Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Understanding Service Quality from the Islamic Consumer Perspective

The purpose of this qualitative study is to explore service quality from the perspectives of the Muslim customers in Indonesia. There is growing evidence that culture influences buyinghabits and behavior of customers in a service context. The fact that most cross-cultural consumer research in Asia has focused on the dimension of Chinese-Confucian beliefs provides this research opportunity to investigate other religious-cultural aspects of Asian context and service quality. In this study, the key attributes/factors of quality of services according to Muslim customers are explored using the verbal protocol method. The verbal protocol is followed by in-depth probing of respondents. Interviews were conducted in Indonesia with a sample of Javanese-Muslim customers of airline, retail, hotel and restaurant industries. Preliminary analysis suggests some distinct outcomes and results in identification of this area as a fertile field for future research. The research provides important insights for service providers who will target the Muslim customers. This research also has potential to enrich service quality conceptualization, theory and measurement.
Collagen propeptides as indicators of collagen assembly.

It is old knowledge that bones are for about 70% made up of calcium salts and for about 30% of collagen. More specifically, almost all of the collagen in the collagen fibres of mineralized tissues is type I collagen, while most of the other almost 20 genetically distinct collagen types are essentially proteins of soft tissues. Since type I collagen is also the most abundant collagen type in soft tissues, it forms the vast majority of all the collagenous proteins in the body. It seems reasonable to assume that 50–70% of the type I collagen in the body is in the skeleton. As bone is a metabolically more active tissue throughout life than most soft tissues, the contribution of bones to the biochemical markers reflecting type I collagen metabolism is even larger than is the proportion of this collagen type in the body.
Elobixibat for the treatment of constipation

Introduction: Elobixibat (formerly A3309) is a first-in-class ileal bile acid transporter (IBAT) inhibitor for treatment of chronic idiopathic constipation (CIC; syn functional constipation). CIC affects up to 25% of the general population; and up to a half are unsatisfied with current therapies. There is an unmet need for safe and effective drugs to treat CIC. Areas covered: The authors present: i) an overview of Phase II clinical trials of elobixibat in CIC, based on peer-reviewed literature and congress presentations and ii) an evaluation of the efficacy and mechanism of action of elobixibat in the treatment of CIC. Expert opinion: Elobixibat provides a novel approach to treat chronic constipation via IBAT inhibition with enhanced delivery of bile acids to the colon. Pharmacodynamic studies show that it accelerates colonic transit, increases stool frequency, loosens stool consistency and relieves constipation-related symptoms in CIC patients. These beneficial effects are maintained for a minimum of 8 consecutive weeks of treatment. With minimal absorption and low systemic bioavailability, elobixibat is generally well tolerated and may offer the added benefit of improving serum lipid profiles through bile acid depletion.
Distribution of Chimpanzees and Interactions with Humans in Guinea-Bissau and Western Guinea, West Africa

To clarify the distribution and the status of chimpanzees in Guinea-Bissau and on the border with Guinea, we conducted an interview survey with hunters in 110 and 60 villages in Guinea-Bissau and Guinea, respectively. Based on the results of the survey, the northern distribution limit of chimpanzees in Guinea-Bissau appears to be located between the Corubal river (which once was suspected to represent the distribution limit) and the Gabù-Bafata road. Chimpanzees were reported to be common in most of the surveyed area and are not a game species. Crop-raiding by chimpanzees was mentioned by most interviewees. The implementation of a land management system that maintains a mosaic of habitats is the priority for the long-term conservation of this cross-border population.
Interobserver variability in determining MIB-1 labeling indices in oligodendrogliomas.

Several studies have shown that MIB-1 labeling indices correlate well with tumor grade and prognosis in a variety of tumor types. Several factors are responsible for some degree of variability in the determination of labeling indices. Interobserver variability is one of the factors often cited as responsible for this variability. A slide from each of 30 oligodendrogliomas, stained with MIB-1 antibody, was distributed to six pathologists. The same set of slides was reviewed by each individual. Each pathologist was instructed to determine a MIB-1 labeling index by evaluating 1,000 tumor cell nuclei from the area of the slide with the most staining. The labeling index record reflected a percentage of positive-staining tumor cells. Interobserver agreement was compared. MIB-1 labeling indices ranged from 0 to 45.7. Overall agreement was good (> or =0.75) with a concordance coefficient of 0.832 (confidence interval, 0.700 to 0.909). Variability was greater among tumors with higher labeling indices as compared with tumors with labeling indices closer to 0. The overall agreement of MIB-1 labeling indices, while not perfect, was good. The generally minor variability among observers may be related to differences in the area of the slide evaluated and in differing lower thresholds for interpreting positivity. Further improvement of concordance may theoretically be attainable by further training and discussion among observers.
Health inequalities affect the health of all.

> ‘We must never forget: evidence has great strategic and persuasive power at the policy level. ’ ( Director-General of the World Health Organization, 2007 ) The runaway publishing success of The Spirit Level by Wilkinson and Pickett has put health inequalities on everyone's lips.1,2 Using the evidence, based on decades of research, they remind us that the causes of most health inequalities in developed countries are rooted in the structure of society and particularly in income inequalities. Using data from 23 of the richest countries, and a separate analysis for the 50 states of North America, they illustrate the social gradient in life-expectancy, and physical health, along with other factors on the index of health and social problems, such as educational performance, levels of trust within local communities, imprisonment rates, teenage births, and homicides. Every country and North American state has a social gradient for each of these factors. But the book's message is that the level of income inequalities within developed countries will determine where a country falls on the international gradient. Hence the UK, with high current levels of income inequality, will fall low on the international gradient for many of the societal factors that predict premature mortality and chronic ill health. Combining this international message with that from the recent Marmot Review of health inequalities in England makes for serious reflection. Marmot confirms the continuing mortality gradient of 7 …
Sexual behavior, sexually transmitted diseases, male circumcision and risk of HIV infection among women in Nairobi, Kenya

ObjectiveTo study risk factors for HIV infection among women in Nairobi, Kenya, as the epidemic moves beyond high-risk groups. DesignA cross-sectional case-control study among women attending two peri-urban family planning clinics. MethodsA total of 4404 women were enrolled after giving written informed consent. Information on risk factors was obtained by interview using a structured questionnaire. Blood was taken for HIV and syphilis testing, and genital specimens for gonorrhea and trichomoniasis screening. ResultsTwo hundred and sixteen women (4.9%; 95% confidence interval, 4.3–5.5) were HIV-1-positive. Although risk of HIV was significantly increased among unmarried women and among women with multiple sex partners, most seropositive women were married and reported only a single sex partner in the last year. Women with a history or current evidence of sexually transmitted disease were at significantly increased risk; however, the prevalence of these exposures was low. Women whose husband or usual sex partner was uncircumcised had a threefold increase in risk of HIV, and this risk was present in almost all strata of potential confounding factors. Only 5.2% of women reported ever having used a condom. ConclusionsThese data suggest that, among women who are not in high-risk groups, risk of HIV infection is largely determined by their male partner's behavior and circumcision status. Interventions designed to change male sexual behavior are urgently needed.
A double-blind pharmacokinetic and clinical dose-response study of entacapone as an adjuvant to levodopa therapy in advanced Parkinson's disease.

A dose-response study of the effects of entacapone on the pharmacokinetics and metabolism of levodopa and on the clinical response to levodopa was carried out in 20 parkinsonian patients with levodopa-related fluctuations. A randomized, double-blind, single-graded-dose, crossover design of five 1-day treatment periods each 1 week apart was used. Entacapone (50, 100, 200, or 400 mg) or placebo was given at 8 a.m. with the patient's individual dose of levodopa/dopa decarboxylase inhibitor. The inhibition of soluble catechol-O-methyltransferase (S-COMT) in red blood cells (RBCs) and plasma concentrations of levodopa, its metabolites, and entacapone were measured and motor responses were quantified at 30min intervals using the motor part of the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale. Entacapone brought about a dose-dependent decrease in S-COMT activity in the RBCs, maximally by 48% at 400 mg. With a 200-mg dose of entacapone, the area under the plasma concentration-time curve (AUC) and half-life of levodopa increased (p < 0.001); the AUCs of 3-O-methyldopa and homovanillic acid decreased (p = 0.01 and p < 0.001, respectively) and that of 3,4-dihydroxyphenylacetic acid increased (p < 0.001). Entacapone prolonged the duration of the motor response to levodopa by 33 min (p = 0.04) and dyskinesias by 45 min (p = 0.003) without affecting their magnitude; the highest increase in duration of these responses occurred with 200 mg of entacapone. Thus, on pharmacokinetic and clinical grounds, the 200-mg dose of entacapone was the most effective. Dose-related responses to entacapone demonstrated its value in the treatment of parkinsonian patients with levodopa-related fluctuations by prolonging the antiparkinsonian response to the levodopa dose.
Effectiveness of a Test-Taking Strategy on Achievement in Essay Tests for Students With Learning Disabilities

Research was conducted to ascertain if an essay-writing strategy was effective at improving the achievement on essay tests for 7th- and 8th-grade students with reading and writing disabilities. Students were assigned via a stratified random sample to treatment or control group. Student scores were also compared to students without learning disabilities nominated by teachers as average writers. A 6-step essay strategy was taught that included analyzing the essay prompt, outlining, writing a response, and reviewing the answer. On the posttest, intervention group students significantly outperformed control group students on essay measures related to strategy use, content, and organization. There was no significant difference between treatment group and students without learning disabilities on posttest measures of content and organization.
Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, Elisa. 3. Quantitation of specific antibodies by enzyme-labeled anti-immunoglobulin in antigen-coated tubes.

A sensitive and simple method for the quantitative determination of antibodies is reported. Tubes coated with antigen are incubated with antiserum followed by an enzyme-labeled preparation of anti-immunoglobulin. The enzyme remaining in the tubes after washing provides a measure of the amount of specific antibodies in the serum. Coating of polystyrene tubes with antigen is described, as well as the preparation of specifically purified antibodies against rabbit IgG, and their conjugation to alkaline phosphatase. When rabbit antisera against human serum albumin or against the dinitrophenyl group (DNP) were incubated in tubes coated with antigen, less than 1 ng/ml of specific antibody could be detected in both systems. Antibodies in unknown sera could be quantitated by comparison with a standard antiserum. The results obtained compared well with those obtained with other methods for antibody determination. In the DNP system, the specificity of the reaction was assessed by inhibition with hapten. The reaction of immune serum against DNP with DNP-protein, adsorbed to the tubes, was completely inhibited by hapten in solution.
Making numbers matter: present and future research in risk communication.

OBJECTIVE To summarize existing research on individual numeracy and methods for presenting risk information to patients. METHODS We selectively retrieved articles from MEDLINE and the Social Sciences Citation Index. RESULTS Many Americans have low numeracy skills, a deficit that impedes effective health care. Approaches to risk communication vary in current practice, but how risks are presented can significantly affect both patients' risk perceptions and their knowledge. CONCLUSIONS Adhering to some basic principles for presenting risk information to patients can improve understanding. However, different risk-communication methods may be needed for individuals with high versus low levels of numeracy.
Empirical validation of the Windows® accessibility settings and multimodal feedback for a menu selection task for users with Diabetic Retinopathy

This study investigates the effectiveness of two design interventions, the Microsoft® Windows® accessibility settings and multimodal feedback, aimed at the enhancement of a menu selection task, for users with diabetic retinopathy (DR) with stratified levels of visual dysfunction. Several menu selection task performance measures, both time- and accuracy-based, were explored across different interface conditions and across groups of participants stratified by different degrees of vision loss. The results showed that the Windows® accessibility settings had a significant positive impact on performance for participants with DR. Moreover, multimodal feedback had a negligible effect for all participants. Strategies for applying multimodal feedback to menu selection are discussed, as well as the potential benefits and drawbacks of the Windows® accessibility settings.
Temperature-sensitive Post-translational Regulation of Plant Omega-3 Fatty-acid Desaturases Is Mediated by the Endoplasmic Reticulum-associated Degradation Pathway*

Changes in ambient temperature represent a major physiological challenge to membranes of poikilothermic organisms. In plants, the endoplasmic reticulum (ER)-localized omega-3 fatty-acid desaturases (Fad3) increase the production of polyunsaturated fatty acids at cooler temperatures, but the FAD3 genes themselves are typically not up-regulated during this adaptive response. Here, we expressed two closely related plant FAD3 genes in yeast cells and found that their enzymes produced significantly different amounts of omega-3 fatty acids and that these differences correlated to differences in rates of protein turnover. Domain-swapping and mutagenesis experiments revealed that each protein contained a degradation signal in its N terminus and that the charge density of a PEST-like sequence within this region was largely responsible for the differences in rates of protein turnover. The half-life of each Fad3 protein was increased at cooler temperatures, and protein degradation required specific components of the ER-associated degradation pathway including the Cdc48 adaptor proteins Doa1, Shp1, and Ufd2. Expression of the Fad3 proteins in tobacco cells incubated with the proteasomal inhibitor MG132 further confirmed that they were degraded via the proteasomal pathway in plants. Collectively, these findings indicate that Fad3 protein abundance is regulated by a combination of cis-acting degradation signals and the ubiquitin-proteasome pathway and that modulation of Fad3 protein amounts in response to temperature may represent one mechanism of homeoviscous adaptation in plants.
Using Speech-Specific Characteristics for Automatic Speech Summarization

In this thesis we address the challenge of automatically summarizing spontaneous, multi-party spoken dialogues. The experimental hypothesis is that it is advantageous when summarizing such meeting speech to exploit a variety of speech-specific characteristics, rather than simply treating the task as text summarization with a noisy transcript. We begin by investigating which term-weighting metrics are effective for summarization of meeting speech, with the inclusion of two novel metrics designed specifically for multi-party dialogues. We then provide an in-depth analysis of useful multi-modal features for summarization, including lexical, prosodic, speaker, and structural features. A particular type of speech-specific information we explore is the presence of meta comments in meeting speech, which can be exploited to make extractive summaries more high-level and increasingly abstractive in quality. We conduct our experiments on the AMI and ICSI meeting corpora, illustrating how informative utterances can be realized in contrasting ways in differing domains of meeting speech. Our central summarization evaluation is a large-scale extrinsic task, a decision audit evaluation. In this evaluation, we explicitly compare the usefulness of extractive summaries to gold-standard abstracts and a baseline keyword condition for navigating through a large amount of meeting data in order to satisfy a complex information need.
Phonological processing, not inhibitory control, differentiates ADHD and reading disability.

OBJECTIVE To test for the distinctiveness of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and reading disability (RD) and the independence of the cognitive domains, inhibition and phonological processing, which are proposed as central to ADHD and RD, respectively, using a classic double dissociation design. METHOD A 2 (ADHD versus no ADHD) x 2 (RD versus no RD) model was used to examine the cognitive profile of 4 groups of children, aged 7 to 11 years. Two measures of inhibitory control and 3 phonological processing measures were used. RESULTS The 2 RD groups (RD, ADHD + RD) were significantly impaired relative to the 2 non-RD groups (controls, ADHD) on all phonological processing measures. The 2 ADHD groups were significantly impaired on simple go-task responding relative to the non-ADHD groups and in inhibition. Contrary to predictions, an RD effect on inhibitory control was found on one inhibition measure. The comorbid group (ADHD + RD) generally exhibited the deficits of both single groups in an additive fashion. CONCLUSIONS These findings question the role of inhibitory control as a unique cognitive marker for ADHD and suggest true comorbidity for children with both ADHD and RD.
Determination of virus burst size in vivo using a single-cycle SIV in rhesus macaques

A single-cycle simian immunodeficiency virus (scSIV) that undergoes only one round of infection and replication was constructed to calculate the total number of virons produced by an SIV-infected cell in vivo. Four Mamu-A*01 rhesus macaques were inoculated on two occasions 11 weeks apart with the scSIV by ex vivo infection and i.v. reinfusion of autologous cells. After each inoculation, plasma viral loads peaked between 1 and 2.5 days and then declined exponentially in one or two phases to below detection limits within 2 weeks. Although higher levels of SIV-specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes and modest increases in antibody responses were observed for each animal after the second inoculation, decay rates of the infected cells were only minimally affected. Analyzing the viral load data with a mathematical model, the in vivo viral burst size averaged 4.0 × 104 and 5.5 × 104 virions per cell for the first and second inoculations, respectively, with no significant difference between the two inoculations. This estimate, in conjunction with our prior understanding of other quantitative viral and cellular parameters during SIV and HIV infection, provides critical insights into the dynamic process of viral production and its interplay with the infected host in vivo.
Myocardit is-inducing Epitope o f Myosin Binds Constitutively and Stably to I-A k on Antigen-present ing Cells in the Heart

Immune interactions in the heart were studied using a murine model of myosin-induced autoimmune myocarditis. A T cell hybridoma specific for mouse cardiac myosin was generated from A/J mice and used to demonstrate that endogenous myosin/I-A k complexes are constitutively expressed on antigen-presenting cells in the heart. This T cell hybridoma, Seu.5, was used as a functional probe to identify a myocarditis-inducing epitope of cardiac myosin. Overlapping peptides based on the cardiac myosin heavy chain cx (myhcot) sequences were synthesized and tested for their ability to stimulate Seu.5 T cells. One peptide, myhco~(325-357) strongly stimulated the Seu.5 T cells, localizing the epitope to this region of the myhca molecule. Using truncated peptides, the epitope was further localized to residues 334-352. The myhccx(334-352) peptide strongly induced myocarditis when administered to A/J mice, which was histologically indistinguishable from that induced by myosin. The myhcot(334-352) epitope was present in cardiac myosin and not skeletal muscle myosins, providing a biochemical basis for the cardiac specificity of this autoimmune disease. Induction of myocarditis by this epitope was restricted to the myhcot isoform and not the myhc[3 isoform, suggesting there may be a difference in the efficiency of generating tolerance to these isoforms of cardiac myosin, which are differentially developmentally regulated. The myhcot(334-352) epitope bound to purified I-A k molecules in a similar manner to other I-Ak-restricted immunogenic epitopes, HEL(48-61) and R.Nase(43-56). Importantly, the myhc0~(334-352) epitope was able to bind to I-A k molecules on the surface of antigen-presenting cells in a stable manner. These findings demonstrate that autoantigenic epitopes can behave in a dominant manner and constitutively bind to class II molecules in the target organ in a similar manner to foreign immunogenic epitopes.
PERCUTANEOUS MITRAL BALLOON COMMISSUROTOMY FOR PATIENTS WITH RHEUMATIC MITRAL STENOSIS

SINCE ITS INTRODUCTION in 1984 by Inoue et al,t percutaneous mitral balloon commissurotomy (PMV) has been used successfully as an alternative to open or closed surgical mitral commissurotomy in the treatment of patients with symptomatic rheumatic mitral stenosis.2-tS PMV produces good immediate hemodynamic outcome, low complication rate, and clinical improvement in the majority of patients with mitral stenosis.2-tS PMV is safe and effective and provides sustained clinical and hemodynamic improvement in patients with rheumatic mitral stenosis. The immediate and longterm results appear to be similar to those of surgical mitral commissurotomy.2-tS Today, PMV is the preferred form of therapy for relief of mitral stenosis for a selected group of patients with symptomatic mitral stenosis.