Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Access to and Use of HIV Antiretroviral Therapy: Variation by Race/Ethnicity in Two Public Insurance Programs in the U.S.

Objectives. To examine access to and use of HIV highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) by race/ethnicity in Medicaid and the AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP) in 1998 in four states. Methods. The authors analyzed reimbursement claims and AIDS surveillance data in California, Florida, New York, and Texas. Study subjects were identified using diagnostic or medication codes specific to HIV. The race/ethnicity of program enrollees was compared to representation in the HIV epidemic to examine access. Claims for antiretroviral (ARV) use were compared to U.S. Public Health Service treatment guidelines to assess HAART use. Results. The authors identified 151,000 HIV-infected individuals in these two programs in the four states. Evidence of AIDS or symptomatic HIV was present in 78%–88% of enrollees in Medicaid, versus 31%–48% in ADAP. African Americans participated in Medicaid 10%–53% above and in ADAP 17%–31% below representation in the epidemic. Non-Latino whites exhibited the opposite pattern, being in Medicaid 5%–38% below and in ADAP 9%–65% above epidemic representation. Latinos participated more in ADAP (7%–31%), except in New York. HAART use over 90 days (July-September) ranged from 38% to 76% by program and state. Differences by race/ethnicity were inconsistent and small: African Americans had lower HAART use by 6%–14% in California and Florida Medicaid, and Latinos had higher HAART use by 2%–11% in ADAP and in Texas Medicaid. Conclusions. African Americans were more likely to access HIV drugs through Medicaid than through ADAP, which may reflect differences in program eligibility criteria as well as care seeking later in HIV disease. Differences in the use of HAART by race/ethnicity within state programs were small.
Reaction time measurement with force plates

Reaction time (RT) is an index of the time required for movement preparation that depends on a variety of task, situation, and personal characteristics and is a relatively enduring characteristic of an individual (Magill, 2011). Reaction time measurements can be based on the activation of a switch or onset of changes in pressure as movement is initiated. We compared simple and choice RT from finger and foot movements on a switch with foot movements on force plates. The purpose was to compare the effects of these different methods of measuring RT. The sample consisted of 25 college students. Each participant completed 12 trials in each of 5 conditions: (1) simple visual RT with the dominant index finger pressing a switch, (2) 2-choice visual RT using either index finger to press a switch, (3) simple visual RT lifting the right foot from a force plate, (4) 2-choice visual RT lifting either foot from a force plate, and (5) simple visual RT pressing a switch with the right foot. Comparisons revealed no RT differences between pressing a switch with a finger versus a foot and significant correlations for two out of six possible comparisons. RT based on pressure changes was shorter than RT based on pressing a switch. These results help to demonstrate the differences between RT measurement methods for different body parts.
Discretionary Dissemination on Twitter

Using a machine learning approach to analyze 12.8 million tweets posted by S&P 1500 firms from 2012 to 2016, we find that firms time financial tweets around earnings announcements, accounting filings as well as other important corporate events, and are more likely to use media (images or video) and links in those tweets. The above pattern holds for both good and bad news. Moreover, we find that feedback from Twitter users encourages future financial tweets and use of media and links. These results collectively suggest that firms make discretionary choices in timing and presentation format when disseminating information on social media and that they incorporate instantaneous feedback from Twitter users into their dissemination strategies.
Supply Chain Technology Spillover, Customer Concentration, and Product Inventions

To explore the impact of supply chain product flows, finance flows, and information flows on supplier/buyer performance, the traditional supply chain management (SCM) literature primarily uses mathematical modeling frameworks. However, this paper instead studies knowledge flows empirically to explore their impact on supplier performance. Using a dataset that contains 10,124 supplier-year observations from the U.S. high-technology (high-tech) sector, we analyze suppliers’ patent citation records to measure knowledge flows and offer three key insights that extend the SCM literature. First, knowledge flows from buyers to suppliers (i.e., knowledge inflows) enhance supplier profitability by increasing innovation outputs. Second, although suppliers’ innovation outputs increase with both knowledge inflows from and outflows to buyers, there is a diminishing synergy when knowledge receiving and sharing are combined, due to common knowledge pools. Third, the relationship between innovation outputs and profitability is weaker when suppliers’ sales highly depend upon their major buyers’ contributions. As buyers can gain supply chain bargaining power from significant contributions to their suppliers’ sales, these powerful buyers can squeeze economic rents from innovation, thereby reducing suppliers’ profitability. As a result, suppliers are encouraged to act cautiously when using knowledge sharing to demonstrate their cooperative efforts towards buyers and are encouraged to diversify their respective buyer pools, so such suppliers may maintain their innovation and financial performance.
Gas‐permeable membranes and co‐culture with fibroblasts enable high‐density hepatocyte culture as multilayered liver tissues

To engineer reliable in vitro liver tissue equivalents expressing differentiated hepatic functions at a high level and over a long period of time, it appears necessary to have liver cells organized into a three‐dimensional (3D) multicellular structure closely resembling in vivo liver cytoarchitecture and promoting both homotypic and heterotypic cell–cell contacts. In addition, such high density 3D hepatocyte cultures should be adequately supplied with nutrients and particularly with oxygen since it is one of the most limiting nutrients in hepatocyte cultures. Here we propose a novel but simple hepatocyte culture system in a microplate‐based format, enabling high density hepatocyte culture as a stable 3D‐multilayer. Multilayered co‐cultures of hepatocytes and 3T3 fibroblasts were engineered on collagen‐conjugated thin polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) membranes which were assembled on bottomless frames to enable oxygen diffusion through the membrane. To achieve high density multilayered co‐cultures, primary rat hepatocytes were seeded in large excess what was rendered possible due to the removal of oxygen shortage generally encountered in microplate‐based hepatocyte cultures. Hepatocyte/3T3 fibroblasts multilayered co‐cultures were maintained for at least 1 week; the so‐cultured cells were normoxic and sustained differentiated metabolic functions like albumin and urea synthesis at higher levels than hepatocytes monocultures. Such a microplate‐based cell culture system appears suitable for engineering in vitro miniature liver tissues for implantation, bioartificial liver (BAL) development, or chemical/drug screening. © 2011 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Biotechnol. Prog. , 2011.
Analysis of the chemical components of hydatid fluid from Echinococcus granulosus.

INTRODUCTION The aim of this study was to explore the environment of Echinococcus granulosus (E. granulosus) protoscolices and their relationship with their host. METHODS Proteins from the hydatid-cyst fluid (HCF) from E. granulosus were identified by proteomics. An inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometer (ICP-AES) was used to determine the elements, an automatic biochemical analyzer was used to detect the types and levels of biochemical indices, and an automatic amino acid analyzer was used to detect the types and levels of amino acids in the E. granulosus HCF. RESULTS I) Approximately 30 protein spots and 21 peptide mass fingerprints (PMF) were acquired in the two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2-DE) pattern of hydatid fluid; II) We detected 10 chemical elements in the cyst fluid, including sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, copper, and zinc; III) We measured 19 biochemical metabolites in the cyst fluid, and the amount of most of these metabolites was lower than that in normal human serum; IV) We detected 17 free amino acids and measured some of these, including alanine, glycine, and valine. CONCLUSIONS We identified and measured many chemical components of the cyst fluid, providing a theoretical basis for developing new drugs to prevent and treat hydatid disease by inhibiting or blocking nutrition, metabolism, and other functions of the pathogen.
Residential Piped Water in Uganda

This World Bank Study provides a basic diagnostic of residential piped water coverage and affordability in Uganda and its relationship with poverty using a series of nationally representative household surveys for the period 2002–13. The study fi rst analyzes trends in piped water coverage using both administrative and survey data. Demand-side and supply-side factors reducing the take-up of piped water service by households in areas where the service is available are estimated. The study also documents the extent to which piped water coverage enables households to shift time use away from domestic tasks toward market work, and the benefi cial effect that this may have on poverty. The targeting performance to the poor of water subsidies is estimated and results obtained for Uganda are compared with estimates for other countries. Finally, the study analyzes issues related to affordability—including the impact of the tariff increase of 2012 on household consumption, poverty, and piped water affordability—as well as the cost for households to connect to the piped water network.
The Journal of Systems and Software

Violations of dynamic invariants may offer useful clues for identifying faults in programs. Although techniques that use violations of dynamic invariants to detect anomalies have been developed, some of them are restrained by the high computational cost of invariant detecting, false positive ﬁltering, and redundancy removing, and others can only discover a few speciﬁc types of faults under a complete monitoring environment. This paper presents a novel fault localization approach using disparities of dynamic invariants, named FDDI. To make more eﬃcient use of invariant detecting tools, FDDI ﬁrst selects highly suspect functions via spectrum-based fault localization techniques, and then applies invariant detecting tools to these functions one by one. For each suspect function, FDDI uses variables that are involved in dynamic invariants that do not simultaneously hold in a set of passed and a set of failed tests to do further analysis, which reduces the time cost in ﬁltering false positives and redundant invariants. Finally, FDDI locates statements that are data-related to these variables. The experimental results show that FDDI is able to locate 75% of 360 common faults in utility programs when examining up to 10% of the executed code, while Naish2, Ochiai and Jaccard all locate around 53%.
Legal aspects of records based medical research

Ethical medical research must continue despite the legal problems of records based medical research All that may come to my knowledge in the exercise of my profession… which ought not to be spread abroad, I will keep secret and will never reveal (Hippocratic Oath) Patient confidentiality is a fundamental component of medicine, but as late as 1994 the Royal College of Physicians determined that there was a duty to use available information for the general good where that could be done without detriment to individuals.1 The British Medical Association Ethical Committee in 1988 said that information could be used without consent as long as a local research ethics committee had approved the study.2 In 1997, Doyal3 proposed that epidemiological research, involving only access to medical records, should be an exception to the requirement for informed patient consent. ### Data Protection Act 1998 The situation was radically modified in March 2000, when the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA)4 came into force in the UK, thus curtailing the relative freedom which had previously been enjoyed by medical researchers. The DPA was designed to protect the rights of individuals with regard to the confidentiality of their information and its implication was that no identifiable data on living individuals should be handled or disclosed without the explicit consent of the subject. Although the Data Commissioner said that the DPA should not be seen as an obstacle to medical research, that is the present situation. ### Subsequent legislation and the Patient Information Advisory Group The cancer registration establishment was the first body to voice concerns over the implications of the DPA, after the General Medical Council (GMC) issued its own guidance in September 2000. Their interpretation effectively prohibited the automatic reporting of cancer cases to the local registry without the patient’s consent. The system had been in effect for over 50 years, with no adverse …
Preprocessing of the ECG signals using the His-Purkinje fractal system

Depolarization of the myocardial cells of the left and the right ventricles via the irregular but self-similar pattern of branching of the His-Purkinje tree produces the QRS complex on the surface electrocardiogram. The analysis of the power spectrum of the QRS complex has shown that it has the inverse power law or fractal behavior. This fractal behavior has been modeled in the frequency domain by a fractional power pole (FPP) which we have called the His-Purkinje fractal system. This paper deals with the ECG signal preprocessing for R wave detection using new and simple processing strategies based on the His-Purkinje fractal system. The MIT/BIH arrhythmia database has been used to test the effectiveness of the proposed method. The results obtained are presented, discussed and compared to the one of the most efficient R wave detection preprocessing technique.
Comparisons of altitude tolerance and hypoxia symptoms between nonsmokers and habitual smokers.

BACKGROUND Increased levels of carboxyhemoglobin (COHb) in smokers are blamed for inducing pre-hypoxic tendency classified as anemic hypoxia. If COHb can be simply converted to altitude, there should be significant differences between smokers and nonsmokers with respect to hypoxia tolerance. However, the studies of the effects of carbon monoxide and/or smoking habit on the physiological functions at altitude do not have consistent conclusions, and many pilots still have smoking habits. This study was designed to assess whether there is a definite significant difference for time of useful consciousness (TUC), subjective symptoms, or performance degradation between nonsmokers and smokers. METHODS During the hypoxia experience of routine physiological training, TUC and 12 typical subjective symptoms were examined at the chamber altitude of 25,000 ft (7620 m) in 589 nonsmokers and 582 smokers in Study 1. The time until the deterioration of handwriting was assessed by 6 physiological training observers in 51 nonsmokers and 70 smokers in Study 2. The results were compared between the groups. RESULTS Smokers revealed significantly fewer subjective symptoms in 5 out of 12 symptoms. There were no significant differences in TUC and the rate of handwriting deterioration between the groups. CONCLUSIONS Paradoxically, smokers are slightly resistant to hypoxia with respect to emerging subjective symptoms. However, bluntness to hypoxia could postpone the detection of the possible hypoxic occurrence in pilots.
The antecedents of information exchange in export business networks

This research examines information exchange within export-firm networks. The authors draw upon relational contract theory and the network approach to better understand the role played by information exchange in business networks. The empirical study is based on a survey conducted among 317 French exporters. The results, obtained using structural equation modeling, show that sense of belonging to a network and socialization between members influence information exchange between export managers. They also reveal that socialization acts as a variable that mediates the link between sense of belonging and information exchange. Last, the results identify the antecedents of three constructs drawn upon by the authors. Our work emphasizes the importance of socialization for the functioning of networks and allows us to propose the concept of “network socialization,” which concerns the actions undertaken by the members of a network to integrate new actors.
Asymmetric Social Interactions in Physician Prescription Behavior: The Role of Opinion Leaders

The authors quantify the impact of social interactions and peer effects in the context of physicians’ prescription choices. Using detailed individual-level prescription data, along with self-reported social network information, the authors document that physician prescription behavior is significantly influenced by the behavior of research-active specialists, or “opinion leaders,” in the physician's reference group. The authors leverage a natural experiment in the category: New guidelines released about the therapeutic nature of the focal drug generated conditions in which physicians were more likely to be influenced by the behavior of specialist physicians in their network. The authors (1) find important, statistically significant peer effects that are robust across model specifications; (2) document asymmetries in response to marketing activity across nominators and opinion leaders; (3) measure the incremental value to firms of directing targeted sales force activity to these opinion leaders; and (4) present estimates of the social multiplier of detailing in this category.
Neuropsychological outcome after a first symptomatic ischaemic stroke with ‘good recovery’

Background: Neuropsychological impairment after stroke when no motor, sensory or language deficits are left remains understudied. The primary aim of this study was to assess neuropsychological outcome in a specific population of patients after a first symptomatic stroke without previous cognitive decline and with a good motor, linguistic, and functional recovery (i.e. ‘good outcome’). The secondary aims were to identify the profile of this potential impairment and relations between brain lesions and neuropsychological outcome.
Performance sensitivity of executive pay: the role of ownership structure, board leadership structure and board characteristics

Abstract This study first investigates the effect of firm performance on executive pay in listed firms in Turkey, an emerging market from 2009 to 2013. The results reveal a positive and significant link between firm profitability and executive pay: executive pay is sensitive to performance. The question of whether internal corporate control mechanisms play a significant role in the association between executive pay and firm profitability is revisited. Executive pay is weakly tied to profitability when the ownership concentration is high. We expected that, following the managerial power propositions, leadership duality and board size will weaken performance sensitivity of executive pay, with the impact of board independence on this sensitivity being the opposite. However, it was found that only board leadership duality and board size negatively affect the association between return on equity and executive compensation. This study concludes that the performance sensitivity of pay is weaker when executives have more control over decisions, especially those related to their compensation, and when the board of directors’ monitoring effectiveness is relatively low.
Relationship of Weight and Body Mass Index with Bone Mineral Density in Adult Men from Kosovo

Background and objective: Body weight and body mass index (BMI) are considered strong predictors of osteoporotic fractures, though optimal BMI levels remain unsettled. There are several studies conducted on women about the relationship between BMI and bone mineral density (BMD), and just a few so far on men. Therefore, the objective of current study was to analyze the relationship between weight and BMI and BMD measured in lumbar spine (L1-L4), femur neck and total hip in 64 men from Kosovo. Methods: This cross-sectional study included a population of 64 men divided into three BMI groups. Dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) measurements were done in all the study participants. Results: Pearson's correlation analysis showed a significant positive correlation between weight and BMI and BMD in femur neck and in total hip, and a significant negative correlation between age and femur neck BMD. Age-adjusted linear regression analysis showed that weight and BMI had a significant positive association with BMD levels. Conclusion: Although the results show significant relationship between BMI and BMD, the negative relationship between age and femur neck BMD may serve as guidance to initiate early assessment of the BMD in this region as well as preventive measures of osteoporosis and fractures among ageing men population
6‐Shogaol, a natural product, reduces cell death and restores motor function in rat spinal cord injury

Spinal cord injury (SCI) results in progressive waves of secondary injuries, which via the activation of a barrage of noxious pathological mechanisms exacerbate the injury to the spinal cord. Secondary injuries are associated with edema, inflammation, excitotoxicity, excessive cytokine release, caspase activation and cell apoptosis. This study was aimed at investigating the possible neuroprotective effects of 6‐shogaol purified from Zingiber officinale by comparing an experimental SCI rat group with SCI control rats. Shogaol attenuated apoptotic cell death, including poly(ADP‐ribose) polymerase activity, and reduced astrogliosis and hypomyelination which occurs in areas of active cell death in the spinal cords of SCI rats. The foremost protective effect of shogaol in SCI would therefore be manifested in the suppression of the acute secondary apoptotic cell death. However, it does not attenuate active microglia and macrophage infiltration. This finding is supported by a lack of histopathological changes in the areas of the lesion in the shogaol‐treated SCI rats. Moreover, shogaol‐mediated neuroprotection has been linked with shogaol's attenuation of p38 mitogen‐activated protein kinase, p‐SAPK/JNK and signal transducer, and with transcription‐3 activation. Our results demonstrate that shogaol administrated immediately after SCI significantly diminishes functional deficits. The shogaol‐treated group recovered hindlimb reflexes more rapidly and a higher percentage of these rats regained responses compared with the untreated injured rats. The overall hindlimb functional improvement of hindlimbs, as measured by the Basso, Beattie and Bresnahan scale, was significantly enhanced in the shogaol‐treated group relative to the SCI control rats. Our data show that the therapeutic outcome of shogaol probably results from its comprehensive effects of blocking apoptotic cell death, resulting in the protection of white matter, oligodendrocytes and neurons, and inhibiting astrogliosis. Our finding that the administration of shogaol prevents secondary pathological events in traumatic SCIs and promotes recovery of motor functions in an animal model raises the issue of whether shogaol could be used therapeutically in humans after SCI.