Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Beta 1, Beta 2 and Beta 3 Adrenergic Receptor Gene Polymorphisms in a Southeastern European Population

Genetic polymorphisms in β1-, β2- and β3-adrenergic receptors (β-ARs) have been associated with chronic non-communicable disorders, such as cardiovascular diseases, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and obesity, as well as β-agonists and antagonists response and toxicity. The purpose of this study was to determine the frequency distribution of ADRB1 genetic variants Ser49Gly and Arg389Gly, ADRB2 variants Gly16Arg and Gln27Glu, ADRB3 variant Trp64Arg in a Southeastern European Caucasian (SEC) population sample and to establish a comparison with existing data from other human populations. A sample of 431 men and 590 women volunteered to participate in this genotyping analysis after anonymization and de-identification. Real Time PCR (Melting Curve Analysis) followed DNA extraction from buccal swabs and statistical analysis of the results was performed. The allele frequencies in the SEC population were Ser49 (90.3%), Arg389 (69.49%), Gly16 (61.61%), Gln27 (65.72%), and Trp64 (94.52%), while a Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium (HWE) was detected in the population studied. Comparisons for the Ser49Gly, Gln27Glu, and Trp64Arg allele distributions demonstrated significant differences between SEC and the European group. European subgroups comparisons showed that allele distributions were similar for four of the five SNPs between SEC and Southwestern European Caucasians (SWC), while they were quite distinct from the Northwestern European Caucasians (NWC). These data underline the importance of interethnic variability of β-ARs genetic polymorphisms.
Evaluating science communication

Effective science communication requires assembling scientists with knowledge relevant to decision makers, translating that knowledge into useful terms, establishing trusted two-way communication channels, evaluating the process, and refining it as needed. Communicating Science Effectively: A Research Agenda [National Research Council (2017)] surveys the scientific foundations for accomplishing these tasks, the research agenda for improving them, and the essential collaborative relations with decision makers and communication professionals. Recognizing the complexity of the science, the decisions, and the communication processes, the report calls for a systems approach. This perspective offers an approach to creating such systems by adapting scientific methods to the practical constraints of science communication. It considers staffing (are the right people involved? ), internal collaboration (are they talking to one another? ), and external collaboration (are they talking to other stakeholders? ). It focuses on contexts where the goal of science communication is helping people to make autonomous choices rather than promoting specific behaviors (e.g., voter turnout, vaccination rates, energy consumption). The approach is illustrated with research in two domains: decisions about preventing sexual assault and responding to pandemic disease.
Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition Technique for Improving Content and Organization in Writing

This study examines the Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition (CIRC) technique for improving students’ English writing skills, specifically in content and organization when focused on writing recount texts. This experimental research used random sampling and random assignment to determine the control group (CG) and the experimental group (EG). Pre- tests, treatment or teaching and post-tests were done to both groups. The study was conducted with 60 second year students from a junior high school in Banda Aceh, Indonesia. Students’ mean scores for the pre-test in the CG were 40.76 and 60.76 for the post-test, meanwhile students’ mean scores for the pre-test in the EG were 40 and 72.69 for the post-test. Thus, the t-test between both groups was 9.39 and the t-table was 2.056 which used 0.05 as the level of significance for this research. Because the t-test value was higher than the t-table (9.39 > 2.056), Ha was accepted and Ho was rejected. Therefore, the CIRC technique can improve the content and organization of students’ writing in doing recount texts. In addition, because students work in groups, they have more opportunity to learn and share their ideas with other students to produce better writing.
Pharmacological Treatment of Major Depressive Episodes with Mixed Features: A Systematic Review

We reviewed clinical studies investigating the pharmacological treatment of major depressive episodes (MDEs) with mixed features diagnosed according to the dimensional criteria (more than two or three [hypo]manic symptoms+principle depressive symptoms). We systematically reviewed published randomized controlled trials on the pharmacological treatment of MDEs with mixed features associated with mood disorders, including major depressive disorder (MDD) and bipolar disorder (BD). We searched the PubMed, Cochrane Library, and ClinicalTrials.gov databases through December 2017 with the following key word combinations linked with the word OR: (a) mixed or mixed state, mixed features, DMX, mixed depression; (b) depressive, major depressive, MDE, MDD, bipolar, bipolar depression; and (c) antidepressant, antipsychotic, mood stabilizer, anticonvulsant, treatment, medication, algorithm, guideline, pharmacological. We followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. We found few randomized trials on pharmacological treatments for MDEs with mixed features. Of the 36 articles assessed for eligibility, 11 investigated MDEs with mixed features in mood disorders: six assessed the efficacy of antipsychotic drugs (lurasidone and ziprasidone) in the acute phase of MDD with mixed features, although four of these were post hoc analyses based on large randomized controlled trials. Four studies compared antipsychotic drugs (olanzapine, lurasidone, and ziprasidone) with placebo, and one study assessed the efficacy of combination therapy (olanzapine+fluoxetine) in the acute phase of BD with mixed features. Pharmacological treatments for MDEs with mixed features have focused on antipsychotics, although evidence of their efficacy is lacking. Additional well-designed clinical trials are needed.
Depression care services and telehealth technology use for homebound elderly in the United States

Abstract Objectives: Despite the increasing evidence for the effectiveness of telehealth technology in screening and treating depression in older adults, they have been slowly adopted by Home Health Care (HHC) agencies. Therefore, this study was conducted to determine how HHC agencies perceive and use telehealth technology for depression care among homebound older adult patients. Methods: Five-hundred-and-sixteen staff from the National Association for Homecare & Hospice (NAHC) member home health care agencies completed the online survey. Questions were asked of HHC staff regarding performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influences, facilitating conditions, telehealth use and intention to use/continue to use telehealth. Results: The majority had a neutral or positive perception towards telehealth. However, participants from agencies that have yet to use telehealth (mean: 3.25, SD: 1.56) reported a less intention to use the technology for depression care versus those from agencies that did (mean: 4.64, SD: 1.37). This may be partially explained by the finding that only 32% perceived themselves as having the knowledge and 25% as having resources to use telehealth. Additionally, facilitating conditions and social influences were significant predictors of intention to use/continue to use telehealth for depression care (p-values < .01). Conclusion: Overall, staff had a neutral or positive perception towards telehealth. Factors such as fewer years of experience in using telehealth and a small annual budget may explain a negative perception towards telehealth. Therefore, further education and resources are needed to support telehealth use. Future studies may consider comparing telehealth programs and identifying supporting policies.
An AGAMOUS MADS-box protein, SlMBP3, regulates the speed of placenta liquefaction and controls seed formation in tomato

AGAMOUS (AG) MADS-box transcription factors have been shown to play crucial roles in floral organ and fruit development in angiosperms. Here, we isolated a tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) AG MADS-box gene SlMBP3 and found that it is preferentially expressed in flowers and during early fruit developmental stages in the wild-type (WT), and in the Nr (never ripe) and rin (ripening inhibitor) mutants. Its transcripts are notably accumulated in the pistils; transcripts abundance decrease during seed and placental development, increasing again during flower development. SlMBP3-RNAi tomato plants displayed fleshy placenta without locular gel and extremely malformed seeds with no seed coat, while SlMBP3-overexpressing plants exhibited advanced liquefaction of the placenta and larger seeds. Enzymatic activities related to cell wall modification, and the contents of cell wall components and pigments were dramatically altered in the placentas of SlMBP3-RNAi compared with the WT. Alterations in these physiological features were also observed in the placentas of SlMBP3-overexpressing plants. The lignin content of mature seeds in SlMBP3-RNAi lines was markedly lower than that in the WT. RNA-seq and qRT-PCR analyses revealed that genes involved in seed development and the biosynthesis of enzymes related to cell wall modification, namely gibberellin, indole-3-acetic acid, and abscisic acid were down-regulated in the SlMBP3-RNAi lines. Taking together, our results demonstrate that SlMBP3 is involved in the regulation of placenta and seed development in tomato.
Estimating TRMM spacecraft attitude errors using the precipitation radar

Results are presented from analysis of the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Precipitation Radar (PR) data for the purpose of estimating satellite attitude information. Deviations from nominal roll are detected using the surface echo distances measured by the PR. This technique has been used for continued monitoring of attitude anomalies that occurred shortly after the TRMM satellite altitude increase and for historical data.
Mathematics attitudes among students of Civil Engineering

The aim of this paper is to identify attitudes of undergraduate students of Civil Engineering towards mathematics by studying the responses of 193 students. This study examines whether there is a connection between attitudes towards mathematics and performance on exams in mathematics. Furthermore, differences in attitudes about math regarding gender and prior education (vocational or grammar school) were also analyzed. The Attitude Toward Mathematics Inventory (ATMI) questionnaire was used for this research. Data were analyzed with analytics software package Statistica 13, t-test, Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis tests were also used. The survey results suggest a conclusion that there is no difference in attitudes towards mathematics regarding gender. Grammar school students scored significantly higher than vocational students in overall attitudes, but also in all four sub-scales Enjoyment, Motivation, Value and Self-confidence. Students with the lowest scores on the exam have more negative attitudes and vice versa. This also goes for the subscales Enjoyment, Value and Self-confidence, but not for Motivation.
GlycA, a novel inflammatory marker, is associated with subclinical coronary disease

Objective: GlycA, a novel NMR biomarker of inflammation, has been associated with incident cardiovascular disease (CVD) in the general population, but its association with CVD among HIV-infected individuals is unknown. We examined the associations between GlycA and subclinical coronary plaque among HIV-infected and HIV-uninfected men participating in Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study (MACS). Design: Cross-sectional analysis of 935 men with plasma measurement of GlycA and noncontrast cardiac computed tomography (CT) and/or coronary CT angiography. Methods: We used multivariable Poisson and linear regression to assess associations of GlycA with prevalent coronary atherosclerosis and plaque extent, respectively. Results: Mean ± SD age was 54 ± 7 years; 31% were black; 63% HIV-infected. GlycA levels were higher in HIV-infected compared with HIV-uninfected men (397 ± 68 vs. 380 ± 60 &mgr;mol/l, P = 0.0001) and higher for men with detectable viral load vs. undetectable (413 ± 79 vs. 393 ± 65 &mgr;mol/l, P = 0.004). After adjusting for HIV serostatus, demographic and CVD risk factors, every 1SD increment in GlycA level was associated with a higher prevalence of coronary artery calcium (CAC >0) [prevalence ratio 1.09 (95% CI 1.03–1.15)] and coronary stenosis at least 50% [1.20 (1.02–1.41)]. These associations were not significantly altered after adjusting for traditional inflammatory biomarkers or differ by HIV serostatus. Among men with plaque, GlycA was positively associated with the extent of CAC and total plaque. Conclusion: HIV infection was associated with higher GlycA levels. In both HIV-infected and HIV-uninfected individuals, GlycA was significantly associated with several measures of subclinical coronary atherosclerosis, independent of other CVD risk factors and inflammatory biomarkers. These findings suggest the potential role of GlycA in CVD risk stratification among HIV patients.
Infant growth faltering linked to subclinical mastitis, maternal faecal-oral contamination, and breastfeeding.

Infant growth faltering occurs in breastfed infants <6 months of age. The possibility that maternal health status contributes to this growth faltering is underexplored. We investigated whether (a) subclinical mastitis (SCM), an asymptomatic inflammation of the breast, (b) maternal intestinal nematode and protozoan infections, indicators of faecal-oral contamination, or (c) poor breastfeeding practices increased the odds of stunting (length-for-age z-score < -2SD), underweight (weight-for-age z-score < -2SD), or low head circumference (head circumference-for-age z-score < -2SD) in breastfed infants in rural indigenous communities in Guatemala. Mother-infant dyads (n = 105) were subdivided into those with and without SCM (milk Na:K ratio > 0.6). Maternal and infant anthropometry were measured at the time of breast milk collection. Maternal stool samples were examined for the presence of intestinal nematodes and protozoa. Questionnaires were used to characterize breastfeeding practices (exclusivity and frequency) and support, hygiene (latrine use and household faucet), and infant diarrhoea. SCM occurred in 14% of women and was associated with increased odds of infant stunting (odds ratio [OR] = 4.3; confidence interval [CI] [1.1, 15.8]), underweight (OR = 9.2; CI [1.8, 48.0]), and low head circumference (OR = 15.9; CI [2.6, 96.9]). Maternal pathogenic protozoa and nematodes were uncommon (<4%), but nonpathogenic protozoa were common (e.g., Entamoeba coli [39%]). Entamoeba coli increased the likelihood (OR = 3.3; CI [1.02, 10.6]) of low head circumference, whereas higher breastfeeding frequency lowered its odds (OR = 0.74, CI [0.56, 0.97]). Prevention of SCM may improve early infant growth, but public health measures that increase breastfeeding frequency and reduce faecal-oral contamination may be required to minimize low head circumference.
Meaning in life and self-esteem help hospice nurses withstand prolonged exposure to death.

AIM The purpose of this study was to investigate relationships between the presence of and search for meaning in life and self-esteem, psychological distress, burnout and affect among hospice nurses. BACKGROUND The nature of hospice nursing may prompt existential concerns. METHOD Hospice nurses (N = 90) completed an online survey. RESULTS The presence of meaning in life was associated with lower psychological distress, burnout and negative affect, and higher levels of positive affect, whereas the search for meaning in life was only associated with higher negative affect. Self-esteem mediated the relationship between the presence of meaning in life and psychological distress, burnout and negative affect. CONCLUSION The presence of meaning in life promotes self-esteem, which then buffers against negative outcomes. IMPLICATION FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT Although managers cannot directly instil meaning in life in hospice nurses, they may be able to help nurses to find or maintain meaning by promoting policies that allow them to participate in meaningful personal, cultural or religious activities. Additionally, managers of hospice nurses could connect them with resources (e.g. mentors, counsellors or chaplains) to cope with the existential demands of providing end-of-life care.
Deep Neck Infection in Adults : Factors Associated with Complicated Treatment Outcomes

Objective: 1) describe clinical characteristics of deep neck infection (DNI) and 2) evaluate associations between clinical riskfactors and complicated treatment outcomes of DNI in adults. Material and Method: Eighty-nine consecutive medical records of DNI patients, older than 18 years of age, at a university hospital between January, 2009 and December, 2015 were retrospectively reviewed. Studied clinical data were collected and recorded. Descriptive statistics were reported as mean, frequency or percentage. Analytical statistics (Fisher’s exact test and Odds ratio) were used to identify associations between categorical variables. Results: Patients’ ages ranged between 22-89 years (mean of 51.3 + 16.6 years). Diabetes mellitus was the most common comorbidity (31.5%). Dental origin was the most common etiology (60.7%). Streptococcus viridans group was the most common causative organism (27.8%), followed by Burkholderia pseudomallei (22.2%). Surgical drainage was performed in 70.2% of cases. Among all complications (22.5%), airway obstruction was the most common (15.7%). Co-morbidities, Dyspnea, fever, retropharyngeal DNI, visceral-vascular space DNI, multiple space DNI, need for surgical drainage, and prolonged hospitalization were significantly associated with complications. Fever, visceral-vascular space, multiple space DNI and prolonged hospital stays were significantly associated with surgery required DNI. Parapharyngeal, retropharyngeal, visceral-vascular spaces and prolonged hospital stays were significantly related to multiple space DNI. The respective risks for complications and multiple space involvement in melioidosis DNI patients were 2.44-fold and 2.28-fold higher than those of other DNI patients Conclusion: Complicated treatment outcomes of DNI in adults including complications, need for surgical drainage and prolonged hospitalization had significant associations with comorbidities, fever, dyspnea, multiple space DNI, parapharyngeal, retropharyngeal DNI and visceral-vascular spaceDNI. Melioidosis should be suspected in cases of severe DNI, especially if patients originating from or returning from travel in endemic areas
Scalable agent alignment via reward modeling: a research direction

One obstacle to applying reinforcement learning algorithms to real-world problems is the lack of suitable reward functions. Designing such reward functions is difficult in part because the user only has an implicit understanding of the task objective. This gives rise to the agent alignment problem: how do we create agents that behave in accordance with the user's intentions? We outline a high-level research direction to solve the agent alignment problem centered around reward modeling: learning a reward function from interaction with the user and optimizing the learned reward function with reinforcement learning. We discuss the key challenges we expect to face when scaling reward modeling to complex and general domains, concrete approaches to mitigate these challenges, and ways to establish trust in the resulting agents.
The Mafiascum Dataset: A Large Text Corpus for Deception Detection

Detecting deception in natural language has a wide variety of applications, but because of its hidden nature there are currently no public, large-scale sources of labeled deceptive text. This work introduces the Mafiascum dataset [1], a collection of over 700 games of Mafia, in which players are randomly assigned either deceptive or non-deceptive roles and then interact via forum postings. Over 9000 documents were compiled from the dataset, which each contained all messages written by a single player in a single game. This corpus was used to construct a set of hand-picked linguistic features based on prior deception research, as well as a set of average word vectors enriched with subword information. A logistic regression classifier fit on a combination of these feature sets achieved an average precision of 0.39 (chance = 0.26) and an AUROC of 0.68 on 5000+ word documents. On 50+ word documents, an average precision of 0.29 (chance = 0.23) and an AUROC of 0.59 was achieved. [1] this https URL
Deformable ConvNets V2: More Deformable, Better Results

The superior performance of Deformable Convolutional Networks arises from its ability to adapt to the geometric variations of objects. Through an examination of its adaptive behavior, we observe that while the spatial support for its neural features conforms more closely than regular ConvNets to object structure, this support may nevertheless extend well beyond the region of interest, causing features to be influenced by irrelevant image content. To address this problem, we present a reformulation of Deformable ConvNets that improves its ability to focus on pertinent image regions, through increased modeling power and stronger training. The modeling power is enhanced through a more comprehensive integration of deformable convolution within the network, and by introducing a modulation mechanism that expands the scope of deformation modeling. To effectively harness this enriched modeling capability, we guide network training via a proposed feature mimicking scheme that helps the network to learn features that reflect the object focus and classification power of R-CNN features. With the proposed contributions, this new version of Deformable ConvNets yields significant performance gains over the original model and produces leading results on the COCO benchmark for object detection and instance segmentation.
Scalable Compact Modeling of III–V DHBTs: Prospective Figures of Merit Toward Terahertz Operation

We investigate the bias, temperature, and frequency dependence of two III–V double heterojunction bipolar transistors technologies based on InGaAs/InP and GaAsSb/InP processes, using a HiCuM/L2 compact model-based multigeometry scalable parameter extraction methodology. Very good agreement between the model simulations and experimental data is demonstrated. Transistor currents and junction capacitances show very good scaling, thereby allowing the separation of intrinsic and peripheral effects. Prediction of future III–V HBT technologies figures-of-merit is performed by using the generated scalable model card.