Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effect of Housing Type on 25 OH Vitamin D in Serum of Rhesus Monkeys.

OBJECTIVE Vitamin D status is primarily dependent upon sun exposure and dietary sources, however genetic, cultural, and environmental factors can have a modulating role in the measured amount. One under-reported factor is the effect of regular living quarters on the degree of sun exposure. Herein, we assess vitamin D status in the blood of Rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) housed in high amounts of sunlight (corn-cribs), medium sunlight (corrals with shaded areas), and minimal sunlight (quarantine cages). METHODS Fifty-five male Rhesus monkeys, aged 1 to 31 years were housed in varying amounts of sun exposure at the Caribbean Primate Research Center. Serum was collected and analyzed for 25 OH Vitamin D which is the preferred metabolite for determination of Vitamin D using High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC). RESULTS 25 OH Vitamin D levels in blood were significantly greater in corn-cribhoused monkeys than in corral or quarantine-housed animals (p > 0.01 and p > 0.001 respectively). Significant differences of serum levels were not found when ages of animals housed in the same environment were compared. CONCLUSION Monkeys housed in a tropical environment with the greatest amount of exposure to sunlight maintain the highest serum levels of 25 OH vitamin D independent of age. These findings emphasize the importance of documenting the environment in which subjects typically spend their time when Vitamin D results are interpreted.
The significance of private gardens for bird conservation

Most human habitations, apart from those of highly urbanized or nomadic populations, have some kind of surrounding land under the private or shared control of their occupants which can be characterized as a yard or garden. The typical configuration and exploitation of such land varies between cultures but the total amount of land and the resources applied can be quite significant. For example over 10 million hectares are devoted to lawn grass in the United States, consuming more synthetic fertilizer than India uses for all of her crops (Uhl 1998). In such affluent societies, leisure gardens have traditionally been ornaments, status symbols, hobbies, even art forms or expressions of spirituality but as general conservation awareness increases, a growing number of these plots are being managed to some extent as wildlife havens by gardeners hungry for information and practical support. I suggest that private gardens are already of significant value as wild bird habitat and that this trend for further enhancement of their wildlife value can be productively exploited for the benefit of bird conservation both locally and generally.
Evaluating the expected effects of disclosure of patient safety incidents using hypothetical cases in Korea

To introduce disclosure of patient safety incidents (DPSI) into a specific country, evidence of the effectiveness of DPSI is essential. Since such a disclosure policy has not been adopted in South Korea, hypothetical cases can be used to measure the effectiveness of DPSI. We evaluated the effectiveness of DPSI using hypothetical cases in a survey with a sample of the Korean general public. We used 8 hypothetical cases reflecting 3 conditions: the clarity of medical errors, the severity of harm, and conducting DPSI. Face-to-face interviews with 700 people using structured questionnaires were conducted. Participants were asked to read each hypothetical case and give remarks on the following: their judgment of a situation as a medical error and of the requirement for an apology, the willingness to revisit or recommend physicians, the intention to file a medical lawsuit and commence criminal proceedings against physicians, the level of trust in physicians, and the expected amount of compensation. The results indicated favorable findings in support of DPSI; DPSI reduced the likelihood of perceiving a situation as a medical error, promoted willingness to revisit and recommend physicians, and discouraged the intention to file a medical lawsuit and take commence criminal proceedings against physicians. Furthermore, DPSI increased patients’ trust scores in physicians and reduced the expected amount of compensation. The general public had positive attitudes towards DPSI in South Korea. This result provides empirical evidence for reducing the psychological burden that the introduction of DPSI may have on health professionals.
Antiglycine receptor antibody related disease: a case series and literature review

Antibodies to glycine receptors (GlyR‐Abs) were first defined in progressive encephalopathy with rigidity and myoclonus (PERM) but were subsequently identified in other clinical presentations. Our aim was to assess the clinical associations of all patients identified with GlyR‐Abs in Queensland, Australia, between April 2014 and May 2017 and to compare these to cases reported in the literature.
Inducing information stability and applications thereof to obtaining information theoretic necessary conditions directly from operational requirements

This work constructs a discrete random variable that, when conditioned upon, ensures information stability of quasi-images. Using this construction, a new methodology is derived to obtain information theoretic necessary conditions directly from operational requirements. In particular, this methodology is used to derive new necessary conditions for keyed authentication over discrete memoryless channels and to establish the capacity region of the wiretap channel, subject to finite leakage and finite error, under two different secrecy metrics. These examples establish the usefulness of the proposed methodology.
Use of fluorescein isothiocyanate isomer I to study the mechanism of intestinal absorption of fucoidan sulfate in vivo and in vitro

A new method to label fucoidan sulfate was established with tyramine and fluorescein isothiocyanate isomer I (FITC). Fluorescence spectrophotometry and high performance liquid chromatography verified the successful labelling of fucoidan by FITC. The results of the single‐pass intestinal perfusion indicated that the jejunum and ileum are the main absorption sites, and there was carrier saturation. In addition, fucoidan sulfate at 1 mg/ml had no inhibitory effect on Caco‐2 cell proliferation. Studies on the transmembrane transport mechanism showed that fucoidan can be absorbed because the apparent permeability coefficient of the drugs (Papp) A → B was 3.78 + 0.03 ×10−6 and that of B → A was 1.42 + 0.19 ×10−6. The peak absorption of fucoidan occurred at 120 min after administration; moreover, the higher the concentration used, the worse the absorption was, suggesting the saturation of transport carriers. The absorption was temperature dependent: the absorption at 37°C was much better than that at 4°C. Further, the absorption of fucoidan sulfate might rely on clathrin endocytosis as chlorpromazine (10 μg/ml) significantly inhibited it.
Desires and Intentions for Fatherhood: A Comparison of Childless Gay and Heterosexual Men in Germany

The present study explores the motivation for fatherhood in a sample of childless German gay and heterosexual men aged 18 to 40 years (N = 628 + 638). Referring to the theory of planned behavior (TPB), three potential predictors were considered: the individual’s attitude toward having children, perceived attitudes of significant others toward fatherhood, and anticipated parental self-efficacy. Regarding fathering motivation, the general desire to become a father was differentiated from the more concrete fathering intention. Level- and structure-oriented analyses were combined in an innovative way. Consistent with previous research, gay participants reported weaker fathering desires and intentions than their heterosexual counterparts; however, there was no wider desire-intention gap among gay than among heterosexual participants (level-oriented analysis). As expected, associations between TPB predictors and fathering motivation were independent of sexual orientation (structure-oriented analysis). Participants’ appreciation of children and their self-attribution of parental self-efficacy were strongly associated with fathering intentions; these associations were substantially mediated by fathering desires. However, the association between significant others’ attitudes toward fatherhood and participants’ fathering motivation was comparably weak. Demographics were controlled for in each analysis. Results are discussed from both an individual and a societal perspective.
Fully Convolutional Network for Automatic Road Extraction from Satellite Imagery

Analysis of high-resolution satellite images has been an important research topic for traffic management, city planning, and road monitoring. One of the problems here is automatic and precise road extraction. From an original image, it is difficult and computationally expensive to extract roads due to presences of other road-like features with straight edges. In this paper, we propose an approach for automatic road extraction based on a fully convolutional neural network of U-net family. This network consists of ResNet-34 pre-trained on ImageNet and decoder adapted from vanilla U-Net. Based on validation results, leaderboard and our own experience this network shows superior results for the DEEPGLOBE - CVPR 2018 road extraction sub-challenge. Moreover, this network uses moderate memory that allows using just one GTX 1080 or 1080ti video cards to perform whole training and makes pretty fast predictions.
Goal importance, use of performance measures, and knowledge exchange: An empirical study on general practitioners' performance.

BACKGROUND In many health systems, general practitioners (GPs) exhibit high levels of isolation and, at the same time, low levels of organizational identification, which can hinder their individual performance. The extant health care literature suggests that the physicians' belief that organizational goals are important, the adoption of performance measurement systems, and knowledge-sharing practices affect their individual performance. Most research has investigated these constructs in isolation, however, rather than explored their collective impact on GPs' individual performance. PURPOSE The aim of this study was to explore how GPs' belief in goal importance, use of performance measures, and knowledge exchange affect their individual performance, here defined as their individual achievement of organizational goals. METHODOLOGY We developed five hypotheses regarding how GPs' belief in goal importance and use of performance measures may affect individual performance, as well as how knowledge exchange may moderate these relationships. We tested our theoretical conjectures using data collected in a community of GPs in the Italian National Health Service. A survey questionnaire was administered to gather information about the GPs' level of belief in goal importance, use of performance measures, and perception about knowledge exchange in their primary care units. We considered two measures of GPs' individual performance: efficiency and appropriateness of drug prescription. We tested our hypotheses using probit regressions. RESULTS Our findings show that perceived importance of organizational goals and use of performance measures have a positive effect on GPs' individual performance. Meanwhile, GPs' use of performance measures moderates the relationship between their belief in goal importance and individual performance. Finally, perceived knowledge exchange moderates the relationships between belief in goal importance/use of performance measures and individual performance. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS Executives could improve GPs' individual performance through interventions that reinforce their belief that organizational goals are important, facilitate a more intensive use of performance measures, and encourage knowledge exchange practices.
VoxCeleb2: Deep Speaker Recognition

The objective of this paper is speaker recognition under noisy and unconstrained conditions. We make two key contributions. First, we introduce a very large-scale audio-visual speaker recognition dataset collected from open-source media. Using a fully automated pipeline, we curate VoxCeleb2 which contains over a million utterances from over 6,000 speakers. This is several times larger than any publicly available speaker recognition dataset. Second, we develop and compare Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) models and training strategies that can effectively recognise identities from voice under various conditions. The models trained on the VoxCeleb2 dataset surpass the performance of previous works on a benchmark dataset by a significant margin.
Comparative Genomic and Phenotypic Analysis of the Vaginal Probiotic Lactobacillus rhamnosus GR-1

Lactobacillus represents a versatile bacterial genus, which can adapt to a wide variety of ecological niches, including human body sites such as the intestinal and urogenital tract. In this study, the complete genome sequence of the vaginal probiotic Lactobacillus rhamnosus GR-1 was determined and compared to other L. rhamnosus strains at genomic and phenotypic level. The strain GR-1 was originally isolated from a female urethra, and was assessed with L. rhamnosus GG from a feces sample of a healthy male, and L. rhamnosus LC705 from a dairy product. A key difference is the absence in GR-1 and LC705 of the spaCBA locus required for pili-mediated intestinal epithelial adhesion. In addition, the L. rhamnosus GR-1 genome contains a unique cluster for exopolysaccharide production, which is postulated to synthesize glucose-rich, rhamnose-lacking exopolysaccharide molecules that are different from the galactose-rich extracellular polysaccharide of L. rhamnosus GG. Compared to L. rhamnosus GG, L. rhamnosus GR-1 was also genetically predicted and experimentally shown to better metabolize lactose and maltose, and to better withstand oxidative stress, which is of relevance in the vagina. This study could thus provide a molecular framework for the selection of the optimal probiotic strain for each targeted niche and condition, but further substantiation of niche adaptation mechanisms of lactobacilli is warranted.
Diagnosis of Primary Ciliary Dyskinesia. An Official American Thoracic Society Clinical Practice Guideline

Background: This document presents the American Thoracic Society clinical practice guidelines for the diagnosis of primary ciliary dyskinesia (PCD). Target Audience: Clinicians investigating adult and pediatric patients for possible PCD. Methods: Systematic reviews and, when appropriate, meta‐analyses were conducted to summarize all available evidence pertinent to our clinical questions. Evidence was assessed using the GRADE (Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluation) approach for diagnosis and discussed by a multidisciplinary panel with expertise in PCD. Predetermined conflict‐of‐interest management strategies were applied, and recommendations were formulated, written, and graded exclusively by the nonconflicted panelists. Three conflicted individuals were also prohibited from writing, editing, or providing feedback on the relevant sections of the manuscript. Results: After considering diagnostic test accuracy, confidence in the estimates for each diagnostic test, relative importance of test results studied, desirable and undesirable direct consequences of each diagnostic test, downstream consequences of each diagnostic test result, patient values and preferences, costs, feasibility, acceptability, and implications for health equity, the panel made recommendations for or against the use of specific diagnostic tests as compared with using the current reference standard (transmission electron microscopy and/or genetic testing) for the diagnosis of PCD. Conclusions: The panel formulated and provided a rationale for the direction as well as for the strength of each recommendation to establish the diagnosis of PCD.
Application of vegetable oil-based insulating fluids to hermetically sealed power transformers

SUMMARY This paper describes the investigation of chemical, electrical and cooling properties of various natural esters. Furthermore the impacts of these properties on design and operation of hermetically sealed power transformers with on-load tap changer are depicted. Three natural and one synthetic ester were compared to inhibited mineral oil under new conditions and after ageing. The water solubility in natural esters is around 15 times higher than that in mineral oil. An equilibrium chart for the moisture distribution between natural ester and Kraft paper is shown in this contribution. The ageing stability for the esters and mineral oil was investigated by a heat-accelerated test paying special regard to the oxidation stability. As oxidation processes dramatically increase the viscosity for the natural esters in open systems, an application in open breathing transformers should be avoided. Concerning all other investigated parameters the esters showed similar or better properties than mineral oil. The investigation of breakdown strength for homogeneous field indicates that at moisture saturations typical for transformers the esters perform better than mineral oil. Furthermore moisture has the same influence on breakdown voltage for all fluids. Extensive breakdown tests have been performed on on-load tap-changers of various designs. While the long gaps behaved almost the same as in mineral oil, restrictions in dielectric strength for natural esters appeared on special tap-changer electrode configurations. In order to guarantee an accurate thermal design, different material parameters, e.g. viscosity, heat capacity, thermal conductivity and specific gravity, were determined. Because of the different properties of vegetable-based oils the temperature distribution in windings was calculated by simulating the oil flow by means of a finite element program based on CFD-Codes (Computational Fluid Dynamics). To ensure and maintain optimum performance of natural esters, exposure to oxygen and moisture must be minimized. Thus hermetic sealing against ambient air is the best way to benefit from the characteristics investigated before. The paper presents the special considerations for design, impregnation and operation of a conventionally sealed 90 MVA/132 kV transformer and a hermetically sealed 40 MVA/110 kV transformer with expandable radiators using vegetable-based oil as insulating and cooling medium. Compared with standard transformers the hermetic power transformer with a vacuum type tap- changer has not only the advantage of less ageing, it also requires less maintenance during the total lifetime. The conditions and limitations for trouble-free service are defined.
Status maximization as a source of fairness in a networked dictator game

Human behavioural patterns exhibit selfish or competitive, as well as selfless or altruistic tendencies, both of which have demonstrable effects on human social and economic activity. In behavioural economics, such effects have traditionally been illustrated experimentally via simple games like the dictator and ultimatum games. Experiments with these games suggest that, beyond rational economic thinking, human decision-making processes are influenced by social preferences, such as an inclination to fairness. In this study we suggest that the apparent gap between competitive and altruistic human tendencies can be bridged by assuming that people are primarily maximising their status, i.e., a utility function different from simple profit maximisation. To this end we analyse a simple agent-based model, where individuals play the repeated dictator game in a social network they can modify. As model parameters we consider the living costs and the rate at which agents forget infractions by others. We find that individual strategies used in the game vary greatly, from selfish to selfless, and that both of the above parameters determine when individuals form complex and cohesive social networks.
Pleural mesothelioma: is the surgeon still there?

Malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) is a rare malignancy with some unique characteristics. Tumor biology is aggressive and prognosis is poor. Despite more knowledge on histology, tumor biology and staging, there is still a relevant discrepancy between clinical and pathologic staging resulting in difficult prediction of prognosis and treatment outcome, making treatment allocation more challenging than in most other malignancies. After years of nihilism in the late 80s, a period of activism started evaluating different treatment protocols combined with research driven mainly by academic centers; at the time, selection was based on histology and stage only. This period was important to gain knowledge about the disease. However, the interpretation of data was difficult since selection criteria and definitions varied substantially. Not surprisingly, until now there is no common agreement on best treatment even among specialists. Hence, a review of our current concepts is indicated and personalized treatment should become applicable in the future. Surgery was and still is an issue of debate. In principle, surgery is an effective approach as it allows macroscopic complete elimination of a tumor, which is relatively resistant to medical treatment. It helps to set the clock back and other therapies that have also just a limited effect can be applied sequentially before or after surgery. Furthermore, to date best long-term outcome is reported from surgical series in combination with other modalities. However, part of the community considers surgery associated with too high morbidity and mortality when balanced to the limited life expectancy. This criticism is understandable, since poor results after surgery are reported. The present article will review the indication for surgery and discuss the different procedures available for macroscopic complete resection-such as lung-preserving (extended) pleurectomy/decortication as well as extrapleural pneumonectomy to illustrate that 'The surgeon is still there! '
Aberrant endocytosis leads to the loss of normal mitotic spindle orientation during epithelial glandular morphogenesis

Epithelial cells form tissues with many functions, including secretion and environmental separation and protection. Glandular epithelial tissues comprise cysts and tubules that are formed from a polarized, single-epithelial cell layer surrounding a central, fluid-filled lumen. The pathways regulating key processes in epithelial tissue morphogenesis such as mitotic spindle formation are incompletely understood, but are important to investigate, as their dysregulation is a signature of epithelial tumors. Here, we describe a signaling axis that manifests in a defect in mitotic spindle orientation during epithelial growth and cystogenesis. We found that activation of the small GTPase ADP-ribosylation factor 6 (ARF6) results in the sustained internalization of cell–surface components such as the cMet receptor and the cell–adhesion molecule E-cadherin. The spindle orientation defect arising from elevated levels of ARF6–GTP required an increase in cMet endocytosis, but was independent of E-cadherin internalization or elevated extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) activity resulting from internalized receptor signaling on endosomes. Misorientation of the mitotic spindle resulted in the development of epithelial cysts with structural abnormalities, the most conspicuous of which was the presence of multiple intercellular lumens. Abnormal mitotic spindle orientation was necessary but insufficient to disrupt glandular development, as blocking the strong prosurvival signal resulting from ERK hyperactivation yielded structurally normal cysts despite continued manifestation of spindle orientation defects. Our findings highlight a previously unknown link between ARF6 activation, cMet receptor internalization, and mitotic spindle orientation during epithelial glandular morphogenesis.