Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Accuracy and impact of Xpert MTB/RIF for the diagnosis of smear-negative or sputum-scarce tuberculosis using bronchoalveolar lavage fluid

Rationale The accuracy and impact of new tuberculosis (TB) tests, such as Xpert MTB/RIF, when performed on bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) obtained from patients with sputum-scarce or smear-negative TB is unclear. Methods South African patients with suspected pulmonary TB (n=160) who were sputum-scarce or smear-negative underwent bronchoscopy. MTB/RIF was performed on uncentrifuged BALF (1 ml) and/or a resuspended pellet of centrifuged BALF (∼10 ml). Time to TB detection and anti-TB treatment initiation were compared between phase one, when MTB/RIF was performed as a research tool, and phase two, when it was used for patient management. Results 27 of 154 patients with complete data had culture-confirmed TB. Of these, a significantly lower proportion were detected by smear microscopy compared with MTB/RIF (58%, 95% CI 39% to 75% versus 93%, 77% to 98%; p<0.001). Of the 127 patients who were culture negative, 96% (91% to 98%) were MTB/RIF negative. When phase two was compared with phase one, MTB/RIF reduced the median days to TB detection (29 (18–41) to 0 (0–0); p<0.001). However, more patients initiated empirical therapy (absence of a positive test in those commencing treatment) in phase one versus phase two (79% (11/14) versus 28% (10/25); p=0.026). Consequently, there was no detectable difference in the overall proportion of patients initiating treatment (26% (17/67; 17% to 37%) versus 36% (26/73; 26% to 47%); p=0.196) or the days to treatment initiation (10 (1–49) versus 7 (0–21); p=0.330). BALF centrifugation, HIV coinfection and a second MTB/RIF did not result in detectable changes in accuracy. Conclusions MTB/RIF detected TB cases more accurately and more rapidly than smear microscopy and significantly reduced the rate of empirical treatment.
An Adaptive Pulse-Width Control Loop

In high-speed CMOS clock buffer design, the duty cycle of a clock is liable to be changed when the clock passes through a multistage buffer (Fenghao and Svensson, 2000). In this paper, we propose a pulsewidth control loop referred as APWCL (adaptive pulsewidth control loop) that adopts the same architecture as the conventional PWCL, but with two modifications. The first one relates to implementation of the pseudo inverter control stage (PICS), while the second to involvement of adaptive control loop. The first modification provides generation of output pulses during all APWCL's modes of operation and the second faster locking time. For 1.2 mum CMOS process with Vdd = 5V and operating frequency of 100 MHz, results of SPICE simulation show that the duty cycle can be well controlled in the range from 20% up to 80% if the loop parameters are properly chosen
Rivulet Approach to Rates of Preferential Infiltration

Preferential infiltration is proposed to occur under atmospheric pressure but in unsaturated soil. Its domain is positioned between the domains of Richards' equation and Darcy's law. Rivulets in the form of tiny water streaks are considered to be the basic units of preferential infiltration. They move under atmospheric pressure and in pores that are filled with air before infiltration. Stokes flow relates variations in soil moisture with velocities of wetting and draining fronts, and with volume flux densities. We show that superposition of rivulets to rivulet ensembles leads to measurable soil moisture variations. The approach was applied to time series of soil moisture that result from sprinkler irrigation experiments and that were recorded with time domain reflectometry (TDR) equipment at depths of 0.1 and 0.2 m. A minimum water content, θ*, was identified that has to be exceeded at a particular depth before Stokes flow continues.
MEASURING THE SIZE OF A TREATMENT EFFECT : RELATIVE RISK REDUCTION , ABSOLUTE RISK REDUCTION , AND NUMBER NEEDED TO TREAT

Hussein Hollands, MD, MS (epid) Peter J. Kertes, MD, CM, FRCS(C) The purpose of this review article is to outline a few concepts that are useful for interpreting the results of a randomized clinical trial (RCT). Specifically, we will focus on measures of the size of a treatment effect— relative risk ratio (RRR), absolute risk ratio, and number needed to treat (NNT). These concepts are important, specifically with respect to decisions to implement a treatment modality in clinical practice based on the results of a RCT. To solidify these ideas, we will work through some practical examples in ophthalmology. In this manuscript, we will assume that we are interpreting results from a well-designed RCT with a clinically important dichotomous ‘‘negative’’ outcome measure (eg, 15-letter loss of visual acuity) comparing a new treatment modality with a control.
IMPALA: matching a protein sequence against a collection of PSI-BLAST-constructed position-specific score matrices

MOTIVATION Many studies have shown that database searches using position-specific score matrices (PSSMs) or profiles as queries are more effective at identifying distant protein relationships than are searches that use simple sequences as queries. One popular program for constructing a PSSM and comparing it with a database of sequences is Position-Specific Iterated BLAST (PSI-BLAST). RESULTS This paper describes a new software package, IMPALA, designed for the complementary procedure of comparing a single query sequence with a database of PSI-BLAST-generated PSSMs. We illustrate the use of IMPALA to search a database of PSSMs for protein folds, and one for protein domains involved in signal transduction. IMPALA's sensitivity to distant biological relationships is very similar to that of PSI-BLAST. However, IMPALA employs a more refined analysis of statistical significance and, unlike PSI-BLAST, guarantees the output of the optimal local alignment by using the rigorous Smith-Waterman algorithm. Also, it is considerably faster when run with a large database of PSSMs than is BLAST or PSI-BLAST when run against the complete non-redundant protein database.
Olson's Paradox Revisited: An Empirical Analysis of incentives to contribute in P2P File-Sharing Communities

This article aims to examine how the size of file-sharing communities affects their functioning and performance (i.e. their capacity to share content). Olson (1965) argued that small communities are more able to provide collective goods. Using an original database on BitTorrent file-sharing communities, our article finds a positive relationship between the size of a community and the amount of collective goods provided. But, the individual incentives to contribute slightly decrease with community size. These results seem to indicate that Peer to Peer file-sharing communities provide a pure (non rival) public good. We also show that specialized communities are more efficient than general communities to promote cooperative behavior. Finally, the rules designed by the administrators of these communities play an active role to manage voluntary contributions and improve file-sharing performance.
Behaviorism, Cognitivism, Constructivism: Comparing Critical Features From an Instructional Design Perspective

The way we define learning and what we believe about the way learning occurs has important implications for situations in which we want to facilitate changes in what people know and/ or do. Learning theories provide instructional designers with verified instructional strategies and techniques for facilitating learning as well as a foundation for intelligent strategy selection. Yet many designers are operating under the constraints of a limited theoretical background. This paper is an attempt to familiarize designers with three relevant positions on learning (behavioral, cognitive, and constructivist) which provide structured foundations for planning and conducting instructional design activities. Each learning perspective is discussed in terms of its specific interpretation of the learning process and the resulting implications for instructional designers and educational practitioners. The information presented here provides the reader with a comparison of these three different viewpoints and illustrates how these differences might be translated into practical applications in instructional situations.
Bispectral index monitoring during electroconvulsive therapy under propofol anaesthesia.

BACKGROUND The accuracy of the bispectral index (BIS) as a monitor of consciousness has not been well studied in patients who have abnormal electroencephalograms (EEG). METHODS We studied the changes in BIS, its subparameters, and spectral entropy of the EEG during 18 electroconvulsive treatments under propofol and succinylcholine anaesthesia. A single bifrontal EEG, and second subocular channel (for eye movement estimation) was recorded. RESULTS The median (interquartile range) BIS value at re-awakening was only 57 (47-78)--thus more than a quarter of the patients woke at BIS values of less than 50. The changes in spectral entropy values were similar: 0.84 (0.68-0.99) at the start, 0.65 (0.42-0.88) at the point of loss-of-consciousness, 0.63 (0.47-0.79) during the seizures, and 0.58 (0.31-0.85) at awakening. CONCLUSIONS Post-ictal slow-wave activity in the EEG (acting via the SynchFastSlow subparameter) may cause low BIS values that do not correspond to the patient's clinical level of consciousness. This may be important in the interpretation of the BIS in other groups of patients who have increased delta-band power in their EEG.
Attentional blink and selection in the tactile domain

Brief tactile presses stimulated the index and middle fingers of the right and left hands. The stimulation on each hand consisted of a triplet of presses. Each triplet was composed of a brief press to one finger (e.g., the middle finger), followed by a brief press to the other finger (e.g., the index finger), and by a final simultaneous press to both fingers of a given hand. With equal probability, a triplet could begin with the index or middle finger, and either 360 ms or 800 ms later another triplet stimulated fingers on the other hand. The task was to indicate which finger was stimulated first in each triplet. In four experiments, response accuracy to the second triplet revealed an attentional blink in taction, that is, responses were less accurate at the short triplet–triplet interval than at the long triplet–triplet interval. This effect was substantially reduced when the first triplet could be ignored.
Dissociation of Calcium Transients and Force Development following a Change in Stimulation Frequency in Isolated Rabbit Myocardium

As the heart transitions from one exercise intensity to another, changes in cardiac output occur, which are modulated by alterations in force development and calcium handling. Although the steady-state force-calcium relationship at various heart rates is well investigated, regulation of these processes during transitions in heart rate is poorly understood. In isolated right ventricular muscle preparations from the rabbit, we investigated the beat-to-beat alterations in force and calcium during the transition from one stimulation frequency to another, using contractile assessments and confocal microscopy. We show that a change in steady-state conditions occurs in multiple phases: a rapid phase, which is characterized by a fast change in force production mirrored by a change in calcium transient amplitude, and a slow phase, which follows the rapid phase and occurs as the muscle proceeds to stabilize at the new frequency. This second/late phase is characterized by a quantitative dissociation between the calcium transient amplitude and developed force. Twitch timing kinetics, such as time to peak tension and 50% relaxation rate, reached steady-state well before force development and calcium transient amplitude. The dynamic relationship between force and calcium upon a switch in stimulation frequency unveils the dynamic involvement of myofilament-based properties in frequency-dependent activation.
On Choosing a Mixture Model for Clustering

2 Universit e de Caen Abstract: Two methods for clustering data and choosing a mixture model are proposed. First, we derive a new classication algorithm based on the classication likelihood. Then, the likelihood conditional on these clusters is written as the product of likelihoods of each cluster, and AIC- respectively BIC-type approximations are applied. The resulting criteria turn out to be the sum of the AIC or BIC relative to each cluster plus an entropy term. The performance of our methods is evaluated by Monte-Carlo methods and on a real data set, showing in particular that the iterative estimation algorithm converges quickly in general, and thus the computational load is rather low.
Mortality from asbestosis and mesothelioma in Britain by birth cohort.

BACKGROUND Analysis of occupational mortality in England and Wales during 1991-2000 showed no decline in work-attributable deaths from asbestosis. AIMS To explore why there was no decline in mortality from asbestosis despite stricter controls on asbestos exposure over recent decades. METHODS Using data from registers of all deaths in Great Britain with mention of mesothelioma or asbestosis on the death certificate, we plotted death rates by 5 year age group within 5 year birth cohorts for(a) mesothelioma and (b) asbestosis without mention of mesothelioma. RESULTS Analysis was based on a total of 33,751 deaths from mesothelioma and 5396 deaths from asbestosis. For both diseases, mortality showed a clear cohort effect; within birth cohorts, death rates increased progressively with age through to 85 years and older. However, highest mortality from mesothelioma was in men born during 1939-43, whereas, mortality from asbestosis peaked in men born during 1924-38. CONCLUSIONS Our findings suggest that mortality, in Britain, from asbestosis has been determined mainly by cumulative exposure to asbestos before 45 years of age and that the effect of such exposure continues through to old age. That mortality from asbestosis peaked in earlier birth cohorts than mortality from mesothelioma may reflect a difference in exposure-response relationships for the two diseases. The discrepancy could be explained if risk of asbestosis increased more steeply than that of mesothelioma at higher levels of exposure to asbestos and if the highest prevalence of heavy exposure occurred in earlier birth cohorts than the highest prevalence of less intense exposures.
From preschool provision to college performances : empirical evidences from a developing country

This thesis comprises of three stand-alone papers. The first paper exploits a natural experiment in Argentina to analyse what happens to maternal labour outcomes when there is an abrupt change in free public preschool provision. Using household survey data, the instrumental variable estimate shows that mothers work on average 9 hours more per week because her child is attending preschool. On the other hand, mothers for whom the access to public childcare was reduced did not change their labour supply, suggesting a shift in the mode of childcare from formal to informal. The main goal of the second paper is to measure the effect of observable individual characteristics on the whole conditional distribution of performances. Quantile regression methods are shown to provide a flexible framework to model the interactions between observed and unobserved factors, which are the source of non-homogeneous effects on performance that alter its conditional distribution in subtle ways improperly summarised by mean OLS based methods. Using a database of students at public universities in Argentina, the empirical results strongly suggest the presence of heterogeneous effects, which leaves room to question whether relevant factors like parental education or secondary school type are stronger or weaker for certain individuals. The third paper examines the role of labour market conditions on youth schooling behaviour using discrete time proportional hazards models. The findings show that, as predicted by human capital theory, labour demand has a significant effect on the hazard rate for dropping out of school. However, the results only hold for young males but not for females. The paper also tests whether each student’s hazard rate for leaving school without completion changes autonomously over time. Using a non-parametric specification, the results indicate that the risk of dropout is increasing over time for both males and females.
Two strategies for sparse data interpolation

I introduce two strategies to overcome the slow convergence of least squares sparse data interpolation: 1) a 2-D multiscale Laplacian regularization operator, and 2) an explicit quadtree-style upsampling scheme which produces a good initial guess for iterative schemes. The multiscale regularization produces an order-of-magnitude speedup in the interpolation of a sparsely sampled topographical map. The quadtree method produces an initial guess which leads to similar speedups for iterative methods.
INCOMES AND WORKING TIME – SUPPORT FOR QUALITY OF WORK AND EMPLOYMENT IN ROMANIA

This paper contains a comparative analysis between living and working conditions in Romania and EU Member States, taking into account the differences between the existing regulations and the economic and social realities in these countries. Survey-based research on working conditions can prove valuable at a certain time if complemented with other data and facts regarding the particular socio-economic context and its changes in time. A strenght of the surveys is their ability to show that working conditions do not automatically improve as a result of the implementation of the acquis communautaire or following the improvement of labour market regulations. Besides, levels of income constitute one of the main reasons for dissatisfaction among Romanian workers.
Chemical and Textural Characterization of Tin Glazes in Islamic Ceramics from Eastern Spain

Several productions of Islamic tin glazed pottery from eastern Spain have been studied under the chemical and microstructural points of view by means of WDS, SEM/EDX, XRD and XRF analyses. Samples of Islamic pottery from the workshops of Murcia 10th, Zaragoza 11th, Mallorca 11th, Denia 13th, Granada 14th and Cordoba 10th, which represent a wide range of local productions from medieval eastern Spain, have been studied in order to obtain the trends of the technical and compositional evolution. From the experimental data, some common features can be established, as well as some differences. All the Islamic Spanish opaque glazes are lead glazes with PbO contents from 37 to 56%, opacified with tin oxide in the range 4–15%. In all the cases, they were applied on a previously biscuited body made with a Ca-rich clay, probably to produce a buff colour less apparent through the glaze. The thicknesses range from 100 to 150 microns and the opacification is achieved by small crystals of SnO2(under a micron of size). The main differences are the size and distribution of such small crystals, being smaller in the early Islamic productions (Zaragoza and Murcia) and bigger in the late productions.
Health Care Proxies: Whom Do Young Old Adults Choose and Why?∗

Dying persons are encouraged to name as durable power of attorney for health care (DPAHC) someone who will thus be empowered to make end-of-life treatment decisions for them in the event that they become incapacitated. We use data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study to investigate whether and whom older adults designate as their DPAHC. DPAHC appointments are affected by recent hospitalizations, personal beliefs (including religion, fear of death, and the belief that doctors rather than patients should control health care decisions), and personal experience with the recent painful death of a loved one. The selections of DPAHC designees are generally consistent with the hierarchical compensatory model: Married persons overwhelmingly name their spouses, while unmarried parents appoint their children. Women are more likely than men to rely on children. Parents of one or two children tend to bypass their children for another relative. Unmarried, childless persons show considerable heterogeneity in their choices. We discuss implications of these findings for health care policy and practice.
Use of Electrocautery for Coagulation and Wound Complications in Caesarean Sections

Objective. To evaluate the safety of electrocautery for coagulation during Caesarean sections. Study Design. A randomized, controlled, clinical pilot study was performed at a university maternity hospital. After admission for delivery and decision to perform a C-section, volunteers were randomized to either the intervention group (use of electrocautery for coagulation) or nonintervention group. The women were examined at the time of postpartum discharge (day 3), at days 7 to 10, and again at days 30 to 40 for signs of infection, hematoma, seroma, or dehiscence. Data were analyzed using an intention-to-treat analysis, and risk ratios were calculated. Results. No significant differences were found between the two groups. Only 2.8% of patients in the intervention group developed surgical wound complications during hospitalization. However, 7 to 10 days following discharge, these rates reached 23.0% and 15.4% in the intervention and nonintervention groups, respectively (RR = 1.50, 95% CI = 0.84–2.60). Conclusion. Further studies should confirm whether the use of electrocautery for coagulation does not increase the risk of surgical wound complications in patients undergoing Caesarean sections.