Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Prevalence of RET/PTC Rearrangements in Hashimoto's Thyroiditis and Papillary Thyroid Carcinomas

The relationship between Hashimoto's thyroiditis (HT) and follicular cell-derived thy roid cancer remains unclear. Recently, 2 studies reported a 95% prevalence of RET/PTC rearrangements in histologically benign tissue affected by HT, suggesting that multiple occult tumors exist in HT patients with high frequency. We tested the prevalence of RET/PTC rearrangements in 26 HT, in 6 papillary carcinomas arising in the background of HT, and in 27 papillary carcinomas not associated with HT. We detected no RET/PTC rearrangements in HT or papillary carcinomas arising in the background of HT, in contrast to a 33% prevalence among papillary carcinomas not associated with HT. However, the expression of wild-type RET was found in more than half of papillary carcinomas. These results suggest that, if the association be tween HT and thyroid cancer exists, its molecular basis is different from RETIPTC rearrangement. Int J Surg Pathol 10(1):15-22, 2002
Flexible End-to-End Dialogue System for Knowledge Grounded Conversation

In knowledge grounded conversation, domain knowledge plays an important role in a special domain such as Music. The response of knowledge grounded conversation might contain multiple answer entities or no entity at all. Although existing generative question answering (QA) systems can be applied to knowledge grounded conversation, they either have at most one entity in a response or cannot deal with out-of-vocabulary entities. We propose a fully data-driven generative dialogue system GenDS that is capable of generating responses based on input message and related knowledge base (KB). To generate arbitrary number of answer entities even when these entities never appear in the training set, we design a dynamic knowledge enquirer which selects different answer entities at different positions in a single response, according to different local context. It does not rely on the representations of entities, enabling our model deal with out-of-vocabulary entities. We collect a human-human conversation data (ConversMusic) with knowledge annotations. The proposed method is evaluated on CoversMusic and a public question answering dataset. Our proposed GenDS system outperforms baseline methods significantly in terms of the BLEU, entity accuracy, entity recall and human evaluation. Moreover,the experiments also demonstrate that GenDS works better even on small datasets.
Analysis the Effect of Leadership to Safety Climate, Safety Culture and Safety Performance

In this era of globalisation, occupational safety is the main spotlight in every industry. By implementing a safety management system in the workplace, it is hoped that it can shape the safety climate and positive safety culture, which can be assessed from zero accidents, workforce behaviour and support for the safety of oneself and coworkers. The main objective of this research was to analyse the effect of leadership on safety climate, safety culture and safety performance. This research was conducted at a plastic packaging manufacturer, PT. Berlina Tbk Tangerang with 133 participants and used the SEM (Structural Equation Modeling) analysis method. The results of the research analysis showed that leadership, safety climate and safety culture have a simultaneous significant effect on 83% safety performance.
Outdoor Psychomotor Activities: Bringing Children to Nature

Due to the dominating passive consumption of audio-visual media, children today spend less time being active in nature. Sedentary behavior may lead to severe health problems like being overweight or obese, whereas positive effects of physical activity are well proven. Physical activity outdoors seems to result in additional positive effects. Therefore, it may be regarded as a public health issue to bring children back to nature and encourage them to be physically active in this setting. The following article discusses how the child-centered approach of psychomotricity can be transferred to natural surroundings. Central to this approach is the experience of self-efficacy. Outdoor environments offer numerous starting points to implement psychomotor sessions; practical options are exemplified below.
BpsR Modulates Bordetella Biofilm Formation by Negatively Regulating the Expression of the Bps Polysaccharide

ABSTRACT Bordetella bacteria are Gram-negative respiratory pathogens of animals, birds, and humans. A hallmark feature of some Bordetella species is their ability to efficiently survive in the respiratory tract even after vaccination. Bordetella bronchiseptica and Bordetella pertussis form biofilms on abiotic surfaces and in the mouse respiratory tract. The Bps exopolysaccharide is one of the critical determinants for biofilm formation and the survival of Bordetella in the murine respiratory tract. In order to gain a better understanding of regulation of biofilm formation, we sought to study the mechanism by which Bps expression is controlled in Bordetella. Expression of bpsABCD (bpsA-D) is elevated in biofilms compared with levels in planktonically grown cells. We found that bpsA-D is expressed independently of BvgAS. Subsequently, we identified an open reading frame (ORF), BB1771 (designated here bpsR), that is located upstream of and in the opposite orientation to the bpsA-D locus. BpsR is homologous to the MarR family of transcriptional regulators. Measurement of bpsA and bpsD transcripts and the Bps polysaccharide levels from the wild-type and the ΔbpsR strains suggested that BpsR functions as a repressor. Consistent with enhanced production of Bps, the bpsR mutant displayed considerably more structured biofilms. We mapped the bpsA-D promoter region and showed that purified BpsR protein specifically bound to the bpsA-D promoter. Our results provide mechanistic insights into the regulatory strategy employed by Bordetella for control of the production of the Bps polysaccharide and biofilm formation.
Performance Measures for Social CRM: A Literature Review

Social CRM deals with the integration of Web 2.0 and Social Media into Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Social CRM is a business strategy supported by technology platforms to provide mutually beneficial value for companies and their target groups. In practice, one factor impeding Social CRM implementation is the lack of performance measures, which assess Social CRM activities and monitor their success. Little research has been conducted investigating performance measures in order to develop a Social CRM performance measurement model. To address this gap, this article presents the qualitative part of a two-stage multi-method approach. It comprises a systematic and rigorous literature review as well as a sorting procedure. In this effort, 16 Social CRM performance measures and four categories of a performance measurement system are identified. The sorting procedure validates the corresponding classification and ensures a high degree of external validity. In a subsequent study, formative survey instruments are developed from the respective findings and are tested by applying a confirmatory factor analysis.
How Effective is Health Coaching in Reducing Health Services Expenditures?

Background:Health coaching interventions aim to identify high-risk enrollees and encourage them to play a more proactive role in improving their health, improve their ability to navigate the health care system, and reduce costs. Objectives:Evaluate the effect of health coaching on inpatient, emergency room, outpatient, and prescription drug expenditures. Research Design:Quasiexperimental pre-post design. Health coaching participants were identified over the 2-year time period 2009–2010. Propensity scores facilitated matching eligible participants and nonparticipating controls on a one-to-one basis using nearest kernel techniques. Difference in differences logistic and generalized linear models addressed the impact of health coaching on the probability of incurring costs and levels of inpatient, emergency room, outpatient, and prescription drug expenditures, respectively. Measures:Administrative claims data were used to analyze health services expenditures preparticipation and post health coaching participation time periods. Results:Of the 6940 health coaching participants, 1161 participated for at least 4 weeks and had a minimum of 6 months of claims data preparticipation and postparticipation. Although the probability of incurring costs and expenditure levels for emergency room services were not affected, the probability of incurring inpatient expenditures and levels of outpatient and total costs for health coaching participants fell significantly from preparticipation to postparticipation relative to controls. Estimated outpatient and total cost savings were $286 and $412 per person per month, respectively. Conclusions:Health coaching led to significant reductions in outpatient and total expenditures for high-risk plan enrollees. Future studies analyzing both health outcomes and claims data are needed to assess the cost-effectiveness of health coaching in specific populations.
Utility of Ultrasonography of the Median Nerve With a High‐Frequency Probe for the Diagnosis of Dialysis‐Related Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

This cross‐sectional study aimed to determine the utility of ultrasonography with improved resolution using a high‐frequency probe for dialysis‐related carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS). This study targeted 125 hemodialysis patients at our hospital. A 12 MHz probe was placed on the carpal tunnel area to identify the median nerve. The compression rate of the nerve was calculated by measuring the smallest diameter of the compressed nerve and largest diameter of the unaffected part. To quantify CTS symptoms, we determined the presence of Tinel's sign, measured pinch strength, and used questionnaires to assess numbness and pain. The association of these clinical data with the compression rate was examined. Mean compression rate was 12.1 ± 1.1%. The compression rate cutoff value for those positive with Tinel's sign was 25%, (sensitivity and specificity were 0.80 and 0.91, respectively), and that for those with a history of CTS surgery was 25% (sensitivity and specificity were 0.67 and 0.89, respectively). Multiple regression analysis identified duration of dialysis, β2‐microglobulin(β2‐Mg) concentration, positivity for Tinel's sign, history of CTS surgery, and pinch strength as independent compression rate determinants. Notably, compression rates were significantly higher in patients with a ≥4‐year duration of dialysis and a β2‐Mg level of 20 mg/L or more. The compression rate of the median nerve measured by an improved ultrasound device significantly correlated with clinical symptoms, medical history, and serological features associated with dialysis‐related CTS. Because ultrasonography is non‐invasive, the examination might be a simple method especially for early diagnosis of dialysis‐related CTS.
Panchromatic IKONOS image classification using wavelet based features

This study investigates the use of wavelet decomposed features for panchromatic image classification for the purpose of urban land-use mapping. Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) is recently found to be a promising tool in image analysis of both spatial and frequency domain, as DWT has the ability to examine the signal at different resolutions and desired scales. Although DWT has been applied in different image analysis applications such as image fusion, image compression and edge detection, it is less applied in image classification technique. In this study, a Very High Resolution (VHR) IKONOS satellite image in panchromatic (PAN) mode (1-m spatial resolution) is used to examine and assess the use of the DWT for image classification of urban areas. Experimental work are conducted by comparing the image classification accuracy of the original PAN IKONOS image and the wavelet decomposed images using Haar wavelet by applying two parametric classifiers: Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) and Quadratic Discriminant Analysis (QDA). A preliminary investigation has been carried out to assess the effect of wavelet decomposition level towards the classification accuracy. It is found that 5% and 3% improvement of the accuracy are recorded by applying the first level wavelet decomposition using LDA and QDA, respectively. Improvement of 7% and 6% by applying second level wavelet decomposition is also found using LDA and QDA, respectively. Although the overall accuracy is only near 40%, DWT is demonstrated as a viable and promising method to improve the PAN image classification accuracy, especially when it is introduced to determine those heterogeneous land classes in urban areas.
Fostering Competition in the Philippines : The Challenge of Restrictive Regulations

The objective of this report is to identify existing regulatory restraints to competition in key sectors and the economy as a whole and use them to design an effective competition policy for the Philippines. The report builds on Product Market Regulation (PMR) indicators and the WBG’s Markets and Competition Policy Assessment Tool (MCPAT) applied to the Philippine markets to (i) develop the main aspects of the advocacy role of the Philippine Competition Commission (PCC) against current market features; (ii) map regulatory restrictions to competition and classify them according to their effects; (iv) contextualize competition restraints within each sector to offer a set of policy recommendations; and (v) quantify the potential impact of a more pro-competitive regulatory environment for the Philippines’ economy. As the country did not have a competition law until 2015, the recently created PCC faces a challenging environment in which to implement its mandate. The two-year transitory period to start enforcement, as well as the potential to grant broad exemptions from the law under the forbearance clause, have hindered the ability of the PCC to prevent anticompetitive conduct of market players, either public or private. In this context, the advocacy role of the PCC offers a critical mechanism to address those regulatory conditions that may be enabling anticompetitive behavior. Limited market competition can stem from restrictive regulations or discretionary application of the regulatory framework that render entry and operation of new firms difficult. Ensuring government policies and regulations do not generate barriers to entry or distort the level playing field is necessary to enhance private sector participation and unlock investment opportunities.
Rational Design of Alpha‐Helical Antimicrobial Peptides: Do's and Don'ts

Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are promising candidates for battling multiresistant bacteria. Despite extensive research, structure–activity relationships of AMPs are not fully understood, and there is a lack of structural data relating to AMPs in lipids. Here we present the NMR structure of anoplin (GLLKRIKTLL‐NH2) in a micellar environment. A vast library of substitutions was designed and tested for antimicrobial and hemolytic activity, as well as for changes in structure and lipid interactions. This showed that improvement of antimicrobial activity without concomitant introduction of strong hemolytic activity can be achieved through subtle increases in the hydrophobicity of the hydrophobic face or through subtle increases in the polarity of the hydrophilic face of the helix, or—most efficiently—a combination of both. A set of guidelines based on the results is given, for assistance in how to modify cationic α‐helical AMPs in order to control activity and selectivity. The guidelines are finally tested on a different peptide.
Resonance contributions to the electron-impact ionization of few-electron highly charged ions.

We present results for the electron-impact ionization of Li-like, Be-like, and B-like Fe, Kr, and Xe ions. We have included the contributions from direct ionization, excitation autoionization, and dielectronic-capture double autoionization in our calculations. We discuss isonuclear and isoelectronic trends for the various contributions, focusing on the resonance contributions in particular.
Computational experience with a modified potential reduction algorithm for linear programming

We study the performance of a homogeneous and self-dual interior point solver for linear programming (LP) that is equipped with a continuously differentiable potential function. Our work is motivated by the apparent gap between the theoretical complexity results and long-step practical implementations in interior point algorithms. The potential function described here ensures a global linear polynomial-time convergence while providing the flexibility to integrate heuristics for generating the search directions and step length computations. Computational results on standard test problems show that LP problems are solved as efficiently (in terms of the number of iterations) as Mosek6 .
Comparative study on the turn-off capability of multiple Si and SiC power devices

DC power delivery system is becoming an attractive alternative in an AC dominant world due to its higher energy efficiency and better cable utilization. It has already been applied in data centers, commercial buildings, electrical vehicle charge stations and micro grid systems, etc. Among many new issues that need to be addressed for the DC power delivery system, ultra-fast and accurate protection is one of them. Solid state circuit breaker (SSCB) is a viable solution to achieve ultrafast fault protection. A large turn-off current capability is needed for a given solid state device. In this paper, a comparative study on the turn-off capability of multiple Si and SiC solid state devices is presented for the first time. Devices studied include commercially available Si MOSFET, Si CoolMOS, SiC MOSFET, and SiC JFET with the lowest Rds, on for a rated breakdown voltage.
Diagnostic value of quantitative scintiscanning of the salivary glands in Sjögren's syndrome and rheumatoid arthritis.

1. The submandibular and parotid salivary gland uptake of [99mTc]pertechnetate has been measured at 3 min, 8 min and 13 min after administration in twenty-five normal subjects, seventeen patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) alone, seven patients with RA and keratoconjunctivitis sicca (KCS) and twenty-four patients with Sjogren's syndrome and salivary gland involvement. 2. Normal ranges for salivary gland 99mTc uptake have been established. 3. At 8 min fifteen patients with Sjogren's syndrome had a low uptake value (parotid <0.16% dose, submandibular <0.07% dose). 4. A correlation was found between values for parotid and submandibular 99mTc uptake but parotid gland involvement was more marked than submandibular. Involvement was usually bilateral. 5. In the patients with RA alone and RA and KCS a small number of patients had low uptake values.
Comparative efficacy (sedative and anaesthetic) of detomidine, ketamine and detomidine-ketamine cocktail in pigeons (columba livia).

A study was conducted to compare the synergistic efficacy of detomidine, ketamine and their cocktail in pigeons (Columba livia). For this study, 15 adult and healthy pigeons were divided into three equal groups A, B and C. Birds of groups A and B were intramuscularly administered detomidine and ketamine @ 1.4 and 60 mg/kg b. wt. , respectively. Pigeons of group C received detomidine + Ketamine cocktail @ 0.7 and 30 mg/kg b. wt. Induction of sedation and anaesthesia was smooth in all groups. Mean duration of induction was 11.1 + 2.03, 11.0 + 1.49 and 1.6 + 0.48 minutes in groups A, B, C, respectively. In groups A and B, smooth but light sedation and anaesthesia were observed accompanied by superficial analgesia, while in group C, birds showed deep anaesthesia alongwith deep analgesia. Birds in groups A and C elicited hypothermia, respiratory depression and bradycardia till complete recovery, while group B showed hyperthermia and tachycardia with rapid respiration. In group A, sedation persisted for 54.2 + 21.82 minutes and mean recovery period was 49.9 + 5.91 minutes, while groups B and C had anaesthesia for 47.7 + 8.06 and 103.5 + 27.52 minutes, and recovery periods were 52.6 + 9.64 and 61.3 + 17.26 minutes, respectively. Recovery was rough in group B and smooth in groups A and C. It was concluded that in pigeons, detomidine (alone) is safe for handling and for least painful procedures, while detomidineketamine cocktail is safe as intramuscular anaesthetic for major surgical procedures. However, ketamine is not a good anaesthetic to be used alone in pigeons.
Handover : Faster and safer ?

Objective This study aimed to introduce bedside handover to three rural South Australian hospitals. Design A mixed‐method, pre‐test post‐test evaluative approach involving quantitative (quasi‐experimental) and qualitative (ethnographic) elements was used. Setting This study was set in three acute hospital wards. Subjects The sample comprised forty‐eight self‐selected enrolled/registered nursing staff; forty‐seven females and one male. Main outcome measure(s) A 7‐point Likert scale (19 items) and ethnographic interview questions covered themes relating to nurses satisfaction of pre and post‐handover processes, frequency of incidents and estimations of time taken to conduct handover processes. Pre and post‐handover processes were digitally timed. Documentation review of pre and post incident frequencies and journaling were also undertaken. Results With regard to handover duration, the average total time taken to conduct handover had decreased between 13% and 70% depending on the site. From a practical aspect, this can be regarded as significant. With regard to incident comparison, there is a clear trend from pre to post; the total number of incidents dropping from eighteen to seven. Conclusions The results of this study indicate that bedside handover approach is significantly less time consuming than the closed door approach previously adopted. The findings indicate a trend in the reduction of frequency of incidents under the bedside handover process. Literature suggests that incident reduction is directly correlated with increased information accuracy, however, this was not found to be the case in this study. Further research is warranted into factors, other than information accuracy, that may increase safety in clinical settings.
Evidence for chronically elevated serum protein oxidation in systemic lupus erythematosus patients

Serum protein oxidation levels in people with the autoimmune disease systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) have previously been shown to (a) be elevated at a single time point and (b) correlate with disease activity. This study investigates whether this elevation is a chronic phenomenon, by analysis of multiple serum samples collected from 21 SLE patients and nine controls over a period of up to 38 months. Protein thiols were chronically decreased in SLE patients with stable or variable disease activity compared to controls, whilst protein-bound carbonyls and glycine were chronically increased. 2D-gel analysis of carbonyl distribution showed albumin and immunoglobulins to be particularly affected. In SLE patients with stable disease activity, higher long-term protein oxidation correlated with higher long-term disease activity. SLE patients with variable disease activity exhibited varying correlations between protein oxidation and disease activity markers. These results further support a role for oxidative stress in the pathogenesis of SLE.