Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Natural killer cells in the pathogenesis of preeclampsia: a double-edged sword

Abstract Objective To investigate the relationship between natural killer (NK) cells, extravillous trophoblast cells (EVTs) and vessel remodeling in early human pregnancy, and the association between NK cells and preeclampsia (PE) in late human pregnancy. Methods Human decidual tissues from women with normal pregnancies were collected and examined for the relationship of NK cells with uterine vessel remodeling using immunohistochemistry. Percentages of peripheral blood NK (pNK) and decidual NK (dNK) cells and the levels of intracellular interferon (IFN)-γ, perforin and granzyme B in normal pregnancies, late-onset and early-onset PE were analyzed using flow cytometry. Cytolytic functions of dNK cells from normal and PE pregnancies were examined. Effects of conditioned medium (CM) of dNK cells from normal and PE pregnancies on first trimester trophoblast invasion and migration were tested. Results In early pregnancy samples (9–13 weeks of gestation), we noted moderate vessel remodeling with abundant perivascular NK cells but a limited number of surrounding EVTs. The numbers of both human pNK cells and dNK cells and intracellular interferon (IFN)-γ, perforin and granzyme B production were significantly higher in PE compared with normal pregnancies at the time of delivery for both early- and late-onset disease. dNK cells from PE pregnancies not only killed first trimester trophoblasts but also inhibited their invasion and migration when compared to normal controls. Conclusion Our results suggest that NK cells, in conjunction with EVTs, may play an important role in controlling uterine SA remodeling at the early stages of vessel remodeling, but they contribute to the pathogenesis of PE in late pregnancy.
Does how you treat yourself affect your health? The relationship between health-promoting behaviors and self-compassion among a community sample

This study explores the relationship between self-compassion, or treating oneself with kindness and acceptance, using the Self-Compassion Scale, and health-promoting behaviors, using the Health-Promoting Lifestyle Profile II, among a community sample. Canonical correlation results indicate self-compassion and health-promoting behaviors share 76 percent of the variance within the data set. The positive components of self-compassion are strongly positively correlated with health-promoting behaviors, and the negative components of self-compassion are strongly negatively correlated with health-promoting behaviors. Hierarchical linear regression results indicate self-kindness and mindfulness are significant predictors of health-promoting behaviors after controlling for demographics.
Fully Automated Bone Age Assessment on Large-Scale Hand X-Ray Dataset

Bone age assessment (BAA) is an essential topic in the clinical practice of evaluating the biological maturity of children. Because the manual method is time-consuming and prone to observer variability, it is attractive to develop computer-aided and automated methods for BAA. In this paper, we present a fully automatic BAA method. To eliminate noise in a raw X-ray image, we start with using U-Net to precisely segment hand mask image from a raw X-ray image. Even though U-Net can perform the segmentation with high precision, it needs a bigger annotated dataset. To alleviate the annotation burden, we propose to use deep active learning (AL) to select unlabeled data samples with sufficient information intentionally. These samples are given to Oracle for annotation. After that, they are then used for subsequential training. In the beginning, only 300 data are manually annotated and then the improved U-Net within the AL framework can robustly segment all the 12611 images in RSNA dataset. The AL segmentation model achieved a Dice score at 0.95 in the annotated testing set. To optimize the learning process, we employ six off-the-shell deep Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) with pretrained weights on ImageNet. We use them to extract features of preprocessed hand images with a transfer learning technique. In the end, a variety of ensemble regression algorithms are applied to perform BAA. Besides, we choose a specific CNN to extract features and explain why we select that CNN. Experimental results show that the proposed approach achieved discrepancy between manual and predicted bone age of about 6.96 and 7.35 months for male and female cohorts, respectively, on the RSNA dataset. These accuracies are comparable to state-of-the-art performance.
Effect of microwave heating on soluble proteins of porcine muscle

Pork, like other meat products, is normally cooked prior to consumption. These methods of cooking produce different meat flavors which are influenced by water-soluble components that contribute to taste, such as the soluble proteins (sarcoplasmic and myofibrillar proteins) of porcine muscle. In this work, the effect of different cooking methods (boiling and microwaving) on porcine muscle is studied by modifying a microwave oven with a fiber optic temperature probe for online temperature effect on sarcoplasmic protein (SP) and myofibrillar protein (MP) extracted from pork samples and semi-quantitative determination (SDS-PAGE) of these soluble proteins. The heating rate behavior of both cooking methods was studied. The results show that heating rate of microwave heating at power 100 W and 300 W shared semblance with that of WBH. However, at microwave powers of 500 W, 700 W and 900 W had a linear heating rate which ignited responses from some proteins, such as creatine kinase and glyceraldehyde-3phosphate dehydrogenase, actinin, TN–T, and tropomyosin. These changes indicated that these proteins were thermosensitve and comprised of a structure which was ignited by the heating rate of the cooking methods.
Pattern of refractive error in paediatric patients coming to rural tertiary care hospital of Central India

Background: Refractive error is a important cause of low vision in paediatric age group. If uncorrected it can lead to severe visual impairment in paediatric age group. Around 12.8 million children in age group range of 5-15 years have undiagnosed refractive error or under corrected refractive error. In India, refractive error as social health problem not yet defined. The untreated refractive error can cause amblyopia and poor school performance, which in long run can lead to financial and social loss for the rest of life. The purpose of the present study is to know the different types of refractive errors in a tertiary care rural hospital. Materials and methods: A cross sectional study to know the different types of refractive error in paediatric patients in a tertiary care rural hospital of central India from January 2015 to June 2015. The patients of birth to upto the age of 15 years were included. The patient particular were noted. The patient name, age, sex ,residence, visual acuity, refractive error were noted . Results: The total number of 848 patients enrolled in the present study from eye OPD of UPRIMS &R, Saifai, UP from January 2015 to June 2015. The age of patients ranges from birth to 15 years of age. Out of these refractive error is seen in 260 patients (31.37%, 168 male, 92 female). So, refractive error was the cause of hospital consultation in around 1/3 of the patients.The most common refractive error noted was myopia in 160 patients (61.53%, 95 males, 65 females), followed by astigmatism in 40 patients (23.85%, 32 males, 6 females) and hypermetropia in 38 patients (14.61%, 32males, 6 females). The common age of presentation was from 11-15 years ( 130 patients, 50%), followed by 6-10 years age( 70 patients, 26.92%) and lastly less than 5 years age group (60 patients.23.08%). Conclusion: In India, refractive error as public health problem is not yet defined. The untreated refractive error can cause amblyopia and poor school performance, which in long run can lead to financial and social loss for the rest of life.
Impact of cyclic densification on bending strength and modulus of elasticity of wood from temperate and tropical zones

Oak (Quercus robur L.), iroko (Milicia excelsa (Welw.) C.C. Berg), and tauari (Couratari spp.) wood were subjected to cyclic thermo-mechanical treatment (CTMT). The densification temperature amounted to 100 °C or 150 °C. The greatest changes in the modulus of rupture (MOR) value of the iroko wood, depending on the number of thermo-mechanical modification cycles, were noted. The MOR of the iroko wood, densified at 100 °C or 150 °C, after second thermo-mechanical modification cycle was twice as high as before the modification. No significant differences were observed between the modulus of elasticity (MOE) of oak wood before and after one modification cycle. Similar dependencies were noted in iroko wood. The thermo-mechanical modification performed over two cycles led to the highest increase, by about 56%, in MOE in oak wood densified at 150 °C. It was demonstrated that modification at 150 °C had a negative impact on iroko wood, which was manifested in the lower compression ratio of iroko at 150 °C than at 100 °C.
Microbial and Chemical Evaluation of broiler’s skin as co-product incorporated in meat industry

Thirty samples of freshly slaughtered broiler frame with skin were obtained from small scale poultry processing plant in Cairo and Giza markets. Samples of neck and breast skin were examined for Total colony count, Psychrotrophic count, Staphylococcus aureus count, Coliform Count, presumptive E. coli count and total yeast and mould count. In addition isolation of Salmonella spp. and thermotolerant Campylobater were performed. Lower bacterial counts were recorded in cooked samples, with mean value of 7.6 ± 0.18, 5.68 ± 0.16, 5.12 ± 0.14, 3.6 ± 0.3, 2.3 ± 0.39 and 6.85 ± 0.37 log10 cfu /g in raw samples and 0.91 ± 0.27, 0.74 ± 0.21, 0.56 ± 0.19, 1.1 ± 0.13, < 3 and 2.44 ± 0.12 log10 cfu/g in cooked samples respectively. The incidence of S. aureus, Salmonella and Campylobater jejuni in raw skin samples were 66.7%, 20%, and 56.6%, respectively. While S. aureus was unexpectedly isolated from cooked samples. Fat content was estimated by using Sohexelt method and fatty acids content of methylester were determined.
Longitudinal survey data analysis.

To investigate the effect of environmental pollution on the health of children in the Durban South Industrial Basin (DSIB) due to its proximity to industrial activities, 233 children from five primary schools were considered. Three of these schools were located in the south of Durban while the other two were in the northern residential areas that were closer to industrial activities. Data collected included the participants' demographic, health, occupational, social and economic characteristics. In addition, environmental information was monitored throughout the study specifically, measurements on the levels of some ambient air pollutants. The objective of this thesis is to investigate which of these factors had an effect on the lung function of the children. In order to achieve this objective, different sample survey data analysis techniques are investigated. This includes the design-based and model-based approaches. The nature of the survey data finally leads to the longitudinal mixed model approach. The multicolinearity between the pollutant variables leads to the fitting of two separate models: one with the peak counts as the independent pollutant measures and the other with the 8-hour maximum moving average as the independent pollutant variables. In the selection of the fixed-effects structure, a scatter-plot smoother known as the loess fit is applied to the response variable individual profile plots. The random effects and the residual effect are assumed to have different covariance structures. The unstructured (UN) covariance structure is used for the random effects, while using the Akaike information criterion (AIC), the compound symmetric (CS) covariance structure is selected to be appropriate for the residual effects. To check the model fit, the profiles of the fitted and observed values of the dependent variables are compared graphically. The data is also characterized by the problem of intermittent missingness. The type of missingness is investigated by applying a modified logistic
464-471 Khalil M.pmd

Toxoplasmosis is a parasitic and zoonotic disease caused by Toxoplasma gondii. The disease has worldwide distribution and all people maybe under the risk of getting infected by the parasite. The overall aim of this research was to detect the prevalence rate of antiToxoplasma gondii IgM and IgG among diabetic patients in Makkah, Saudi Arabia. Blood samples were collected from diabetic patients. Toxo IgM and IgG combo rapid test cassette were used to screen the samples, and the results were confirmed by using Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA) to detect anti-IgM and antiIgG antibodies on the plasma of 90 diabetic patients who attended the mobile clinic or AL Noor hospital in Makkah area. The subject was asked to complete a structured questionnaire. The questionnaire data and serological results were analyzed by using SPSS 20. Chi-square was used to compare different variables. Out of 90 samples, 39 (43.3%) were positive to anti-Toxoplasma gondii IgG wherein 33 (36.6%) of them were male and 6 (6.7%) were female. The age ranged between 13–85 years with the mean of 49.9 years. The study found that there were statistical differences between the age groups with higher prevalence in the 50-65 years age group. Detection of IgM against T. gondii gave negative results. The results of the study indicate that latent T. gondii in diabetic patient are relatively high especially among the 50-65 age group. There were significant associated between direct contact with a cat and infection by T. gondii (p<0.05).
Sex differences in the number of scientific publications and citations when attaining the rank of professor in Sweden

ABSTRACT The proportion of women tends to decrease the higher the academic rank, following a global pattern. Sweden has taken comprehensive measures to decrease this gap across 30 years, and many countries are following a similar path. Yet today only 27% of faculty with the rank of professor in Sweden are female. A common explanation is that academia is biased against women. According to this hypothesis, women have to reach higher levels of scholarly achievement than men to be appointed to the same academic rank. Publication metrics when attaining the rank of professor were compiled from the Web of Science for samples of the whole population of 1345 professors appointed at the six largest universities in Sweden during a six-year period. Men had significantly more publications and citations in both medicine and in the social sciences, rejecting the hypothesis that women are held to a higher scholarly standard in this context.
Error Analysis: Learning Articles and Prepositions among Secondary School Students in Pakistan

The purpose of this paper was to examine and ranking the dominating factors influencing consumers purchasing decision in an un-awareness situation to buy a low involvement product. 204 undergraduate students or subjects were selected by convenient sampling procedure; those participated in experiment on two categories of products (pen, and sun-block) to identify the dominant reason to buy any selected brand. Non-parametric tests of Friedman and Kendall.W s rank tests were applied. The frequency tables and mean ranks of each variable showing the percentage of the respondents who rank the variable as first, second, and third reason to purchase a brand. The model identified that among from all of the six variables; the quality of a brand is the first and dominant factor to choose a brand, while price and packaging are considered as second and third reasons to make choice for a brand respectively.
Some researchers wear yellow pants, but even fewer participants read consent forms: Exploring and improving consent form reading in human subjects research.

Though consent forms include important information, those experienced with behavioral research often observe that participants do not carefully read consent forms. Three studies examined participants' reading of consent forms for in-person experiments. In each study, we inserted the phrase "some researchers wear yellow pants" into sections of the consent form and measured participants' reading of the form by testing their recall of the color yellow. In Study 1, we found that the majority of participants did not read consent forms thoroughly. This suggests that overall, participants sign consent forms that they have not read, confirming what has been observed anecdotally and documented in other research domains. Study 2 examined which sections of consent forms participants read and found that participants were more likely to read the first 2 sections of a consent form (procedure and risks) than later sections (benefits and anonymity and confidentiality). Given that rates of recall of the target phrase were under 70% even when the sentence was inserted into earlier sections of the form, we explored ways to improve participant reading in Study 3. Theorizing that the presence of a researcher may influence participants' retention of the form, we assigned participants to read the form with or without a researcher present. Results indicated that removing the researcher from the room while participants read the consent form decreased recall of the target phrase. Implications of these results and suggestions for future researchers are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).
Uncertainty Avoidance and Right-wing Populism

The last decades have witnessed a structural change of political conflict toward cultural and identity conflicts, accompanied by the rise of populist radical right (PRR) parties. Yet, we know surprisingly little about psychological or cognitive-motivational processes underlying PRR support. We claim that uncertainty avoidance (UA)—an epistemic avoidance motivation— represents a central motive. We propose that UA ultimately resonates with the PRR platform and precedes previously found predictors, such as authoritarianism, nativism, exclusive nationalism, rejection of European integration, and populism. Using data from the Austrian national election study and applying structural equation modeling (SEM), we found that UA was indeed indirectly associated with PRR voting. This is because greater UA fostered rightwing socio-cultural views, in general. In turn, associations with populist attitudes were more ambiguous. We conclude by discussing the contribution of a cognitive-motivational account to explain PRR voting. UNCERTAINTY AVOIDANCE AND RIGHT-WING POPULISM 3
Deep Convolutional Embedding for Digitized Painting Clustering

Clustering artworks is difficult for several reasons. On the one hand, recognizing meaningful patterns in accordance with domain knowledge and visual perception is extremely difficult. On the other hand, applying traditional clustering and feature reduction techniques to the highly dimensional pixel space can be ineffective. To address these issues, we propose to use a deep convolutional embedding model for digitized painting clustering, in which the task of mapping the raw input data to an abstract, latent space is jointly optimized with the task of finding a set of cluster centroids in this latent feature space. Quantitative and qualitative experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed method. The model is also capable of outperforming other state-of-the-art deep clustering approaches to the same problem. The proposed method can be useful for several art-related tasks, in particular visual link retrieval and historical knowledge discovery in painting datasets.
Entrepreneurial Mindset And Organizational Success In Smes In Rivers State

This empirical study on entrepreneurial mindset and organizational success was to ascertain the relationship and possible effect of dimensions such as innovativeness, pro-activeness and risk-taking on measures such as customer satisfaction and market share. The study used the cross-sectional overview of the semi trial plan, while simple random technique was adopted. Data were collected through the questionnaire and analysis was done using spearman rank correlation order via statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) version 21. The respondents comprised of 100 participants drawn from 20 SMEs in Rivers State. It was revealed that a significant relationship exist between both variables (entrepreneurial mindset and organizational success), this is as a result of seven(7) null hypotheses that were all rejected based on insufficient evidence for acceptance. Based on the revelation, the study recommends therefore that SMEs operators and managers should be entrepreneurial in practice and Government ought to as matter of extreme importance pay attention to provisions of enabling policies and infrastructures that will enhance the success of SMEs in Rives State.
Factors Influencing Skin Cancer Preventive Behaviors Based on the Extended Parallel Process Model in Yazd University of Medical Sciences Students, 2017

Background: Skin cancer is one of the most common cancers that is mostly caused by ultraviolet radiation. The aim of this study was to investigate the factors affecting skin cancer preventive behaviors in medical sciences students based on the extended parallel process model that is responsible for the future health of the community. Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out among 150 students who were selected by the simple random sampling method in Yazd in 2017. The data were collected by translating the questionnaire based on the extended parallel process model. The data were analyzed by SPSS-18 software and descriptive tests and non-parametric Mann-Whitney, Kruskal-Wallis tests, Spearman correlation and linear regression at a significance level of 0.05. Results: The mean age of participants was 22.01 ± 5.24, more than half of whom (57.3%) used sunscreen as a self-protective behavior against the sunlight. The perceived severity construct had the highest score among the constructs (79.53) and preventive behaviors score (61.7). Among the demographic variables, gender had a significant statistical difference with the constructs of fear and behavioral intention, and preventive behaviors and economic status variable in the perceived response efficacy construct. Among the model constructs, the behavioral intention was the strongest behavioral predictor of skin cancer prevention (p< 0.000,β =0.589). Conclusion: In view of the findings, it seems necessary to increase protective behaviors against sunlight and skin cancer prevention by removing existing barriers including cultural issues. Also, recurrent training can be effective in promoting behavioral intention of student in preventing skin cancer.
Competitive Procurement with Ex Post Moral Hazard

Unlike standard auctions, we show that competitive procurement may optimally limit competition or use inefficient allocation rules that award the project to a less efficient firm with positive probability. Procurement projects often involve ex post moral hazard after the competitive process is over. A procurement mechanism must combine an incentive scheme with the auction to guard against firms bidding low to win the contract and then cutting back on effort. While competition helps reduce the rent of efficient firms, it exacerbates the problem due to moral hazard. If allocative efficiency is a requirement, limiting the number of participants may be optimal. Alternatively, the same incentives can be optimally provided using inefficient allocation rules.