Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Polarization tensor of charged gluons in color magnetic background field at finite temperature

We calculate the polarization tensor of charged gluons in a Abelian homogeneous magnetic background field at finite temperature in one loop order Lorentz background field gauge in full generality. Thereby we first determine the ten independent tensor structures. For the calculation of the corresponding form factors we use the Schwinger representation and represent form factors as double parametric integrals and a sum resulting from the Matsubara formalism used. The integrands are given explicitly in terms of hyperbolic trigonometric functions. Like in the case of neutral gluons, the polarization tensor is not transversal. Out of the tensor structures, seven are transversal and three are not. The nontransversal part follows explicitly from our calculations.
Vitamin D Supplementation Does Not Increase Immunogenicity of Seasonal Influenza Vaccine in HIV-Infected Adults

Abstract The influence of vitamin D on influenza vaccine immunogenicity in HIV was assessed using data from a phase 3, randomized trial conducted during the 2011–2009 influ-enza season. Thirty–three percent of participants were on supplemental vitamin D at baseline. Neither seroconversion nor seroprotection were predicted by vitamin D use for any of the 3 vaccine strains. There is no evidence of improved influenza vaccine immunogenicity with vitamin D supplementation in this HIV-positive population.
XX male sex reversal with genital abnormalities associated with a de novo SOX3 gene duplication

Differentiation of the bipotential gonad into testis is initiated by the Y chromosome‐linked gene SRY (Sex‐determining Region Y) through upregulation of its autosomal direct target gene SOX9 (Sry‐related HMG box‐containing gene 9). Sequence and chromosome homology studies have shown that SRY most probably evolved from SOX3, which in humans is located at Xq27.1. Mutations causing SOX3 loss‐of‐function do not affect the sex determination in mice or humans. However, transgenic mouse studies have shown that ectopic expression of Sox3 in the bipotential gonad results in upregulation of Sox9, resulting in testicular induction and XX male sex reversal. However, the mechanism by which these rearrangements cause sex reversal and the frequency with which they are associated with disorders of sex development remains unclear. Rearrangements of the SOX3 locus were identified recently in three cases of human XX male sex reversal. We report on a case of XX male sex reversal associated with a novel de novo duplication of the SOX3 gene. These data provide additional evidence that SOX3 gain‐of‐function in the XX bipotential gonad causes XX male sex reversal and further support the hypothesis that SOX3 is the evolutionary antecedent of SRY. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Engagement with eHealth Self-Monitoring in a Primary Care-Based Weight Management Intervention

Background While eHealth approaches hold promise for improving the reach and cost-effectiveness of behavior change interventions, they have been challenged by declining participant engagement over time, particularly for self-monitoring behaviors. These are significant concerns in the context of chronic disease prevention and management where durable effects are important for driving meaningful changes. Purpose “Be Fit, Be Well” was an eHealth weight loss intervention that allowed participants to self-select a self-monitoring modality (web or interactive voice response (IVR)). Participants could change their modality. As such, this study provides a unique opportunity to examine the effects of intervention modality choice and changing modalities on intervention engagement and outcomes. Methods Intervention participants, who were recruited from community health centers, (n = 180) were expected to self-monitor health behaviors weekly over the course of the 24-month intervention. We examined trends in intervention engagement by modality (web, IVR, or changed modality) among participants in the intervention arm. Results The majority (61%) of participants chose IVR self-monitoring, while 39% chose web. 56% of those who selected web monitoring changed to IVR during the study versus no change in those who initially selected IVR. Self-monitoring declined in both modalities, but completion rates were higher in those who selected IVR. There were no associations between self-monitoring modality and weight or blood pressure outcomes. Conclusions This is the first study to compare web and IVR self-monitoring in an eHealth intervention where participants could select and change their self-monitoring modality. IVR shows promise for achieving consistent engagement.
Can Diffusion-Weighted Imaging and Related Apparent Diffusion Coefficient be a Prognostic Value in Women With Breast Cancer?

ABSTRACT Purpose: To analyze diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) and the related apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) in women with breast cancer, correlating these values with the presence at 3 years of distant metastases, and to demonstrate that DWI-Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and related ADC values may represent a prognostic value in the study of women with breast cancer. Materials and methods: Sixty women (aged 45–73 years) affected with breast cancer with a follow-up in 3 years were enrolled. On DWI, we obtained the ADC values, and these were correlated with the clinical condition of patients at 3 years. Moreover, tumour size, lymph node status, and molecular markers, including estrogens receptor, progesterone receptor, Ki-67 index, and human growth factor receptor 2 protein, were correlated with ADC values. This study was approved by the Scientific Committee of our institution. Results: We considered patients with metastasis at 3 years (12 patients – 20%) and without metastasis (48 patients – 80%). The mean ADC value in patients with no metastases at 3 years was 1.06 ± 0.38, while for patients with metastases it was 0.74 ± 0.34 (p = .011). The receiver–operator curve analysis identified a value of 0.75 (<0.75 with risk to develop metastasis) as the best predictive cutoff for ADC values, with the highest sensitivity (81.25%) and higher specificity (66.67%). After regression analysis, ADC value, positivity to estrogen–progestin receptors, and presence of lymph nodes were the only prognostic factors found to be statistically significant. Conclusions: DWI-MRI and related ADC values may represent a prognostic value in women with breast cancer.
A monument to the player: preserving a landscape of socio-cultural capital in the transitional MMORPG

Massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) produce dynamic socio-ludic worlds that nurture both culture and gameplay to shape experiences. Despite the persistent nature of these games, however, the virtual spaces that anchor these worlds may not always be able to exist in perpetuity. Encouraging a community to migrate from one space to another is a challenge now facing some game developers. This paper examines the case of Guild Wars® and its “Hall of Monuments”, a feature that bridges the accomplishments of players from the current game to the forthcoming sequel. Two factor analyses describe the perspectives of 105 and 187 self-selected participants. The results reveal four factors affecting attitudes towards the feature, but they do not strongly correlate with existing motivational frameworks, and significant differences were found between different cultures within the game. This informs a discussion about the implications and facilitation of such transitions, investigating themes of capital, value perception and assumptive worlds. It is concluded that the way subcultures produce meaning needs to be considered when attempting to preserve the socio-cultural landscape.
Complexity of propositional nested circumscription and nested abnormality theories

Circumscription has been recognized as an important principle for knowledge representation and common-sense reasoning. The need for a circumscriptive formalism that allows for simple yet elegant modular problem representation has led Lifschitz (AIJ, 1995) to introduce nested abnormality theories (NATs) as a tool for modular knowledge representation, tailored for applying circumscription to minimize exceptional circumstances. Abstracting from this particular objective, we propose LCIRC, which is an extension of generic propositional circumscription by allowing propositional combinations and nesting of circumscriptive theories. As shown, NATs are naturally embedded into this language, and are in fact of equal expressive capability. We then analyze the complexity of LCIRC and NATs, and in particular the effect of nesting. The latter is found to be a source of complexity, which climbs the Polynomial Hierarchy as the nesting depth increases and reaches PSPACE-completeness in the general case. We also identify meaningful syntactic fragments of NATs which have lower complexity. In particular, we show that the generalization of Horn circumscription in the NAT framework remains coNP-complete, and that Horn NATs without fixed letters can be efficiently transformed into an equivalent Horn CNF, which implies polynomial solvability of principal reasoning tasks. Finally, we also study extensions of NATs and briefly address the complexity in the first-order case. Our results give insight into the “cost” of using LCIRC (respectively, NATs) as a host language for expressing other formalisms such as action theories, narratives, or spatial theories.
Justin Tatch Moore Hindman ’ s Theorem , Ellis ’ s Lemma , and Thompson ’ s group

The purpose of this article is to formulate conjectural generalizations of Hindman’s Theorem and Ellis’s Lemma for nonassociative binary systems and relate them to the amenability problem for Thompson’s group F . Partial results are obtained for both conjectures. The paper will also contain some general analysis of the conjectures. Mathematics Subject Classification (2010): 03E02, 03E50, 05D10, 05C55, 20F38, 43A07
Trichomonas vaginalis epidemiology: parameterising and analysing a model of treatment interventions

Background: Trichomonas vaginalis, which affects at least 170 million individuals globally, may increase the risk of transmission of HIV and predispose pregnant women to premature rupture of membranes and early labour. Objective: To more clearly define the epidemiology of trichomoniasis and to develop a mathematical model of disease transmission dynamics in order to explore various treatment strategies. Design: A deterministic model of trichomoniasis was constructed. Parameter values were set to fit the model to known endemic prevalence levels of Trichomonas vaginalis. Two treatment interventions (“screening” and “syndromic management”) were simulated. Results: The age specific prevalence of the disease was seen to differ from other STDs in a number of studies. Parameter fitting indicates that the average duration of infection in women is at least 3–5 years and approximately 4 months for men. “Syndromic management” (that is, treating only those with symptoms of disease) had minimal effect upon the endemic prevalence of disease even at high levels of coverage. “Screening” (that is, identification of individuals with both symptomatic and asymptomatic infection) was shown to be the most efficient method of control, but was sensitive to the screening interval. Conclusions: The control of trichomoniasis seems to have been a success in developed countries because of the regular access to health care, whereas it has remained endemic in many developing countries where control may only be possible by regular screening and treatment. However, without a large investment in services, success in controlling trichomoniasis is likely to be transitory.
The effects of Component Brands on Consumer Choice and Evaluation of Information Technology Products

Brand typically plays a decisive role in influencing consumer purchases. This premise is particularly interesting in the case of an information technology (IT) product, such as a laptop computer, which is often composed of an amalgamation of electronic components (e.g., sound card, memory, and so on). Thus, an IT product is represented not only by the primary brand (also known as the host brand) it carries, but also by the brands of its apparatuses (also known as component brands). Such product nature has afforded opportunity for lesser-known IT product merchants to leverage component brands to compete against established (i.e., better-known) brands. Drawing on theory of salience effect, this study examines the extent to which component brands affect consumer-purchasing choices. A set of experiments was subsequently conducted. Results reveal that lesser-known IT product vendors can increase the number of established component brands (quantity) to positively influence consumer product quality assessment and purchase choice. However, incorporation of a feature to highlight good-rated component brands (quality) can positively affect consumer purchase choice, but not overall IT product quality assessment. These findings reveal dissimilar influences of number (quantity) and brand ratings (quality) on consumer response to an IT product.
Growth Cycles in XXth Century European Industrial Productivity: Unbiased Variance Estimation in a Time-varying Parameter Model (FEP Working Paper Nº 144, Faculdade de Economia da Universidade do Porto, Maio 2004)

This note applies the median unbiased estimation of coefficient variance, proposed by Stock and Watson (1998), to the extraction of the time-varying trend growth rate of industrial productivity in fifteen European countries, over most of the XXth Century, by means of an unobservable components univariate decomposition. In addition to the description of the procedure, this illustration is particularly useful in explaining why the method is especially appropriate for comparison of trends growth rates extracted from time series with diverse degrees of variability.
Gender-related differences in the association between socioeconomic status and self-reported diabetes.

BACKGROUND The prevalence of diabetes has been steadily increasing in Western countries. We investigated the impact of socioeconomic status (SES) on the prevalence of self-reported diabetes, and its differences between genders. METHODS Data for this investigation were derived from the second cycle of the National Population Health Survey conducted in 1996-1997. A total of 39 021 subjects (17 730 males and 21 291 females) >/=40 years of age who answered the question about diabetes were included in the present analysis. Educational attainment and income adequacy were used as indicators of SES. Multiple logistic regression models were constructed for men and women separately to assess the effects of SES on the prevalence of diabetes after adjustment for age, area of residence, body mass index, and physical activity. RESULTS and The prevalence of diabetes was 6.6% among men and 5.5% among women. The CONCLUSIONS prevalence increased with decreasing income category and educational attainment in both genders. The odds ratios for income and education in relation to diabetes after adjustment remained significant in women, but attained unity in men. Canadian women >/=40 years of age of low SES have a relatively high prevalence of diabetes, independent of age, area of residence, obesity, and physical inactivity.
Prevalence and Genotype Allocation of Pathogenic Leptospira Species in Small Mammals from Various Habitat Types in Germany

Small mammals serve as most important reservoirs for Leptospira spp. , the causative agents of Leptospirosis, which is one of the most neglected and widespread zoonotic diseases worldwide. The knowledge about Leptospira spp. occurring in small mammals from Germany is scarce. Thus, this study’s objectives were to investigate the occurrence of Leptospira spp. and the inherent sequence types in small mammals from three different study sites: a forest in southern Germany (site B1); a National Park in south-eastern Germany (site B2) and a renaturalised area, in eastern Germany (site S) where small mammals were captured. DNA was extracted from kidneys of small mammals and tested for Leptospira spp. by real-time PCR. Positive samples were further analysed by duplex and conventional PCRs. For 14 positive samples, multi locus sequence typing (MLST) was performed. Altogether, 1213 small mammals were captured: 216 at site B1, 456 at site B2 and 541 at site S belonging to following species: Sorex (S.) araneus, S. coronatus, Apodemus (A.) flavicollis, Myodes glareolus, Microtus (Mi.) arvalis, Crocidura russula, Arvicola terrestris, A. agrarius, Mustela nivalis, Talpa europaea, and Mi. agrestis. DNA of Leptospira spp. was detected in 6% of all small mammals. At site B1, 25 small mammals (11.6%), at site B2, 15 small mammals (3.3%) and at site S, 33 small mammals (6.1%) were positive for Leptospira spp. Overall, 54 of the positive samples were further determined as L. kirschneri, nine as L. interrogans and four as L. borgpetersenii while five real-time PCR-positive samples could not be further determined by conventional PCR. MLST results revealed focal occurrence of L. interrogans and L. kirschneri sequence type (ST) 117 while L. kirschneri ST 110 was present in small mammals at all three sites. Further, this study provides evidence for a particular host association of L. borgpetersenii to mice of the genus Apodemus.
Graph-Theoretic Approach to RNA Modeling Using Comparative Data

We have examined the utility of a graph-theoretic algorithm for building comparative RNA models. The method uses a maximum weighted matching algorithm to find the optimal set of basepairs given the mutual information for all pairs of alignment positions. In all cases examined, the technique generated models similar to those based on conventional comparative analysis. Any set of pairwise interactions can be suggested including pseudoknots. Here we describe the details of the method and demonstrate its implementation on tRNA where many secondary and tertiary base-pairs are accurately predicted. We also examine the usefulness of the method for the identification of shared structural features in families of RNAs isolated by artificial selection methods such as SELEX.
The “ART” of Linkage: Pre-Treatment Loss to Care after HIV Diagnosis at Two PEPFAR Sites in Durban, South Africa

Background Although loss to follow-up after antiretroviral therapy (ART) initiation is increasingly recognized, little is known about pre-treatment losses to care (PTLC) after an initial positive HIV test. Our objective was to determine PTLC in newly identified HIV-infected individuals in South Africa. Methodology/Principal Findings We assembled the South African Test, Identify and Link (STIAL) Cohort of persons presenting for HIV testing at two sites offering HIV and CD4 count testing and HIV care in Durban, South Africa. We defined PTLC as failure to have a CD4 count within 8 weeks of HIV diagnosis. We performed multivariate analysis to identify factors associated with PTLC. From November 2006 to May 2007, of 712 persons who underwent HIV testing and received their test result, 454 (64%) were HIV-positive. Of those, 206 (45%) had PTLC. Infected patients were significantly more likely to have PTLC if they lived ≥10 kilometers from the testing center (RR = 1.37; 95% CI: 1.11–1.71), had a history of tuberculosis treatment (RR = 1.26; 95% CI: 1.00–1.58), or were referred for testing by a health care provider rather than self-referred (RR = 1.61; 95% CI: 1.22–2.13). Patients with one, two or three of these risks for PTLC were 1.88, 2.50 and 3.84 times more likely to have PTLC compared to those with no risk factors. Conclusions/Significance Nearly half of HIV-infected persons at two high prevalence sites in Durban, South Africa, failed to have CD4 counts following HIV diagnosis. These high rates of pre-treatment loss to care highlight the urgent need to improve rates of linkage to HIV care after an initial positive HIV test.
A Study of Classificatory Behavior in Low Socioeconomic Status Children of Varying Characteristics.

The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship of method of presentation, grade level, sex, and achievement within grade and sex to the various bases upon which children of low socioeconomic background classify geometric concepts. This study was designed as a replication of a recent experiment (Wiviott, 1970) carried out with high socioeconomic status children. Two tasks were administered to 96 subjects in the fifth, eighth, and eleventh grades--32 at each grade level. Task I was an equivalence task comprised of a sequential presentation of eight geometric concept cards. Half the Ss were given a verbal presentation while the other half were given a pictorial presentation. Ss were asked to explain likenesses and differences between stimuli. Task II was a free sorting exercise. Ss were presented with a 26-item picture array, asked to select from the array cards which were alike, and to explain the bases of their groupings. Task I responses were classified into Perceptible, Attribute, Nominal, and Subject-Fiat categories; for Task II responses, only Perceptible, Attribute, and Nomlnal categories were used. This study found, contrary to expectation, that low SES children in grades 5, 8, and 11 do not vary significantly from one another in their bases of classifying geometric figures. Achievement, method of presentation, and sex were also found not to be a significant influence on bases of classification. Low SES Ss gave more Perceptible responses and fewer Nominal responses than high SES Ss in Wiviott's study.
Throughput maximizing transmission strategy of energy harvesting nodes

We investigate the throughput maximizing data transmission strategy of an energy harvesting node which is able to harvest and store energy for communication. Solar cell and rechargeable battery technologies have made such nodes feasible. In addition to the energy arrival process and the battery capacity limitation, the energy consumption of the circuits of the node also plays an important role in the way how the harvested energy should be utilized. To this end, we assume for the transmitting node an active mode for which a constant circuit power is incurred, and a sleep mode for which no energy is consumed. The criteria that an optimal transmission strategy should satisfy are discussed, and based on them, a construction procedure of the optimal transmission strategy is proposed. Numerical simulations are performed to verify the theoretical results, and the impact of circuit power on the optimal transmission strategy and the maximal achievable throughput is studied.