Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Vaginal Flora in Health and Disease

This chapter has portrayed the normal vaginal flora as a range of microbial species that associates in a stable way with human vaginal epithelium. The human vagina provides these microorganisms with the physical and chemical environment that allows them to use this tissue as a normal habitat. Because the relationship of the normal flora to the underlying tissue is that of an ecosystem, the components of this system are in dynamic equilibrium. Consequently, a change in the environmental conditions provided by the vaginal epithelium will result in changes in the population density or the species composition of the normal flora. Although the microbial flora appears to provide a benefit to the host by reducing the probability of colonization by exogenous microorganisms, it may participate in various undesirable symptoms, including various types of vaginitis or postoperative, postabortion, and post-Caesarean section infections, and upper tract invasion after lower tract infection. All future attempts to understand vaginitis in all its manifestations necessarily must include recognition of the importance of the normal flora because all types of vaginitis are superimposed on an existing endogenous microbial flora.
Motivation, Comportements Organisationnels Discrétionnaires et Bien-être en Milieu Africain: Quand le Devoir Oblige

This study tested with Gabonese employees (N = 146) an organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) model based on the motivational model of job burnout (MMJB). It was hypothesized that the more supervisors will satisfy employee's needs for self-determination, competence, and relatedness, the more employee work motivations will be self-determined. Supervisory style and motivation will then predict job satisfaction which then influences life satisfaction. Work motivation and job satisfaction should also determine OCB and the latter should then influence life satisfaction. Structural equation modeling analyses mostly confirmed the model. One unexpected link was that altruism OCB was negatively predicted by self-determined motivations which then negatively predicted life satisfaction. Results support SDT showing, as such, that a behavior regulated by non-self-determined motivations will negatively affect well-being. Cette etude verifie aupres d'employes gabonais (N = 146) un modele de comportements organisationnels discretionnaires (COD) base sur le modele motivationnel de l'epuisement professionnel. Il postule que plus le style de mobilisation du superieur satisfait les besoins d'autodetermination, de competence et d'attachement, plus la motivation sera autodeterminee et meilleure sera la satisfaction au travail; en retour, ces variables influenceront positivement l'adoption de COD altruistes et consciencieux, lesquels auront finalement des repercussions positives sur la satisfaction de vie. Des analyses de modelisation confirment dans l'ensemble ce modele. La motivation autodeterminee etait toutefois negativement reliee aux comportements altruistes, lesquels predisaient d'ailleurs negativement la satisfaction de vie. Ces resultats appuient egalement la theorie de l'autodetermination selon laquelle les comportements issus d'une motivation non autodeterminee affectent negativement le bien-etre.
Integration of Intelligence Data through Semantic Enhancement

We describe a strategy for integration of data that is based on the idea of semantic enhancement. The strategy promises a number of benefits: it can be applied incrementally; it creates minimal barriers to the incorporation of new data into the semantically enhanced system; it preserves the existing data (including any existing data-semantics) in their original form (thus all provenance information is retained, and no heavy preprocessing is required); and it embraces the full spectrum of data sources, types, models, and modalities (including text, images, audio, and signals). The result of applying this strategy to a given body of data is an evolving Dataspace that allows the application of a variety of integration and analytic processes to diverse data contents. We conceive semantic enhancement (SE) as a lightweight and flexible process that leverages the richness of the structured contents of the Dataspace without adding storage and processing burdens to what, in the intelligence domain, will be an already storageand processing-heavy starting point. SE works not by changing the data to which it is applied, but rather by adding an extra semantic layer to this data. We sketch how the semantic enhancement approach can be applied consistently and in cumulative fashion to new data and data-models that enter the Dataspace.
Rule-Governed Behavior and Psychological Problems

The term rule-governed behavior (RGB) was first coined by Skinner (1966) to refer to behavior essential to complex human abilities. The traditional behavioral account of rulegoverned behavior presented some difficulties in describing how these abilities are formed and altered. With the advent of recent findings within the theoretical approach referred to as Relational Frame Theory (RFT), the former difficulties are at present being overcome. RFT is providing a comprehensive understanding of behavioral problems as found in diverse psychopathologies. The present paper addresses first the basic assumptions of RFT in relation to rule-following. Then, the three types of RGB, pliance, tracking and augmenting are presented. Finally, we describe the problems that can emerge from the different types of RGB, with a special emphasis on the role of ineffective augmenting as the basis of those psychological problems characterized by the occurrence of deliberate efforts to avoid certain thoughts, feelings and the like as the primary coping strategy to live which, in turn, produces paradoxical effects.
LAURISTON S. TAYLOR LECTURE: THE QUEST FOR THERAPEUTIC ACTINIDE CHELATORS

All of the actinides are radioactive. Taken into the body, they damage and induce cancer in bone and liver, and in the lungs if inhaled, and U(VI) is a chemical kidney poison. Containment of radionuclides is fundamental to radiation protection, but if it is breached accidentally or deliberately, decontamination of exposed persons is needed to reduce the consequences of radionuclide intake. The only known way to reduce the health risks of internally deposited actinides is to accelerate their excretion with chelating agents. Ethylendiaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) and diethylenetriaminepentaacetic acid (DTPA) were introduced in the 1950’s. DTPA is now clinically accepted, but its oral activity is low, it must be injected as a Ca(II) or Zn(II) chelate to avoid toxicity, and it is structurally unsuitable for chelating U(VI) or Np(V). Actinide penetration into the mammalian iron transport and storage systems suggested that actinide ions would form stable complexes with the Fe(III)-binding units found in potent selective natural iron chelators (siderophores). Testing of that biomimetic approach began in the late 1970’s with the design, production, and assessment for in vivo Pu(IV) chelation of synthetic multidentate ligands based on the backbone structures and Fe(III)-binding groups of siderophores. New efficacious actinide chelators have emerged from that program, in particular, octadentate 3,4,3-LI(1,2-HOPO) and tetradentate 5-LIO(Me-3,2-HOPO) have potential for clinical acceptance. Both are much more effective than CaNa3-DTPA for decorporation of Pu(IV), Am(III), U(VI), and Np(IV,V), they are orally active, and toxicity is acceptably low at effective dosage.
Control of Mechanical Properties of Thermoplastic Polyurethane Elastomers by Restriction of Crystallization of Soft Segment

Mechanical properties of thermoplastic polyurethane elastomers based on either polyether or polycarbonate (PC)-glycols, 4,4’-dipheylmethane diisocyanate (1,1’-methylenebis(4-isocyanatobenzene)), 1,4-butanediol, were controlled by restriction of crystallization of polymer glycols. For the polyether glycol based-polyurethane elastomers (PUEs), poly(oxytetramethylene) glycol (PTMG), and PTMG incorporating dimethyl groups (PTG-X) and methyl side groups (PTG-L) were employed as a polymer glycol. For the PC-glycol, the randomly copolymerized PC-glycols with hexamethylene (C6) and tetramethylene (C4) units between carbonate groups with various composition ratios (C4/C6 = 0/100, 50/50, 70/30 and 90/10) were employed. The degree of microphase separation and mechanical properties of both the PUEs were investigated using differential scanning calorimetry, dynamic viscoelastic property measurements and tensile testing. Mechanical properties could be controlled by changing the molar ratio of two different monomer components.
Characterising emotion processing, fear and anxiety in mentally disordered offenders

The aim of the present study was to explore emotion processing, fear and anxiety in mentally disordered offenders while controlling for psychopathy. Patient participants were thirty-seven male mentally disordered offenders from a high-secure hospital who had a history of violent offending. Controls were twenty-seven male staff from the hospital. Participants completed the Emotion Perception Task (EPT), a task of emotion recognition and discrimination in intensity of facial affect. Participants also completed the Joystick Operated Runway Task (JORT), a measure of fear and anxiety. Patients’ level of psychopathy was measured using the Psychopathy Checklist Revised (PCL-R). Significant differences were found between patients and controls for overall discrimination of facial affect intensity and for fear and anger individually. Patients with schizophrenia alone performed significantly worse than both patients with personality disorder (PD) alone and patients with comorbid schizophrenia and PD for emotion discrimination. The study found no differences between patients and controls for emotion recognition, induced fear or anxiety. These findings have important theoretical implications for how emotion processing deficits among individuals with schizophrenia are understood in the context of models of violent offending that do not account for defensive violence. Clinical interventions that focus on improving emotion perception accuracy may contribute to a reduction this type of violent re-offending. Recommendations for future research are discussed.
Centralized versus Decentralized Conversation-based Orchestrations

There has been a great deal of interest in recent years in the use of service oriented approach and relevant standards to implement business processes. Following the concepts of workflow-based process management, the major focus has been on service composition. Not surprisingly, this default composition approach suffers from the limitations of centralized workflow management. It is well recognized that a decentralized execution setting where composed services can establish P2P interactions, is central to the management of a wide range of ubiquitous, mobile, large-scale and secure business processes. A natural way to enable the decentralized execution is to implement the relevant distributed cooperating processes of a centralized process on composed services. In this way, composed services can establish P2P interactions following the semantics of their processes. In this paper, we present a generic approach that enables decentralized executions with such cooperating processes. Precisely, we present our method that derives the latter. We focus on the sophisticated control/data flow and conversational aspects that run counter to naive intuition, most of which, we explain using deeper analysis of the algorithms and data structures that we employed.
Experimental Study of the Start-Up Scenario of a 1.5-MW, 110-GHz Gyrotron

We present experimental results of the modes excited during the voltage rise of a 1.5-MW, 110-GHz gyrotron operating in the TE22,6,1 forward-wave mode. Results were obtained by two different experimental techniques: measurements with a time-gated heterodyne receiver and measurements during the flat-top portion of the voltage pulse with a sequence of increasing voltages. Two operating points were selected: a high-efficiency 1.2-MW power-level point at 4.38 T and a highly stable 600-kW point at 4.45 T. In the former case, the TE21,6,3 and TE21,6,4 backward-wave modes far from cutoff were excited during the voltage rise of the pulse before the desired TE22,6,1 operating mode was excited; in the latter case, the excitation of a TE22,6,2 backward-wave mode dominated the voltage rise before eventually exciting the desired operating mode. Analysis of the microwave output beam spatial pattern and the frequency and power levels recorded indicate that these modes are indeed excited within the cavity. Single-mode MAGY simulations provide further evidence that such modes can exist in the gyrotron during the voltage rise. Knowledge of the modes excited during start-up is important for achieving high efficiency and avoiding power at unwanted frequencies.
Oncomodulin, an EF-Hand Ca2+ Buffer, Is Critical for Maintaining Cochlear Function in Mice

Oncomodulin (Ocm), a member of the parvalbumin family of calcium binding proteins, is expressed predominantly by cochlear outer hair cells in subcellular regions associated with either mechanoelectric transduction or electromotility. Targeted deletion of Ocm caused progressive cochlear dysfunction. Although sound-evoked responses are normal at 1 month, by 4 months, mutants show only minimal distortion product otoacoustic emissions and 70–80 dB threshold shifts in auditory brainstem responses. Thus, Ocm is not critical for cochlear development but does play an essential role for cochlear function in the adult mouse. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Numerous proteins act as buffers, sensors, or pumps to control calcium levels in cochlear hair cells. In the inner ear, EF-hand calcium buffers may play a significant role in hair cell function but have been very difficult to study. Unlike other reports of genetic disruption of EF-hand calcium buffers, deletion of oncomodulin (Ocm), which is predominately found in outer hair cells, leads to a progressive hearing loss after 1 month, suggesting that Ocm critically protects hearing in the mature ear.
Deliberating International Science Policy Controversies: Uncertainty and AIDS in South Africa

International science policy controversies involve disputes over cultural differences in the assessment of knowledge claims and competing visions of the policy-making process between different nations. This essay analyzes these dynamics in the recent controversy surrounding AIDS policy in South Africa. It develops the notion of an epistemological filibuster, an appeal to uncertainty in order to delay policy implementation, and shows the key role it played in producing an argumentative stalemate between President Thabo Mbeki and Western orthodox AIDS scientists that threatened millions of HIV-positive South Africans.
Role of Klebsiella oxytoca in antibiotic-associated diarrhea.

BACKGROUND Klebsiella oxytoca was recently shown to be the causative agent of antibiotic-associated hemorrhagic colitis. Because it is unclear whether K. oxytoca also causes nonhemorrhagic antibiotic-associated diarrhea, our study investigated a possible association between K. oxytoca and that disorder. METHODS A total of 371 consecutive patients were recruited into 4 study groups: (1) group A+D+ (patients who received antibiotics and experienced diarrhea; n = 107), (2) group A+D- (patients who received antibiotics but did not experience diarrhea; np93), (3) group A-D+ (patients who experienced acute-onset diarrhea but did not receive antibiotics; n = 60), and (4) group A-D- (patients without diarrhea who did not receive antibiotics; n = 111). Stool samples were plated on MacConkey agar and K. oxytoca was identified using a standard test kit. Clostridium difficile was detected by a toxin A/B antigen test. K. oxytoca strains were tested for cytotoxicity with use of cell-culture assays. RESULTS In 15 of 371 stool samples, K. oxytoca strains were isolated during the study period. There was no significant difference in the distribution of K. oxytoca among the 4 study groups. Six of the 15 strains were found to be toxin producing. Three of the toxin-producing strains caused antibiotic-associated hemorrhagic colitis. No case of nonhemorrhagic antibiotic-associated diarrhea due to toxin-producing K. oxytoca was detected. CONCLUSION K. oxytoca is not the causative agent of nonhemorrhagic antibiotic-associated diarrhea. This is in contrast to the distinct clinical entity of antibiotic-associated hemorrhagic colitis. Testing for K. oxytoca is therefore only warranted for patients who experience bloody diarrhea during antibiotic therapy.
Predisposing factors for traumatic dental injuries in Brazilian preschool children.

AIM The aim of the present study was to assess the prevalence of traumatic dental injury (TDI) in primary teeth and determine predisposing factors. MATERIALS AND METHODS A cross-sectional study was carried out on 388 male and female Brazilian preschool children between 60 and 71 months of age. A questionnaire addressing demographic data and history of TDI was sent to parents/caregivers. Socioeconomic status was determined using the Social Vulnerability Index (SVI), family income, number of people in the household and parents/caregivers' schooling. The chi-square test was used for the statistical analysis. RESULTS The prevalence of TDI was 62.1%; 61.7% of the teeth were affected by enamel fracture. Statistically significant associations were found between TDI and increased overjet [OR = 2.24, 95% CI = 1.11- 4.55] and anterior crossbite [OR = 0.38, 95% CI=0.17-0.87]. No statistically significant associations were found between TDI and number of people in the household, family income, social vulnerability, parents/caregivers' schooling, lip competence, overbite, anterior open bite and dental caries (p>0.05). CONCLUSION The prevalence of TDI was high and enamel fracture was the most common sign of TDI. Children with an increased overjet suffer more TDIs. Socioeconomic factors had no influence over the prevalence of TDI.
In Exile and in Touch

Studying transnational behaviour, i.e. interactions between the sending and receiving countries of international migrants, is especially interesting for refugees given their migration motive and history. Due to the flight, resources are lost and returning to the home country is often not an option; both are factors that might limit transnational behaviour. The central aim of this study is to explain the patterns of transnational behaviour for refugee groups in relation to their integration process. For this we use a large scale dataset (N=3950) which contains information on Somali, Iranian, Iraqi and Afghani refugees in the Netherlands. Along the lines of the ‘resource dependent’ thesis the analyses show that individual capacities, such as employment and Dutch nationality, are of major importance in explaining transnational activities of refugees. Second, this paper shows that the economic and social situation in the origin country should be taken into account for understanding the differences in transnational activities among refugee groups.
Positive Feelings in Friendship: Does Imbalance in the Relationship Matter?

We examined predictors of positive feelings in friendship. Pairs of same-sex (female–female) and cross-sex (female–male) friends completed questionnaires about each other. Positive feelings covaried directly with friendship level (e.g., best versus good) and with benefits from the relationship (i.e., the degree to which friendship functions were fulfilled); but various measures of imbalance in the relationship–net benefit, unsigned net benefit, and inequality–did not improve prediction. Nonetheless, there was limited evidence that, independent of other predictors, positive feelings covaried inversely with inequity (i.e., with the degree to which the net benefit-to-contribution ratios of the two friends differed). Because positive feelings mainly reflect the degree to which friendship functions are fulfilled, the data support a functional view of friendship. However, if imbalance in a friendship is at all important, it appears to be imbalance measured in terms of inequity.
On the Time Splitting Spectral Method for the Complex Ginzburg-Landau Equation in the Large Time and Space Scale Limit

We are interested in the numerical approximation of the complex Ginzburg-Landau equation in the large time and space limit. There are two interesting regimes in this problem, one being the large space time limit, and one being the nonlinear Schrodinger limit. These limits have been studied analytically in, for example, T. Colin and A. Soyeur, Asymptot. Anal. , 13 (1996), pp. 361-372; F. H. Lin, Comm. Pure Appl. Math., 51 (1998), pp. 385-441; F. H. Lin and J. X. Xin, Comm. Math. Phys., 200 (1999), pp. 249-274. We study a time splitting spectral method for this problem. In particular, we are interested in whether such a scheme is asymptotic preserving (AP) with respect to these two limits. Our results show that the scheme is AP for the first limit but not the second one. For the large space time limit, our numerical experiments show that the scheme can capture the correct physical behavior without resolving the small scale dynamics, even for transitional problems, where small and large scales coexist.
In vitro and in vivo characterization of herpes simplex virus clinical isolates recovered from patients infected with human immunodeficiency virus

A total of 100 herpes simplex viruses isolated from lesions not responding to acyclovir (ACV) therapy were recovered from 51 patients infected with human immunodeficiency virus. In vitro analysis of these isolates included testing their susceptibility to ACV and determining their thymidine kinase (TK) phenotypes. Of the 100 isolates evaluated, 23 were ACV sensitive and 77 were ACV resistant. Seventy-four of these ACV-resistant isolates were of the TK-deficient or low-TK-producer phenotype and three were of the TK-altered phenotype. The TKs isolates that represented each of the different autoradiographic phenotypes were further characterized by enzyme kinetics. The ability of selected isolates to cause disease in vivo was evaluated by using several mouse virulence models. Cutaneous virulence in normal and immunocompromised mice was evaluated, and neurovirulence in normal mice was determined. Latent infections were assayed by the cocultivation of trigeminal ganglia recovered from mice that had survived acute infection. These reactivated viruses were evaluated in vitro and compared with the original infecting isolate. The mechanisms of resistance and pathogenicity of these herpes simplex virus isolates recovered from patients positive for human immunodeficiency virus are similar to those reported for isolates recovered from normal and immunocompromised patients without AIDS.