Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Diagnostic efficacy of Light-Emitting Diode (LED) Fluorescence based Microscope for the diagnosis of Tuberculous lymphadenitis

Background The comparatively straightforward and cheaper light-emitting diode fluorescent microscope (LEDFM) was suggested by WHO to replace conventional microscope in tuberculosis (TB) laboratories. However, the comparable efficacy of each of those techniques differs from laboratory to laboratory. We investigated the efficacy of LEDFM for the diagnosis of tuberculous lymphadenitis (TBLN) patients. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted on 211 samples from clinically suspected tuberculous lymphadenitis patients. Three smears were prepared from FNA on microscope slides for cytomorphology study, Auramine O (AO), and for Ziehl-Neelsen (ZN) staining. The left-over samples were inoculated onto Lowenstein-Jensen (LJ) media. Statistical analysis was done using STATA version 11. The sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values were calculated by considering the culture results as the gold standard using a 95% confidence interval. Results Among 211 samples 49.7% (105) were positive by cytomorphology, 32.7% (69) by LEDFM, 23.69% (50) by LJ culture, and 13.7% (29) by ZN. Compared to the gold standard sensitivity of ZN, LEDFM, and cytomorphology were 30% [95% CI: 17.9–44.6], 66% [95% CI: 51.2–78.8] 78% [95% CI: 64–88.5], respectively. The specificity of ZN, LEDFM, and cytomorphology was 91.3% [95% CI: 85.8–95.2], 77.6% [95% CI: 70.4–83.8], 58.8% [95% CI: 50.7–66.5], respectively. Conclusion LED fluorescence microscopy gives a legitimate option in contrast to conventional ZN techniques in terms of its higher sensitivity, a bit lower specificity, time-saving, and minimal effort.
Orthogonal neural codes for speech in the infant brain

Significance For adults to comprehend spoken language, and for infants to acquire their native tongue, it is fundamental to encode speech as a sequence of stable and invariant segments despite its extreme acoustic variability. We show that the brain of a 3-mo-old baby can achieve this critical task thanks to a decomposition system which breaks down the speech input into minimal and orthogonal components such as the manner and the place of articulation. These elementary units are robust to signal variability and are flexibly recombined into phoneme identities during a second processing phase. Our data indicate that a combinatorial neural code for speech is present at an early stage of language development. Creating invariant representations from an everchanging speech signal is a major challenge for the human brain. Such an ability is particularly crucial for preverbal infants who must discover the phonological, lexical, and syntactic regularities of an extremely inconsistent signal in order to acquire language. Within the visual domain, an efficient neural solution to overcome variability consists in factorizing the input into a reduced set of orthogonal components. Here, we asked whether a similar decomposition strategy is used in early speech perception. Using a 256-channel electroencephalographic system, we recorded the neural responses of 3-mo-old infants to 120 natural consonant–vowel syllables with varying acoustic and phonetic profiles. Using multivariate pattern analyses, we show that syllables are factorized into distinct and orthogonal neural codes for consonants and vowels. Concerning consonants, we further demonstrate the existence of two stages of processing. A first phase is characterized by orthogonal and context-invariant neural codes for the dimensions of manner and place of articulation. Within the second stage, manner and place codes are integrated to recover the identity of the phoneme. We conclude that, despite the paucity of articulatory motor plans and speech production skills, pre-babbling infants are already equipped with a structured combinatorial code for speech analysis, which might account for the rapid pace of language acquisition during the first year.
The cross-lagged relationship between loneliness, social support, and psychotic-like experiences in young adults

ABSTRACT Background Individuals with psychotic disorders often report feelings of loneliness, fewer social contacts and less satisfaction with their social support prior to diagnosis. However, temporal relationships between these variables remain unclear. The primary aim of this study was to examine whether subjective and objective social factors predict, or are predicted by, psychotic-like experiences (PLEs) in healthy young adults. Methods 196 undergraduates completed baseline and 3-month follow-up assessments for PLEs, loneliness, social support size, and satisfaction. Cross-lagged panel models were conducted to investigate the temporal relationships between these variables. Results Higher loneliness scores, fewer social contacts, and being less satisfied with social support at both time points were significantly associated with higher endorsement of PLEs. Furthermore, after controlling for baseline levels, cross-lagged analyses revealed that individuals who reported feeling more lonely and having less social support at baseline, predicted higher PLEs three months later but not vice versa. No cross-lagged effect was found between the satisfaction of social support and PLEs. Conclusion The study highlights the significant relationships between loneliness, social support and PLEs. Higher levels of loneliness and smaller social support networks predicted future PLEs. These findings need to be given full consideration in future clinical practice and intervention for young adults with PLEs.
The effect of omega-3 fatty acid supplementation on seizure frequency in individuals with epilepsy: a systematic review and meta-analysis

ABSTRACT Background Although there is ample evidence for the effect of omega-3 supplementation on seizure frequency in individuals with epilepsy, the results are inconsistent. Therefore, we conducted this systematic review and meta-analysis to elucidate the potential effect of omega-3 supplementation in the adult and pediatric population. Methods Clinical trials articles were searched in electronic databases (Web of Science, Scopus, PubMed/Medline, Embase, and Google Scholar database up to October 2020). No language limitation was imposed in the literature search. Moreover, gray literature search was done via searching the references of identified review papers to find more potentially relevant articles. Results In order, the duration of the intervention and dosage of omega-3 fatty acid supplement of the included studies ranged from 12 to 42 weeks and 1000–2880 mg/day. Pooled results from the random-effects model indicated that seizure frequency following supplementation of omega-3 fatty acid decreased significantly (WMD: −6.15, 95% CI: −7.78, −4.53, P < 0.001). Furthermore, the results of the subgroup analysis revealed that seizure frequency was more alleviated in studies that used a daily dose of 1500 mg or less of omega-3 fatty acids as well as studies that had an intervention duration of more than 16 weeks. More importantly, our findings also showed that the effect of omega-3 intervention was greater in adults than in children with epilepsy. Conclusion The current meta-analysis on available trials suggested that omega-3 supplementation resulted in beneficial effects on seizure frequency in adult and children with epilepsy.
Increased functional interaction within frontoparietal network during working memory task in major depressive disorder

Abnormal fronto‐parietal activation has been suggested as a neural underpinning of the working memory (WM) deficits in major depressive disorder (MDD). However, the potential interaction within the frontoparietal network during WM processing in MDD remains unclear. This study aimed to examine the role of abnormal functional interactions within frontoparietal network in the neuropathological mechanisms of WM deficits in MDD. A total of 40 MDD patients and 47 demographic matched healthy controls (HCs) were included. Functional magnetic resonance imaging and behavioral data were collected during numeric n‐back tasks. The psychophysiological interaction and dynamic causal modelling methods were applied to investigate the connectivity within the frontoparietal network in MDD during n‐back tasks. The psychophysiological interaction analysis revealed that MDD patients showed increased functional connectivity between the right inferior parietal lobule (IPL) and the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) compared with HCs during the 2‐back task. The dynamic causal modelling analysis revealed that MDD patients had significantly increased forward modulation connectivity from the right IPL to the right dlPFC than HCs during the 2‐back task. Partial correlation was used to calculate the relationship between connective parameters and psychological variables in the MDD group, which showed that the effective connectivity from right IPL to right dlPFC was correlated negatively with the sensitivity index d’ of WM performances and positively with the depressive severity in MDD group. In conclusion, the abnormal functional and effective connectivity between frontal and parietal regions might contribute to explain the neuropathological mechanism of working memory deficits in major depressive disorder.
Knowledge, perception and practice of Québec nurses for ambulatory and clinic blood pressure measurement methods: are we there yet?

Supplemental Digital Content is available in the text Background: Guidelines regarding blood pressure measurement (BPM) methods, namely home (HBPM), ambulatory (ABPM), office (OBPM) and automated (AOBP) are published by Hypertension Canada and rely on accurate measurement technique. Nurses commonly perform BPM but their knowledge, perception and practice considering all methods is understudied. This study is the first to establish the picture of Québec nurses working in primary care settings concerning the four BPM methods. Methods: All nurses licensed to practice in primary care in Québec were targeted in our survey. Data were collected using a validated and pretested investigator-initiated questionnaire in English and French. A personalized e-mail invitation, and two reminders, including a link to a secured platform was sent in December 2019. A certificate of ethics was issued by UQTR. Results: A total of 453 nurses participated in the study. Median age was 40 ± 11 years, and 92% were women. The overall score on BPM methods knowledge was slightly below 50% (46% ± 23). The perception was mostly positive, with an overall score above 50% (73% ± 8). In practice, HBPM was recommended by 47% of nurses, and ABPM by 18%. Although AOBP is the preferred method in Canada, only 25% of the nurses use it, including the 57% that use an oscillometric device and 11% that use manual auscultation. Conclusion: Nurses working in primary care play a central role in BPM. Our results highlight that overall knowledge and practice are suboptimal. Resources should, therefore, be allocated to ensure that initial training and continuing education are addressed.
The influence of anger on empathy and theory of mind

Social cognition allows humans to understand and predict other people’s behavior by inferring or sharing their emotions, intentions and beliefs. Few studies have investigated the impact of one’s own emotional state on understanding others. Here, we tested the effect of being in an angry state on empathy and theory of mind (ToM). In a between-groups design we manipulated anger status with different paradigms in three studies (autobiographical recall (N = 45), negative feedback (N = 49), frustration (N = 46)) and checked how this manipulation affected empathic accuracy and performance in the EmpaToM. All paradigms were successful in inducing mild anger. We did not find the expected effect of anger on empathy or ToM performance but observed small behavioral changes. Together, our results validate the use of three different anger induction paradigms and speak for rather weak behavioral effects of mild state anger on empathy and ToM.
Early- and mid-career transitions to research leadership in Africa

This article examines the early-and mid-career transition to research leadership in Africa. Much of the available African literature on research leadership indicate several challenges related to poor conceptualisations of career transitions and gaps in the availability of research training. Qualitative data were collected using individual interviews (n=24) and focus groups (n=27) to identify key transition points of early career researchers (ECRs) and mid-career researchers (MCRs) in selected African countries. The qualitative data was complemented with quantitative survey questionnaires (n=250) and a triangulation approach was adopted to analyse the results. The findings were themed into different categories describing the common career paths, stages and challenges of research leaders. The latter part of the findings present a discussion on development approaches to attract and retain researchers in African universities. By focusing on the African continent, this study contributes to the current body of literature on research leadership in the Global South.
Si-Al order and the I1̄-I2/c structural phase transition in synthetic CaAl2Si2O8-SrAl2Si2O8 feldspar: A 29SiMAS-NMR spectroscopic study

Abstract We present 29Si MAS-NMR spectroscopic data for a series of synthetic feldspar samples along the join CaAl2Si2O8-SrAl2Si2O8, from which the composition dependence and coupling of order parameters describing Si-Al order and the triclinic-monoclinic displacive transition were determined. Spectra of SrAl2Si2O8 contain narrow peaks for the two crystallographic Si sites, plus additional peaks for Si having three and two Al nearest neighbors, indicating the presence of approximately 0.14 Al-O-Al linkages per formula unit and a value of σ = 0.93 for the short-range order parameter. For the triclinic feldspar samples, short-range Si-Al order increases continuously with Sr content from σ = 0.89(3) for CaAl2Si2O8 to 0.97(1) for Sr0.85Ca0. 20Al2Si2O8 but then decreases discontinuously to 0.93(2) for the monoclinic samples, Sr0.85Ca0. 15Al2Si2O8 to SrAl2Si2O8. The variation of peak positions with composition is consistent with a structural phase transition near Sr0.85Ca0. 15Al2Si2O8 from I1̄ to I2/c. The order parameter for this displacive transition is reflected by the chemical shift of the Tlmz crystallographic site, and its composition dependence gives an order-parameter critical exponent of β = 0.49(2), indicating classical second-order behavior.
Sociometrics in Software Engineering: Measuring Technical Skills of Software Engineer through GitHub

Any software project relies gravely on the skill set of its engineers. Technical skill measurement and analysis are the key factors to observe the growth and performance of an engineer in a specific project. While the prevailing system does understand the utmost importance of skill measurement, the qualitative nature of it poses a challenge that has not met an optimized solution yet. So, how are the companies dealing with it, noticeably analyzing the self-authored resumes or LinkedIn profiles? Many studies in the field to record the severity of the challenge have revealed that the primary issue faced by most recruiters when hiring engineers was to find sufficiently qualified candidates. Indeed, the majority of miss-hires in tech recruiting come down to an inaccurate measurement of the technical skills of the candidate. And even after the company has hired the engineers, they do not have quantified measurable parameters to assess their skill level. There is a need for more reliable metrics to evaluate engineers’ technical skills and certify their knowledge on a particular subject. This could help management to assign the best resources to the project as per the budget and technical requirements of the task. Traditionally, for the hiring process, the metrics used to evaluate the technical skills of a software engineer included education level, professional experience, online coding challenges, onsite interviews, and after the actual hiring, metrics change to the number of bugs fixed, number of new features developed or even the number of hours worked. These proxy variables do not offer any real or actionable insights to quantify the qualitative skills of individuals. This research seeks to build a data model by capturing the qualitative signals from GitHub. This data model represents an opinionated view for measuring the technical skills of a software engineer. Using this conceptualized data model, this research also seeks to build an expert system that could rank order software engineers using a relative grading system. To evaluate the efficiency of the proposed solution, a sanity test is performed using manual evaluation by the human expert (the author of this research). The results indicate that the data model provides a reasonably accurate technical skill assessment of software engineers in Java technology by rank-ordering the contributors of the OSS Spring Boot project. We do see some loss in the conceptual fidelity of the proposed system. Thus, the limitations have also been discussed in the latter part of the thesis.
Investigation of the Factors Affecting Open and Distance Education Learners’ Intentions to Use a Virtual Laboratory

Laboratories, which are an integral part of education in disciplines that require hands-on training and application, can now be presented using new technologies, and application activities can be realized at a distance. In this study, virtual laboratories (VLs) are discussed, and factors affecting the students’ intention to use VLs are investigated. The study was conducted within laboratory applications of circuit analysis within an associate degree program of a distance teaching university in Turkey. In this study, which used exploratory sequential design approach, the learners’ intentions to use a VL were examined within the framework of the technology acceptance model (TAM). Content analysis was used for the analysis of qualitative data, and the partial least squares structural equation model was used for the analysis of quantitative data. As a result of the study, the developed TAM-based research model is a useful conceptual framework towards understanding and explaining the intentions of learners’ virtual laboratory usage. The results of this study will guide institutions to integrate VLs effectively into the education process and to increase and disseminate the use of VLs by learners.
Literature review of factors affecting the online purchase intention in Iraq

The advent of electronic commerce (e-commerce) has resulted in significant benefits for businesses, with e-commerce becoming indispensable for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) all over the world. E-commerce is considered an appropriate technique for selling, marketing & integrating online services that can play a significant role in determining, maintaining & getting customers. However, ecommerce adoption remains a vital yet evasive & complex phenomenon, with little known regarding its determinants. The goal of this research is to provide an overview of e-commerce usage among SMEs. It identifies the e-commerce benefits realized through these SMEs. It conducted an intensive review of the related literature to cover this study's variables. The study was performed utilizing a nonexperimental study experimental research design. This exploratory study included an essential investigation into secondary data. The study development & modelling of secondary data to highlight the research's final results by reviewing the literature of the existing frameworks & models in ecommerce adoption. Additionally, it is proposed that future researchers do a field study by collecting primary data and conducting statistical tests on the essential components that help in the adoption of ecommerce in Iraqi SMEs.
A Simplicial Model for KB4n: Epistemic Logic with Agents that May Die

The standard semantics of multi-agent epistemic logic S5 n is based on Kripke models whose accessibility relations are reflexive, symmetric and transitive. This one dimensional structure contains implicit higher-dimensional information beyond pairwise interactions, that we formalized as pure simplicial models in a previous work in Information and Computation 2021 [10]. Here we extend the theory to encompass simplicial models that are not necessarily pure. The corresponding class of Kripke models are those where the accessibility relation is symmetric and transitive, but might not be reflexive. Such models correspond to the epistemic logic KB4 n . Impure simplicial models arise in situations where two possible worlds may not have the same set of agents. We illustrate it with distributed computing examples of synchronous systems where processes may crash.
Phenolic Analyses of Haskap Berries (Lonicera caerulea L.): Spectrophotometry Versus High Performance Liquid Chromatography

Haskap berries (Lonicera caerulea L.) are known for their high phenolics, anthocyanins, and antioxidant potential. The data on the phenolic profile of these fruits are lacking. In this study, the phenolic profiles of three haskap varieties; tundra, berry blue, and indigo gem grown in Nova Scotia, Canada were investigated for the first time using spectrophotometery and high-performance liquid chromatography. Berries were analyzed for total phenolic content/total reducing capacity, total anthocyanin content, and antioxidant potential (2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl radical scavenging activity). The total reducing capacity, total anthocyanin content, and 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl values were 6.17–8.42 mg gallic acid equivalents/gram fresh weight, 4.49–6.97 mg cyanidin-3-glucoside equivalents/gram fresh weight, and 78.70–89.55%, respectively. The extracts were analyzed by reversed-phase diode array detector–high-performance liquid chromatography through a gradient elution using Synergi 4 µm Max-RP C12 column and the chromatograms were acquired at 520, 360, and 320 nm for athocyanins, flavonoids, and free phenolic acids, respectively. The identified anthocyanins were cyanidin-3-glucoside (82.81–91.99% of the total anthocyanins), cyanidin 3,5-di-glucoside (2.31–4.27%), cyanidin-3-rutinoside (1.54–9.20%), peonidin-3-O-glucoside (0.75–3.44%), and pelargonidin-3-glucoside (0.77–2.98%). Other flavonoids (quercetin-3-β-D-glucoside and quercetin-3-rutinoside) and free phenolic acids (chlorogenic and neochlorogenic) were also quantified.
during Viral Infections Type I IFN Substitutes for T Cell Help

Certain virus infections depend on the presence of T cell help for the generation of primary CD8 + T cell responses. However, the mechanisms that render these particular viral infections T cell help dependent is largely unknown. In this study, we compared CD8 + T cell responses elicited by lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus infection, as prototype of a T cell help independent infection, with T cell help dependent CD8 + T cell responses induced by vaccinia virus infection. In this paper, we show that a key parameter decisive for T cell help independence is the ability of an infectious agent to stimulate early and robust production of type I IFN. Experimental provision of type I IFN during VV infection rendered the ensuing CD8 + T cell response completely T cell help independent. Our results support a model in which type I IFN has to be present during the ﬁrst 3 d of Ag encounter and has to act directly on the responding CD8 + T cells to promote their survival and effector differentiation. We show that type I IFN signaling on responding CD8 + T cells induces profound upregulation of CD25 and increased IL-2 expression; however, neither this nor IL-15 accounts for the type I IFN effects on responding CD8 + T cells. Thus, type I IFN can effectively replace the requirement of T cell help by directly promoting CD8 + T cell survival and differentiation independent of the type I IFN-induced cytokines IL-2 and IL-15. The Journal of Immunology , 2011, 186: 000–000.