Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Benefits of Diabetes Self-Management for Health Plan Members: A 6-Month Translation Study

Background Diabetes self-management education has been shown to be effective in controlled trials. However, few programs that meet American Association of Diabetes Educators standards have been translated into widespread practice. Objective This study examined the translation of the evidence-based Better Choices, Better Health-Diabetes program in both Internet and face-to-face versions. Methods We administered the Internet program nationally in the United States (n=1010). We conducted face-to-face workshops in Atlanta, Georgia; Indianapolis, Indiana; and St. Louis, Missouri (n=232). Self-report questionnaires collected health indicator, health behavior, and health care utilization measures. Questionnaires were administered on the Web or by mail. We determined hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) from blood samples collected via mailed kits. Paired t tests determined whether changes between baseline and 6 months differed significantly from no change. Subgroup analyses determined whether participants with specific conditions benefited (high HbA1c, depression, hypoglycemia, nonadherence to medication taking, and no aerobic exercise). We calculated the percentage of participants with improvements of at least 0.4 effect size in at least one of the 5 above measures. Results Of the 1242 participants, 884 provided 6-month follow-up questionnaires. There were statistically significant improvements in 6 of 7 health indicators (including HbA1c) and in 7 of 7 behaviors. For each of the 5 conditions, there were significant improvements among those with the condition (effect sizes 0.59–1.1). A total of 662 (75.0%) of study participants improved at least 0.4 effect size in at least one criterion, and 327 (37.1%) improved in 2 or more. Conclusions The Diabetes Self-Management Program, offered in two modes, was successfully disseminated to a heterogeneous national population of members of either insured or administered health plans. Participants had small but significant benefits in multiple measures. The program appears effective in improving diabetes management.
A Study of the Relationship Between Market Competition and Capital Structure of Companies Listed in Tehran's Stock Exchange

Among the characteristics of the today emerging markets is the focus on the parameter of capital and effective methods in developing and maintaining the value of the corporation and the risk management of the corporation in finance market, which constitute one of the competitive scenes among the corporations in all of the markets. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between the market competition and capital structure of the corporations. For this purpose, we investigated the Tehran's stock exchange by using the panel data regression model for the time period 2005 to 2009. The results suggest that there is a significant and positive relationship between competitiveness and the capital structure. Also, the results showed that there is no significant relationship between the size of the corporation, uniqueness of the assets, sales growth and the collateral value of the assets variables and the capital structure of the corporations. Moreover, there was a significant and positive relationship between the current ratio of the corporations and the capital structure, and a significant and negative relationship between profitability ratio, capability of generating internal resources, and non-debt tax shield variables and the capital structure.
Phase II Clinical Trial of Docetaxel in Refractory Squamous Cell Carcinoma of the Cervix: A Gynecologic Oncology Group Study

Objective:A phase II study was conducted to evaluate the antitumor activity and adverse effects of docetaxel in patients with previously treated squamous cell carcinoma of the cervix. Methods:Eligible patients were to have measurable disease and not more than one prior chemotherapy regimen. Docetaxel 100 mg/m2 was administered intravenously over 1 hour. This treatment was repeated every 21 days until progression of disease or adverse effects prohibited further therapy. Results:Twenty-seven patients were entered onto this study, of whom 23 were eligible and evaluable. There were 2 (8.7%) partial responses. Eight patients (34.8%) had stable disease and 9 patients (39.1%) had increasing disease. The median time to progression was 3.8 months (range, 1.2–11.7 months), while median survival time was 7.0 months (range, 1.8–23.0 months). The most frequently reported adverse events were neutropenia, infection, gastrointestinal, and constitutional. Conclusions:Docetaxel has minimal activity in refractory squamous cell carcinoma of the cervix at the dose and schedule tested.
Propofol‐nitrous oxide versus sevoflurane‐nitrous oxide for strabismus surgery in children

Vomiting is a common problem following strabismus surgery. We compared the effects of propofol‐N2O and sevoflurane‐N2O on the incidence of oculocardiac reflex and postoperative nausea and vomiting. Forty unpremedicated children, aged 3–15 years were randomly assigned to two groups of 20 patients. In group 1, anaesthesia was induced and maintained with propofol infusion(173 ± 41 μg·kg−1·min−1). In group 2, anaesthesia was induced with N2O (66%) in O2 and incremental sevoflurane via face mask and maintained with sevoflurane. Both groups received 66% N2O in O2 throughout surgery. The overall incidence of vomiting and antiemetic requirement in the first 24 h was significantly higher in sevoflurane‐N2O group than propofol‐N2O group (P< 0.05). The propofol‐N2O group had significantly more episodes of oculocardiac reflex than sevoflurane‐N2O group (P< 0.05). Propofol‐N2O anaesthesia results in a significantly lower incidence of postoperative vomiting, yet a significantly higher incidence of oculocardiac reflex.
Developing medical professionalism in future doctors: a systematic review

Objectives: There are currently no guidelines on the most effective ways of supporting medical students to develop high standards of medical professionalism. The aim of this review is to summarise the evidence currently available on methods used by medical schools to promote medical professionalism. Methods: We performed a systematic search of electronic databases (Medline, PsychInfo, British Education Index, Educational Resources Information Centre, Sociological Abstracts and Topics in Medical Education) from January 1998 to October 2008. Outcomes studied were methods used to support and promote the development of professionalism in medical students. Results: We identified 134 papers and five main themes for supporting the development of professionalism in medical students: curriculum design, student selection, teaching and learning methods, role modelling and assessment methods. However, the level of empirical evidence supporting each of these methods is limited. Conclusions: Identification of these five areas helps medical schools to focus the emphasis of their approaches to developing professionalism and identifies future research areas. This review offers a preliminary guide to future discovery and progress in the area of medical professionalism.
Anaerobic Transformations of Organic Matter in Collection Systems

Anaerobic transformations of wastewater organic matter in the bulk water phase of collection system networks were investigated in laboratory‐scale experiments. The wastewater was collected from three locations, which provided samples with different characteristics, ranging from young to mature. Hydrolysis, fermentation, and sulfate reduction were identified as the most important anaerobic processes. Significant quantities of readily biodegradable substrate were produced by hydrolysis of complex organic substrates. The readily biodegradable substrate was further fermented into volatile fatty acids (VFA). The rate of fermentation was found to be limited by the hydrolysis process. The readily biodegradable substrate generated was almost entirely composed of VFA, primarily acetic and propionic acids. A production of sulfide was observed in all experiments, demonstrating that part of the readily biodegradable substrate was consumed by sulfate respiration. The sulfide production was most pronounced in mature wastewater that had previously undergone extended anaerobic transport.
Comparing internal and external standards in voice quality judgments.

A new descriptive framework for voice quality perception (Kreiman, Gerratt, Kempster, Erman, & Berke, 1993) states that when listeners rate a voice on some quality dimension (e.g., roughness), they compare the stimulus presented to an internal standard or scale. Hypothetically, substituting explicit, external standards for these unstable internal standards should improve listener reliability. Further, the framework suggests that internal standards for vocal qualities are inherently unstable, and may be influenced by factors other than the physical signal being judged. Among these factors, context effects may cause drift in listeners' voice ratings by influencing the internal standard against which judgments are made. To test these hypotheses, we asked 12 clinicians to judge the roughness of 22 synthetic stimuli using two scales: a traditional 5-point equal appearing interval (EAI) scale and a scale with explicit anchor stimuli for each scale point. The stimulus set included a relatively large number of normal and mildly rough voices. We predicted that this would produce an increase in the perceived roughness of moderately rough stimuli over time for the EAI ratings, but not for the explicitly anchored ratings. Ratings made using the anchored scale were significantly more reliable than those gathered using the unanchored paradigm. Further, as predicted, ratings on the unanchored EAI scale drifted significantly within a listening session in the direction expected, but ratings on the anchored scale did not. These results are consistent with our framework and suggest that explicitly anchored paradigms for voice quality evaluation might improve both research and clinical practice.
Relative levels and fractionation properties of Bacillus subtilis sigma(B) and its regulators during balanced growth and stress

sigma B is a secondary sigma factor that controls the general stress response in Bacillus subtilis. sigma B-dependent genes are activated when sigma B is released from an inhibitory complex with an anti-sigma B protein (RsbW) and becomes free to associate with RNA polymerase. Two separate pathways, responding either to a drop in intracellular ATP levels or to environmental stress (e.g., heat, ethanol, or salt), cause the release of sigma B from RsbW. rsbR, rsbS, rsbT, and rsbU are four genes now recognized as the upstream half of an operon that includes sigB (sigma B) and its principal regulators. Using reporter gene assays, we find that none of these four genes are essential for stationary-phase (i.e., ATP-dependent) activation of sigma B, but rsbU and one or more of the genes contained within an rsbR,S,T deletion are needed for stress induction of sigma B. In other experiments, Western blot (immunoblot) analyses showed that the levels of RsbR, RsbS, Rsb, and RsbU, unlike those of the sigB operon's four downstream gene products (RsbV, RsbW, RsbX and sigma B), are not elevated during sigma B activation. Gel filtration and immunoprecipitation studies did not reveal the formation of complexes between any of the four upstream sigB operon products and the products of the downstream half of the operon. Much of the detectable RsbR, RsbS, RsbT, and RsbU did, however, fractionate as a large-molecular-mass (approximately 600-kDa) aggregate which was excluded from our gel filtration matrix. The downstream sigB operon products were not present in this excluded material. The unaggregated RsbR, RsbS, and RsbU, which were retarded by the gel matrix, elated from the column earlier than expected from their molecular weights. The RsbR and RsbS fractionation profile was consistent with homodimers (60 and 30 kDa, respectively), while the RsbU appeared larger, suggesting a protein complex of approximately 90 to 100 kDa.
Evaluation of the inﬂuence of personality types on performance of shared tasks in a collaborative environment

Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) is an area of computing that has been receiving much attention in recent years. Developments in groupware technology, such as MERL’s Diamondtouch and Microsoft’s Surface, have presented us with new, challenging and exciting ways to carry out group tasks. However, these groupware technologies present us with a novel area of research in the ﬁeld of computing – that being multi-user Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). With multi-user HCI, we no longer have to cater for one person working on their own PC. We must now consider multiple users and their preferences as a group in order to design groupware applications that best suit the needs of that group. In this thesis, we aim to identify how groups of two people (dyads), given their various personality types and preferences, work together on groupware technologies. We propose interface variants to both competitive and collaborative systems in an attempt to identify what aspects of an interface or task best suit the needs of the diﬀerent dyads, maximising their performance and producing high levels of user satisfaction. In order to determine this, we introduce a series of user experiments that we carried out with 18 dyads and analyse their performance, behaviour and responses to each of 5 systems and their respective variants. Our research and user experiments were facilitated by the DiamondTouch – a collaborative, multi-user tabletop device.
Dynamic system characterization of enterprise servers via nonparametric identification

Dynamic characterization and fault detection are carried out in enterprise servers using nonparametric identification techniques based on sinusoidal excitation. The introduction of subtle sinusoidal perturbations in computer load variables or physical variables allows us to obtain a dynamic input-output characterization in the frequency domain. The input-output relationship is described in terms of coupling coefficients between a wide variety of physical and performance variables at different selected frequencies. This innovative approach in the field of computer science, based on a well-known system identification technique, has been demonstrated in empirical studies to provide valuable dynamic system characterization information that can be indispensable to datacenter operations personnel for the functions of performance management, capacity planning, quality-of-service (QoS) assurance, dynamic resource provisioning, and root cause analyses.
Induction by herpes simplex virus of free and heteromeric forms of E2F transcription factor.

We have determined that HSV causes rapid and large increases in cell-cycle-regulated free E2F and S-phase p107/E2F DNA binding activities in asynchronous cultures of C33A cells. Induction occurred by 4 hr postinfection and coincided with the appearance of viral encoded immediate-early and delayed-early proteins, i.e., when viral DNA replication normally commences. No increase in E2F activities occurred when cells were infected with viruses expressing mutant regulatory proteins ICP4 or ICP27, or mutant replication proteins ICP8, pol or helicase, or when cells were infected with wild-type virus in the presence of inhibitors of DNA synthesis. In contrast, ICP8 mutant-infected cells contained elevated amounts of NF kappa B activity equivalent to WT virus, no induction of Sp1 relative to WT virus, and reduced ATF/CREB activity relative to WT virus. Results of transient expression assays with E2F-responsive reporters indicated that the net effect of induction of both active (free E2F) and repressive (p107/E2F) complexes was a decrease in AdE2 promoter activity and an increase in c-myc promoter activity. Taken together these results suggest that HSV can cause unscheduled changes in the amount and functional status of a cell-cycle-regulated transcription factor. These results are discussed in light of possible roles for viral-induced alterations in E2F, especially as related to imposing or overriding cell-cycle checkpoints.
Estrogen receptor‐α drives adiponectin effects on cyclin D1 expression in breast cancer cells

Obesity is a risk factor for breast cancer, largely due to altered expression of various adipocytokines. As it concerns adiponectin, there are not univocal results regarding its role in breast cancer occurrence and progression. Here, we demonstrate that in animals injected with human estrogen receptor (ER)‐α‐negative MDA‐MB‐231 cells pre treated with adiponectin (1 and 5 μg/ml), a significant reduction (60 and 40%, respectively) in tumor volume is observed, whereas an increased tumor growth (54 and 109%, respectively) is evidenced in the animals receiving human ER‐α‐positive MCF‐7 cells. Moreover, cyclin D1 (CD1) mRNA and protein levels are decreased in MDA‐MB‐231 cells, whereas they are up‐regulated in ER‐α‐positive cells by adiponectin. These findings fit with the opposite effects of adiponectin on CD1 promoter: 0.44‐ and 0.34‐fold decrease in MDA‐MB‐231 cells and 0.63‐ and 0.95‐fold increase in MCF‐7 cells, treated with 1 and 5 μg/ml, respectively. Functional studies indicate that these effects are mediated by the specific protein 1 motif located in the CD1 promoter. In the absence of ER‐α, the adiponectin‐mediated down‐regulation of CD1 involves the recruitment of corepressors. In the presence of ER‐α, the adiponectin‐induced expression of CD1 requires the involvement of an activator complex. In conclusion, we propose that a possible mechanism through which adiponectin differently affects breast cancer growth is the opposite modulation of CD1 levels accordingly to ER‐α expression. —Mauro, L. , Pellegrino, M. , Giordano, F. , Ricchio, E. , Rizza, P., De Amicis, F. , Catalano, S. , Bonofiglio, D. , Panno, M. L. , Andò, S. Estrogen receptor‐α drives adiponectin effects on cyclin D1 expression in breast cancer cells. FASEB J. 29, 2150‐2160 (2015). www.fasebj. org
CORPORATE GOVERNANCE RELATION WITH CORPORATE SUSTAINABILITY

Sustainability is targeted in this article to be integrated with corporate governance presenting its importance in business world not as obligation, but as a tool be adopted. Economic challenges push companies to think twice before making decisions. Corporate governance is a success key for companies through improving performance and gain mistrust of investors serving business sustainability. Objectives direction has been changed from concentrating on shareholders’ benefits to maintain sustainability in general perspective. Sustainable economy becomes main feature of business world needs requiring strong militarization of all companies’ resources. That has been interrupted by climate change and financial crisis setting an urgent need from managements to adopt strongly sustainability and governance principles. Governance functions cannot be completed without sustainability strategy; both are affected by social, environmental, and economic aspects. That what article tries to present through collecting prime resources of leading companies in corporate governance and sustainability, and secondary data from academic researches supporting that by empirical study to proof that companies have been saved from collapsing by adopting corporate governance responsibility and sustainability principles during financial crisis.
Evolving robot controllers for a homogeneous robotic swarm

A homogeneous robotic swarm has a great potential to achieve a highly complex task that cannot be solved by a single robot. However, it would not be so easy to develop an appropriate collective behavior because of the intrinsic large redundancy in itself. In this paper, a robot controller is designed with an evolving artificial recurrent neural network (EANN) to develop coordinated collective behavior autonomously. However, it is well-known that an EANN shows the performance strongly dependent on its topological structure. In addition to this, no general guidelines have been known to the question of how to design an appropriate topological structure of an EANN. Therefore, as the beginning of solving this question, an approach to giving the evolvability of the topological structure at the limited part between the hidden layer and the output layer is introduced. A series of computer simulations are conducted to draw a conclusion.
Brain glucose sensing and neural regulation of insulin and glucagon secretion

Glucose homeostasis requires the tight regulation of glucose utilization by liver, muscle and white or brown fat, and glucose production and release in the blood by liver. The major goal of maintaining glycemia at ∼5 mM is to ensure a sufficient flux of glucose to the brain, which depends mostly on this nutrient as a source of metabolic energy. This homeostatic process is controlled by hormones, mainly glucagon and insulin, and by autonomic nervous activities that control the metabolic state of liver, muscle and fat tissue but also the secretory activity of the endocrine pancreas. Activation or inhibition of the sympathetic or parasympathetic branches of the autonomic nervous systems are controlled by glucose‐excited or glucose‐inhibited neurons located at different anatomical sites, mainly in the brainstem and the hypothalamus. Activation of these neurons by hyper‐ or hypoglycemia represents a critical aspect of the control of glucose homeostasis, and loss of glucose sensing by these cells as well as by pancreatic β‐cells is a hallmark of type 2 diabetes. In this article, aspects of the brain–endocrine pancreas axis are reviewed, highlighting the importance of central glucose sensing in the control of counterregulation to hypoglycemia but also mentioning the role of the neural control in β‐cell mass and function. Overall, the conclusions of these studies is that impaired glucose homeostasis, such as associated with type 2 diabetes, but also defective counterregulation to hypoglycemia, may be caused by initial defects in glucose sensing.
Analytic Formulas for Options in the Schwartz 97 Multifactor Framework with Added Regime Shifts

We consider the Schwartz 97 two and three factor models, which have been considered as benchmarks for pricing commodity derivatives in the last two decades. In order to take account of sudden regime shifts in commodity prices, we superimpose a regime shifting structure onto this framework. Using methodology developed by Duan et. al. (2002) and Swishchuk (2008) we are able to obtain within the resulting models closed form expressions for the values of European call options written on the commodity. Using data from the Gold, Copper and Corn markets, we find that the added regime shifting feature leads to a significant improvement in fit.
The role of databases in drug postmarketing surveillance

This paper describes the role of databases used for postmarketing surveillance of drugs at the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA). First we describe the Adverse Event Reporting System (AERS), the largest database of adverse event reports in the world. Next, we explain the methods we have used for assembling these adverse event reports into a case series and analysing them, as well as techniques for employing drug use databases to construct reporting rates in the evaluation of drug safety issues. Finally, we discuss the FDA's use of the databases it accesses through its Cooperative Agreement Program to conduct high priority studies to support regulatory decision‐making. Published in 2001 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.