Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Spanning boundaries in pursuit of effective knowledge sharing within networks in the NHS.

PURPOSE The purpose of this paper is to examine power asymmetries in the delivery of genetics healthcare that inhibit knowledge sharing across sector, organisational and professional boundaries. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH The paper is a longitudinal comparative case study approach, which encompasses semi-structured interviews and observation. FINDINGS The paper finds politics to be significant in its influence on knowledge sharing across sector, organisational and professional boundaries, but this can be mediated by attending to human and social aspects of the context in which knowledge sharing was expected to take place. RESEARCH LIMITATIONS/IMPLICATIONS The paper encourages research that evaluates the effect of increased emphasis on human and social aspects of organisational change in pursuit of the "dream" of spanning boundaries and improving knowledge sharing within the NHS. PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS The paper shows that structural change appears to be of limited effect in promoting knowledge sharing. Organisational and individual development, career management and performance systems are worthy of attention for the purpose of managing knowledge. ORIGINALITY/VALUE The paper exposes this assumption as managerialist. Policy-makers assume that professionals are willing and able to share knowledge when delivering healthcare through networks.
A Study of Network Stability on Wireless Sensor Networks

In association with recent advancement in wireless communications as well as penetration of wireless devices with sensing, computation and wireless communication capabilities, the wireless sensor networks have become an important research area due to their potential for providing cheap and flexible solutions to data monitoring and device actuation. And, many studies have analyzed routing effectiveness for wireless multi-hop networks and/or mobile ad-hoc networks under conditions that continuous communication and point-to-point traffic flows between nodes inside the network are assumed. On the other hand, our targeted WSNs for data monitoring have some different assumptions such as traffic patterns on data monitoring, restrictive packet existing periods, and network consisting sensor nodes with constrained capabilities. For evaluation of network stability, not only average loss rates are important, but also distributions are relevant, because high loss rates on temporal wireless links would make impossible to ensure reliable management of the targeted application. So, in order to evaluate stability of those networks, novel evaluation metrics are required. In this paper, we address stability of the WSN for data monitoring, propose a mechanism to improve the equitableness of the routes to the central node as the advanced local route reeselection procedure, and evaluate the proposed mechanism by a conditional data delivery ratio with wireless failure.
Synthetic Protocells to Mimic and Test Cell Function

Synthetic protocells provide a new means to probe, mimic and deconstruct cell behavior; they are a powerful tool to quantify cell behavior and a useful platform to explore nanomedicine. Protocells are not simple particles; they mimic cell design and typically consist of a stabilized lipid bilayer with membrane proteins. With a finite number of well characterized components, protocells can be designed to maximize useful outputs. Energy conversion in cells is an intriguing output; many natural cells convert transmembrane ion gradients into electricity by membrane‐protein regulated ion transport. Here, a synthetic cell system comprising two droplets separated by a lipid bilayer is described that functions as a biological battery. The factors that affect its electrogenic performance are explained and predicted by coupling equations of the electrodes, transport proteins and membrane behavior. We show that the output of such biological batteries can reach an energy density of 6.9 × 106 J · m−3, which is ∼5% of the volumetric energy density of a lead‐acid battery. The configuration with maximum power density has an energy conversion efficiency of 10%.
Task-dependent modulation of word processing mechanisms during modified visual search tasks

During visual search for words, the impact of the visual and semantic features of words varies as a function of the search task. This event-related potential (ERP) study focused on the way these features of words are used to detect similarities between the distractor words that are glanced at and the target word, as well as to then reject the distractor words. The participants had to search for a target word that was either given literally or defined by a semantic clue among words presented sequentially. The distractor words included words that resembled the target and words that were semantically related to the target. The P2a component was the first component to be modulated by the visual and/or semantic similarity of distractors to the target word, and these modulations varied according to the task. The same held true for the later N300 and N400 components, which confirms that, depending on the task, distinct processing pathways were sensitized through attentional modulation. Hence, the process that matches what is perceived with the target acts during the first 200 ms after word presentation, and both early detection and late rejection processes of words depend on the search task and on the representation of the target stored in memory.
Feature Selection in Credit Scoring Model for Credit Card Applicants in XYZ Bank: A Comparative Study

The performance of credit scoring models is determined by the used features. The relevant features for credit scoring usually are determined unsystematic and dominate by arbitrary trial. This paper presents a comparative study of four feature selection methods, which use data mining approach in reducing the feature space. The final results show that among the four feature selection methods, the Gini Index and Information Gain algorithms perform better than others with the classification accuracy of 75.46% and 75.44% respectively.
The Role of Crop Type in Cross-Country Income Differences

Labor productivity and labor share in the agricultural sector are key determinants of living standards across countries. We show that differences in agricultural technology -- the coefficients on factor inputs in the production function -- account for a substantial portion of cross-country differences in agricultural labor productivity, agricultural labor share, and per capita income. In a panel of 100 countries we document differences in technology estimates associated with major crops, and then illustrate the quantitative implications for development. Counterfactually eliminating crop-type technology heterogeneity reduces variance in log income per capita by 25%, and raises the median by 60%.
Ex vivo immunomodulatory effect of all-trans-retinoic acid during Behçet’s disease: a study in Algerian patients

Abstract Uveitis, recurrent oral and genital ulcerations associated with skin lesions are the major symptoms of a chronic multisystemic inflammatory disorder known as Behçet’s disease (BD). High prevalence of this dreaded disease has been observed in the Mediterranean basin, including Algeria and along the Silk Road. Although the etiologic agent of this disease remains uncertain, many hypotheses have been advanced in its pathogenesis. Our team has previously reported high levels of nitric oxide (NO) in sera of BD patients, suggesting its deleterious effect during chronic inflammation. In our current study, the aim is to investigate the ex vivo immunomodulatory effect of all-trans-retinoic acid (ATRA) on NO pathway in Algerian BD patients. First, peripheral blood mononuclear cells isolated from active and inactive BD patients and healthy controls were cultured with different concentrations of ATRA. NO production was estimated with the Griess method. To elucidate the underlying mechanisms of ATRA effect on NO production, we analyze inducible nitric oxide synthase expression and nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) activity by immunofluorescence test. Our results revealed a higher production of NO in active BD compared with the inactive stage and healthy controls. We observed that ATRA inhibits NO production in BD both in active and inactive stages and inhibits NF-κB translocation. In conclusion, we report a relationship between NO production and the disease activity. ATRA down-regulates NO production in BD patients. This immunomodulatory effect seems to be mediated through NF-κB pathway. All these findings suggest that ATRA could be considered as a promising therapy for BD.
On a Hybrid Method for Generalized Mixed Equilibrium Problem and Fixed Point Problem of a Family of Quasi--Asymptotically Nonexpansive Mappings in Banach Spaces

We prove a strong convergence theorem by using a hybrid method for finding a common element of the set of solutions for generalized mixed equilibrium problems, the set of fixed points of a family of quasi--asymptotically nonexpansive mappings in strictly convex reflexive Banach space with the Kadec-Klee property and, a Fréchet differentiable norm under weaker conditions. The method of the proof is different from, S. Takahashi and W. Takahashi that by (2008) and that by Takahashi and Zembayashi (2008) and see references. It also shows that the type of projection used in the iterative method is independent of the properties of the mappings. The results presented in the paper improve and extend some recent results.
A comprehensive study on periodicity mining algorithms

Mining knowledge from time series database is always a challenging task due to inherent complexity. Periodicity mining is one of the methods for analysing time series data in order to find regularities and other significant statistics. It has been studied for variety of applications such as stock market analysis, customer purchase sequence analysis, electricity power consumption, weather forecasting, spatiotemporal, social networks, biological data analysis etc. It reveals important observations and inferences about the temporal behavior and trends from the data under study and would assist in more effective strategy planning. There exists a number of algorithms in literature for periodicity mining. This paper presents a comprehensive study of the research to date on periodic pattern mining algorithms. It gives brief categorization of different types of periodicity, the mining techniques used and its merits and demerits. It will act as a compendium on periodicity mining for interested researchers in identifying promising research direction for further exploration.
Sodium orthovanadate diuresis in rats.

The renal actions of differing doses of sodium orthovanadate were studied in conscious and anesthetized female Wistar rats. In conscious rats, sodium orthovanadate was given by i.v. or i.p. injections or by mouth. The most pronounced renal effects were seen after a 5 mg/kg i.p. injection of sodium orthovanadate. Urine flow and sodium excretion increased approximately 400% and urine osmolality fell from 1108 to 549 mOsmol/kg . H2O. Higher doses of sodium orthovanadate (20, 30 and 50 mg/kg) injected i.p. did not cause diuresis and were toxic. In anesthetized rats undergoing a 0.9% NaCl diuresis, i.v. infusion of sodium orthovanadate at a dose of 5 mg/kg/hr significantly increased urine flow and the excretion of sodium, calcium, phosphorus, sulfur, magnesium and chlorine, whereas glomerular filtration rate was unaltered. In anesthetized rats undergoing a water diuresis, i.v. infusion of sodium orthovanadate (5 mg/kg/hr) markedly reduced free-water clearance, indicating that this compound inhibits tubular reabsorption of sodium and chloride in diluting nephron segments. Blood and renal tissue levels of vanadium, measured using emission spectrographic analysis, in rats infused with sodium orthovanadate were 4 times higher than the concentration of sodium orthovanadate (1--10 microM) needed to inhibit 50% of the Na-K-adenosine triphosphate activity of rat renal homogenates in vitro. These data suggest that sodium orthovanadate produces diuresis at least in part by inhibiting Na-K-adenosine triphosphatase and solute transport in the distal nephron, likely the ascending limb of the loop of Henle.
crowddeliver: Planning City-Wide Package Delivery Paths Leveraging the Crowd of Taxis

Despite the great demand on and attempts at package express shipping services, online retailers have not yet had a practical solution to make such services profitable. In this paper, we propose an economical approach to express package delivery, i.e., exploiting relays of taxis with passengers to help transport package collectively, without degrading the quality of passenger services. Specifically, we propose a two-phase framework called crowddeliver for the package delivery path planning. In the first phase, we mine the historical taxi trajectory data offline to identify the shortest package delivery paths with estimated travel time given any Origin–Destination pairs. Using the paths and travel time as the reference, in the second phase we develop an online adaptive taxi scheduling algorithm to find the near-optimal delivery paths iteratively upon real-time requests and direct the package routing accordingly. Finally, we evaluate the two-phase framework using the real-world data sets, which consist of a point of interest, a road network, and the large-scale trajectory data, respectively, that are generated by 7614 taxis in a month in the city of Hangzhou, China. Results show that over 85% of packages can be delivered within 8 hours, with around 4.2 relays of taxis on average.
Implementation of prefix delegation mechanism using DHCPv6 protocol

IPv6 enables simple, automatic host configuration. Conversely, it does not provide any specification to automatically delegate a prefix to a router; to solve this problem several requirements were described and a solution using DHCPv6 protocol for those requirements was standardized. DHCPv6 protocol let DHCPv6 servers pass network configuration parameters to IPv6 nodes. DHCPv6 servers can pass IPv6 prefix delegation parameter to a requesting router by using IPv6 prefix option and requesting router which got the prefix from server can advertise prefix(es) derived from that prefix. To do this, we need DHCPv6 client/server supporting prefix delegation option and router advertisement daemon. In this paper, we implemented DHCPv6 client supporting IPv6 prefix option and for DHCPv6 server and router advertisement module we use open source project to test our s/w module.
Methylation-enhanced binding of Sp1 to the stage selector element of the human gamma-globin gene promoter may regulate development specificity of expression

The human gamma-globin gene promoter contains a stage selector element (SSE) responsible for preferential interaction of the promoter with a powerful erythroid-specific enhancer in the fetal developmental stage (S.M. Jane, P.A. Ney, E.F. Vanin, D.L. Gumucio, and A.W. Nienhuis. EMBO J. 11:2691-2699, 1992). The element binds two proteins, the ubiquitous activator Sp1 and a protein previously known as -50 gamma and now named the stage selector protein (SSP). Binding of the second protein correlates with SSE activity in transient-transfection assays. We now report that a de novo binding site for the SSP is created by the -202(C-->G) mutation that causes hereditary persistence of fetal hemoglobin (HPFH). This site functions in an analogous manner to the SSE in hybrid beta-promoter/reporter gene constructs transfected into K562 cells. In contrast, the wild-type -202 sequence, which fails to bind the SSP, is incapable of activating the beta-gene promoter. Both the -50 and -202 HPFH sites for SSP binding overlap a consensus sequence for the transcriptional regulator Sp1. In addition, both sites contain CpG dinucleotides that are contact bases for SSP. Since the gamma promoter is known to be hypomethylated in fetal cells but fully methylated at CpG residues in adult erythroid cells, we examined the effects of this DNA modification on protein binding to the two regions. Gel mobility shift assays with nuclear extract from K562 cells (which contain both Sp1 and SSP) demonstrate preferential binding of SSP to the SSE and HPFH sites under conditions in which probe was limiting. Methylation of the CpG residues reverses this preference only in the SSE site, with a marked increase in the binding of Sp1 at the expense of the SSP. Purified Sp1 binds with 10-fold higher affinity to the methylated than to the nonmethylated -50 probe but with the same affinity to the -202 HPFH probe. The methylation-induced preferential binding of Sp1 to the SSE at the expense of SSP may be part of the mechanism by which the gamma genes are repressed in normal adult erythroid cells. In cells containing the -202 HPFH mutation, the inability of Sp1 to displace SSP in the methylated state may explain the persistence of gamma-promoter activity and gamma-gene expression observed in adults with this mutation.
Replication of endometriosis-associated single-nucleotide polymorphisms from genome-wide association studies in a Caucasian population.

STUDY QUESTION Is it possible to replicate the previously identified genetic association of four single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), rs12700667, rs7798431, rs1250248 and rs7521902, with endometriosis in a Caucasian population? SUMMARY ANSWER A borderline association was observed for rs1250248 and endometriosis (P = 0.049). However, we could not replicate the other previously identified endometriosis-associated SNPs (rs12700667, rs7798431 and rs7521902) in the same population. WHAT IS KNOWN ALREADY Endometriosis is considered a complex disease, influenced by several genetic and environmental factors, as well as interactions between them. Previous studies have found genetic associations with endometriosis for SNPs at the 7p15 and 2q35 loci in a Caucasian population. STUDY DESIGN, SIZE, DURATION Allele frequencies of SNPs were investigated in patients with endometriosis and controls. PARTICIPANTS/MATERIALS, SETTING, METHODS Blood samples and peritoneal biopsies were taken from a Caucasian female population consisting of 1129 patients with endometriosis and 831 controls. DNA was extracted for genotyping. The study was performed at a University hospital and research laboratories. MAIN RESULTS AND THE ROLE OF CHANCE A weak association with endometriosis (all stages) was observed for rs1250248 (P = 0.049). No significant associations were observed for the SNPs rs12700667, rs7798431 and rs7521902. A non-significant trend towards the association of rs1250248 with moderate/severe endometriosis was observed (odds ratio 1.18, 95% confidence interval 0.97-1.44). LIMITATIONS, REASONS FOR CAUTION The inability to confirm all previous findings may result from differences between populations and type II errors. WIDER IMPLICATIONS OF THE FINDINGS Our result demonstrates the difficulty of identifying common genetic variants in complex diseases. STUDY FUNDING/COMPETING INTEREST(S) This study was supported by grants from the Karolinska Institutet and Stockholm City County/Karolinska Institutet (ALF), Stockholm, Sweden, Swedish Medical Research Council (K2007-54X-14212-06-3, K2010-54X-14212-09-3), Stockholm, Sweden, Leuven University Research Council (Onderzoeksraad KU Leuven), the Leuven University Hospitals Clinical Research Foundation (Klinisch onderzoeksfonds) and by the National Scientific Foundation (Fonds voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek, FWO). The authors have no conflict of interest.
The safety of intra-abdominal surgery in patients with cirrhosis: model for end-stage liver disease score is superior to Child-Turcotte-Pugh classification in predicting outcome.

HYPOTHESIS We hypothesized that the model for end-stage liver disease (MELD) score may be a better and less subjective method than the Child-Turcotte-Pugh score for stratifying patients with cirrhosis before abdominal surgery. DESIGN Retrospective medical record review. SETTING Tertiary care institution. PATIENTS Fifty-three adult patients with histologically proven cirrhosis undergoing abdominal surgery at Saint Louis University Hospital, St Louis, Mo, between 1991 and 2001. Those undergoing hepatic surgery (such as resection or transplantation) or closed abdominal surgery (such as hernia repair) were excluded. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE A poor outcome after surgery was defined as death or liver transplantation within 90 days of the operative procedure or a hospital stay of longer than 21 days. Demographic, clinical, and laboratory features predictive of poor outcome were assessed by multivariate analysis. RESULTS A total of 13 patients (25%) had poor outcomes including 9 deaths (17%). Model for end-stage liver disease score and plasma hemoglobin levels lower than 10 g/dL were found to be independent predictors of poor outcomes. A MELD score of 14 or greater was a better clinical predictor of poor outcome than Child-Turcotte-Pugh class C. CONCLUSIONS A MELD score of 14 or greater should be considered as a replacement for Child-Turcotte-Pugh class C as a predictor of being very high risk for abdominal surgery. Patients with cirrhosis with hemoglobin levels lower than 10 g/dL should receive corrective blood transfusions before abdominal surgery.
A twin study of late-onset depression and apolipoprotein E epsilon 4 as risk factors for Alzheimer's disease.

A prior history of depression and the epsilon 4 allele of apolipoprotein E (APOE) have each been associated with development of Alzheimer's disease (AD). In a sample of 142 elderly twins from a large study of dementia, we examined the relation of major depression, APOE genotype and AD using time-dependent proportional hazards models. Compared against the risk for AD with no history of depression and no epsilon 4 allele, the risk ratio for AD with two epsilon 4 alleles was 2.87 (C.I. = 1.56-5.28), with one epsilon 4 allele, 1.82 (C.I. = 1.09-3.04) and with late-onset depression and no epsilon 4 allele, 2.95 (C.I. = 1.55-5.62). There was no suggestion of an interaction between prior depression and APOE genotype in their effects on AD risk. Results were similar when the sample was stratified by twin pair, so that a single genetic marker is unlikely to explain the relation among depression, APOE, and dementia. Risk ratios declined substantially with increasing intervals between the onset of depression and AD. Thus, for many individuals, the association of depression and AD may reflect the occurrence of prodromal depressive symptoms rather than a true risk relationship.