Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The effects of message framing and message processing on cognitive and behavioral outcomes: An examination of breast self-examination messages

This study examined the effects of message framing, message processing and issue involvement on breast self-examination attitudes and behaviors. A health frame message processing model was developed and tested in the context of a detection behavior based on prospect theory (Tversky & Kahneman, 1981) and the heuristicsystematic model (HSM) (Chaiken, 1980). Participants were exposed to either a gain frame message emphasizing the consequences of performing breast self-examinations or a loss frame message emphasizing the consequences of not performing breast selfexaminations. Women who were classified as defensive processors displayed maladaptive responses in the form of minimization or denial of the health issue in a thought-listing task following exposure to the message stimuli. The results of the study indicated that (a) women with less self-efficacy engaged in maladaptive responses; (b) there were no framing-related differences in attitudes for high involvement women who processed the messages objectively; (c) high involvement women who engaged in defensive processing responded more negatively to the loss frame message than the gain frame message; (d) attitudes were significant predictors of behavioral intentions; (e) behavioral intentions were significant predictors of behaviors; and (f) low involvement women who received loss frame messages felt more susceptible to breast cancer than low involvement women who received gain frame messages. Limitations, suggestions for future research, and implications for health care professionals are discussed.
Privacy-aware Access Control with Generalization Boundaries

Privacy is today an important concern for both data providers and data users. Data generalization can provide significant protection of an individual's privacy, which means the data value can be replaced by a less specific but semantically consistent value and the personal information can be collected in a generalized form. However, over-generalized data may render data of little value. A key question is whether or not a certain generalization strategy provides a sufficient level of privacy and usability? In this paper, we introduce a new approach, called privacy-aware generalization boundaries, which can satisfy the requirements of both data providers and data users. We propose a privacy-aware access control model related to a retention period. Formal definitions of authorization actions and rules are presented. Further, we discuss how to manage a valid access process and analysis the access control policy. Finally, we extend our model to support highly complex privacy-related policies by taking into account features of obligations and conditions.
Outcomes associated with introduction of thiazolidinedione therapy in Medicaid enrolled patients with type 2 diabetes: an updated and expanded retrospective analysis

ABSTRACT Objectives: In an earlier analysis, differences in healthcare costs, medication adherence, and persistence were examined between patients with type 2 diabetes, enrolled in the North Carolina Medicaid, who had newly started thiazolidinedione (TZD) therapy and those starting other oral antidiabetic agents. In this analysis, the size of the cohort was increased by including 18 months of additional Medicaid data (until December 2004) and sought to: (1) replicate the results of the original study in a larger cohort; and (2) extend the original analysis by providing an additional 18 months of observational follow-up. Methods: A total of 2660 patients newly starting TZD therapy between July 2001 and December 2003 were compared to 2050 patients starting other oral antidiabetic medication for health-care costs and outcomes in the post-medication start year. In addition, the initial cohort was followed for an additional 18 months to examine if there were any differences in outcomes, such as hospitalization and total health-care costs, that could be associated with the type of therapy. Multivariate regression techniques, incorporating health-care utilization in the year prior to start of new therapy, were used to determine the net cost impact of one therapy versus the other. Results: Multiple regression analyses found that patients starting TZD have better treatment persistence in the post-medication start year compared to patients starting other oral antidiabetic agents (4% increase in therapy persistence index, p < 0.001). In addition, patients starting TZDs had 18.9% lower total annual health-care costs ( p < 0.01) compared to patients starting other oral antidiabetic agents. Examination of the original cohort of 3191 patients, for up to an additional 18 months, showed TZD's association with improved adherence rates but not with persistence. Importantly, treatment adherence remained the strongest independent predictor of decreased hospitalization risk and health-care cost reduction in this population. Conclusions: Introduction of thiazolidinedione therapy in a Medicaid-enrolled type 2 diabetic population was associated with significantly greater treatment adherence, in the post-start year, compared to patients starting other oral antidiabetic agents.
Probabilistic Approach for Diversifying Web Services Discovery and Composition

Due to the increasing number of available web services, discovering the best service that matches a user requirement is still a challenge. In most cases the discovery system returns a set of very similar services and sometimes it is unable to find results for some complex queries. Therefore, integrating web service discovery and composition, taking into account the diversity of discovered results, in a unified way is still a big issue for web services. In this paper, we propose a novel service ranking algorithm for diversifying web services discovery results in order to minimize the redundancy in the search results. This algorithm chooses a set of selected web services based on relevancy, service diversity and service density. We also propose a new method to generate service dependency network using the Formal Concept Analysis (FCA) framework. The generated graph is used to select the composition of discovered web services set. Experimental results show that our method performs better than others baseline approaches.
Exploring the Structure and Function of the Mycobacterial KatG Protein Using trans-Dominant Mutants

ABSTRACT In order to probe the structure and function of the mycobacterial catalase-peroxidase enzyme (KatG), we employed a genetic approach using dominant-negative analysis of katG merodiploids. Transformation of Mycobacterium bovis BCG with various katG point mutants (expressed from low-copy-number plasmids) resulted in reductions in peroxidase and catalase activities as measured in cell extracts. These reductions in enzymatic activity usually correlated with increased resistance to the antituberculosis drug isoniazid (INH). However, for the N138S trans-dominant mutant, the catalase-peroxidase activity was significantly decreased while the sensitivity to INH was retained. trans-dominance required katG expression from multicopy plasmids and could not be demonstrated with katG mutants integrated elsewhere on the wild-type M. bovis BCG chromosome. Reversal of the mutant phenotype through plasmid exchange suggested the catalase-peroxidase deficiency occurred at the protein level and that INH resistance was not due to a second site mutation(s). Electrophoretic analysis of KatG proteins from the trans-dominant mutants showed a reduction in KatG dimers compared to WT and formation of heterodimers with reduced activity. The mutants responsible for these defects cluster around proposed active site residues: N138S, T275P, S315T, and D381G. In an attempt to identify mutants that might delimit the region(s) of KatG involved in subunit interactions, C-terminal truncations were constructed (with and without the D381G dominant-negative mutation). None of the C-terminal deletions were able to complement a ΔkatG strain, nor could they cause a dominant-negative effect on the WT. Taken together, these results suggest an intricate association between the amino- and carboxy-terminal regions of KatG and may be consistent with a domain-swapping mechanism for KatG dimer formation.
An UBM-Based Reference Space for Speaker Recognition

The universal background model represents the speaker independent distribution of features, so it can be used to construct a reference space for speaker recognition. In the anchor models, one speaker utterance can be located at one point in the anchor space. We construct the reference space using the Gaussian distributions in the universal background model instead of the virtual speakers in the anchor models, and one speaker's all utterances mainly locate in a small portion of the whole space. On the other hand, we use the support vector machine to separate this speaker dependent portion from the whole space while the Euclidean distance measure is used in the anchor models in general. The experiments on the YOHO database show that our method can get better performance comparing with the decision fashion based on the Euclidean distance which is widely used in the anchor models
Temporal correlation of the RSS improves accuracy of fingerprinting localization

Indoor localization based on RSS fingerprinting approach has been attracting many research efforts in the past decades. Recent study presents a fundamental limit of the approach: given requirement of estimation accuracy, reliability of the user's localization result can be derived. As highly accurate indoor localization is essential to enable many location based services, a natural question to ask is: can we further improve the accuracy of the localization scheme fundamentally? In this paper, we theoretically show that the temporal correlation of the RSS can improve accuracy of the RSS fingerprinting based indoor localization. In particular, we construct a theoretical framework to evaluate how the temporal correlation of the RSS can influence the reliability of location estimation, which is based on a newly proposed radio propagation model considering the time-varying property of signals from a given Wi-Fi AP. Such a theoretical framework is then applied to analyze localization in the one dimensional physical space, which reveals the fundamental reason why performance improvement of localization can be brought by temporal correlation of the RSS. We further extend our analysis to high-dimensional scenarios. Experimental results corroborate our theoretical analysis.
Mitochondrial DNA replication during differentiation of murine embryonic stem cells

Oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS), the intracellular process that generates the majority of the ATP of a cell through the electron-transfer chain, is highly dependent on proteins encoded by the mitochondrial genome (mtDNA). MtDNA replication is regulated by the nuclear-encoded mitochondrial transcription factor A (TFAM) and the mitochondrial-specific DNA polymerase gamma, which consists of a catalytic (POLG) and an accessory (POLG2) subunit. Differentiation of pluripotent embryonic stem cells (ESCs) into specific cell types requires expansion of discrete populations of mitochondria and mtDNA replication to meet the specific metabolic requirements of the cell. We determined by real-time PCR that expression of pluripotent markers is reduced before the upregulation of Polg, Polg2 and Tfam in spontaneously differentiating R1 murine (m)ESCs, along with transient increases in mtDNA copy number. In D3 mESCs, the initial transient increase did not take place. However, precursors of neuronal and cardiomyocyte differentiation were positive for both POLG and TFAM. Similar-stage ESCs also showed active mtDNA replication, identified by 5-bromo-2′-deoxy-uridine labelling, as mtDNA copy number increased. Retinoic-acid-induced differentiation resulted in more consistent patterns of replication and upregulation of Polg, Polg2 and Tfam, whereas siRNA knockdown demonstrated that steady-state expression of POLG is essential for maintaining pluripotency.
Angiotensin II Promotes Thoracic Aortic Dissections and Ruptures in Col3a1 Haploinsufficient Mice

Vascular Ehlers–Danlos syndrome is a dramatic inherited disease caused by mutations of type III collagen (COL3A1) gene, associated with early-onset occurrence of arterial ruptures. Col3a1+/− heterozygous mice, the only vascular Ehlers–Danlos syndrome model available to date, have no spontaneous early vascular phenotype. Our objective was to determine the susceptibility of Col3a1+/− mice to develop arterial ruptures under high blood pressure (BP) conditions induced by a 4-week infusion of angiotensin II (AngII). AngII (1 &mgr;g/kg per minute) significantly and comparably increased systolic BP in Col3a1+/− and Col3a1+/+ mice but led to a higher premature mortality rate in Col3a1+/− mice compared with Col3a1+/+ mice (73% versus 36%; P=0.03), particularly during the first-week infusion (55% versus 0%). Echocardiography and histological analysis evidenced that early deaths were caused by thoracic aortic ruptures preceded by dissections and associated with low aortic collagen fibrils content. Remarkably, lowering the dose of AngII (0.5 &mgr;g/kg per minute) rescued the first-week premature deaths of Col3a1+/− mice while decreasing the rises in systolic BP (P=0.05 compared with the high-dose AngII), resulting in similar mortality rates in both groups of mice at the end of the 4-week period (30% versus 50% in Col3a1+/− and Col3a1+/+ mice; P=0.30). Finally, norepinephrine infusion (3.9 &mgr;g/kg per minute) did not induced significant mortality in both groups, whereas it significantly increased systolic BP, comparably with the high and with the low dose of AngII in Col3a1+/− mice (P=0.53 and P=1.00, respectively). Our findings demonstrated the extreme sensitivity of Col3a1 insufficient mice to prematurely develop thoracic aortic ruptures in response to AngII and its associated high levels in BP.
Alternative design of a tRNA core for aminoacylation.

The core of Escherichia coli tRNA(Cys) is important for aminoacylation of the tRNA by cysteine-tRNA synthetase. This core differs from the common tRNA core by having a G15:G48, rather than a G15:C48 base-pair. Substitution of G15:G48 with G15:C48 decreases the catalytic efficiency of aminoacylation by two orders of magnitude. This indicates that the design of the core is not compatible with G15:C48. However, the core of E. coli tRNA(Gln), which contains G15:C48, is functional for cysteine-tRNA synthetase. Here, guided by the core of E. coli tRNA(Gln), we sought to test and identify alternative functional design of the tRNA(Cys) core that contains G15:C48. Although analysis of the crystal structure of tRNA(Cys) and tRNA(Gln) implicated long-range tertiary base-pairs above and below G15:G48 as important for a functional core, we showed that this was not the case. The replacement of tertiary interactions involving 9, 21, and 59 in tRNA(Cys) with those in tRNA(Gln) did not construct a functional core that contained G15:C48. In contrast, substitution of nucleotides in the variable loop adjacent to 48 of the 15:48 base-pair created functional cores. Modeling studies of a functional core suggests that the re-constructed core arose from enhanced stacking interactions that compensated for the disruption caused by the G15:C48 base-pair. The repacked tRNA core displayed features that were distinct from those of the wild-type and provided evidence that stacking interactions are alternative means than long-range tertiary base-pairs to a functional core for aminoacylation.
Uniform logarithmic Sobolev inequalities for conservative spin systems with super-quadratic single-site potential

We consider a noninteracting unbounded spin system with conservation of the mean spin. We derive a uniform logarithmic Sobolev inequality (LSI) provided the single-site potential is a bounded perturbation of a strictly convex function. The scaling of the LSI constant is optimal in the system size. The argument adapts the two-scale approach of Grunewald, Villani, Westdickenberg and the second author from the quadratic to the general case. Using an asymmetric Brascamp–Lieb-type inequality for covariances, we reduce the task of deriving a uniform LSI to the convexification of the coarse-grained Hamiltonian, which follows from a general local Cramer theorem.
Efficacy of Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation in the Management of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

Background: Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a debilitating condition that affects approximately 1% to 3% of the world population. The primary treatments are selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors and behavioral therapy. Despite therapy, approximately 30% to 40% of patients continue to suffer from disabling OCD symptoms. Objective: is to evaluate the efficacy of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (r-TMS) in management of OCD patients, either as monotherapy or as add-on treatment in patients with poor response to selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). Methods: The present study included sixty OCD patients. Forty patients were none medicated; twenty of them (randomly selected), received sham stimulation as a control group and the other twenty received real r-TMS. The third group included twenty patients with poor response to SSRIs; they received real r-TMS. The results of the three groups were compared pre and post treatment. Results: While r-TMS was not effective as a single treatment for OCD patients, it was effective as add-on treatment for OCD patients. The use of r-TMS induced a statistically significant increase in the value of motor threshold (MT) in the active group of patients (both Monotherapy and add-on treatment groups) after receiving 15 sessions of real r-TMS; this means that TMS lowered the hyperexcitable circuits in OCD. [Egypt J Neurol Psychiat Neurosurg. 2010; 47(3): 393-398]
Ultrasonography of entheseal insertions in the lower limb in spondyloarthropathy

Objective: To compare ultrasonography (US) with clinical examination in the detection of entheseal abnormality of the lower limb in patients with spondyloarthropathy (SpA). Methods: 35 patients with SpA (ankylosing spondylitis 27; psoriatic arthritis 7; reactive arthritis 1) underwent independent clinical and ultrasonographic examination of both lower limbs at five entheseal sites—superior pole and inferior pole of patella, tibial tuberosity, Achilles tendon, and plantar aponeurosis. US was performed using an ATL (Advanced Technology Laboratories, Bothell, Washington, USA) high definition imaging 3000 machine with linear 7–4 MHz and compact linear 10–5 MHz probes to detect bursitis, structure thickness, bony erosion, and enthesophyte (bony spur). An enthesitis score was formulated from these US findings giving a possible maximum total score of 36. Results: On clinical examination 75/348 (22%) entheseal sites were abnormal and on US examination 195/348 (56%) sites were abnormal. In 19 entheseal sites with bursitis on US, only five were detected by clinical examination. Compared with US, clinical examination had a low sensitivity (22.6%) and moderate specificity (79.7%) for the detection of enthesitis of the lower limbs. There was no significant correlation between the US score of enthesitis and acute phase parameters such as erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) or C reactive protein (CRP). The intraobserver κ value for analysis of all sites was 0.9. Conclusions: Most entheseal abnormality in SpA is not detected at clinical examination. US is better than clinical examination in the detection of entheseal abnormality of the lower limbs in SpA. A quantitative US score of lower limb enthesitis is proposed but further studies are required to validate it in SpA.
Human Allograft Limbal Transplantation for Corneal Surface Reconstruction

Limbal allograft transplantation was performed consecutively in 16 eyes with thermal or chemical burns (n=5), Terrien's degeneration (n=2), congenital sclerocornea (n=1), Stevens-Johnson syndrome (n=1), and chronic keratoconjunctivitis (n=7), by transplanting randomly selected cadaver limbocorneal grafts to the recipient eye that had received superficial lamellar keratectomy to remove fibrovascular pannus. Oral cyclosporine A was administered immediately for 2.9 ± 1.3 months. During 18.5 ± 5.4 months of follow-up, the results showed improved visual acuity in 13 eyes (81.3%) and rapid (within 1 week) surface healing in 10 eyes (62.5%). Donor limbal tissue developed engorged and tortuous blood vessels in 12 eyes within 1-2 months, but these regressed within 3 months after surgery. No acute graft failure or allograft rejection could be identified. Twelve eyes (75%) showed total regression of vascularization and four eyes had decreased vascularization. These preliminary results indicate that limbal allograft transplantation may be able to reconstruct a corneal surface that has undergone bilateral diffuse destruction, including the loss of limbal epithelial stem cells.
An investigation of uterine nitric oxide production in mares susceptible and resistant to persistent breeding-induced endometritis and the effects of immunomodulation.

The first objective of this study was to evaluate intrauterine nitric oxide (NO) and endometrial inducible NO synthase (iNOS) in mares susceptible or resistant to persistent breeding-induced endometritis (PBIE) within 24 h after breeding. Mares susceptible (n = 6) or resistant (n = 6) to PBIE were inseminated over five cycles, and uterine secretions and endometrial biopsies were collected before and 2, 6, 12 and 24 h after insemination. Uterine secretions were analysed for NO and biopsies were analyzed for iNOS expression. A second experiment evaluated the effect of treatment with dexamethasone or mycobacterial cell wall extract (MCWE) on uterine NO production and endometrial iNOS mRNA expression. Six susceptible mares were inseminated over three cycles with (i) killed spermatozoa without treatment (control), (ii) killed spermatozoa with 50 mg of dexamethasone IV or (iii) MCWE IV 24 h prior to insemination with killed spermatozoa. Six resistant mares were inseminated with killed spermatozoa as a control. Six hours after breeding, uterine biopsies and secretions were collected and evaluated for NO and iNOS mRNA. In Experiment 1, resistant mares had an increase in iNOS mRNA expression 2 h post-breeding compared to baseline (p = 0.045), 12 h (p = 0.014) and 24 h (p = 0.001). Susceptible mares had higher expression 2 h compared to 6 h (p = 0.046). No differences were observed in mRNA or protein expression of iNOS between resistant and susceptible mares. Resistant mares had a relatively steady amount of total intrauterine NO over 24 h, while susceptible mares had an increase over time, with a significantly higher increase in total NO than resistant mares at 6 (p = 0.04) and 12 h (p = 0.032). In Experiment 2, no differences were observed for iNOS mRNA expression. Susceptible mares had increased NO when compared to resistant mares (p = 0.008) and MCWE decreased NO (p = 0.047).
Protection of query privacy for continuous location based services

Location-based services (LBS) have become an immensely valuable source of real-time information and guidance. Nonetheless, the potential abuse of users' sensitive personal data by an LBS server is evolving into a serious concern. Privacy concerns in LBS exist on two fronts: location privacy and query privacy. In this paper we investigate issues related to query privacy. In particular, we aim to prevent the LBS server from correlating the service attribute, e.g., bar/tavern, in the query to the user's real-world identity. Location obfuscation using spatial generalization aided by anonymization of LBS queries is a conventional means to this end. However, effectiveness of this technique would abate in continuous LBS scenarios, i.e., where users are moving and recurrently requesting for LBS. In this paper, we present a novel query-perturbation-based scheme that protects query privacy in continuous LBS even when user-identities are revealed. Unlike most exiting works, our scheme does not require the presence of a trusted third party.