Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
What does it really mean to be providing medication-assisted treatment for opioid addiction ?

Now more than ever, the United States is experiencing a pressing need to address the opioid epidemic. Before discussing this and outlining what can and should be done to help people with opioid addiction, a clarification of terms is necessary. In talking about what is happening with opioids, the popular press and social media channels use many buzzwords, one of which is “opioid epidemic” itself. There are several facets to classifying this as an “epidemic” that are important to address: 1) the number of people who use heroin and/or fentanyl has dramatically increased over the last few years; 2) people’s misuse of prescription opioids like hydrocodone (Vicodin) and oxycodone (OxyContin) has also greatly increased; 3) more people than ever are becoming addicted to opioids; and 4) an alarming number of people are dying from opioid overdoses (Center for Behavioral Health Statistics and Quality, 2015; Rudd et al., 2016). The increasing trend in opioid overdose deaths is depicted in Figure 1.
EFFECTS OF COMPUTER-BASED BLENDED LEARNING STRATEGY ON SECONDARY SCHOOL CHEMISTRY STUDENTS’ RETENTION IN INDIVIDUALISED AND COLLABORATIVE LEARNING SETTINGS IN MINNA, NIGER STATE, NIGERIA

This study investigated effects of Computer-based blended learning strategy on Secondary School Chemistry students’ retention in individualised and collaborative learning settings in Minna, Niger State, Nigeria. The study adopted a quazi-experimental design and three research questions and three null hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. Multi-staged sampling procedure was used to select a total of 120 (71 female & 49 male) students from three co-educational schools within the study area. The selected students were randomly assigned to experimental group I (Computer–based blended learning in individualised setting) experimental group II (Computer–based blended learning in collaborative setting) and the control group (lecture method). A multiple-choice question items on Chemistry that was developed, validated by the Chemistry experts was pilot-tested and a reliability coefficient of 0.74 was obtained using test re-test method. The achievement test was administered as instrument for data collection to students as pre-test, post-test and retention test.
Effect of Climatic Weather Factors, Physical and Chemical Components of Mango Leaves on the Population Abundance of Aulacaspis tubercularis (New stead)

The present study was carried out throughout two successive years (2017/2018 and 2018/2019) at Esna district, Luxor Governorate, to estimate the effect of climatic weather factors, physical and chemical characteristics of mango leaves on population abundance and percentages of infestation by Aulacaspis tubercularis (Newstead) on mango trees. Results indicated that this scale insect species occurred on mango trees all the year round. It had four peaks of population abundance per year. Those were recorded on mid-April, mid-June, beginning of October and mid-November during the first year (2017/2018) and at the beginning of April, beginning of June, mid-September and beginning of November during the second year (2018/2019). Furthermore, percentages of infestation incidence by pest showed, also, four peaks per year. Those recorded in mid-April, beginning of July, beginning of October and mid of November, 2017 and during beginning of April, June, September and beginning of November, 2018. The obtained results cleared that the total population density and percentages of infestation by A. tubercularis were higher compared to the subsequent of study. Also, it was generally found that autumn season was more favorable for A. tubercularis activity and infestation incidence than the remaining three seasons. Obtained data confirmed that the population abundance and percentages of infestation by A. tubercularis were, significantly, affected by the recorded weather factors viz. (daily mean air temperature, mean of relative humidity and mean of dew point), in addition to the morphological and chemical characteristics of mango leaves during the two years of study. Also, the leaf area for mango leaves was the most effective variable for the changes in the insect population and the percentage of moisture in mango leaves was the most affecting factors on the incidence of infestation by the scale insect under the two cumulative years.
STATUS OF ETHICAL REVIEW BOARDS AT ALL MEDICAL COLLEGES OF KHYBER PAKHTUNKHWA

Background: Ethics means custom, character, habit or disposition and as a discipline is frequently called Moral Philosophy. Ethics cannot be regulated until it is incorporated in Law. With the advent of research in life sciences, the need of ethical review boards was felt to protect individual and public interests. The objective of this study was to know the status of ethical review boards at all medical colleges of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in terms of its existence, membership and activities. Methods: This province wise cross-sectional survey was conducted over a period of three months. All the sixteen medical colleges of the province registered with Pakistan Medical and Dental Council Islamabad were included. A structured questionnaire was used as data collection tool. Single respondent from each medical college was identified by the respective chief executive officer or principal. Data was analysed through SPSS V-20 and MS Excel 2007. Descriptive statistics were calculated for quantitative data. Results: Out of sixteen medical colleges, one had no ethical review board and another neither refused nor returned filled questionnaire. Eleven medical colleges reported combined boards with their teaching hospitals, while 3 had separate boards. Highest number of members noted was 14 and lowest being 4. Mode was 8. None of the boards had a medical doctor with degree or diploma in bioethics, as its member. Six medical colleges had medical doctors who had attended workshops on bioethics. Majority of medical colleges had no track of record about its review boards. Conclusion: Overall situation of ethical review boards at the medical colleges of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is not satisfactory and needs proper regulatory measures. Keywords: Institutional Review Board, Ethics Committee, Bioethics, Pakistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
JASPAC 01: Randomized phase III trial of adjuvant chemotherapy with gemcitabine versus S-1 for patients with resected pancreatic cancer.

4008 Background: Adjuvant chemotherapy with gemcitabine (G) has been standard treatment for resected pancreatic cancer (PC). In the GEST study, S-1 (S) had shown non-inferiority to G in overall survival (OS) for unresectable PC. The aim of this phase III study is to investigate non-inferiority of S to G on OS as adjuvant chemotherapy for resected PC. Methods: Patients (pts) after macroscopically curative resection of PC with an ECOG PS of 0-1 and adequate organ functions were randomly assigned to G (1000 mg/m2, iv, d1, 8 and 15, q4w, for 6 courses) or S (80/100/120 mg/day based on BSA, po, d1-28, q6w, for 4 courses) with balancing by surgical margins (R), nodal status (N) and institution. Primary endpoint was OS. With 180 pts per arm, the study had 80% power to prove non-inferiority with a margin of hazard ratio (HR) 1.25 on the basis of expected HR 0.87, with 0.05 two-sided alpha. Secondary endpoints were relapse-free survival (RFS), safety, and quality of life (EQ-5D). One interim analysis was planned a.
Inference of Co-Evolving Site Pairs: an Excellent Predictor of Contact Residue Pairs in Protein 3D structures

Residue-residue interactions that fold a protein into a unique three-dimensional structure and make it play a specific function impose structural and functional constraints on each residue site. Selective constraints on residue sites are recorded in amino acid orders in homologous sequences and also in the evolutionary trace of amino acid substitutions. A challenge is to extract direct dependences between residue sites by removing indirect dependences through other residues within a protein or even through other molecules. Recent attempts of disentangling direct from indirect dependences of amino acid types between residue positions in multiple sequence alignments have revealed that the strength of inferred residue pair couplings is an excellent predictor of residue-residue proximity in folded structures. Here, we report an alternative attempt of inferring co-evolving site pairs from concurrent and compensatory substitutions between sites in each branch of a phylogenetic tree. First, branch lengths of a phylogenetic tree inferred by the neighbor-joining method are optimized as well as other parameters by maximizing a likelihood of the tree in a mechanistic codon substitution model. Mean changes of quantities, which are characteristic of concurrent and compensatory substitutions, accompanied by substitutions at each site in each branch of the tree are estimated with the likelihood of each substitution. Partial correlation coefficients of the characteristic changes along branches between sites, in which linear dependences on other sites are removed, are calculated and used to rank co-evolving site pairs. Accuracy of contact prediction based on the present co-evolution score is comparable to that achieved by a maximum entropy model of protein sequences for 15 protein families taken from the Pfam release 26.0. Besides, this excellent accuracy indicates that compensatory substitutions are significant in protein evolution.
Techniques for Verifying Robustness of Neural Networks

Deep neural networks have emerged as a powerful tool in solving many real-world problems. However, their applicability to safety-critical applications such as autonomous driving and malware detection is challenged by the complexity in verifying safety properties of such neural networks. One such property of interest is local adversarial robustness, the ability of a neural network to classify certain inputs correctly in the presence of adversarial noise. We survey three recently proposed techniques for certifying robustness of neural networks that use the Rectified Linear Unit (ReLU) activation function: an SMT based approach [16], an optimization based approach that uses Semi-Definite Programming (SDP) relaxation [21] and an approach that applies abstract interpretation to neural networks [9]. In this survey, we analyze these papers giving a summary of the key ideas, their strengths and limitations.
pH-responsive perylenediimide nanoparticles for cancer trimodality imaging and photothermal therapy

Organic chromophores have been well developed for multimodality imaging-guided photothermal therapy (PTT) due to their outstanding optical properties and excellent designability. However, the theranostic efficiencies of most currently available organic chromophores are restricted intrinsically, owing to their poor photostability or complex synthesis procedures. These drawbacks not only increase their cost of synthesis, but also cause side effects in PTT. Method: We presented a facile strategy for constructing a near-infrared (NIR)-absorbing perylenediimide structured with pH-responsive piperazine ring at the bay region. The chromophore was conjugated with carboxyl-end-capped PEG as side chains that can self-assemble into nanoparticles (NPs) in aqueous solution. The NIR optical properties and photothermal conversation ability of PPDI-NPs were investigated. We then studied the imaging-guided PTT of PPDI-NPs under NIR light illumination in 4T1 cells and mice respectively. Results: The excellent photostable PPDI-NPs had near-infrared fluorescence (NIRF) emission and high photothermal conversion efficiency in acidic microenvironment. Importantly, PPDI-NPs can be utilized for the precise detection of tumors by NIRF/photoacoustic/thermal trimodality imaging. Efficient PTT of PPDI-NPs was applied in vitro and in vivo with high biosafety. Conclusion: In summary, we developed pH-responsive perylenediimide nanoparticles as multifunctional phototheranostic agent with high stability and simple synthesis procedures. This study offers a promising organic chromophore for developing phototheranostics in cancer therapy.
Final COMPASS results on the spin-dependent structure functions g d 1 and g p 1

The COMPASS experiment at the CERN SPS took data with a polarised muon beam scattering off a polarised NH3 target in 2007 and 2011 and scattering off a LiD target in 2002-2004 and 2006. The 2006 measurement increased the statistics from the 2002-2004 data taking by about 50%. For the measurement in 2011 the beam energy was increased from 160 GeV to 200 GeV, thus higher values of Q and lower values of x were reached. The new results from the 2011 and 2006 data taking on the longitudinal double spin asymmetry A 1 and on the spin-dependent structure function g 1 are presented and compared to the previous results. Using the combined deuteron data set, the first moment of g 1 is calculated. From its first moment, the quark contribution to the nucleon spin is calculated. This quantity is also obtained from a NLO QCD fit to the world data including our data. The final deuteron results together with the two measurements on the proton are used to update the results on the Bjorken sum rule connecting the first moment of the non-singlet structure function to the ratio of the weak coupling constants. The recent results on the spin structure function g 1 and g d 1 constitute the COMPASS legacy on the measurements of g1 through inclusive spin-dependent deep inelastic scattering.
The Impact of Traditional Homestead Vegetable Cultivation on the Improvement of Livelihood of Rural Women in Bangladesh

The aim of the study was to determine the level of acceptability of traditional homestead vegetable cultivation practices by rural women in the northeastern parts of Bangladesh and its impact on their livelihood. A structured interview schedule was applied to collect data. Data were collected from 100 women from two villages of South Surma Upazila in the Sylhet district and correlation tests were conducted to examine the relationship between the relevant dependent and independent variables. The results showed that 68% of rural women had a moderately favourable opinion of vegetable cultivation regarding changes in the livelihood of rural women, while 20% had low opinion and 12% had high opinion of traditional homestead vegetable practices. The majority (59%) of the women had moderately adopted traditional homestead vegetable cultivation practices compared to 24% who had adopted them little and 17% who had adopted them highly. Computed (r) values indicate that education, homestead area, family income, knowledge of homestead vegetable cultivation, availability of credit, and exposure of the rural women to communication had a significantly positive relationship to their attitudes to changes in livelihood.
Determinants and obstetric outcomes of high prenatal care utilization in a developing country

Background: High prenatal care utilization could put a strain on the resources within the health system, especially in a developing economy. However, the factors responsible have not been explored in the Nigerian context. Methods: Using a prospective design, records of observed visits of antenatal attendees were employed to calculate the Kotelchuck Index, and identify determinants of high prenatal care utilization. Results: Most of the women, 514 (43.5%), had adequate prenatal visits, while 53 (4.5%) had excessive utilization. Excessive prenatal care utilization was predicted by being employed (81.1% versus 18.9%, p=0.024). Also, when compared with adequate users, women who utilized prenatal services excessively were significantly more likely to be aged between 20 years and 39 years (98.1% versus 97.5%, p=0.041), with pre-eclampsia (11.3% versus 2.1%, p<0.0001), and previous cesarean birth (18.9% versus 11.9%, p=0.047). Regarding their deliveries, excessive utilizers were significantly more likely to have cesarean births (30.2% versus 28.2%, p=0.008), and deliver before term (64.2% versus 13%, p<0.0001), compared with adequate utilizers. Mothers with pre-eclampsia (odds ratio: 4.84; 95% CI 1.92–12.23, p=0.001), and delivery before term (odds ratio: 0.09; 95% CI 0.05–0.17, p<0.0001) were found to be independently associated with excessive prenatal care utilization. Conclusions: Availability of emergency obstetric service and improved facilities for neonatal intensive care are advocated to promote safe motherhood.
Estimation of Technical Efficiency and Its Determinants of White Maize Production in Vinh Long Province: A Stochastic Production Frontier Approach

The aim of this study is to estimate technical efficiency and its determinants in white maize production in Vinh Long province, Vietnam, based on a cross-sectional data collected in 2014 from 176 white maize farmers by using the stochastic frontier approach. The Cobb-Douglas stochastic frontier production function, incorporating inefficiency effects was employed to analyze the data. The results revealed that the technical efficiency ranged from 63.46 to 99.54%, with an average of 82.58%. Significant factors found to positively affect white maize yield were seed quantity, potash fertilizer, labor, and maize variety while nitrogen fertilizer and pesticide were negatively related to the white maize yield. Significant determinants of technical efficiency that were positively related to technical efficiency include education attainment, training, credit access and household labor.
Point2Volume: A Vision-Based Dietary Assessment Approach Using View Synthesis

Dietary assessment is an important tool for nutritional epidemiology studies. To assess the dietary intake, the common approach is to carry out 24-h dietary recall (24HR), a structured interview conducted by experienced dietitians. Due to the unconscious biases in such self-reporting methods, many research works have proposed the use of vision-based approaches to provide accurate and objective assessments. In this article, a novel vision-based method based on real-time three-dimensional (3-D) reconstruction and deep learning view synthesis is proposed to enable accurate portion size estimation of food items consumed. A point completion neural network is developed to complete partial point cloud of food items based on a single depth image or video captured from any convenient viewing position. Once 3-D models of food items are reconstructed, the food volume can be estimated through meshing. Compared to previous methods, our method has addressed several major challenges in vision-based dietary assessment, such as view occlusion and scale ambiguity, and it outperforms previous approaches in accurate portion size estimation.
Determinants of Parental Influence on Career Choice among secondary school students in Cross River State, Nigeria

The problem of career choice has generated a lot of questions and answers among scholars. The problem has been a delicate issue and amounted to serious controversies which still remains unresolved and needs to be treated with most caution. There is no clear process that students have used to make career choices. Most of the students rely heavily on their parents or guardians, mentors or idols to make career choices and which are been significantly influenced. Most of the students are easily cajoled by their parents in the choice of a life career which at the long run may not greet them with their expectations, thus giving out a life ambition or career or aspirations. The study sought to establish the factors that determines the influence of parents in career choice among their wards among school girls in Calabar metropolis in Cross River State, Nigeria. Research question was formulated to guide the study. Survey design was utilized to unveil the determinants. A sample size of 200 was drawn from students and their parents/guardians, teachers, students in schools, youth and leaders using the stratified random sampling technique. Questionnaire/checklist was used to collect the data which was analyzed using percentages. Parental educational background, cultural norms and values, parental occupations, parental expectations and socio-economic status of parents were among the determinants of parental influence in choosing career for their children. It was also gathered from the study that parental influence on career choices for their wards had consequently led to societal ills ranging from high crime rate, cultism, gangsterism, occultism, armed robbery, school dropout, high rate of failure, societal misgrants, scolombo, teenage pregnancies, and many more societal ills. The study therefore advocated for the withdrawal of parental influence on students career choices. It was thus recommended that parents should desists from compelling their children into taking those career that they do not possess such capabilities, talents, interests of aptitude for.
An Era of Lasers-Application of Erbium Lasers in Pediatric Dentistry

Over the years, dentistry has evolved from conventional ‘Extension for Prevention’ approach for tooth preparation to minimally invasive methods of caries removal. In pediatric patients, dental phobia and anxiety is most commonly related to the sound and vibration of conventional rotary instruments. Lasers play an integral role in both minimally invasive dentistry and reduction of dental anxiety in patients. Erbium laser technology is a safe device for selective and efficient removal of carious tooth structure. This is especially important in pediatric dentistry, considering the morphology of the deciduous and young permanent teeth. The capability of caries removal without any distress to the patient has a huge impact on the delivery of dental care. Erbium lasers work by the principle of thermomechanical ablation, which allows selective removal of carious tooth structure. Apart from reduction of dental phobia, these lasers can also be employed for laser analgesia, decontamination and to significantly improve the properties of adhesive restorations. A review of literature over 20 years concerning the use of erbium lasers for caries removal was completed. This paper focuses on providing a comprehensive knowledge of the properties and application of erbium lasers in pediatric dentistry.
The pattern and visual outcomes of ocular trauma in a large zonal hospital in a non-operational role: A 36 months retrospective analysis

Aim: To determine the pattern of ocular injuries presenting to the accident and emergency department of a large zonal level hospital in a non operational area. Material and Methods: This retrospective study was conducted from July 2009 to June 2012 in a large, 580 bedded, zonal level military hospital. This hospital caters to serving soldiers, ex-servicemen, and their dependants as well as several large premier military training establishments. It is by far the largest service hospital in its state, and its eye center is the only military eye care facility available for the above-mentioned group of patients. Ocular trauma in our study was defined as any eye injury requiring medical attention. Results: Of the 177 patients included in the study, 153 (86.4%) sustained a closed globe injury while 24 (13.6%) had open globe injuries. One hundred and forty-eight (83.6%) of them presented within 24 hours of injury. One hundred and fifty-one (85.3%) patients required hospital admission. Finally, none of the patients involved were wearing any kind of protective eyewear at the time of injury. Conclusion: This study is unique for the fact that it involves both the military personnel as well as civilians and its analysis provides an insight into the pattern of ocular trauma in our set up. To the best of our knowledge, this is the only study which has been done combining both these entities. The findings indicate that ocular trauma is a significant cause of visual morbidity in this segment of population.