Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Protocol of Determining the Effect of Selenium Supplementation on CD4 + T Lymphocyte Count in HIV/AIDS Patients: A Randomized Double Blind Placebo Controlled Trial

Background: Acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) is believed to be both among major epidemics and a critical global health issue. The administration of antiretroviral therapy is recently proposed for all patients with CD4 + T cell count of ≤ 350/μlit in different studies. The accessibility of combination therapy has been restricted due to high costs of drugs, particularly in low and middle income countries. In Iran, according to WHO, drugs were distributed among only 6% of adults and 4% - 14% of children in 2009. Moreover, new strains are created and therefore, resistance to the current medication along with a considerable risk of ART-related toxic adverse effects points out the need for more affordable, effective and safer treatments. The use of antioxidants such as Selenium (Se) has been indicated to be beneficial in these patients. Method: In a double-blind randomized placebo control trial, 100 HIV positive, HAART-receiving patients will be selected from more than 2000 individuals covered under IRCHA (Iranian Referral HIV/AIDS Re- search Centre). They are then randomized to receive daily Se supplement of 200 μgr elemental Se and placebo for 6 months. The baseline assessment of the patients who meet the inclusion and exclusion criteria includes doing some lab tests to determine the absolute count of CD4 + T lymphocyte and the plasma levels of Se. The incidence of opportunistic infection will be assessed during the monthly visits in the first six months of the follow-up and the one performed at the end of the 9 th month. For evaluating the trend of CD4 + T cells changes, the absolute count of CD4 + T lymphocyte will be measured every 3 months in the 5 th , 8 th , and 9 th visits. The plasma levels of Se will be measured in the
The utilisation of mental health services by children and young people from a refugee background: a systematic literature review

People from refugee background are known to be vulnerable to the development of mental health problems and to suicide because of the pre-migration events they have experienced and the difficulties associated with moving from their homeland to a usually different society. Concerns have been expressed that, in spite of this, young refugees' rates of contact with mental-health services are substantially lower than expected. This systematic literature review aimed to summarize what is known about the use of mental-health services by children and young people of refugee background and to identify factors that may constitute impediments to service use as well as factors that may facilitate access to and engagement with services. This article presents the main findings in relation to mental-health services utilization by children and young people of refugee background. An overview of literature on the general (i.e. adults or not-youth specific) refugee population has also been included to provide, where possible, a comparison between the former and the latter. A key finding of this review is that while countries of resettlement have introduced several policies and programs for refugee children and young people, these are based on very little evidence, thus more research is urged.
Malondialdehyde–Deoxyguanosine Adducts among Workers of a Thai Industrial Estate and Nearby Residents

Background Humans living near industrial point emissions can experience high levels of exposures to air pollutants. Map Ta Phut Industrial Estate in Thailand is the location of the largest steel, oil refinery, and petrochemical factory complexes in Southeast Asia. Air pollution is an important source of oxidative stress and reactive oxygen species, which interact with DNA and lipids, leading to oxidative damage and lipid peroxidation, respectively. Objective We measured the levels of malondialdehyde–deoxyguanosine (dG) adducts, a biomarker of oxidative stress and lipid peroxidation, in petrochemical workers, nearby residents, and subjects living in a control district without proximity to industrial sources. Design We conducted a cross-sectional study to compare the prevalence of malondialdehyde-dG adducts in groups of subjects experiencing various degrees of air pollution. Results The multivariate regression analysis shows that the adduct levels were associated with occupational and environmental exposures to air pollution. The highest adduct level was observed in the steel factory workers. In addition, the formation of DNA damage tended to be associated with tobacco smoking, but without reaching statistical significance. A nonsignificant increase in DNA adducts was observed after 4–6 years of employment among the petrochemical complexes. Conclusions Air pollution emitted from the Map Ta Phut Industrial Estate complexes was associated with increased adduct levels in petrochemical workers and nearby residents. Considering the mutagenic potential of DNA lesions in the carcinogenic process, we recommend measures aimed at reducing the levels of air pollution.
The PROMPT Real-Time Commit Protocol

We investigate the performance implications of providing transaction atomicity for firm-deadline real-time applications, operating on distributed data. Using a detailed simulation model, the real-time performance of a representative set of classical transaction commit protocols is evaluated. The experimental results show that data distribution has a significant influence on real-time performance and that the choice of commit protocol clearly affects the magnitude of this influence. We also propose and evaluate a new commit protocol, PROMPT (Permits Reading Of Modified Prepared-data for Timeliness), that is specifically designed for the real-time domain. PROMPT allows transactions to "optimistically" borrow, in a controlled manner, the updated data of transactions currently in their commit phase. This controlled borrowing reduces the data inaccessibility and the priority inversion that is inherent in distributed real-time commit processing. A simulation-based evaluation shows PROMPT to be highly successful, as compared to the classical commit protocols, in minimizing the number of missed transaction deadlines. In fact, its performance is close to the best on-line performance that could be achieved using the optimistic lending approach. Further, it is easy to implement and incorporate in current database system software. Finally, PROMPT is compared against an alternative priority inheritance-based approach to addressing priority inversion during commit processing. The results indicate that priority inheritance does not provide tangible performance benefits.
Risk Preferences Regarding Multiple Fatalities and Some Implications for Societal Risk Decision Making—An Empirical Study

Risk preferences related to accidents or other situations involving the possibility of multiple fatalities were studied in 87 persons in Sweden belonging to two separate groups with professional or educational knowledge of risk‐ and crisis‐management issues. Use was made of a tradeoff method, the results obtained consisting of von Neuman–Morgenstern utility functions over the range of 0–1000 fatalities. Most of the utility curves for the number of fatalities were found to be convex, implying the majority of subjects to display risk‐seeking behaviour. Implications of the findings for societal risk decision making are discussed, along with prospective areas of application and the possibilities of considering other dimensions than the number of fatalities.
Variables Related to Stress and Burnout in Special Education Teacher Trainees and First-Year Teachers

This article reports on role, stress, and burnout problems experienced by 379 special education teacher trainees and 36 first-year teachers. Cor-relational analyses were used to determine the degree to which these were related to personal, academic, and organizational variables. Regression analyses were employed to establish how and to what degree these variables, in combination, acted as significant predictors of trainee and inexperienced teacher stress and burnout. Finally, analysis of variance was used to identify significant differences between and among three levels of traineeship and one of teaching, with respect to role, stress, and burnout problems in special education classrooms. Results indicated that the majority of such problems were significantly interrelated, that not all of the background variables predicted significant stress and burnout levels, and that different levels of role, stress, and burnout problems were observed in respondents at various stages of professional development.
SUDOKU: Treating Word Sense Disambiguation & Entitiy Linking as a Deterministic Problem - via an Unsupervised & Iterative Approach

SUDOKU’s submissions to SemEval Task 13 treats Word Sense Disambiguation and Entity Linking as a deterministic problem that exploits two key attributes of open-class words as constraints ‐ their degree of polysemy and their part of speech. This is an extension and further validation of the results achieved by Manion and Sainudiin (2014). SUDOKU’s three submissions are incremental in the use of the two aforementioned constraints. Run1 has no constraints and disambiguates all lemmas in one pass. Run2 disambiguates lemmas at increasing degrees of polysemy, leaving the most polysemous until last. Run3 is identical to Run2, with the additional constraint of disambiguating all named entities and nouns first before other types of open-class words (verbs, adjectives, and adverbs). Over all-domains, for English Run2 and Run3 were placed second and third. For Spanish Run2, Run3, and Run1 were placed first, second, and third respectively. For Italian Run1 was placed first with Run2 and Run3 placed second equal.
Prevalence and risk factors for falls in an older community-dwelling population.

BACKGROUND Falls are responsible for considerable morbidity, immobility, and mortality among elderly people. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of falls and related intrinsic and extrinsic risk factors in a community-dwelling older population. METHODS An observational study was performed on all patients (N = 5570) admitted from 1997 to 2001 to home care programs in 19 home health agencies that participated in the National Silver Network project in Italy. Patient evaluation was performed through the Minimum Data Set-Home Care (MDS-HC) instrument. RESULTS A 35.9% falls prevalence was found within 90 days of the patient assessment through the MDS-HC instrument. After adjusting for all potential confounding factors, the logistic regression showed a high increase in risk of falling for those patients who wandered (odds ratio [OR] 2.38; 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.81-3.12) or suffered with gait problems (OR 2.13; 95% CI 1.81-2.51). Patients affected by depression were more likely to fall (OR 1.53; 95% CI 1.36-1.73). Those who lived in an unsafe place with environmental hazards had an increase in the risk of falling (OR 1.51; 95% CI 1.34-1.69). The associations of main risk factors for falls were also evaluated. CONCLUSIONS Rate of falls among frail elderly people living in the community is very high and frequently correlates with potentially reversible factors. To identify those with higher falling risk, home care staff and general practitioners could use the MDS-HC assessment tool.
Future needs in exploration of gene-environment interactions.

T he past debate on the relative importance of nature vs. nurture in shaping human development is nowadays understood as gene-environment interactions. Although still not fully accepted, it is now evident that a more relevant question is not to know which one is the most important, but how these two determinants of life can and do interact. In diseases such as hypertension, it is evident that a better understanding of the mechanisms of interaction between a variety of environmental factors that include stress, sodium intake and other nutritional factors, physical activity or antihypertensive medications with specific genetic polymorphisms, copy number variants and other genetic variants is of utmost importance [1]. There are several examples in literature demonstrating the impact of a single allelic variant not only on a specific phenotype but also on its modulation by the environment. An example is the fat mass and obesity-associated gene, FTO. Its single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs9939609 has been widely described to be associated with obesity and other metabolic syndrome components but recent evidence is also pointing to a specific impact of the environment, in the form of high dietary saturated fat that accentuates the risk of obesity in carriers of a specific allele of that SNP [2]. We have observed that FTO gene is particularly susceptible to environmental modulation in our studies of obesity and hypertension [3] in which we showed that the association of the FTO gene with blood pressure was apparent only after withdrawal of the antihypertensive medication, which overshadowed its relationship with blood pressure without affecting its relation with obesity [4]. It has also been demonstrated that the genetic risk, confined by an aggregate of most of the known risk alleles of obesity discovered in recent Genome Wide Associations Studies (GWAS) may be attenuated by as much as 40% with physical exercise [5]. Most of phenotypes in cardiometabolic regulation are
How a reform affects writing in higher education

This article deals with how a major top‐down reform in Norwegian higher education has affected student writing, and teachers’ and students’ roles. The Quality Reform was strongly influenced by the Bologna Declaration and was implemented from 2002. One of the outcomes was that, while Norwegian universities previously demanded very little undergraduate writing before the traditional sit‐down examination, most courses now include student essay writing and teacher feedback. Portfolio assessment, which demands extended writing, has been introduced. The article presents some results from an evaluation of the reform, and the following questions are discussed: (1) why did the reform change writing practices; (2) what other factors have contributed to the change; (3) in what ways have the changes in writing practices affected students and teachers; and (4) what are unintended results and critical factors in the future development of writing in the aftermath of the reform?
Systematic risk and timescales

Abstract In this paper we propose a new approach to estimating the systematic risk (the beta of an asset) in a capital asset pricing model (CAPM). The proposed method is based on a wavelet multiscaling approach that decomposes a given time series on a scale-by-scale basis. At each scale, the wavelet variance of the market return and the wavelet covariance between the market return and a portfolio are calculated to obtain an estimate of the portfolio's beta. The empirical results show that the relationship between the return of a portfolio and its beta becomes stronger as the wavelet scale increases. Therefore, the predictions of the CAPM model are more relevant in the medium long run as compared to short time horizons.
Intradetrusorial Botulinum Toxin in Patients with Multiple Sclerosis: A Neurophysiological Study

Patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) often complain of urinary disturbances characterized by overactive bladder syndrome and difficulties in bladder emptying. The aim of the study was to investigate the pathophysiology of bladder dysfunction and the neurophysiological effects of intradetrusorial incobotulinum toxin A (BoNT/A) in patients with MS having both brain and spinal MS-related lesions. Twenty-five MS patients with neurogenic detrusor overactivity (NDO) underwent clinical evaluation and soleus Hoffmann reflex (H reflex) study during urodynamics. Of the 25 patients, 14 underwent a further session one month after intradetrusorial BoNT/A injection. Eighteen healthy subjects acted as the control. In healthy subjects, the H reflex size significantly decreased at maximum cystometric capacity (MCC), whereas in MS patients with NDO, the H reflex remained unchanged. In the patients who received intradetrusorial BoNT/A, clinical and urodynamic investigations showed that NDO improved significantly. Volumes at the first, normal and strong desire to void and MCC increased significantly. Despite its efficacy in improving bladder symptoms and in increasing volumes for first desire, normal and strong desire to void, BoNT/A left the H reflex modulation during bladder filling unchanged. In the MS patients we studied having both brain and spinal MS-related lesions, the H reflex size remained unchanged at maximum bladder filling. Since this neurophysiological pattern has been previously found in patients with spinal cord injury, we suggest that bladder dysfunction arises from the MS-related spinal lesions. BoNT/A improves bladder dysfunction by changing bladder afferent input, as shown by urodynamic findings on bladder filling sensations, but its effects on H reflex modulation remain undetectable.
Results of surgical salvage after failure of definitive radiation therapy for early-stage squamous cell carcinoma of the glottic larynx.

OBJECTIVE To report the outcome of surgical salvage performed for early-stage squamous cell carcinoma of the glottic larynx that recurred or progressed after definitive radiotherapy. DESIGN Retrospective outcome analysis. SETTING Tertiary referral center specializing in head and neck cancer. PATIENTS Forty-three patients who underwent salvage surgery after definitive radiation therapy for early-stage (T1-T2) glottic cancer were identified from a preexisting database of 662 patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the larynx treated at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center between the years 1984 and 1998. The T stage at initial presentation was T1 in 20 (18%) and T2 in 23 (32%). Twenty-one patients (49%) were amenable to salvage partial laryngectomy (SPL), but 22 (51%) required salvage total laryngectomy (STL). Details on patient characteristics, tumor characteristics, postoperative complications, and survival outcome were extracted from the database. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Overall survival, disease-specific survival, neck recurrence-free survival, and distant recurrence-free survival. RESULTS No postoperative death occurred following salvage surgery. The overall incidence of complications was 21%, with no difference between the SPL and STL groups. Patients who required STL had poorer overall survival and disease-specific survival compared with patients who required SPL (overall survival, 50% vs 89%; P = .003; disease-specific survival, 51% vs 93%; P = .002). This difference in survival was associated with a poorer neck recurrence-free survival and distant recurrence-free survival in the STL group compared with the SPL group (neck recurrence-free survival, 80% vs 100%; P = .04; distant recurrence-free survival, 71% vs 93%; P = .06). Univariate analysis showed that age and clinical T stage at recurrence were predictors of overall survival, disease-specific survival, and distant recurrence-free survival. CONCLUSIONS Careful selection of patients with early-stage glottic tumors that recur or progress after radiation allows patients to be successfully treated by partial laryngectomy with excellent survival outcome. However, despite an aggressive policy of performing partial laryngectomy when feasible, up to 50% of patients will require a total laryngectomy owing to progression of disease. These patients have poorer survival outcomes manifested by local, regional, and distant disease progression.
Transmit-preprocessing techniques with simplified receivers for the downlink of MISO TDD-CDMA systems

Time-division-duplex code-division multiple-access (TDD-CDMA) systems have recently gained attention with their inclusion in third-generation mobile systems. In this paper, we introduce two optimized transmit preprocessing techniques to reduce multiple access interference in the downlink of TDD-CDMA systems with multiple transmit antennas that are employed at the base station (BS). In these systems, signal preprocessing is performed at the BS, so that a simplified receiver structure that consists of a one-finger correlator can be utilized at the mobile station. Analytic solutions for both of the optimized transmit preprocessing techniques are derived by minimizing the transmit mean square error. Numerical results are also provided, which demonstrate significant performance improvement when compared to the conventional RAKE system and the pre-RAKE maximum ratio combining transmit diversity system. In particular, transmit antennas can be used to increase the system capacity.
Reimagining Sports: African Athletes, Defection, and Ambiguous Citizenship

This paper interrogates citizenship in the context of the ease and fluidity with which talented African athletes from the global South are defecting to the North and the Gulf states and switching nationalities; in particular, how the pull of capital and globalization are impinging on traditional notions of citizenship. It postulates that the inevitability and irresistibility of petrodollars in the postmodern world are rendering the notion of nationalism diffuse and leading to differentiated forms of citizenship. Sporting competitions today present spaces for the articulation of nationalism and the construction of identities, whether national or individual, in new ways. With the heavy injection of capital and consumerism into sports, ideals of sports for the sake of sports as well as individual and even national identities are not only in a state of flux, but also in crisis. The essay concludes by assessing some realistic and pragmatic responses to these issues.
Outcomes of In-school Leadership Development Work

This article presents the results of a study of the impact of three programmes of the National College for School Leadership (NCSL), namely Leading from the Middle, the National Professional Qualification for Headship and the Leadership Programme for Serving Headteachers. All three programmes embody a blended learning approach that includes an in-school component. This article focuses on factors within the programmes that influence learning from the in-school components. It focuses particularly on factors relating to individual participants and to the school contexts within which they work. The article relates the findings to previous literature on work-based learning and suggests a broader model of the factors that influence the outcomes of leadership development programmes.
Technology: Learning Can Be Fun and Games.

Video games can provide cognitive, motivational, emotional, and social benefits to students when properly implemented in the classroom. Teachers who are well versed in their curriculum can use games to differentiate instruction for gifted and talented students. This article discusses the benefits of gaming in education settings and provides suggestion for implementing games into the classroom.
Dimensions of cognition measured by the tower of London and other cognitive tasks in head‐injured children and adolescents

To determine the factor structure of executive functioning in head‐injured (n = 81) and normal children (n = 102), we administered tests of concept formation and problem solving, plus planning, verbal fluency, design fluency, memory (to evaluate semantic organization), and response modulation using a Go/No‐Go task. The children who sustained closed head injury (CHI) were divided into subgroups who sustained severe (n = 39) and mild/moderate (n = 42) injury. The CHI groups and normal controls were also grouped according to age at the time of testing (6–8, 9–12, and 13–16). The principal components analysis disclosed a five‐factor solution that accounted for 79% of the variance: Conceptual‐Productivity (Factor 1), Planning (Factor 2), Schema (Factor 3), Cluster (Factor 4), and Inhibition (Factor 5). Age had a significant effect on Factors 1, 2, and 5, whereas severity of CHI affected Factors 1,2,4, and 5. Using hierarchial regression in which the Glasgow Coma Scale score, age, and their interaction were ent.