Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Evaluating Institutionalization by Comparing the Use of Health Services before and after Admission to a Long-Term-Care Facility

Despite concern over increased health services utilization with population aging, few studies describe health services utilization by long-term-care (LTC) residents. An investigation was designed to compare health services use before and after LTC admission. Comprehensive 1988 to 1999 data for all LTC residents (N = 47,510) in Alberta, Canada, were obtained. Utilization comparisons involved equal pre/post timeframes. Only non-hospital physician services increased post-LTC admission. Home care was not provided after admission (51% had been recipients). Hospital and ambulatory services use declined, with these patterns stable for 5 years pre- and post-LTC admission. When hospital or ambulatory care was sought by LTC residents, they were not disadvantaged in the type or scope of care as compared to the care received prior to LTC admission. These findings should raise interest in the services provided by LTC facilities and the outcomes of long-term, facility-based care. LTC services could be beneficial for people with advanced age and dependency.
Photoacoustic imaging using a two-dimensional CMUT array

Photoacoustic imaging is a promising complement to pulse-echo ultrasound imaging because it provides contrast between areas with different light absorption characteristics. Specifically, regions with higher blood concentration can be identified, which is useful for imaging vascularization and the early detection of cancer. Here we present volumetric photoacoustic images of a vessel-like phantom. The phantom consists of three 1.3-mm diameter tubes inside a tissue mimicking material. The center tube is filled with ink to provide optical contrast. A two-dimensional capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducer (CMUT) array is used for acoustic detection. The use of a two-dimensional transducer array eliminates the drawbacks of a mechanically scanned system and enables volumetric imaging. CMUT technology enables new types of transducer arrays that would benefit photoacoustic imaging. Fully populated two-dimensional arrays, annular ring- arrays, and high-frequency arrays have all been demonstrated using CMUT technology and have advantages for photoacoustic imaging systems. Other advantages of CMUT technology for photoacoustic imaging include a wider bandwidth than comparable piezoelectric devices and ease of integration with electronics. Keywords-photoacoustics, capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducer, CMUT, three-dimensional, integrated electronics
A survey of instructions to authors in surgical journals on reporting by CONSORT and PRISMA

INTRODUCTION Guidance has been published on how best to report randomised controlled trials (Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials – CONSORT) and systematic reviews (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses – PRISMA). The aim of this study was to establish to what extent surgical journals formally endorse CONSORT and PRISMA in the respective reporting of randomised controlled trials and systematic reviews. METHODS Overall, 136 surgical journals indexed in Journal Citation Reports® were studied. Author guidelines were scrutinised for the following guidance: conflict of interests (COI), the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts (URM), clinical trial registration, CONSORT and PRISMA. RESULTS The frequency of guidance endorsement was found to be as follows: COI 82%, URM 62%, trial registration 32%, CONSORT 29% and PRISMA 10%. Journals with a higher impact were more likely to adopt trial registration, CONSORT and PRISMA. Journals with editorial offices in the UK were more likely to insist on disclosure of COI and to endorse CONSORT. CONCLUSIONS Guidelines produced to improve publication practice have not been implemented widely by surgical journals. This may contribute to an overall poorer quality of published research. Editors of surgical journals should uniformly endorse reporting guidance and update their instructions to authors to reflect this.
Integration of dual metal gate CMOS with TaSiN (NMOS) and Ru (PMOS) gate electrodes on HfO/sub 2/ gate dielectric

We report the process module development results and device characteristics of dual metal gate CMOS with TaSiN and Ru gate electrodes on HfO/sub 2/ gate dielectric. The wet etch of TaSiN had a minimal impact on HfO/sub 2/ (/spl Delta/EOT<1/spl Aring/). A plasma etch process has been developed to etch Ru/TaN/Poly (PMOS) and TaSiN/Ru/TaN/Poly (NMOS) gate stacks simultaneously. Well behaved dual metal gate CMOS transistors have been demonstrated with L/sub g/ down to 85nm.
Rhinovirus infection‐induced alteration of tight junction and adherens junction components in human nasal epithelial cells

Manifestations of rhinovirus (RV) infections include mucus overproduction, increased vascular permeability, and secondary bacterial infection. These effects may reflect disrupted epithelial barrier functions, which are mainly regulated by intercellular junctions, referred to as tight junctions (TJs) and adherens junctions (AJs). The objective of this study was to investigate changes in the components of TJs (ZO‐1, occluding, and claudin‐1) and AJs (E‐cadherin) after RV infection in cultured nasal epithelial cells.
Heritability of lactation cell count measures and their relationships with milk yield and composition in Ayrshire cows.

Lactation measures of somatic cell count were calculated from monthly test-day observations (transformed to a log scale) taken between February 1977 and February 1981 in Ayrshire cows in 115 herds enrolled in the Quebec Dairy Herd Analysis Service. Analyses were separate within three groups: 1137 first lactations, representing 37 sires; 1728 second and later lactations, representing 57 sires; and 2510 all lactations, representing 74 sires. Heritabilities of lactation measures were estimated from sire and error variances obtained by iterative minimum norm quadratic unbiased estimation. Heritabilities ranged from . 09 to . 16 in first lactations and averaged . 09 for the group of second and later lactations and . 07 for all lactations. Genetic correlations of lactation measures of cell count with milk, fat, protein yield, fat percent, and protein percent averaged . 36, . 68, . 74, . 38, and . 45, in first lactations; -. 97, -. 27, -. 56, . 52, and . 03 in second and later lactations; and -. 50, -. 54, -. 73, . 43, and . 19 in all lactations. Respective average phenotypic correlations were low and negative for milk, fat, protein yield, and fat percent and low and positive for protein percent.
Intentional Nonadherence Due to Adverse Symptoms Associated With Antiretroviral Therapy

Objective: To estimate the frequency and possible predictors of patient‐mediated intentional alterations in antiretroviral medication regimens in direct response to symptoms associated with antiretroviral therapy use. Design: Cross‐sectional survey of a population‐based dynamic cohort of antiretroviral recipients in a province‐wide HIV drug treatment program, the only source of free‐of‐charge antiretroviral medications in the province of British Columbia. Methods: Program participants voluntarily complete program surveys on an annual basis. Study subjects were those who responded to the annual treatment program survey between January 1 and November 1, 2001. Patients reported on the occurrence and severity of symptoms of 42 side effects of antiretroviral agents. Symptoms were classified into four subgroups based on whether they were considered subjective or objective and whether they would or would not prompt clinical action. For each of the four symptom categories, patients reported what their physician recommended in response to symptoms in that group and what the patient actually did in response to these same symptoms. Intentional nonadherence was defined as reporting either skipping or altering dosages of selective regimen components or temporary cessation of therapy that was not recommended by the physician in response to adverse drug effects in the past year. Results: Of 638 study subjects, 70 (11%) reported intentional nonadherence with between 4% and 7.4% reporting this activity over the preceding year depending on the symptom group. Multivariate analysis revealed that a plasma viral load of <400 copies/mL (adjusted odds ratio [AOR], 0.35; 95% CI, 0.21‐0.61) and completion of high school (AOR, 0.43; 95% CI, 0.24‐0.78) were both inversely associated with intentional nonadherence. Those subjects reporting at least one severe symptom were more than twice as likely to report intentional nonadherence (AOR, 2.24; 95% CI, 1.16‐4.33). Similarly, each additional symptom considered to be objective and to require clinical action was associated with a 25% increase in the risk of intentional nonadherence (AOR, 1.25; 95% CI, 1.10‐1.43). Conclusion: Intentional nonadherence to antiretroviral therapy is common among persons experiencing therapy‐related side effects. Although the type and severity of adverse effects impact intentional nonadherence, this activity occurs in relation to symptoms regardless of their strict clinical relevance.
Midterm Outcomes of Autologous Cultivated Limbal Stem Cell Transplantation With or Without Penetrating Keratoplasty

Purpose: To report the midterm outcomes of autologous limbal stem cell transplantation cultivated on amniotic membrane (AM) with or without subsequent penetrating keratoplasty (PKP) in patients with total unilateral limbal stem cell deficiency (LSCD). Methods: Eight eyes of 8 consecutive patients with unilateral total LSCD underwent autologous limbal stem cell transplantation cultivated on AM. Four eyes underwent subsequent optical PKP. Main outcome measures were corneal vascularization and transparency. Results: The patients were followed for 34.0 ± 13.5 months (6-48 months). Seven cases had a stable corneal epithelium with marked decrease in opacification and vascularization. Progressive sectorial conjunctivalization was evident in all cases with subsequent PKP at the last follow-up. Primary failure was observed in one case because of exposure. Conclusions: Transplantation of autologous stem cells cultivated on AM with or without subsequent PKP seems to be an effective way for visual rehabilitation in total LSCD. More work with more cases and longer follow-up are needed to optimize this procedure to provide and maintain an adequate supply of limbal stem cells in these patients.
AIRS near-real-time products and algorithms in support of operational numerical weather prediction

The assimilation of Atmospheric InfraRed Sounder, Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit-A, and Humidity Sounder for Brazil (AIRS/AMSU/HSB) data by Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) centers is expected to result in improved forecasts. Specially tailored radiance and retrieval products derived from AIRS/AMSU/HSB data are being prepared for NWP centers. There are two types of products - thinned radiance data and full-resolution retrieval products of atmospheric and surface parameters. The radiances are thinned because of limitations in communication bandwidth and computational resources at NWP centers. There are two types of thinning: (1) spatial and spectral thinning and (2) data compression using principal component analysis (PCA). PCA is also used for quality control and for deriving the retrieval first guess used in the AIRS processing software. Results show that PCA is effective in estimating and filtering instrument noise. The PCA regression retrievals show layer mean temperature (1 km in troposphere, 3 km in stratosphere) accuracies of better than 1 K in most atmospheric regions from simulated AIRS data. Moisture errors are generally less than 15% in 2-km layers, and ozone errors are near 10% over approximately 5-km layers from simulation. The PCA and regression methodologies are described. The radiance products also include clear field-of-view (FOV) indicators. The residual cloud amount, based on simulated data, for FOVs estimated to be clear (free of clouds) is about 0.5% over ocean and 2.5% over land.
A Systematic Overview of Radiation Therapy Effects in Hodgkin's Lymphoma

A systematic review of radiation therapy trials in several tumour types was carried out by The Swedish Council of Technology Assessment in Health Care (SBU). The procedures for evaluation of the scientific literature are described separately (Acta Oncol 2003; 42: 357-365). This synthesis of the literature on radiation therapy for Hodgkin's lymphoma (HL) is based on data from 12 randomized trials and 2 meta-analyses. Data from 3 prospective studies, 29 retrospective studies and 58 other articles were also used. In total, 58 scientific articles are included, involving 27 280 patients. The results were compared with those of a similar overview from 1996 including 38 362 patients. The conclusions reached can be summarized thus: <list id="l1" type="5"> <item>Solid scientific documentation shows that in patients with HL more than 80% in the early stages and 60-70% of younger patients in advanced stages of disease are now cured by the development of radiotherapy and combination chemotherapy. </item><item>Long-term follow-up shows that after 15 to 20 years the mortality from HL in early and intermediate stages is exceeded by other causes of death, mostly secondary malignancies and cardiac deaths, especially myocardial infarction. </item><item>Convincing data show that radiotherapy plays a major role in the development of solid cancers and cardiovascular disease, but no randomized trials have been performed. </item><item>During the past decade increasing awareness of fatal long-term sequelae has fundamentally changed treatment strategies in early and intermediate stages. A thorough long-term follow-up is essential to evaluate the effects of the modifications of the therapy. </item><item>In early stages of disease extended field irradiation is now replaced by short periods of chemotherapy followed by limited radiotherapy to decrease late sequelae. This approach is strongly supported by early reports from randomized trials. Final results cannot be fully evaluated for many years. </item><item>The optimal radiation dose and volume after chemotherapy are not defined or if irradiation is needed at all. Several studies are under way. </item><item>In intermediate stages two recently reported randomized trials indicate that combined modality therapy is preferable and that involved field could replace extended field irradiation. It is still too early to draw any firm conclusions. </item><item>In advanced stages, there is no evidence of any survival benefit from additional radiotherapy. </item><item>The role of radiotherapy in the case of residual tumour and bulky disease still remains controversial. </item><item>There is no scientific support for improved survival with radiotherapy in conjunction with high-dose chemotherapy with stem-cell support. </item><item>Radiotherapy as salvage treatment might be an alternative in late limited nodal recurrence after initial chemotherapy. However, the body of knowledge is small. </item><item>The role of radiotherapy in the treatment of HL is decreasing. </item></list>
Deep Fingerprinting: Undermining Website Fingerprinting Defenses with Deep Learning

Website fingerprinting enables a local eavesdropper to determine which websites a user is visiting over an encrypted connection. State-of-the-art website fingerprinting attacks have been shown to be effective even against Tor. Recently, lightweight website fingerprinting defenses for Tor have been proposed that substantially degrade existing attacks: WTF-PAD and Walkie-Talkie. In this work, we present Deep Fingerprinting (DF), a new website fingerprinting attack against Tor that leverages a type of deep learning called Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) with a sophisticated architecture design, and we evaluate this attack against WTF-PAD and Walkie-Talkie. The DF attack attains over 98% accuracy on Tor traffic without defenses, better than all prior attacks, and it is also the only attack that is effective against WTF-PAD with over 90% accuracy. Walkie-Talkie remains effective, holding the attack to just 49.7% accuracy. In the more realistic open-world setting, our attack remains effective, with 0.99 precision and 0.94 recall on undefended traffic. Against traffic defended with WTF-PAD in this setting, the attack still can get 0.96 precision and 0.68 recall. These findings highlight the need for effective defenses that protect against this new attack and that could be deployed in Tor.
Influence of Apigenin on gtf Gene Expression in Streptococcus mutans UA159

ABSTRACT Apigenin, a potent inhibitor of glucosyltransferase activity, affects the accumulation of Streptococcus mutans biofilms in vitro by reducing the formation of insoluble glucans and enhancing the soluble glucan content of the polysaccharide matrix. In the present study, we investigated the influence of apigenin on gtfB, gtfC, and gtfD expression in S. mutans UA159. Apigenin (0.1 mM) significantly decreased the expression of gtfB and gtfC mRNA (P < 0.05); in contrast, it increased the expression of gtfD in S. mutans growing in the planktonic state. The protein levels of GTF B, GTF C, and GTF D in culture supernatants were also affected; less GTF B and C were detected, whereas the level of GTF D was significantly elevated (P < 0.05). A similar profile of gtf expression was obtained with biofilms, although an elevated concentration (1 mM) of apigenin was required to elicit the effects. The influence of apigenin on gtf gene expression was independent of any effect on GTF activity, did not involve inhibition of growth or effects on pH, and was not affected by addition of sucrose. The data show that apigenin modulates the genetic expression of virulence factors in S. mutans.
Dietary Factors Determining Diabetes and Impaired Glucose Tolerance: A 20-year follow-up of the Finnish and Dutch cohorts of the Seven Countries Study

OBJECTIVE To investigate the role of diet as a predictor of glucose intolerance and non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM). RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS At the 30-year follow-up survey of the Dutch and Finnish cohorts of the Seven Countries Study, in 1989/1990, men were examined according to a standardized protocol including a 2-h oral glucose tolerance test. Information on habitual food consumption was obtained using the cross-check dietary history method. Those 338 men in whom information on habitual diet was also available 20 years earlier were included in this study. Subjects known as having diabetes in 1989/1990 were excluded from the analyses. RESULTS Adjusting for age and cohort, the intake of total, saturated, and monounsaturated fatty acids and dietary cholesterol 20 years before diagnosis was higher in men with newly diagnosed diabetes in the survey than in men with normal or impaired glucose tolerance. After adjustment for cohort, age, past body mass index, and past energy intake, the past intake of total fat was positively associated with 2-h postload glucose level (P < 0.05). An independent inverse association with the past intake of vitamin C was observed (P < 0.05). These associations were independent of changes in the intake of fat and vitamin C during the 20-year follow-up. An increase in the consumption of vegetables and legumes, potatoes, and fish during the 20-year follow-up was inversely related with 2-h glucose level (P < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS Although the regression coefficients were in general not very large, these results indicate that a high intake of fat, especially that of saturated fatty acids, contributes to the risk of glucose intolerance and NIDDM. Foods such as fish, potatoes, vegetables, and legumes may have a protective effect. In addition, the observed inverse association between vitamin C and glucose intolerance suggests that antioxidants may also play a role in the development of derangements in glucose metabolism.
Amplification mechanisms in platelet activation and arterial thrombosis.

Platelets react with different intensities to a large variety of agonists (e.g. 5-hydroxytryptamine, ADP, thrombin, thromboxane A2). In vitro, low concentrations of 'weak' agonists such as 5-hydroxytryptamine markedly enhance the platelet functional response in terms of aggregation, release of intragranular products and arachidonic acid metabolites to otherwise ineffective concentrations of other agonists. This type of amplification takes place at an early, postreceptor stage of the platelet activation cascade, with the turnover of inositol phospholipids and the increase in free cytoplasmic intracellular Ca2+ concentrations. Mutual amplification, rather than the single potency of each, also determines the contribution by platelet agonists to thrombogenesis in vivo. Indeed, in various animal models and, to some extent, in man, a pharmacological blockade of the platelet 5-HT2 serotonergic (e.g. ketanserin) or thromboxane A2/prostaglandin endoperoxide receptor (e.g. ridogrel) and manipulation of arachidonic acid metabolism (e.g. cyclo-oxygenase inhibition with aspirin or thromboxane A2 synthetase inhibition with ridogrel), when applied together, are more effective in preventing extensive platelet activation and arterial thrombotic occlusion and in improving the efficacy of thrombocytic agents (speed up of thrombolysis and prevention of thrombotic re-occlusion after lysis) than when the same compounds are applied separately. These observations suggest that an amplification between 5-hydroxytryptamine and thromboxane A2, for example, as platelet agonists is causally involved in arterial thrombus formation.
A 5 Gb/s 0.25 /spl mu/m CMOS jitter-tolerant variable-interval oversampling clock/data recovery circuit

A variable-interval oversampling clock/data recovery circuit (CDR) provides robust operation under varying jitter conditions. An eye-measuring loop in the CDR enables data recovery at maximum eye-opening, responding to the amount and shape of jitter. The CDR in 0.25 /spl mu/m CMOS shows <10/sup -13/ BER for 2/sup 7/-1 PRBS (pseudo-random-bit-sequence) at 5GBaud.
The use of contextualised teaching and learning in grade 11 and 12 mathematics classrooms in Gobabis, Namibia

This paper investigates the use of contexts in the teaching and learning of mathematics in two secondary schools in the Gobabis area using the Mayoh & Knutton (1997) taxonomy. It was found that not all contexts as suggested by Mayoh & Knutton were used by the teachers and that the context were almost entirely initiated by the mathematics teachers and were used as a primary strategy for presenting the content. The study recommended the introduction of the use of contexts in the pre-service training of mathematics teachers and that teachers create their own mathematics problems to solve rather than adhering to the problems provided in their textbooks which are often of a foreign origin.