Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The impact of response to the results of diagnostic tests for malaria: cost-benefit analysis

Objective Rapid diagnostic tests for malaria seem cost effective in standard analyses, but these do not take account of clinicians’ response to test results. This study tested the impact of clinicians’ response to rapid diagnostic test or microscopy results on the costs and benefits of testing at different levels of malaria transmission and in different age groups. Design Cost-benefit analysis using a decision tree model and clinical data on the effectiveness of diagnostic tests for malaria, their costs, and clinicians’ response to test results. Setting Tanzania. Methods Data were obtained from a clinical trial of 2425 patients carried out in three settings of varying transmission. Results At moderate and low levels of malaria transmission, rapid diagnostic tests were more cost beneficial than microscopy, and both more so than presumptive treatment, but only where response was consistent with test results. At the levels of prescription of antimalarial drugs to patients with negative tests that have been found in observational studies and trials, neither test methodis likely to be cost beneficial, incurring costs 10-250% higher, depending on transmission rate, than would have been the case with fully consistent responses to all test results. Microscopy becomes more cost beneficial than rapid diagnostic tests when its sensitivity under operational conditions approaches that of rapid diagnostic tests. Conclusions Improving diagnostic methods, including rapid diagnostic tests, can reduce costs and enhance the benefits of effective antimalarial drugs, but only if the consistency of response to test results is also improved. Investing in methods to improve rational response to tests is essential. Economic evaluations of diagnostic tests should take into account whether clinicians’ response is consistent with test results.
Fabrication of Zinc Oxide/Graphene Oxide Polysulfone Mixed Matrix Membranes for Cadmium Ions Adsorption

Excessive heavy metal ions in wastewater should be removed to ensure the reuse of effluent from the treated wastewater by industries in order for them to maintain their daily production processes. In this study, the potential of employing zinc oxide/graphene oxide polysulfone mixed matrix membranes (ZnO/GO PSF MMMs) to remove cadmium ions was studied. Neat PSF membranes and 1 wt% ZnO/GO PSF MMMs were fabricated by using the phase inversion method in this research. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) with an energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), Fourier-tansform Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES) were applied in this research for studying the characterization and composition of the membranes. Parameters such as pH, contact time, initial feed concentration, the presence of humic acid and the number of membranes had been studied. From the results, the optimum pH value for the Cd adsorption is pH 5.5 and the optimum contact time was 3 hours. In addition, the optimum initial concentration of Cd was 25 ppm and the increasing number of membranes will lead to higher adsorption capacity. Besides that, the amount of adsorbed Cd on the membranes was greatly reduced when humic acid existed in the heavy metal solution. The adsorption data satisfactorily fitted to Langmuir and pseudosecond order models. According to Langmuir adsorption isotherm, the qmax obtained was 0.000698 mg/cm and the Langmuir constant of adsorption was 0.2227 L/mg. According to pseudo-second order kinetic model, the qeq obtained was 0.00073 mg/cm and the rate constant for pseudo-second order was 964.3 cm/mg.h at 25 ppm of Cd solution. The result from the three cycles of desorption and regeneration had proven that ZnO/GO PSF MMM showed good desorption performance. The bulk analysis showed that the adsorbed Cd in membrane per weight of ZnO/GO is higher than the adsorbed Cd in bulk per weight of ZnO/GO because nano-adsorbents in the suspension will cause the agglomeration in aqueous solution during the adsorption process.
1H and 13C NMR spectral assignments of some novel 2,4,6,8‐tetraaryl‐3,7‐diazabicyclo[3.3.1]nonan‐9‐one derivatives

The 1H and 13C NMR spectra of 2,4,6,8‐tetraaryl‐3,7‐diazabicyclo[3.3. 1]nonan‐9‐ones (1–2), oximes (3–8) and O‐benzyl oximes (9–12) were recorded. The chemical shifts were unambiguously assigned using 1D and 2D NMR spectral data. The results clearly indicate that the compounds exist in chair‐boat conformation with equatorial and axial orientation of the aryl groups in the chair and boat forms, respectively. Since the molecules are flexible and dynamic in solution, the chair and boat forms are mutually interconvertible. In 3–12, because of the effect of oximation/oximination, all the protons in the heterobicyclic systems gave distinct signals except the benzylic protons of the boat form. In all synthesized compounds, the aryl group protons at C‐6,8 are shielded by the aryl groups at C‐2,4 and therefore appear in the lower frequency region than the aryl groups at C‐2,4. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Passive Operating On-chip Plasma Isolation From Whole Blood

In clinical chemistry, a necessary step performed is the isolation of plasma from whole blood, and effective sample preparation techniques are needed for the development of miniaturized clinical diagnostic devices. This study demonstrates the use of passive microfluidic devices, which operating entirely on capillary action, for on-chip isolation of plasma from whole blood. Using these devices, several to several tens nanoliter volumes of plasma were effectively separated from a single drop of whole blood in 2 minutes. This study may have broad implications in the design of lab-on-a-chip devices for bioanalytical applications.
Ökonomische Bewertung von staatlichen Investitionen in Forschung und Innovation

Um die Wettbewerbsfahigkeit ihrer Volkswirtschaften zu starken, investieren viele Lander jahrlich grose Summen in Forschungs- und Entwicklungsaktivitaten. Begrundet werden staatliche Forderungen von FuE-und Innovationsaktivitaten (F&I) in der Wirtschaft und direkte staatliche Forschungsaktivitaten vor allem im Bereich der Grundlagenforschung mit dem Vorliegen von Marktversagen und damit verbunden einer Unterinvestition in FuE. Insbesondere die unvollstandige Aneigenbarkeit der Ertrage aus Forschungsaktivitaten fuhrt zu einem Marktversagen, denn von neuen Forschungsergebnissen profitiert vielfach nicht nur das forschende Unternehmen selbst, sondern auch Dritte. Daneben schranken im Allgemeinen das hohe technologische Risiko und die Marktunsicherheit uber die Art und Hohe des Erfolgs von FuE-Projekten sowie Informationsasymmetrien zwischen Unternehmen und Kapitalgeber die Finanzierung von Forschungsvorhaben uber den Kapitalmarkt ein. Aktuell werden in Deutschland rund 28 % der gesamten FuE-Ausgaben von staatlicher Seite finanziert. Dabei schwankt der staatliche Finanzierungsanteil zwischen 4.5 % im Wirtschaftssektor, 85 % im universitaren Bereich und 91 % in der auseruniversitaren Forschung. Im Rahmen dieser Studie wurde der aktuelle Stand der Literatur hinsichtlich der Quantifizierung der volkswirtschaftlichen Effekte der staatlichen Forschungsforderung zusammengefasst und einer Bewertung unterzogen. Angesichts zahlreicher Politikmasnahmen, verschiedener Adressaten der Forderung und ihrer Interaktionen und alternativen Bewertungskriterien ist die Bewertung staatlicher Forschungsforderung ein sehr weites Feld, das differenziert betrachtet werden muss. Es sei jedoch ausdrucklich darauf hingewiesen, dass im Rahmen dieser Studie keine systematische Evaluation einzelner Forderprogramme vorgenommen werden konnte.
Exploiting Gaussian Mixture Model Clustering for Full-Duplex Transceiver Design

In conventional full-duplex communications, dedicated symbols are transmitted to estimate both the self-interference channel and the desired signal channel in order to perform self-interference cancellation (SIC) and to coherently detect the desired signal. However, inaccurate channel estimation will produce residual self-interference and degrade the detection performance. In this paper, we exploit a Gaussian mixture model (GMM) clustering to design a full-duplex transceiver (FDT), which is able to detect the desired signal without requiring digital-domain channel estimation and SIC. The frame structure of the designed FDT contains two successive phases: labeling phase and data transmission phase. In particular, the designed FDT performs cluster labeling in the labeling phase and performs GMM clustering based on an expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm in the data transmission phase. Furthermore, the theoretical analysis about the detection performance, computational complexity, and convergence performance for the designed FDT are studied. Finally, simulation results show that the bit error rate (BER) of the designed FDT is closed to the performance of the FDT with a maximum likelihood (ML) detector and perfect channel knowledge meanwhile is superior to the BER performance of the FDT with a ML detector and a least square (LS) or least mean square (LMS) channel estimator.
Detector characterization of a near-infrared discrete avalanche photodiode 5×5 array for astrophysical observations

We present detector characterization of a state-of-the-art near-infrared (950nm - 1650 nm) Discrete Avalanche Photodiode detector (NIRDAPD) 5×5 array. We designed an experimental setup to characterize the NIRDAPD dark count rate, photon detection efficiency (PDE), and non-linearity. The NIRDAPD array was illuminated using a 1050 nm light-emitting diode (LED) as well as 980 nm, 1310 nm, and 1550 nm laser diodes. We find a dark count rate of 3.3×106 cps, saturation at 1.2x108 photons per second, a photon detection efficiency of 14.8% at 1050 nm, and pulse detection at 1 GHz. We characterized this NIRDAPD array for a future astrophysical program that will search for technosignatures and other fast (> 1 Ghz) astrophysical transients as part of the Pulsed All-sky Near-infrared Optical Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (PANOSETI) project. The PANOSETI program will consist of an all-sky optical (350 - 800 nm) observatory capable of observing the entire northern hemisphere instantaneously and a wide-field NIR (950 - 1650 nm) component capable of drift scanning the entire sky in 230 clear nights. PANOSETI aims to be the first wide-field fast-time response near-infrared transient search.
Lysophosphatidic Acid Is an Osteoblast Mitogen Whose Proliferative Actions Involve Gi Proteins and Protein Kinase C, But Not P42/44 Mitogen-Activated Protein Kinases.

The simple glycerophospholipid lysophosphatidic acid (LPA) acts both as an intermediary in phospholipid metabolism and as an intercellular signaling molecule in its own right. In various cell types, LPA signals through its membrane-bound, G protein-coupled receptors to influence cellular processes such as proliferation, survival, and cytoskeletal function. Its actions in bone cells have not been studied. Here we show that the LPA receptor, LPA1/edg-2/vzg-1, is expressed in primary rat osteoblasts and the UMR 106–01 osteoblastic cell line. LPA potently induces DNA synthesis and an increase in cell number in cultures of osteoblastic cells. LPA rapidly (within 10 min) stimulates phosphorylation of p42/44 mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinases in osteoblastic cells, an effect that is sensitive to inhibition of Gi proteins, inhibition of influx of extracellular calcium, and inhibition of protein kinase C. LPA-induced DNA synthesis is partially inhibited by either pertussis toxin or calphostin C, but is insens.
Mean Glandular Dose and CDMAM Phantom Image Quality for Siemens Mammomat Inspiration

In performing breast screening, a mammography must be capable of imaging microcalcifications with the smallest possible size. However, the mean glandular dose (MGD) should not exceed the recommended limits. To achieve the goal then the utilization of target/filter combination should be adjusted to the thickness of the breast. The evaluation of image quality against variations in target/filter combinations can be done by using CDMAM phantom. There are two methods of CDMAM phantom image quality assessment, and the digital method is considered superior to the manual one. In addition to the evaluation of image quality, MGD received by the phantom was also calculated by multiplying the air kerma value at each thickness with the air kerma conversion factor into MGD. The calculation of MGD follow the equation and convertion factor that published by IAEA Human Health Series No. 17 – Quality Assurance Programme for Digital Mammography, then being compared with three another publication. The best image quality for the phantom thickness below 32 mm achieved by using Mo/Mo target/filter combination, meanwhile for the fantom thickness above 45 mm achieved by using Mo/Rh.
Auditory Hallucinations in Adolescent and Adult Students: Implications for Continuums and Adult Pathology Following Child Abuse

An auditory hallucination questionnaire was completed by 250 adolescents and 250 adults in the UK to provide data concerning their hallucinatory experiences, which enabled a consideration of nonclinical population auditory hallucination experiences. The data gathered from the adolescent group were almost identical to that of the adult group, suggesting a continuum between child and adulthood. The data also indicated that the UK adult sample was very similar to an established US sample of adults. The current data was combined with previously published data to construct a proposed developmental model that may link child abuse to pathological hallucinations and possible later mental illness issues. New normative data concerning hallucinatory experiences provide important norms, which need to be considered for adolescents or young adults who may be considered for early intervention in psychosis programs. These new norms provide information that should be considered in a variety of therapeutic settings.
Robot’s adaptive emotional feedback sustains children’s social engagement and promotes their vocabulary learning: a long-term child–robot interaction study

In this article, we present an emotion and memory model for a social robot. The model allowed the robot to create a memory account of a child’s emotional events over four individual sessions. The robot then adapted its behaviour based on the developed memory. The model was applied on the NAO robot to teach vocabulary to children while playing the popular game ‘Snakes and Ladders’. We conducted an exploratory evaluation of our model with 24 children at a primary school for 2 weeks to verify its impact on children’s long-term social engagement and overall vocabulary learning. Our preliminary results showed that the behaviour generated based on our model was able to sustain social engagement. In addition, it also helped children to improve their vocabulary. We also evaluated the impact of the positive, negative and neutral emotional feedback of the NAO robot on children’s vocabulary learning. Three groups of children (eight per group) interacted with the robot on four separate occasions over a period of 2 weeks. Our results showed that the condition where the robot displayed positive emotional feedback had a significantly positive effect on the child’s vocabulary learning performance as compared to the two other conditions: negative feedback and neutral feedback.
Factors associated with hyperhomocysteinaemia in Mexican patients with rheumatoid arthritis

Background: Hyperhomocysteinaemia is a factor related to the development of atherosclerosis in rheumatoid arthritis (RA). However, Hispanics with RA develop high rates of coronary disease; there are no studies about the frequency and factors related to high levels of homocysteine in Mexican patients. Objective: To evaluate the prevalence and characteristics associated with hyperhomocysteinaemia in Mexican patients with RA. Methods: One hundred and fifty‐two patients with RA were compared with 153 controls. The assessment in RA included clinical characteristics, disease activity (RADAR), functioning (HAQ‐Di and global functional status), comorbidity, and radiological damage. Laboratory determinations included total serum homocysteine (tHcy), erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), C‐reactive protein (CRP), rheumatoid factor (RF), and lipid profile. Results: Median levels of homocysteine were higher in RA compared with controls (11.3 vs. 9.3, p<0.001). Twenty per cent of the patients with RA had hyperhomocysteinaemia (>15 µmol/L) compared with 6% in controls (p<0.001). There was statistical association between hyperhomocysteinaemia in RA with male gender (p<0.001), impairment in the global functional status (p = 0.004), higher radiological damage (p = 0.001), and CRP (p = 0.04). There was no association with RADAR, HAQ‐Di, or RF, methotrexate dose or duration of use. In the adjusted multivariate model, the two variables associated with higher risk for hyperhomocysteinaemia were male gender (OR = 4.2, 95% CI 2 to 12, p = 0.006) and higher radiological damage (III–IV) (OR = 3.4, 95% CI 1.3 to 9, p = 0.01). Conclusions: Our data show a high prevalence of hyperhomocysteinaemia in Mexican patients with RA. More effort is required to evaluate and treat earlier this coronary risk factor.
Design and control of a quadruped robot walking in unstructured terrain

All quadrupeds have to deal with the same challenge of motion generation. Here, a general architecture of a motion generator for statically stable gaits is proposed, and, because of its modular structure, it can be easily adapted to the needs of various four legged walking machines. Encapsulated modules are arranged in a hierarchical structure, where each one carries out a certain task and communicates with the connected modules. The structure can be divided into four main parts: interface to the robot, motion generation, model-based controller and sensor data processing, which uses fuzzy inference to carry out the obstacle avoidance task.
A safe semi-supervised kernel minimum squared error algorithm

Semi-supervised learning has received much attention in machine learning field over the past decades and a number of algorithms are proposed to improve the performance by exploiting unlabeled data. However, unlabeled data may hurt performance of semi-supervised learning in some cases. It is instinctively expected to design a reasonable strategy to safety exploit unlabeled data. To address the problem, we introduce a safe semi-supervised learning by analyzing the different characteristics of unlabeled data in supervised and semi-supervised learning. Our intuition is that unlabeled data may be risky in semi-supervised setting and the risk degree are different. Hence, we assign different weights to unlabeled data. The unlabeled data with high risk should be exploited by supervised learning and the other should be used for semi-supervised learning. In particular, we utilize Kernel Minimum Squared Error (KMSE) and Laplacian regularized KMSE (LapKMSE) for supervised and semi-supervised learning, respectively. Experimental results on several benchmark datasets illustrate the effectiveness of our algorithm.
Towards Metadata Analysis on Opinionated Content in Tweets

Recently, much research has been done in the area of sentiment analysis of microtexts, specially using tweets. In most studies, the sentiment polarity detection methods are solely based on textual information. The detection of opinionated content in texts is not a simple task, and even less simple in the context of social media. Furthermore, processing microtexts using just natural language techniques may lead to unsatisfactory results. There is a lack of works which link other properties of the tweets (metadata), such as retweets and likes, and the their opinion (i.e., the presence of sentiments). Using tweets collected during the 2013 FIFA Confederations Cup, which occurred in Brazil, this work proposes an analysis of metadata properties on tweets, in order to verify which of these properties have more impact on their opinionatedness. The results indicate that the properties âpresence of linksâ and âretweetsâ are the most significant with respect to the opinionatedness of a tweet.
Asymmetry of retinal arteriolar branch widths at junctions affects ability of formulae to predict trunk arteriolar widths.

PURPOSE To describe a revised formula for the estimation of retinal trunk arteriole widths from their respective arteriolar branch widths that improves the summarizing of retinal arteriolar diameters. METHODS A group of young, healthy individuals underwent retinal photography and arteriolar and venular branching points were identified. Vessel widths of the vessel trunks and their branches were determined. The relationship between the branching coefficient (BC; quotient of the area of the branch and trunk vessels) and the asymmetry index (AI) of the vessel branches was explored. The result was used to formulate a new BC. To test the new BC, a second group of young, healthy individuals also underwent retinal photography. Arteriolar branching points were identified, and the trunk and branch arteriolar widths were recorded. This "revised" BC was compared against the gold standard of the BC as a constant value (1.28), as well as a theoretical formula for the BC that includes the angle between the two vessel branches. RESULTS The BC of arterioles (but not venules) related to the AI (R = 0.275, P = 0.0001; BC arterioles = 0.78 +/- 0.63 . AI). In the second group, the mean arteriolar trunk diameter was 15.56 pixels. The linear regression model for the arteriolar BC was superior to the BC constant of 1.28 (mean difference between estimated and calculated trunk vessel width was 2.16 vs. 2.23 pixels, respectively). The model based on the angle between the branch arterioles was the least accurate (3.43 pixels). CONCLUSIONS A revised formula has been devised for the arteriolar BC using a linear regression model that incorporates its relationship to the AI. Further studies using this refined formula to calculate the BC are needed to determine whether it improves the ability to detect smaller associations between the retinal vascular network and cardiovascular disease.
Real-time elastography for the differentiation of benign and malignant thyroid nodules: a meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND Work-up of thyroid nodules remains challenging. Fine-needle aspiration (FNA) has been shown to be the most cost-effective way to select patients for surgery with sensitivities of 54%–90% and specificities of 60%–96% for the detection of malignant lesions. Ultrasound-based real-time elastography (RTE) enables the determination of tissue elasticity and has shown promising results for the differentiation of thyroid nodules. A meta-analysis was performed to assess the overall performance of RTE for the differentiation of thyroid nodules. METHODS Literature databases were searched. The inclusion criteria for studies were the use of FNA cytology histopathology of surgical specimens as the diagnostic reference standard and assessment of sensitivity and specificity of RTE. The meta-analysis was performed using an inverse variance method and the Der Simonian and Laird Random effect estimator in case of established heterogeneity. RESULTS Eight studies that included a total of 639 thyroid nodules were analyzed. The overall mean sensitivity and specificity for the diagnosis of malignant thyroid nodules by RTE of the eight studies was 92% confidence interval 88–96 and 90% confidence interval 85–95, respectively. A significant heterogeneity was found for specificity of the different studies. CONCLUSIONS RTE has a high sensitivity and specificity in the evaluation of thyroid nodules. This technique might be useful in conjunction or even instead of FNA to select patients with thyroid nodules for surgery.