Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Indoor particle dynamics.

UNLABELLED Airborne particulate matter is a diverse pollutant class whose excessive presence in indoor air contributes to an array of adverse health and material-damage effects. Particles are classified according to their diameter into three size modes: ultrafine (0.1 microm), accumulation (0.1-2 microm), and coarse (= 2 microm). These modes have largely distinct sources and composition, and they exhibit different dynamic behaviors. The concept of mass conservation or material balance provides a foundation for quantitatively and mechanistically linking important outcome variables, such as concentrations and exposures, to the influencing input parameters. The factors governing indoor particle concentrations include direct emissions from indoor sources, ventilation supply from outdoor air, filtration, deposition onto indoor surfaces, and removal from indoor air by means of ventilation. In some circumstances, transport and transformation processes within indoor environments may also play an important role in influencing particle concentrations and consequences. Such processes include mixing, interzonal transport, resuspension, coagulation, and phase change. PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS The paper gives a practical overview of issues related to particulate matter indoors, as well as valuable information for understanding filtration and how particles contribute to adverse health effects.
Physical and Chemical Characteristic of Halal Gelatin Extracted from Buffalo Hide with Addition of Pineapple Rind at Different Ratio

The production of halal gelatin from buffalo hide waste which is animal be slaughtered according to Islamic law and using pineapple rind as an extraction agent was an alternative to produce halal gelatin. The availability of buffalo hide in Riau Province was stable and its hide had high protein content. This research was conducted to produced and determine the characteristics of halal gelatin from buffalo hide using solution of pineapple skin in terms of their physical and chemical properties. The Completely Randomized Design (CRD) was experimental design used with consist of 3 treatments and 4 replications. The treatment was ratio hide : pineapple rind solution, namely 3:1, 3:2 , 3:3 w/v. The parameters observed were yield, viscosity, color, pH, ash content and moisture content. The results showed that immersion of buffalo hide in the solution of pineapple rind at different ratio gave highly significant increased the viscosity and ash content of gelatin but not significant effect to yield percentage , color, pH and moisture of gelatin. The yield percentage ranging from 5.99-7.33%, pH 4.83-4.85, viscosity was 1.95-2.20 cP, color 0.54-0.71 absorbance unit, ash 0.25-, 032% and moisture 9.97-9.99%. It can be concluded that the best treatment was ratio 3:2 and 3 : 3 according to had viscosity, pH, color, ash and moisture in line with the standard of gelatin by Gelatin Manufacture Institute of America (GMIA).
Enteral glutamine supplementation for very-low-birth-weight infants decreases hospital costs.

BACKGROUND There is growing evidence that glutamine may be a conditionally essential amino acid for critically ill patients, including preterm infants cared for in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs). In a randomized study of 68 very-low-birth-weight (VLBW) infants, we found evidence of lower morbidity in a group fed glutamine-supplemented preterm infant formula from postnatal day 3 to day 30 than in a group fed a standard formula. We report here the effects of the glutamine supplementation on hospital costs in these infants. METHODS The costs were analyzed by log-rank tests and Kaplan-Meier plots. RESULTS The median costs for hospitalization, radiology, pharmacy, laboratory, and the NICU, and the median number of utilization units were reduced with glutamine supplementation. CONCLUSIONS This study provides the first evidence for decreased hospital costs in VLBW neonates who receive enteral glutamine supplementation.
New Sufficient Conditions of Signal Recovery with Tight Frames Via $l_1$-Analysis

The paper discusses the recovery of signals in the case that signals are nearly sparse with respect to a tight frame $D$ by means of the $l_1$-analysis approach. We establish several new sufficient conditions regarding the $D$-restricted isometry property to ensure stable reconstruction of signals that are approximately sparse with respect to $D$. It is shown that if the measurement matrix $\Phi$ fulfils the condition $\delta_{ts}<t/(4-t)$ for $0<t<4/3$, then signals which are approximately sparse with respect to $D$ can be stably recovered by the $l_1$-analysis method. In the case of $D=I$, the bound is sharp, see Cai and Zhang's work \cite{Cai and Zhang 2014}. When $t=1$, the present bound improves the condition $\delta_s<0.307$ from Lin et al.'s reuslt to $\delta_s<1/3$.
Strain Differences in a Murine Model of Air Pollutant–induced Nonatopic Asthma and Rhinitis

Ozone is an irritating gas found in photochemical smog. Epidemiological associations have been made between the onset of asthma and childhood exposures to increasing levels of ambient ozone (i.e., air pollutant–induced nonatopic asthma). Individuals, however, vary in their susceptibility to this outdoor air pollutant, which may be due, in part, to their genetic makeup. The present study was designed to test the hypothesis that there are murine strain-dependent differences in pulmonary and nasal pathologic responses to repeated ozone exposures. C57BL/6NTac and BALB/cNTac mice were exposed to 0 or 0.8 ppm ozone, 4 hr/day, for 9 consecutive weekdays. In both strains of mice, ozone induced eosinophilic inflammation and mucous cell metaplasia in the nasal and pulmonary airways. Lungs of ozone-exposed C57BL/6NTac mice, however, had greater eosinophilic inflammation, mucous cell metaplasia, and expression of genes related to type 2 immunity and airway mucus hypersecretion, as compared to similarly exposed BALB/cNTac mice. Ozone-exposed C57BL/6NTac mice also had greater eosinophilic rhinitis but a similar degree of mucous cell metaplasia in nasal epithelium, as ozone-exposed BALB/cNTac mice. These findings suggest that nonatopic individuals may differ in their inflammatory and epithelial responses to repeated ozone exposures that are due, in part, to genetic factors.
Incidence of helicobacter pylori infection and gastric cancer : an 8-year hospital based study.

AIM To observe the tendency of decreased prevalence of H pylori infection in a 14 year-period and observe the prevalence of intestinal metaplasia and gastric cancer. METHODS All patients who were diagnosed with dyspepsia and underwent esophagogastroduodenoscopy in Cikini hospital Jakarta from January 1998 until December 2005 were evaluated. We evaluated the histopathologic result of H pylori, the presence of intestinal metaplasia and gastric cancer. Data was grouped for 1 year period of time and was presented descriptively. RESULTS Decreased prevalence of H. Pylori infection was found, from 12.8% in 1998, 12.4% in 1999, 14.7% in 2000, 9.6% in 2001, 11.9 % in 2002, 3.8% in 2003, 2.3% in 2004, 2.9% in 2005. Intestinal metaplasia was 4.7% in 1998, 3.2% in 1999, 3.1% in 2000, 2.3 % in 2001, 7.6% in 2002, 8.3% in year 2003, 6.5% in 2004, 7.1% in 2005. Prevalence of gastric cancer was 2.2% in 1998, 0.25% in 1999, 1.1% in 2000, 1.1% in 2001, 1.1% in 2002, 1.8% in 2003, 1.7% in 2004, 3.9% in 2005. CONCLUSION There was decreased prevalence of H pylori infection in 8 year-period but there was no decreased prevalence of intestinal metaplasia and gastric cancer found.
Individual Variation in the Social Plasticity of Water Dragons

Individuals should alter when they socially associate with conspecifics to avoid potentially costly interactions. Moreover, individuals may vary in their propensity to use information about conspecifics when making such social decisions. However, surprisingly little is known about either the determinants of or the individual variation in such “social plasticity. ” We show here that eastern water dragons (Intellegama lesueurii lesueurii) may simultaneously use information from different components of their social environment when deciding whether to socially associate. In particular, we found that individuals altered when they socially associated with conspecifics according to the levels of potential conflict and competition in their social environment; both sexes socially associated more at higher local density than would be expected under increased random encounters. Further, females were more likely to socially associate during the breeding season and when there were more males and/or conspecifics whom they typically avoided in their social environment. This suggests that females may seek safety in numbers when the potential for intrasexual conflict or sexual harassment is high. Using a behavioral reaction norm framework, we also provide novel evidence to show that individuals vary in the extent and direction of their social plasticity and that males varied more than females. Our study thus implies that individuals use multiple cues in their environment when deciding to socially associate and that the resulting social plasticity varies between the sexes and between individuals.
Optic neuritis in Singapore.

INTRODUCTION Optic neuritis (ON) is the commonest optic neuropathy encountered in the younger group of patients from the Singapore Neuro-Ophthalmology Study Group. Previous surveys in Asia and our study suggest that ON in Singapore differs from that in Western populations where the majority of cases are associated with multiple sclerosis (MS). METHODS Patients satisfying our entry criteria for ON seen between September 2002 and June 2004 were enrolled in the study. The data collected was recorded in a central database and analysed two years later. RESULTS The majority (60 percent) of our patients had anterior ON with optic disc swelling (papillitis), were idiopathic in 49.1 percent, and associated with MS in only 25.5 percent. Bilateral cases comprised 16.4 percent of our series and were usually of the anterior variety and mostly idiopathic, although it is still essential to rule out secondary causes. Recurrent ON is indicative of an underlying disease process. CONCLUSION The pattern of ON as seen in Singapore differs from that reported in Caucasian studies and from the seminal Optic Neuritis Treatment Trial. We found a higher incidence of optic disc swelling, i.e. anterior ON (papillitis), and a lesser association with MS; visual recovery is similarly good but our recurrence rate is lower.
Skin detection based on contextual information

In this paper a skin detection method based on the two-dimensional histogram of color images is presented. First, from the statistical perspective, we select the discriminant features in the hope of getting a better average TPR and FPR. Despite the other methods, new statistics of these features are extracted based on the 2-D histograms leading finally to the considering the contextual information. At the last step, the decision is reached based on a feature fusion strategy. The experimental results on the known databases (containing 103 images of humans under uncontrolled condition) demonstrate the performance of the proposed method.
Development and validation of questionnaire measuring attitudes towards sexual health among university students.

AIM To develop a questionnaire on attitudes towards sexual health and validate it on a sample of medical and non-medical students and adult women. METHODS For the purpose os constructing a Likert-type scale, four medical studentsgenerated 130 statements reflecting clearly positive or negative attitudes towards sexual health. The scale had five scoring points (1 - strongly disagree, 2 - disagree, 3 - undecided, 4 - agree, and 5 - strongly agree). We revised the items to ensure that all were clearly positive or clearly negative in their form, as well as straightforward in their meaning, leaving 100 items in the raw questionnaire, which was then applied to the convenience sample (total n=336) of female medical students (n=93), male medical students (n=75), female non-medical students (n=93) and adult working women with at least high-school education (n=75). After the administration of the questionnaire, we performed content examination, discriminant validation of the statements, and principal-components analysis. RESULTS After discriminant validation of the statements and principal-components analysis limited to three factors, the final scale contained 50 items (20 positive and 30 negative), distributed in three subscales: "Personal sexual health care," "Principles of sexual behavior," and "Safe sex behavior. " The Cronbach alpha of the whole scale was 0.910, indicating good internal consistency. When the scores of the final scale were analyzed for the study sample, all participants had positive attitude towards sexual health, with a mean score (+/-standard deviation) of 4.1+/-0.4 out of maximum 5. The same was true for all threee subscales. Female groups, regardless of their student status or age, did not differ in their attitude scores on the whole scale, as well as on any of the subscales. Male medical students had lower scores on the whole scale and all subscales than the female groups. CONCLUSIONS It is posible to construct a reliable instrument to assess attitudes towards three important aspects of sexual health: personal sexual health care, sexual behavior, and safe sex behavior. Future studies with this instrument, on different populations and in different cultural and socio-economic settings, are needed to make generalized conclusions on sexual health attitudes and behavior.
Suxamethonium-induced changes in serum creatine phosphokinase.

In sixty patients undergoing minor surgical procedures with minimal involvement of muscle, there was a significant increase in serum creatine phosphokinase induced by suxamethonium. The increase was significantly reduced by prior administration of tubocurarine 3 mg and by pretreatment with suxamethonium 10 mg.
Efficient Visual Object and Word Recognition Relies on High Spatial Frequency Coding in the Left Posterior Fusiform Gyrus: Evidence from a Case-Series of Patients with Ventral Occipito-Temporal Cortex Damage

Recent visual neuroscience investigations suggest that ventral occipito-temporal cortex is retinotopically organized, with high acuity foveal input projecting primarily to the posterior fusiform gyrus (pFG), making this region crucial for coding high spatial frequency information. Because high spatial frequencies are critical for fine-grained visual discrimination, we hypothesized that damage to the left pFG should have an adverse effect not only on efficient reading, as observed in pure alexia, but also on the processing of complex non-orthographic visual stimuli. Consistent with this hypothesis, we obtained evidence that a large case series (n = 20) of patients with lesions centered on left pFG: 1) Exhibited reduced sensitivity to high spatial frequencies; 2) demonstrated prolonged response latencies both in reading (pure alexia) and object naming; and 3) were especially sensitive to visual complexity and similarity when discriminating between novel visual patterns. These results suggest that the patients' dual reading and non-orthographic recognition impairments have a common underlying mechanism and reflect the loss of high spatial frequency visual information normally coded in the left pFG.
Genetic Analysis through OtoSeq of Pakistani Families Segregating Prelingual Hearing Loss

Objective To identify the genetic cause of prelingual sensorineural hearing loss in Pakistani families using a next-generation sequencing (NGS)–based mutation screening test named OtoSeq. Study Design Prospective study. Setting Research laboratory. Subjects and Methods We used 3 fluorescently labeled short tandem repeat (STR) markers for each of the known autosomal recessive nonsyndromic (DFNB) and Usher syndrome (USH) locus to perform a linkage analysis of 243 multigenerational Pakistani families segregating prelingual hearing loss. After genotyping, we focused on 34 families with potential linkage to MYO7A, CDH23, and SLC26A4. We screened affected individuals from a subset of these families using the OtoSeq platform to identify underlying genetic variants. Sanger sequencing was performed to confirm and study the segregation of mutations in other family members. For novel mutations, normal hearing individuals from ethnically matched backgrounds were also tested. Results Hearing loss was found to co-segregate with locus-specific STR markers for MYO7A in 32 families, CDH23 in 1 family, and SLC26A4 in 1 family. Using the OtoSeq platform, a microdroplet PCR-based enrichment followed by NGS, we identified mutations in 28 of the 34 families including 11 novel mutations. Sanger sequencing of these mutations showed 100% concordance with NGS data and co-segregation of the mutant alleles with the hearing loss phenotype in the respective families. Conclusion Using NGS-based platforms like OtoSeq in families segregating hearing loss will contribute to the identification of common and population-specific mutations, early diagnosis, genetic counseling, and molecular epidemiology.
Utility of Composite Reference Standards and Latent Class Analysis in Evaluating the Clinical Accuracy of Diagnostic Tests for Pertussis

ABSTRACT Numerous evaluations of the clinical sensitivity and specificity of PCR and serologic assays for Bordetella pertussis have been hampered by the low sensitivity of culture, the gold standard test, which leads to biased accuracy estimates. The bias can be reduced by using statistical approaches such as the composite reference standard (CRS) (e.g., positive if culture or serology positive; negative otherwise) or latent class analysis (LCA), an internal reference standard based on a statistical model. We illustrated the benefits of the CRS and LCA approaches by reanalyzing data from a 1995 to 1996 study of cough illness among 212 patients. The accuracy of PCR in this study was evaluated using three reference standards: culture, CRS, and LCA. Using specimens obtained 0 to 34 days after cough onset, estimates of the sensitivity of PCR obtained using CRS (47%) and LCA (34%) were lower than the culture-based estimate (62%). The CRS and LCA approaches, which utilized more than one diagnostic marker of pertussis, likely produced more accurate reference standards than culture alone. In general, the CRS approach is simple, with a well-defined disease status. LCA requires statistical modeling but incorporates more indicators of disease than CRS. When three or more indicators of pertussis are available, these approaches should be used in evaluations of pertussis diagnostic tests.
Classifying Severity of Abdominal Contour Deformities after Weight Loss to Aid in Patient Counseling: A Review of 1006 Cases

Background: Abdominal contour deformities after massive weight loss are highly variable, ranging from a mild upper protuberance to multiple rolls. Correction of these deformities is challenging and may require advanced surgical techniques. Evaluating the incidence of patients presenting with various abdominal deformities and the factors influencing these deformities could aid patients undergoing weight loss. Methods: All massive weight loss patients presenting for abdominal contouring from 2002 to 2012 were reviewed, and abdomens were graded using a modified Pittsburgh Rating Scale. Data collected for each patient included body mass indices, history of bariatric surgery, and type of abdominal contouring surgery. Results: One thousand six patients were evaluated, with a mean age of 44.2 ± 10.5 years. The mean maximum body mass index was 51.7 ± 9.6 kg/m2, mean current body mass index was 30.0 ± 6.4 kg/m2, and mean change in body mass index was 21.7 ± 7.0 kg/m2. Sixty-four percent had a high-grade deformity. Patients with a larger change in body mass index had higher deformity grades (p < 0.001). Patients with higher deformity grades were more likely to undergo a fleur-de-lis abdominoplasty (p < 0.001). Conclusions: Most patients presenting for body contouring after massive weight loss have high-grade abdominal deformities with multiple rolls. Change in body mass index is positively correlated with deformity grade and more aggressive contouring procedures. Patients interested in massive weight loss should be counseled that, depending on desire for eventual outcomes, more complex procedures may be required to correct the resultant abdominal deformity. CLINICAL QUESTION/LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Therapeutic, IV.
Utilization of cervical cancer screening services and associated factors among women of reproductive age in Kisarawe district coast region

Background: Cervical cancer is the leading cause of cancer related morbidity and mortality in women in Tanzania. Early detection and prevention of cervical cancer can reduce morbidity and mortality due to cervical cancer. Despite the existence of cervical cancer screening cervices by using Visual Inspection by Acetic Acid (VIA), the utilization of the service is still very low. Study Aim: The aim of the study was to determine the level of utilization of cervical cancer screening services and its associated factors among women of reproductive age in Kisarawe district, Coast region. Methods: A cross sectional population-based study was conducted among 414 women aged 15-49 years in Kisarawe District. Structured questionnaires were used to collect information. The outcome variable was utilization of cervical screening services. Bivariate analysis was done to investigate the association between the dependent and independent variables. Ethical clearance was sought prior to the study and informed consent obtained from each participant. Results: Of the 414 respondents, 13.8% reported to have ever been screened for cervical cancer and 49% were aware of the availability of screening services. Knowledge on cervical cancer symptoms, risk factors and prevention methods was insufficient. Factors that significantly influenced utilization of cervical cancer screening services were age 40+, being a Christian, employed and whether divorced/separated/widowed. Some misconceptions regarding risk factors for cervical cancer prevailed among the respondents. Barriers of utilization of cervical screening services included not knowing where to go for screening, lack of bus fare and fear of being screened by a male provider. Three quarters of the women perceived that the cervical cancer screening prevents development of cancer and enhances quality of life to women Conclusion: Utilization of cervical cancer screening services in the studied area is quite low. Targeted interventions are needed to improve the level of utilization of screening services. There is a need for integrating cervical screening services into the existing RCH services all over the country to enable women to utilize the service.