimensions of global population projections: what do we know about future population trends and structures?

The total size of the world population is likely to increase from its current 7 billion to 8–10 billion by 2050. This uncertainty is because of unknown future fertility and mortality trends in different parts of the world. But the young age structure of the population and the fact that in much of Africa and Western Asia, fertility is still very high makes an increase by at least one more billion almost certain. Virtually, all the increase will happen in the developing world. For the second half of the century, population stabilization and the onset of a decline are likely. In addition to the future size of the population, its distribution by age, sex, level of educational attainment and place of residence are of specific importance for studying future food security. The paper provides a detailed discussion of different relevant dimensions in population projections and an evaluation of the methods and assumptions used in current global population projections and in particular those produced by the United Nations and by IIASA.
Can advertising elements improve consumer evaluations of brand extensions with a moderate or low fit

The focus of this paper is on analyzing how consumer evaluations of brand extensions with a moderate or poor fit to the core brand can be enhanced using advertising cues such as a fit prime and advertisement elements that are typically associated with the core brand. The results of the empirical study show that using a fit prime in advertisements is beneficial for moderately fitting brand extensions, but disadvantageous for poorly fitting extensions. Moreover, the results show that advertisement elements that are typically associated with the core brand can build links between the extension and the core brand and thus enhance the perceived fit. These findings imply that the options for extending a brand should not be considered as limited to product categories similar to the category of the core product because perceived fit can be influenced by communication. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
A Range-Free Localization Algorithm for Wireless Sensor Networks

Distributed localization in wireless sensor networks has attracted significant interest in recent years. In this paper, we propose two improvements towards the DV-hop algorithm: the anchor placement strategy and the weighted DV-hop algorithm. It is demonstrated that our proposals ensure better location estimations, and the weighted DV-hop is expected to perform even better in actual implementations
Creative People Create Values: Creativity and Positive Arousal in Negotiations

Most negotiations are ill-structured situations, and the ability to identify novel options is likely to be crucial for success. This study, therefore, examined how creativity impacts negotiation processes and outcomes, and how this effect is moderated by positive arousal. The negotiators’ creative personality and their state of positive arousal were measured before they participated in a simulated negotiation, with the results demonstrating that the level of creativity in negotiation dyads was positively related to the negotiators’ joint outcome. Negotiators in high creativity dyads searched for more information by asking questions about priorities and were less narrowly focused by providing fewer single-issue offers than negotiators in low creativity dyads. Positive arousal did not affect outcome directly, but moderated the effect of creativity on joint outcomes; the effect of creativity was strongest under high levels of positive arousal. The discussion section emphasizes that future research may find creativity to have even more of a positive effect when negotiations become more complex.
Epidemiology of Blood Stream Infections at a Level-1 Trauma Care Center of India

Purpose: Bloodstream infections (BSIs) are one of the major life-threatening infections in hospitals. They are responsible for prolonged hospital stays, high healthcare costs, and significant mortality. The epidemiology of BSIs varies between hospitals necessitating analysis of local trends. Few studies are available on trauma patients, who are predisposed due to the presence of multiple invasive devices. Materials and Methods: A prospective surveillance of all BSIs was done at a level 1 trauma center from April, 2011 to March, 2012. All patients admitted to the different trauma intensive care units (ICUs) were monitored daily by attending physicians for subsequent development of nosocomial BSI. An episode of BSI was identified when patients presented with one or more of the following signs/symptoms, that is, fever, hypothermia, chills, or hypotension and at least one or more blood culture samples demonstrated growth of pathogenic bacteria. BSIs were further divided into primary and secondary BSIs as per the definitions of Center for Disease Control and Prevention. All patients developing nosocomial BSIs were followed till their final outcome. Results: A total of 296 episodes of nosocomial BSIs were observed in 240 patients. A source of BSI was identified in 155 (52%) episodes. Ventilator-associated pneumonia was the most common source of secondary BSI. The most common organism was Acinetobacter sp. (21.5%). Candida sp. accounted for 12% of all blood stream organisms. A high prevalence of antimicrobial resistance was observed in Gram-negative and-positive pathogens. Conclusions: Trauma patients had a high prevalence of BSIs. Since secondary bacteremia was more common, a targeted approach to prevention of individual infections would help in reducing the burden of BSIs.