Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effectiveness of interventions to increase Papanicolaou smear use.

BACKGROUND Many women fail to adhere to Papanicolaou smear screening guidelines. Although many interventions have been developed to increase screening, the effectiveness of different types of interventions is unclear. METHODS We performed a systematic review of interventions to increase Papanicolaou smear use published between 1980 and April 2001 and included concurrently or randomized controlled studies with defined outcomes. Interventions were classified as targeted to patients, providers, patients and providers, or health care systems and as behavioral, cognitive, sociologic, or a combination based on the expected action of the intervention. Effect sizes and 95% confidence intervals were calculated for each intervention. RESULTS Forty-six studies with 63 separate interventions were included. Most interventions increased Papanicolaou smear use, although in many cases the increase was not statistically significant. Behavioral interventions targeted to patients (eg, mailed or telephone reminders) increased Papanicolaou smear use by up to 18.8%; cognitive and sociologic interventions were only marginally effective, although a single culturally specific, sociologic intervention using a lay health worker increased use by 18.0% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 7.6, 28.4). Provider-targeted interventions were heterogeneous. Interventions that targeted both patients and providers did not appear to be any more effective than interventions targeted to either patients or providers alone. One of the most effective interventions, which introduced a system change by integrating a nurse-practitioner and offered same-day screening, increased screening by 32.7% (95% CI: 20.5, 44.9). CONCLUSIONS Overall, most interventions increased Papanicolaou smear use, although there was tremendous variability in their effectiveness. Selection of intervention strategies will depend on provider and patient population characteristics and feasibility of implementation.
Deficiency of MMP17/MT4-MMP proteolytic activity predisposes to aortic aneurysm in mice.

RATIONALE Aortic dissection or rupture resulting from aneurysm causes 1% to 2% of deaths in developed countries. These disorders are associated with mutations in genes that affect vascular smooth muscle cell differentiation and contractility or extracellular matrix composition and assembly. However, as many as 75% of patients with a family history of aortic aneurysms do not have an identified genetic syndrome. OBJECTIVE To determine the role of the protease MMP17/MT4-MMP in the arterial wall and its possible relevance in human aortic pathology. METHODS AND RESULTS Screening of patients with inherited thoracic aortic aneurysms and dissections identified a missense mutation (R373H) in the MMP17 gene that prevented the expression of the protease in human transfected cells. Using a loss-of-function genetic mouse model, we demonstrated that the lack of Mmp17 resulted in the presence of dysfunctional vascular smooth muscle cells and altered extracellular matrix in the vessel wall; and it led to increased susceptibility to angiotensin-II-induced thoracic aortic aneurysm. We also showed that Mmp17-mediated osteopontin cleavage regulated vascular smooth muscle cell maturation via c-Jun N-terminal kinase signaling during aorta wall development. Some features of the arterial phenotype were prevented by re-expression of catalytically active Mmp17 or the N-terminal osteopontin fragment in Mmp17-null neonates. CONCLUSIONS Mmp17 proteolytic activity regulates vascular smooth muscle cell phenotype in the arterial vessel wall, and its absence predisposes to thoracic aortic aneurysm in mice. The rescue of part of the vessel-wall phenotype by a lentiviral strategy opens avenues for therapeutic intervention in these life-threatening disorders.
Functional Analysis of d-Alanylation of Lipoteichoic Acid in the Probiotic Strain Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG

ABSTRACT Lipoteichoic acid (LTA) is a macroamphiphile molecule which performs several functions in gram-positive bacteria, such as maintenance of cell wall homeostasis. d-Alanylation of LTA requires the proteins encoded by the dlt operon, and this process is directly related to the charge properties of this polymer strongly contributing to its function. The insertional inactivation of dltD of the probiotic strain Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG (ATCC 53103) resulted in the complete absence of d-alanyl esters in the LTA as confirmed by nuclear magnetic resonance analysis. This was reflected in modifications of the bacterial cell surface properties. The dltD strain showed 2.4-fold-increased cell length, a low survival capacity in response to gastric juice challenge, an increased sensitivity to human beta-defensin-2, an increased rate of autolysis, an increased capacity to initiate growth in the presence of an anionic detergent, and a decreased capacity to initiate growth in the presence of cationic peptides compared to wild-type results. However, in vitro experiments revealed no major differences for adhesion to human intestinal epithelial cells, biofilm formation, and immunomodulation. These properties are considered to be important for probiotics. The role of the dlt operon in lactobacilli is discussed in view of these results.
Image Synthesis for Branching Structures

We present a set of techniques for the synthesis of artificial images that depict branching structures like rivers, cracks, lightning, mountain ranges, or blood vessels. The central idea is to build a statistical model that captures the characteristic bending and branching structure from example images. Then a new skeleton structure is synthesized and the final output image is composed from image fragments of the original input images. The synthesis part of our algorithm runs mostly automatic but it optionally allows the user to control the process in order to achieve a specific result. The combination of the statistical bending and branching model with sophisticated fragment‐based image synthesis corresponds to a multi‐resolution decomposition of the underlying branching structure into the low frequency behavior (captured by the statistical model) and the high frequency detail (captured by the image detail in the fragments). This approach allows for the synthesis of realistic branching structures, while at the same time preserving important textural details from the original image.
Moment-based and Maximum Likelihood-based Quotiential estimation of the Nakagami-m fading parameter

In order to estimate m-parameter of Nakagami-m multipath fading, different estimation models have been proposed and simulated, and their performances have already been compared. In this paper, we propose new method for estimation of m-parameter, which is not based on estimation from signal envelope samples, but on quotient of successive samples. For that purpose, analytical model which describes statistics of successive samples quotients has been developed. Two models have been treated, these are moment based method (MM) and maximum likelihood method (MLM). Numerical simulations will demonstrate performances of proposed methods and will compare them with some known methods in cases of presence and absence of shadow fading with arbitrary distribution.
Anticipating Father Reentry: A Qualitative Study of Children's and Mothers' Experiences

Utilizing a grounded theory analysis of interviews with 17 children and their 8 mothers anticipating a father's prison release within 12 months, the authors propose a theory of participants' experiences, focused on the child−father aspects of reentry. Among other expectations, all participants wanted fathers to be involved with the children after release. Participants varied in degrees of confidence regarding whether fathers would fulfill their reentry expectations; they responded with self-protecting or confidence-enhancing strategies. Fathers' prison behavior and subtle changes in interactional styles deterred family members' suspicions of “jail talk. ” Results suggest that clarifying and negotiating feasible family expectations is key to successful child−father reentry.
How different are the roles displayed by female and male managers

Describes a 1988 study by Quinn which identified eight managerial roles that managers must display if they are to be effective. The eight roles are innovator, broker, producer, director, co‐ordinator, monitor, facilitator and mentor. Reports on the present study where 149 managers, of which 35 per cent were females, responded to a survey exploring the extent to which they displayed each of Quinn’s managerial roles. The self‐perceptions of all managers was that the female managers displayed co‐ordinator, monitor and mentor roles more than did male managers. For each manager, their staff, peers and boss were also asked to respond to the questionnaire. Their staff reported that their female managers displayed five roles (innovator, producer, director, co‐ordinator and mentor) more frequently than did the male managers. Peers reported a difference in two of the managerial roles: broker and mentor (females displaying each role more frequently). Bosses did not see the male and female managers differently. The managers and their peers reported that female managers were more effective than male managers. Concludes that these findings have significance for how managers need to interact with their staff and peers and the need for male managers to develop their managerial roles more if they are to be more effective.
Cardiac troponin T circulates in the free, intact form in patients with kidney failure.

BACKGROUND The clinical significance of the increased concentrations of cardiac troponins observed in patients with end stage renal disease (ESRD) in the absence of an acute coronary syndrome (ACS) is controversial. One proposed explanation is that immunoreactive fragments of cardiac troponin T (cTnT) accumulate in ESRD. We used gel-filtration chromatography (GFC) to ascertain whether fragments of cTnT, which could cross-react in the commercial diagnostic immunoassay (Roche Diagnostics), were the cause of the increased cTnT in the serum of patients with ESRD. METHODS We subjected sera from ESRD patients (n = 21) receiving dialysis and having increased cTnT concentrations to size-separation GFC. We detected cTnT in the chromatography fractions by use of the same antibodies used in the commercial assay for serum cTnT. RESULTS In all patients, cTnT immunoreactivity eluted as a major, homogeneous peak in an identical position between the peaks of serum prolactin [relative molecular mass (Mr) 23,000] and albumin (Mr 67,000): the elution pattern of cTnT in samples obtained from ACS patients was identical to that of the ESRD patients. There was no evidence that low-molecular-mass (Mr < 23,000) cTnT fragments were the cause of the increased cTnT in the patients studied. CONCLUSIONS The form of cTnT observed in the serum of patients with kidney failure and immunoreactive in the diagnostic assay is predominantly the free intact form, as in patients with ACS. Our data are consistent with the view that circulating cTnT in renal failure reflects cardiac pathology.
Modeling and control of a STATCOM-supercapacitors energy storage system associated with a wind generator

The influence of constant speed wind turbine in an electrical network during torque impact can lead various problems. The disturbances affect active power quality, reactive power and r.m.s. phase to phase voltage. In this paper, we propose an original system and control to solve firstly, the problems due to the brutal impact of active power and secondly the control of reactive power. The principle of the proposed wind energy system with STATCOM-supercapacitors energy storage is to limit the rapid variation of active power and give the required reactive power compensation to the induction machine during the torque change. The supercapacitor is directly coupled to the common dc-link of the whole bidirectional DC-AC converter. The control strategy of the STATCOM use a Linear Matrix Inequalities (LMIs) technic to regulate the currents injected or absorbed by the inverter. The same strategy is used to control the variable DC supercapacitor voltage. The simulation results of the STATCOM using a state-feedback with integral controller for id, iq currents converter and a simple proportional (Kp) controller cascaded to d axis current loop for DC voltage source are presented and discussed.
A Compressive Multi-Mode Superresolution Display

Compressive displays are an emerging technology exploring the co-design of new optical device configurations and compressive computation. Previously, research has shown how to improve the dynamic range of displays and facilitate high-quality light field or glasses-free 3D image synthesis. In this paper, we introduce a new multi-mode compressive display architecture that supports switching between 3D and high dynamic range (HDR) modes as well as a new super-resolution mode. The proposed hardware consists of readily-available components and is driven by a novel splitting algorithm that computes the pixel states from a target high-resolution image. In effect, the display pixels present a compressed representation of the target image that is perceived as a single, high resolution image.
Questioning the Ethics of Management Development: A Critical Review

Writing on ethics in management and management development draws on a limited range of perspectives. Assumptions behind statements about ethical prac tice for managers and management developers tend to remain unexamined. Calls for ethical codes have been made without paying sufficient attention to the need to explore and clarify ideological issues. I argue a case against the construction of an ethical code for management developers and suggest instead open discussion of ethical issues and, more importantly, that practice should be questioned and challenged as it happens, by colleagues and management learners. The difficulty of making progress in this way is acknowledged.
ZebraZoom: an automated program for high-throughput behavioral analysis and categorization

The zebrafish larva stands out as an emergent model organism for translational studies involving gene or drug screening thanks to its size, genetics, and permeability. At the larval stage, locomotion occurs in short episodes punctuated by periods of rest. Although phenotyping behavior is a key component of large-scale screens, it has not yet been automated in this model system. We developed ZebraZoom, a program to automatically track larvae and identify maneuvers for many animals performing discrete movements. Our program detects each episodic movement and extracts large-scale statistics on motor patterns to produce a quantification of the locomotor repertoire. We used ZebraZoom to identify motor defects induced by a glycinergic receptor antagonist. The analysis of the blind mutant atoh7 revealed small locomotor defects associated with the mutation. Using multiclass supervised machine learning, ZebraZoom categorized all episodes of movement for each larva into one of three possible maneuvers: slow forward swim, routine turn, and escape. ZebraZoom reached 91% accuracy for categorization of stereotypical maneuvers that four independent experimenters unanimously identified. For all maneuvers in the data set, ZebraZoom agreed with four experimenters in 73.2–82.5% of cases. We modeled the series of maneuvers performed by larvae as Markov chains and observed that larvae often repeated the same maneuvers within a group. When analyzing subsequent maneuvers performed by different larvae, we found that larva–larva interactions occurred as series of escapes. Overall, ZebraZoom reached the level of precision found in manual analysis but accomplished tasks in a high-throughput format necessary for large screens.
Consumer Intention to Participate in Mobile Based Word-of-Mouth Activities : the Role of Incentive and Tie-Strength from Senders and Receivers Perspectives

Organizations continually explore the best method to achieve a competitive advantage through word-of-mouth activity. The development of technology and mobile technology in particular, has transformed human life profoundly because people can engage in word-of-mouth communication via mobile phones anytime and anywhere, especially via smart phones or so-called mobile-WOM (M-WOM) activities. The key actors for the success of M-WOM activities are senders and receivers; they are therefore the ones that the organization has to pay attention to. The intention of senders and receivers to engage in M-WOM activity is influenced by specific motivations, one of which is monetary gain. Nowadays, it is quite common for organizations to utilize monetary incentives to induce M-WOM activities, so-called incentivized M-WOM. Consequently, the organization has to consider components of incentives that apply to both the senders and receivers as the key actors in WOM activity. However, previous research has paid little attention to incentivized M-WOM and the role of senders and receivers as key players. The present study aims at investigating the senders and the receivers perspective in incentivized WOM activities by doing a series of experiments. The experiments use M-coupons as a M-WOM tool. The first part of the study looks at the senders perspective and attempts to answer the following questions: To whom should I send the M-coupon? Should it be a strong-tie or a weak-tie receiver? Should it be a deal prone receiver or non-deal prone receiver? For the first part of the study, we employed a 2x2x2x2 research design, the elements of which being ‘incentive differentiation’ (different vs. no different) x ‘incentive conditionality’ (conditional vs. unconditional) x ‘incentive transparency’ (transparent vs. non-transparent) x ‘product’ (McDonalds vs. Starbucks). The second part of the study observes the receivers perspective. We adopt the theory of planned behavior (TPB) to analyze receivers attitudes and their intentions in redeeming the M-coupon, which was designed to have a particular monetary incentive. This second part of the study also utilizes a 2x2x2x2x2 research design using the same set of variables as in the sender study but including the additional variable ‘tie-strength’ (strong vs. weak). Using partial least squares (PLS), this study finds that if senders are asked to share an M-coupon with a differing incentive in it (i.e. senders obtain a higher incentive than the receivers) and if the information on the incentive is revealed for both sides, senders will share this coupon with strong-tie receivers. The Incentive differentiation also leads the senders to focus on targeting deal prone receivers. From the receivers perspectives they tend to have an unfavorable attitude toward incentivized WOM characterized by a differing incentive for senders and receivers, regardless of the relationship they have with the senders of these incentives.
Static Analysis to Model & Measure OO Paradigms

Object oriented development has proved its worth in today’s system because its design and development is better, reliable and easier to access than the traditional methodologies. Due to updated requirements and lack of documentation in old systems has provided a motivation to revamp the systems. Rebuilding or redesigning the same system is highly expensive. To overcome this problem reverse engineering of the system is used as most suitable alternative. Field of reverse engineering is expanding its horizon day by day; it requires reusability not only at code level but also at higher level which can measure the analysis results and original system. Reverse engineering, strategy has been developed to analyse and modeling the OO files by designing the translator. It models and measures the OO by using traditional metrics and new encapsulation metrics (Public Factor (PuF) & Private Factor (PrF)) essential for developing the good software. In this work we tried to refine metrics especially for object-oriented programming and set of these metrics has been defined.
Preparation and characterization of copper oxide nanoparticles and determination of enhancement in critical heat flux

The main focus of the present work is to prepare the CuO nanoparticles by economical Sol-Gel method and further to prepare the CuO nanofluid with base fluid as deionised water. The size of nanoparticles is determined by Debye- Scherer formula and size of the particles is conformed 20.4054nm. Critical heat flux characteristics of nanofluid were investigated with different weight concentrations of CuO nanoparticles. The experimental work revealed an increase in critical heat flux value just about 57.26 percent. Surface roughness of heater surface is measured for all weight concentrations of nanofluid which shows increase in Ra value up to some extent is a cause to enhance CHF.
FEEDBACK AND FEEDFORWARD TRACKING CONTROL FOR NETWORKED CONTROL SYSTEMS

Abstract— In this paper, we investigate the feedback and feedforward tracking control problem for networked control systems under the discrete-time framework. The network-induced delays both on the network links from sampler to the controller and from the controller to the actuator are considered. By studying the network property, we assume that there is a probability for the occurrence of each delay within a known set. We design a controller for each network-induced delay. Using the lifting technique twice, the tracking problem of the networked control systems is transferred to a feedback control problem for stochastic systems without delays. The stochastic stability and H∞ performance of the obtained closed-loop stochastic systems are both studied, and the criteria are given via a linear matrix inequality and a linear matrix equality. The controller design approach is proposed by solving a nonlinear trace minimization problem.
Multiple-cohort genetic association study reveals CXCR6 as a new chemokine receptor involved in long-term nonprogression to AIDS.

BACKGROUND The compilation of previous genomewide association studies of AIDS shows a major polymorphism in the HCP5 gene associated with both control of the viral load and long-term nonprogression (LTNP) to AIDS. METHODS To look for genetic variants that affect LTNP without necessary control of the viral load, we reanalyzed the genomewide data of the unique LTNP Genomics of Resistance to Immunodeficiency Virus (GRIV) cohort by excluding "elite controller" patients, who were controlling the viral load at very low levels (<100 copies/mL). RESULTS The rs2234358 polymorphism in the CXCR6 gene was the strongest signal (P=2.5 x 10(-7); odds ratio, 1.85) obtained for the genomewide association study comparing the 186 GRIV LTNPs who were not elite controllers with 697 uninfected control subjects. This association was replicated in 3 additional independent European studies, reaching genomewide significance of P(combined)=9.7 x 10(-10). This association with LTNP is independent of the CCR2-CCR5 locus and the HCP5 polymorphisms. CONCLUSIONS The statistical significance, the replication, and the magnitude of the association demonstrate that CXCR6 is likely involved in the molecular etiology of AIDS and, in particular, in LTNP, emphasizing the power of extreme-phenotype cohorts. CXCR6 is a chemokine receptor that is known as a minor coreceptor in human immunodeficiency virus type 1 infection but could participate in disease progression through its role as a mediator of inflammation.