Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Virological Suppression among HIV Infected Adolescents and Youths Receiving ART in the National Teaching and Referral Hospital in Kenya

We conducted a cross-sectional study among adolescents and youths aged 10 to 24-years in Kenyatta National Hospital who were on ART for at least six months. Patient characteristics were captured in a questionnaire. Viral suppression was presented as a proportion based on viral load less than 1000 copies per milliliter of plasma. Viral suppression rate was associated with categorical independent factors using chi square test and means were compared using independent T-test.
Impact of Human Capital on the Performance of Small and Medium Enterprises in South West, Nigeria

This study examined the Impact of Human Capital on the Performance of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in South West Nigeria. The specific objective assessed the effect of human capital practice on the innovativeness of SMEs in South West, Nigeria. Data were collected from the primary source using structured questionnaire. Stratified random sampling was employed to select a sample of three hundred and ninety-three (393) SMEs from a population of twenty three thousand two hundred and ninety (23,290) SMEs in the Nigerian South West states comprising Lagos, Oyo, Ogun, Osun, Ondo and Ekiti. The population was divided into small and medium enterprises after which selection from each stratum was done using simple random sampling. Analysis of the data was carried using linear regression to test the strength of relationship between the variables. Findings from the study revealed that human capital index (B=0.277, T = 13.306 and R2 = 0.323) was positive and significantly affect SMEs innovativeness. The study concluded that human capital has positive and significant impact on SMEs performance.
High-throughput transcriptomics and benchmark concentration modeling for potency ranking of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in exposed human liver cell spheroids

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are some of the most prominent organic contaminants in human blood. Although the toxicological implications from human exposure to perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoate (PFOA) are well established, data on lesser-understood PFAS are limited. New approach methodologies (NAMs) that apply bioinformatic tools to high-throughput data are being increasingly considered to inform risk assessment for data-poor chemicals. The aim of this investigation was to identify biological response potencies (i.e., benchmark concentrations: BMCs) following PFAS exposures to inform read-across for risk assessment of data-poor PFAS. Gene expression changes were measured in primary human liver cell microtissues (i.e., 3D spheroids) after 1-day and 10-day exposures to increasing concentrations of 23 PFAS. The cells were treated with four subgroups of PFAS: carboxylates (PFCAs), sulfonates (PFSAs), fluorotelomers, and sulfonamides. An established pipeline to identify differentially expressed genes and transcriptomic BMCs was applied. We found that both PFCAs and PFSAs exhibited a trend toward increased transcriptional changes with carbon chain-length. Specifically, longer-chain compounds (7 to 10 carbons) were more likely to induce changes in gene expression, and have lower transcriptional BMCs. The combined high-throughput transcriptomic and bioinformatic analyses supports the capability of NAMs to efficiently assess the effects of PFAS in liver microtissues. The data enable potency ranking of PFAS for human liver cell spheroid cytotoxicity and transcriptional changes, and assessment of in vitro transcriptomic points of departure. These data improve our understanding of the health effects of PFAS and will be used to inform read-across for human health risk assessment.
Possible Periodic Activity in the Short Bursts of SGR 1806-20: Connection to Fast Radio Bursts

Magnetars are highly magnetized neutron stars that are characterized by recurrent emission of short-duration bursts in soft gamma-rays/hard X-rays. Recently, FRB 200428 was found to be associated with an X-ray burst from a Galactic magnetar. Two fast radio bursts show mysterious periodic activity. However, it is unclear whether magnetar X-ray bursts are periodic phenomena. In this paper, we investigate the activity period of SGR 1806-20. More than 3000 short bursts observed by different telescopes are collected, including the observations of RXTE, HETE-2, ICE, and Konus. We consider the observation windows and divide the data into two subsamples to alleviate the effect of uneven sampling. The epoch-folding and Lomb–Scargle methods are used to derive the period of the short bursts. We find a possible period of about 398.20 ± 25.45 days, but other peaks exist in the periodograms. If the period is real, the connection between short bursts of magnetars and fast radio bursts should be investigated extensively.
Contribution of Adversity Quotient, Self Awareness and Demographic Factors to Student Career Maturity

One of the purposes of vocational school (SMK) is as an education facility to prepare alumni who are ready to enter work field, but in contrary the highest number of unemployed in West Sumatra is dominated by SMK alumni. This research aims to describe the contribution of adversity quotient, self awareness and demographic factors to student career maturity. The study was conducted using quantitative descriptive methods. The research population w ere students of class XII at SMKN6 Padang as many as 392 students and a sample of research were 198 students. The technique used in this research was purposive sampling technique. The instrument used was a adversity quotient, self awareness and career maturity scale was using Likert model, and the research data w as analyzed using simple regression and multiple regression with dummy variables. The research findings prove that: (1) adversity quotient has an effective contribution of 23% to student career maturity, (2) self awareness contributing as much as 37.9% to career maturity, (3) gender does not contribute to career maturity, (4) socioeconomic status contribut es 4.9% to student career maturity, and (6) there were 47.8% of contributions together with adversity quotient, self awareness, gender and socioeconomic status on students' career maturity . This result show that student’s career maturity was not influenced by one variable only but adversity quotient, self awareness and demographic factor all together contribute in forming student’s career maturity. Therefore, increase in career maturity as an attempt to prepare students prior to entering work field could be done by optimizing adversity quotient level and self awareness while also considering demographic factor of each students.
Genesis and classification of soils along a toposequence in the teaching and research farm of Taraba State University, Jalingo, Nigeria

Investigations were made to reflect the genesis and classification of soils along a toposequence in the Teaching and Research farm of Taraba State University. The topographic map of the farm was developed in the ArcGIS 10.8 environment and a profile graph plotted out. One profile pit was sunk in each elevation range to represent soils in the summit, shoulder, back slope, foot slope and toe slope positions using the free survey approach. The soils were deep, well drained and generally described as A, B, C soils with extensive B horizons that showed clear illuviation of clay and sesquioxides. The soils were brown (7.5YR 3/4), dark brown (10YR 3/3) and dark yellowish brown (10YR 4/6) in the surface and dominated by sand with bulk density values that exceeded 1.5 Mg/m3. Soil pH values were moderately acid to neutral while organic C and exchangeable bases were low in all but foot slope position where high values of organic carbon were obtained in the surface soils. The content of dithionite and oxalate Fe and Al, and their derivatives indicate intense weathering condition of the soils as well as their combined movement with clay to endopedons. However, moderately high CEC and the likely presence of montmorillonite (via CECE/clay) are indications that the soils had good potentials for agriculture. Among the soil forming processes in the area were mineralization, eluviation-illuviation as well as ferritization. The soils were classified as Typic Rhodustults (Pretic Acrisols), Arenic Haplustults (Chromic Acrisols) and Paleustults (Haplic Acrisols). Keywords: pedogenesis, sesquioxides, classification, Basement Complex
Deciphering the Agonist Binding Mechanism to the Adenosine A1 Receptor

Despite being amongst the most characterized G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), adenosine receptors (ARs) have always been a difficult target in drug design. To date, no agonist other than the natural effector and the diagnostic regadenoson has been approved for human use. Recently, the structure of the adenosine A1 receptor (A1R) was determined in the active, Gi protein complexed state; this has important repercussions for structure-based drug design. Here, we employed supervised molecular dynamics simulations and mutagenesis experiments to extend the structural knowledge of the binding of selective agonists to A1R. Our results identify new residues involved in the association and dissociation pathway, suggest the binding mode of N6-cyclopentyladenosine (CPA) related ligands, and highlight the dramatic effect that chemical modifications can have on the overall binding mechanism.
PRODUCTION CHARACTERISTICS OF SESAME GENOTYPES UNDER DIFFERENT STRATEGIES OF SALINE WATER APPLICATION

ABSTRACT In semiarid areas, the scarcity of water with low salt concentration associated with irregular precipitation becomes a limiting factor to ensure agricultural production. In this context, the objective of this study was to evaluate the growth and production of sesame genotypes under different strategies of use of saline water. The experiment was conducted under protected environment conditions, using a randomized block design in a 6 x 2 factorial scheme, and the treatments consisted of six strategies for the use of saline water in the different stages of plant development (SE = irrigation with low-salinity water throughout the cultivation cycle; VE, FL, FR, VE/FL and VE/FR - respectively, irrigation with high-salinity water at the vegetative stage, flowering, fruiting, vegetative/flowering and vegetative/fruiting) and two sesame genotypes (BRS Seda and BRS Anahí), with 4 replicates. Irrigation with high-salinity water (ECw = 2.7 dS m-1) during the vegetative, flowering and fruiting stages did not compromise sesame production. There were reductions in sesame growth when irrigation with high-salinity water was continuously applied at the vegetative/flowering stages and in sesame production when it was applied during the vegetative/flowering and vegetative/fruiting stages. The greater growth of BRS Seda sesame plants resulted in an increase in the total number of fruits and in the total seed weight.
FGF23 and Immune Activation are Correlated in Chronic Heart Failure and Additive Predictors of Poor Prognosis

Aims: Immune activation and disturbances of vitamin D metabolism are frequently encountered in patients with heart failure. Elevated fibroblast growth factor 23 (FGF23) levels as well as immune activation have been associated with a worse outcome in patients with heart failure. We evaluated the relationship of vitamin D metabolism and FGF23 levels with immune activation and its association with cardiac function and outcome in patients with heart failure. Methods and Results: In 149 patients with heart failure caused by nonischaemic cardiomyopathy, parameters of vitamin D metabolism (vitamin D, parathormone, phosphate, C-terminal FGF23, calcium), inflammation (hsCRP, neopterin) and cardiac function were investigated. Patients with elevated inflammatory parameters had significantly higher Ct-FGF23 levels (37.33 RU/mL vs. 17.60 RU/mL, p < 0.001). The highest Ct-FGF23 and phosphate levels were found in patients with elevated neopterin and hsCRP levels as well as in in patients with progressive heart failure. Patients with high Ct-FGF23 and neopterin levels (Ct-FGF23 > 22.60 RU/mL, neopterin > 6.90 nmol/L) had a significantly higher risk for adverse events compared to patients with low Ct-FGF23 and neopterin levels (HR 7.386, [95%CI 2.543 – 21.447], p < 0.001). Conclusions: Our study indicates a strong relationship of vitamin D metabolism, especially FGF23, with Th1 immune activation in patients with heart failure. Elevated Ct-FGF23 and neopterin levels are additive predictors for adverse cardiovascular events in patients with heart failure.
Resting multivoxel activity patterns in human visual cortex are linked to patterns evoked by preferred visual stimuli

The relationship between spontaneous and task-evoked brain activity is an increasingly important topic in neuroscience. Here, we ask if spontaneous multivoxel activity patterns in human visual cortex are linked to patterns evoked by naturalistic (e.g. faces) and non-naturalistic (e.g. phase-scrambled faces) visual stimuli. We identified regions that preferred particular stimulus categories during localizer scans, combined those regions into joint-ROIs, and measured multivoxel patterns in the joint-ROIs for each stimulus class during task scans. We then spatially correlated these stimulusevoked patterns to the multivoxel pattern measured in each frame of resting-state scans. The mean correlation coefficient was essentially zero for all regions/stimulus categories, indicating that resting activity patterns were not biased toward particular stimuli. However, the spread of correlation coefficients (positive, negative) was significantly greater for a joint-ROI’s preferred stimulus. Moreover, at single timepoints the resting multivoxel patterns in constituent ROIs of a joint-ROI were not independent but formed a coherent brain state. Therefore, spontaneous activity patterns were coherent across regions, and maximally varied within a region in the degree to which they positively or negatively matched the pattern evoked by the region’s preferred stimulus. We conclude that in human visual cortex spontaneous multi-voxel activity patterns are linked to stimulus-evoked patterns. All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission. (which was not peer-reviewed) is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. The copyright holder for this preprint . http://dx.doi. org/10.1101/518712 doi: bioRxiv preprint first posted online Jan. 14, 2019;
Phoneme-level processing in low-frequency cortical responses to speech explained by acoustic features

When we listen to speech, we have to make sense of a waveform of sound pressure. Hierarchical models of speech perception assume that before giving rise to its final semantic meaning, the signal is transformed into unknown intermediate neuronal representations. Classically, studies of such intermediate representations are guided by linguistically defined concepts such as phonemes. Here we argue that in order to arrive at an unbiased understanding of the mechanisms of speech comprehension, the focus should instead lie on representations obtained directly from the stimulus. We illustrate our view with a strongly data-driven analysis of a dataset of 24 young, healthy humans who listened to a narrative of one hour duration while their magnetoencephalogram (MEG) was recorded. We find that two recent results, a performance gain of an encoding model based on acoustic and annotated linguistic features over a model based on acoustic features alone as well as the decoding of subgroups of phonemes from phoneme-locked responses, can be explained with an encoding model entirely based on acoustic features. These acoustic features capitalise on acoustic edges and outperform Gabor-filtered spectrograms, features with the potential to describe the spectrotemporal characteristics of individual phonemes. We conclude that models of brain responses based on linguistic features can serve as excellent benchmarks. However, we put forward that linguistic concepts are better used when interpreting models, not when building them. In doing so, we find that the results of our analyses favour syllables over phonemes as candidate intermediate speech representations visible with fast non-invasive neuroimaging.
A new method to accurately identify single nucleotide variants using small FFPE breast samples

Most tissue collections of neoplasms are composed of formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded (FFPE) excised tumor samples, and routine diagnosis in oncology relies on histopathological analysis of those samples. Genomic sequencing is becoming increasingly important in the clinical management as well as the basic science of cancer. Unfortunately, genomic sequencing of FFPE samples is difficult due to the small amounts of DNA available particularly from early cancers, as well as degradation of that DNA. We developed a new bioinformatic algorithm to robustly identify somatic mutations using small amounts of DNA extracted from archival FFPE samples of breast ductal carcinoma in situ, a preinvasive form of breast cancer. We optimized this strategy using 28 pairs of technical replicates, in which the same DNA sample was sequenced twice independently. After optimization, the mean similarity between replicates was 88.3%, range 66.7-100%, and we were able to detect an average of 19.9 (range 1-61) single nucleotide variants in each sample. We found that the accuracy of identifying SNVs severely declined when there was less than 40ng of DNA available. High depth resequencing also showed that insertion-deletion (indel) variants are an unreliable subset of mutations, using current methods. This new algorithm was empirically optimized and validated. It provides a significant improvement in detecting somatic single nucleotide variants in FFPE samples that can be used to accurately profile the genomes of neoplasms.
Functional properties of Sorghum-Peanut composite flour

Raw and heat-processed partially defatted peanut flour, sorghum flour, and their composite flour had different functional properties (water and oil absorption, viscosity, gelation, emulsion capacity, nitrogen solubility index [NSI] and protein dispersibility index). Water and oil absorption increased with heat processing; this effect was more pronounced in peanut than in sorghum flour. Sorghum flour samples attained a viscosity peak of 630 BU when raw and 438 BU when heat-processed. Peanut fortification reduced the viscosity peak of sorghum flour. The NSI and emulsion capacity of sorghum flour improved considerably as a result of fortification. Heat-processing reduced the NSI and emulsion capacity of peanut flour and peanut-fortified sorghum flour. The implication of these results will be realized in designing protein-enriched products based on sorghum flour, especially for sorghum-growing regions of the world.
Evaluation of super-disintegrant potential of acid-modified starch derived from Borassus aethiopum (Aracaceae) shoot in paracetamol tablet formulations

Purpose: To evaluate the super-disintegrant potentials of acid modified Borassus aethiopum starch (AMS) in comparison with native starch (NS) and commercial disintegrant sodium starch glycolate (SSG). Methods: Compatibility of AMS with paracetamol powder was evaluated using Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectrophotometry. Seven batches of paracetamol granules and tablets were prepared by wet granulation. AMS and NS were employed as disintegrants at concentrations of 2.43, 4.86 and 9.72 %w/w, respectively while 4.86 %w/w SSG was used as standard disintegrant. All the batches of the granules were compressed under the same compression settings. The properties of the granules as well as those of the tablets were assessed. Results: AMS was compatible with paracetamol powder as no noticeable interaction was observed in FTIR study. The paracetamol tablets formulated using AMS as disintegrant demonstrated satisfactory friability, weight uniformity, hardness, and superior disintegration characteristics to the formulations containing NS and SSG as disintegrant. Even at a lower concentration (2.43 %w/w), AMS possessed better disintegrant property than NS and SSG. AMS and NS had dimensionless disintegrant quantity of 1.447 and 0.005, respectively. As expected, increase in AMS concentration showed a decrease in disintegration time. Conclusion: AMS could be a potential low-cost super-disintegrant in formulation of paracetamol tablets.
Government ICT-based cross sectoral collaboration strategy for financial support of low-income families during the COVID-19 pandemic

In the time of the COVID-19 crisis, information and communication technologies (ICTs) have gained more attention, and they are now an important instrument of governmental policies and decision-making processes. The objective of this paper is to explore the application of the Pakistani government's ICT-based cross-sectoral collaboration strategy during the COVID-19 pandemic. The narrative literature review and case study approaches are employed for this study. After the COVID-19 breakout, the government of Pakistan immediately took initiative and launched a financial support program for low income people known as the "Ehsaas emergency cash" program. This study examines the government's cross-sectoral collaboration strategy, which was undertaken to help and support low-income through mobile payments and also promote public-private collaboration. The government policy also helps to maintain social distance and ensures transparency in the distribution of funds under the Ehsaas emergency cash program.
Statistical analysis of data from opioid use disorder study

This project presents statistical analyses of data from a population based opioid use disorder research program. The primary interest is in estimating the association of a range of demographic, clinical and provider-related characteristics on retention in treatment for opioid use disorders. This focus was motivated by the province’s efforts to respond to the opioid overdose crisis, and the methodological challenges inherent in analyzing the recurrent nature of opioid use disorder and the treatment episodes. We start with executing a network analysis to clarify the influence of provider-related characteristics, including individual-, case-mix and prescriber network-related characteristics on treatment retention. We observe that the network characteristics have a statistically significant impact on OAT retention. Then we use a Cox proportional hazards model with a gamma frailty, while also considering how the ending of the previous episode will impact the future ones to start our investigation into the importance of the episode endings. Moreover, we consider three different analyses under multiple scenarios to reach our final goal of analyzing the multi-type events. The OAT episode counts of the study subjects throughout the follow-ups are analyzed using Poisson regression models. Logistic regression analyses of the records of the OAT episode types are conducted with mixed effects. Lastly, we analyze the OAT episode duration times marginally via an estimating function approach. The robust variance estimator is identified for the estimator of the model parameters. In addition, we conduct a simulation study to verify the findings of the data analysis. The outcomes of the analyses indicate that the OAT episode counts and duration times are significantly associated with a few covariates, such as gender and birth era, and the relationships are varying according to the OAT episode types.