Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Blood pressure, haemorrhagic stroke, and ischaemic stroke: the Korean national prospective occupational cohort study

Deaths from haemorrhagic stroke declined consistently through the 20th century, but deaths from ischaemic stroke showed a rise and fall, mirroring the coronary heart disease epidemic.1 Blood pressure has also declined,2 and if blood pressure is more strongly associated with haemorrhagic stroke than with ischaemic stroke, this might contribute to the divergent trends. Previous meta-analyses have shown contradictory findings; one showed similar associations for both stroke subtypes,3 and another, of Asian studies, showed a stronger association with haemorrhagic stroke than with ischaemic stroke.4 To resolve this uncertainty, we examined the association of blood pressure with subtype of stroke in a large cohort of Korean civil servants. The Korean National Health System for public servants and teachers provides medical expenses and biennial multiphasic health examinations at which blood pressure is measured in the seated position by trained staff using a standard mercury sphygmomanometer …
Canine trypanosomiasis: etiology of infection and implications for public health

Canine trypanosomiasis, caused by protozoans of the genus Trypanosoma, is divided into two primary types: the American form (Chagas disease), due to Trypanosoma cruzi infection, and the African form (sleeping sickness or surra), provoked by Trypanosomaevansi. This disease was originally enzootic and affected only wild animals, including mammals and birds, which served as reservoirs. Later, it spread to domestic animals such as horses, cattle and dogs. The disease became a zoonosis when contact between rural inhabitants and natural Trypanosoma foci occurred, due to ecological imbalances and increasing migration. Dogs are significantly involved in this context, because they are the main domestic animals and participate in the transmission and maintenance cycles of these parasites. This article reports etiological, epidemiological and public health aspects of canine trypanosomiasis, and the most important peculiarities of this zoonosis in dogs.
Curricular response to increase recall and transfer of anatomical knowledge into the obstetrics/gynecology clerkship

Deficits in retention of anatomy knowledge from the preclinical years to clinical application on the wards have been well documented in the medical education literature. We developed and evaluated a web and laboratory‐based curriculum to address deficits in anatomy knowledge retention and to increase anatomy knowledge recall through repetition and application of clinical concepts during the obstetrics and gynecology (Ob/Gyn) core clinical clerkship. Using principles of adult learning and instructional design, a curriculum was designed consisting of (1) interactive, case‐based e‐modules reviewing clinically relevant anatomical topics and (2) a hands‐on laboratory session reinforcing the content of the e‐modules, with the practice of clinical techniques using anatomical cadaveric dissections. The curriculum's effectiveness was evaluated by using multiple choice testing and comparing baseline and final test scores. For questions testing content directly covered in this curriculum, mean final scores increased by 14.3% (P < 0.001). In contrast, for questions not directly addressed in this curriculum, mean final scores did not increase significantly, only by 6.0% (P = 0.31). Questions related to the uterus showed the greatest gains in final scores (30.3% improvement, P = 0.002). A curriculum with web‐based preparatory material and a hands‐on gross anatomy laboratory session effectively addresses deficits in anatomy retention and improves anatomical knowledge recall for medical students on a clinical clerkship. In the future, the authors plan to conduct a multicenter study to further evaluate the ability of this curriculum to improve clinically relevant anatomical knowledge. Anat Sci Educ 9: 337–343. © 2015 American Association of Anatomists.
Biomedical polymers.

During the last two decades, significant advances have been made in the development of biocompatible polymers as the platform for drug delivery and molecular imaging. The idea of using synthetic and natural biocompatible polymers as a platform to improve pharmacokinetics and delivery efficacy of small molecular therapeutic drugs is not new. Biomedical polymers have been widely used as carriers for drugs for example, polymer-drug conjugates, polymeric micelles, polymer protein conjugates and polyplexes have been designed for the delivery of chemotherapeutics, proteins and gene therapeutics. The conjugation of drugs to polymers can increase solubility and stability of the drugs while reducing their systemic toxicity. The coupling of drugs to water soluble biomedical polymers has the principal effect of limiting cellular uptake by pinocytosis, and therefore altering drug pharmacokinetics at the whole organism and cellular level. The polymer drug conjugates can passively accumulate within solid tumour tissues due to the hyperpermeability of tumour blood vessels and poor lymphatic drainage of tumour tissues, a phenomenon termed as “Enhanced Permeability and Retention (EPR) effect”. Also, polymers can be designed to be multi-functional and can be modified by using targeting-moieties to enhance drug targeting to specific tumour sites.
Interruptions to foraging and learning in a changing environment

Many resources are both stochastic and variable in their average profitability. Animals have to sample them to track their current states, but whether it is economic to attempt this depends on many factors. Furthermore, there are many interruptions and distractions from foraging (e.g. escape from predators, bad weather, displacement by competitors) which interfere with the acquisition of information. We present a dynamic model of foraging in a stochastic and varying environment, under the constant threat of interruption, to investigate this very general problem. A forager faces two foraging options, one of which provides a known and constant reward, the other providing a reward that is not only stochastic, but whose mean payoff varies in time. The forager has to learn which option has the highest current payoff by sampling. However, interruptions to foraging can occur at any time, the timing and duration of which are beyond the animal's control. When there is a small probability of foraging being interrupted, the forager should forage extensively on the unknown option, but as the probability of interruptions is increased, there is a sudden transition to foraging only on the known option. This occurs because interruptions affect both the level of information required to make exploitation of the unknown option profitable, and the ability to acquire and maintain that information. At what probability of being interrupted this threshold emerges is affected by the value of learning about the unknown option and the duration of interruptions. We discuss the generality of our results with reference to the pervasive problem of updating information in the face of different types of interruption. Copyright 1999 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour.
Offline performance vs. subjective quality experience: a case study in video game recommendation

Research in the field of recommender systems is largely based on offline experimentation on historical datasets. Several recent works however suggest that models optimized for accuracy measures are not necessarily those that lead to the best user experience or perceived system utility. In this work we first determine the offline performance of different algorithms in the domain of video game recommendation and then investigate the perceived recommendation quality through a user study. The offline results show that learning-to-rank methods optimized for implicit feedback situations as expected perform best in terms of accuracy, where higher accuracy often comes with a stronger tendency of the algorithms to recommend mostly popular items. In the user study, however, methods that also consider the similarity between items in their algorithms perform at least equally well in terms of accuracy, which could not be expected from the offline experiment. Such content-enhanced methods were also slightly favored by users in terms of perceived transparency.
The Modified Block Iterative Algorithms for Asymptotically Relatively Nonexpansive Mappings and the System of Generalized Mixed Equilibrium Problems

The propose of this paper is to present a modified block iterative algorithm for finding a common element between the set of solutions of the fixed points of two countable families of asymptotically relatively nonexpansive mappings and the set of solution of the system of generalized mixed equilibrium problems in a uniformly smooth and uniformly convex Banach space. Our results extend many known recent results in the literature.
Chondrocyte mitosis in the articular cartilage of femoral heads with various diseases.

Autoradiographic studies using thymidine-3H reveal the mitosis of chondrocytes in degenerated joints, i.e. joints having secondary osteoarthritis or aseptic necrosis of the femoral head. The findings obtained provide additional support for the recent investigations regarding chondrocyte mitosis in primary osteoarthritic cartilage. Histologic and histochemical examinations suggest that a loss of glycosaminoglycans in the matrix is evidence for conversion of chondrocyte activity to mitosis which occurs, however, within the limit of "the point of irreversibility", analogous to the observations from the biochemical point of view. Biomechanical and nutritional factors are also discussed in relation to the results obtained from cartilages of the femoral heads in cases of femoral neck fracture and aseptic necrosis of the femoral head.
Water Contact Activities and Prevalence of Schistosomiasis Infection among School-age Children in Communities along an Irrigation Scheme in Rural Northern Ghana

Of the various trematodes that infect humans, schistosomes remain among the most prevalent, and the various forms of schistosomiasis still pose significant public health problems. The prevalence of schistosomiasis infection among in-school and not-in-school children resident in communities along the Tono irrigation canals in northern Ghana was determined. Stool and urine samples from random representative samples were parasitologically examined using the Kato-Katz and 10 ml urine filtration methods respectively. A total of 920 children (mean age: 11.0 yrs; range: 6-15 yrs; STD Dev: 4.6 yrs), 573 (62.3%) males and 347 (37.7%) females with 473 in-school and 447 not-in-school participated in the study. The prevalence of Schistosoma haematobium infection was 33.2% (305/920) whilst that of S. mansoni was 19.8% (95% CI: 17.3-22.5; 182/920). The overall prevalence of infection (S. haematobium plus S. mansoni) was 47.7% (439/920). Many more males (51.7%; 95% CI: 47.5-55.8) than females (41.2%; 95% CI: 36.0-46.6) were infected. Forty-six (5.0%, 46/920) children were infected with both S. haematobium and S. mansoni. There was no difference in the prevalence of infection (S. haematobium plus S. mansoni) among children in-school (48.4%; 95% CI: 43.8-53.0) and those not-in-school (46.5%; 95% CI: 41.8-51.3). There was a statistically significant difference in prevalence of infection among communities (P=0.0002); with the lowest level of infection in residents of Korania (29.9%; CI: 20.0- 41.4) and the highest among those resident in Kajelo (64.9%; CI: 51.1-77.1), with significant differences in levels of water contact activities (χ2 =6.69; P=0.04). The highest intensity of S. mansoni infection (115.6 epg) was in Bonia where the highest prevalence of blood stained stools was collected (5.5%). Overall, 2.8% (26/920; 95% CI: 1.9-4.2) of stool samples were blood stained, whilst 10% (92/920; 95% CI: 8.2-12.2) of children had haematuria. S. haematobium ova were detected in 98.9% (91/92) of blood stained urine samples. Children infected by S. mansoni were more likely to have blood stained stool (χ2 =32.7; P<0.0001). The prevalence of schistosomiasis infection in the irrigation project site is high, adding praziquantel to albendazole and ivermectin for distribution during the annual mass drug administration for filariasis and onchocerciasis control will be an effective way of reaching all at risk groups in the Kassena-Nankana district for the control of schistosomiasis.
Waterfalls drive parallel evolution in a freshwater goby

Waterfalls may affect fish distribution and genetic structure within drainage networks even to the extent of leading evolutionary events. Here, parallel evolution was studied by focusing on waterfall and the landlocked freshwater goby Rhinogobius sp. YB (YB), which evolved from amphidromous R. brunneus (BR). The fish fauna was surveyed at 30 sites in 11 rivers on Iriomote Island, Japan, the geography of which was characterized by terraces/tablelands with many waterfalls. We found that all YB individuals were distributed only above waterfalls (height 6.8–58.7 m), whereas BR, and other fishes, were mostly distributed below waterfalls. Mitochondrial DNA analysis showed that every YB local population above the waterfall was independently evolved from BR. In contrast, cluster analysis of nine morphological characters, such as fin color and body pattern, showed that the morphology of YB individuals held a similarity beyond the genetic divergence, suggesting parallel evolution has occurred relating to their morphology. Genetic distance between each YB local population and BR was significantly correlated with waterfall height (r2 = 0.94), suggesting that the waterfalls have been heightened due to the constant geological erosion and that their height represents the isolation period of YB local populations from BR (ca. 11,000–88,000 years). Each local population of BR was once landlocked in upstream by waterfall formation, consequently evolving to YB in each site. Although the morphology of YB had a high degree of similarity among local populations, finer scale analysis showed that the morphology of YB was significantly correlated with the genetic distance from BR. Consequently, there could be simultaneous multiple phases of allopatric/parallel evolution of the goby due to variations in waterfall height on this small island.
An Analysis of Newdes: a Modified Version of des

This paper examines an encryption algorithm designed by Robert Scott[3] that is a modified form of the Data Encryption Standard. Scott's goal in varying DES is to improve two aspects of it that are alleged to be weaknesses: the length of the key, and the “secretness” of the design of the S-boxes. An ancillary goal of his is to provide an algorithm that is easy to implement in software on a microcomputer. Scott's algorithm is indeed simple to implement. One of the main reasons for this is that it uses only operations on entire bytes, so there is no individual bit manipulation. Also, as promised, the design of the entire f-function is open for examination. The increase in key length, however, may not be as significant as it first appears to be.
CD14 gene polymorphism 159C/T in a group of patients with coronary artery disease from a population with high morbidity of cardiovascular diseases.

BACKGROUND A role of CD14 receptor in the inflammatory response is stimulation of monocytes and endothelial cells by lipopolysaccharide of Gram-negative bacteria. The reports about association of progression of atherosclerosis with CD14 gene polymorphism in different populations are conflicting. AIM To assess if T to C exchange at position 159 of the CD14 gene correlates with age at the onset of first myocardial infarction (MI), severity of coronary atherosclerosis and number of risk factors in MI survivors in a local community characterised by high morbidity of cardiovascular diseases and whether this genotyping could be helpful in identifying patients with a high risk of MI at young age and beyond low number of risk factors. METHODS Fifty-seven MI survivors (75.5% males) from 98 consecutive patients (pts) with coronary artery disease were included. The genotypes in position 159 of the CD14 gene were determined by polymerase chain reaction. The medical history concerning diabetes mellitus, arterial hypertension, dyslipidaemia, smoking and obesity was taken from every participant. Gensini score (GS) was calculated on the basis of coronarography. Age at first MI, value of GS and number of risk factors were analysed variables. The pts were divided into the decades of life, according to cumulated number of risk factors and into the terciles according to GS. Distribution of ages at first MI, pts with different number of risk factors and percent of pts belonging to determined terciles of GS were compared between subgroups with genotype CC and CT, TT. RESULTS The CC genotype was detected in 25 (43.8%) pts, CT in 30 (52.6%) and TT in 2 (3.6%). Age at first MI ranged from 40 to 75 years, mean 58.7+/-7.23, values of GS ranged from 0 to 154, mean 48.6+/-25.7, and number of risk factors from 0 to 4, mean 1.92+/-0.99. No significant differences in distribution of ages at first MI, values of GS or number of risk factors were found between patients with CC and with CT or TT genotype in position 159 of CD14 receptor genotype. CONCLUSION These data indicate that screening for CD14 159C/T polymorphism is unlikely to be a useful tool for risk assessment of MI at young age, independently of low number of risk factors, in a population with high morbidity from cardiovascular diseases.
Rolandic epilepsy has little effect on adult life 30 years later

Objective: To establish the adult social outcome for childhood-onset rolandic epilepsy. Methods: Patients with medication-treated rolandic epilepsy were identified from the Nova Scotia prospective population-based cohort of childhood-onset epilepsy. Epilepsy onset was in 1977–1985 and follow-up was in 2010–2013 with chart review plus structured telephone interview for those older than 21 years. Results: Forty-two children developed rolandic epilepsy (6% of 692 incident epilepsy cases in the cohort). Thirty-two (76%) were contacted when they were older than 21 years. Epilepsy onset averaged 7.7 ± 2.3 years, follow-up 29.5 ± 2.8 years, and final age 37 ± 3.4 years. All had epilepsy remission and were off antiepileptic drug treatment for 21.4 ± 6.6 years. There were 2 minor injuries from seizures and only 1 death (from a snowmobile accident). Overall, 41% had ≥1 of 7 adverse social outcomes, 6 had 1, 4 had 2, and 3 had ≥3. These were failure to complete high school (n = 7), pregnancy outside of a stable relationship (<6 months) (n = 7), depression or other psychiatric diagnosis (n = 3), unemployment (n = 1), living alone (n = 5), never in a romantic relationship >3 months (n = 1), and poverty (n = 2). Those who did not complete high school were more likely to have parents with low academic achievement and/or low income (p < 0.02). By comparison, rates of ≥1 adverse social outcomes for other epilepsies with normal intelligence from this cohort varied from 62% to 76%. Conclusions: The adult social outcome for children with rolandic epilepsy is remarkably better than for those with other major epilepsies and normal intelligence.
Impacts of Information and Communication Technologies on Country Development: Accounting for Area Interrelationships

Single-item composite indices gauge ICT readiness at the country level but do not represent the direct impact of ICTs on a country’s development. This paper describes a new approach to measuring the macrolevel impacts of ICTs across a range of development areas. The indirect effects of one area on others is taken into consideration by a simultaneous equation model that permits the inclusion of multiple development areas. The model is applied to data pertaining to four development areas in 64 countries: trade fl ows, agricultural productivity, R&D, and quality of life. ICT readiness is found to have a positive association with trade fl ows and R&D, but the impact depends on the country’s development level. The strengths and limitations of this modeling approach, and the implications of the results, are assessed.
IR-correlated 31 GHz radio emission from Orion East

Lynds dark cloud LDN1622 represents one of the best examples of anomalous dust emission, possibly originating from small spinning dust grains. We present Cosmic Background Imager (CBI) 31 GHz data of LDN1621, a diffuse dark cloud to the north of LDN1622 in a region known as Orion East. A broken ring with diameter g\approx 20 arcmin of diffuse emission is detected at 31 GHz, at \approx 20-30 mJy beam$^{-1}$ with an angular resolution of \approx 5 arcmin. The ring-like structure is highly correlated with Far Infra-Red emission at $12-100 \mu$m with correlation coefficients of r \approx 0.7-0.8, significant at $\sim10\sigma$. Multi-frequency data are used to place constraints on other components of emission that could be contributing to the 31 GHz flux. An analysis of the GB6 survey maps at 4.85 GHz yields a $3\sigma$ upper limit on free-free emission of 7.2 mJy beam$^{-1}$ ($\la 30 per cent of the observed flux) at the CBI resolution. The bulk of the 31 GHz flux therefore appears to be mostly due to dust radiation. Aperture photometry, at an angular resolution of 13 arcmin and with an aperture of diameter 30 arcmin, allowed the use of IRAS maps and the {\it WMAP} 5-year W-band map at 93.5 GHz. A single modified blackbody model was fitted to the data to estimate the contribution from thermal dust, which amounts to $\sim$ 10 per cent at 31 GHz. In this model, an excess of 1.52\pm 0.66 Jy (2.3\sigma) is seen at 31 GHz. Future high frequency $\sim$ 100-1000 GHz data, such as those from the {\it Planck} satellite, are required to accurately determine the thermal dust contribution at 31 GHz. Correlations with the IRAS $100 \mu$m gave a coupling coefficient of $18.1\pm4.4 \mu$K (MJy/sr)$^{-1}$, consistent with the values found for LDN1622.
Interactive effects among porcine somatotropin, the beta-adrenergic agonist salbutamol, and dietary lysine on growth performance and nitrogen balance of finishing swine.

An experiment was conducted to evaluate the interactive effects among porcine somatotropin (pST), salbutamol, and dietary lysine on growth performance, nitrogen balance, and carcass characteristics of finishing barrows (n = 32; 62.8 kg initially). Two replicate 32-d studies were set up in a split-plot design to evaluate singular and combined use of pST (0 or 4 mg/d) and salbutamol (0 or 2.75 ppm of the diet) as whole-plot treatments and diets containing . 8, 1.2, 1.6, or 2.0% lysine as subplot treatments. Dietary lysine levels were administered within subplots in a 4 x 4 Latin square with pigs allowed 4 d of adjustment to diets followed by 4 d of urine and feces collection for determination of N retention and apparent digestibility of DM and N. Interactions between lysine and salbutamol were not found (P > .16). A pST x lysine interaction (P < .05) resulted in ADG being maximized at 1.2% lysine for pST-treated pigs (lysine quadratic, P < .02) but decreased linearly (P < .02) with increasing lysine for pigs receiving buffer. Pigs injected with 4 mg/d of pST had improved gain:feed (G:F) up to 1.2% lysine (lysine quadratic, P < .05), but no further increase to 2% lysine, whereas pigs injected with buffer showed no benefit from increased lysine (pST x lysine, P < .06). Pigs receiving buffer had greater increases in plasma urea N (PUN) as lysine increased than those receiving pST (pST x lysine, P < .002), but PUN was reduced by pST (P < .001) regardless of lysine level. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)