Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Time for Geriatric Jurisprudence

Geriatrics and law may not be natural bedfellows. Moreover, law and lawyers were not part of the professions that were the ‘founding fathers’ of the field of geriatrics. In this short viewpoint we invite the readers to consider a new inter-disciplinary research approach that attempts to combine jurisprudence with geriatrics. Geriatric jurisprudence is a special and timely opportunity for doctors and lawyers to come together in a new, different and more united way to jointly conceptualize a medico-legal theory of aging to better serve our shared community: older and aging persons.
Focus Groups as a Knowledge Elicitation Technique: An Exploratory Survey

The authors examine whether one technique for group knowledge elicitation, focus groups, can provide different thoughts and judgments about a problem than individual interviews. The experimental situation was based on the resolution of an ill-structured problem by experienced subjects in a field setting. Videotaped scenarios were used to describe the situation for knowledge acquisition. Ten subjects were used, five for individual interviews and five for the focus groups. It was found that focus groups performed better in generating original responses than individual interviews and that focus groups were at least as good as individual interviews in terms of the quality and acceptability of ideas. >
Long-Term Drivers of Food and Nutrition Security

The 2015 Global Hunger Index suggests that despite progress in reducing hunger worldwide, hunger levels in 52 of 117 countries in the 2015 Global Hunger Index remain “serious” or “alarming. ” Since achieving and maintaining food and nutrition security (FNS) remains a goal for all countries, it is important to understand the individual, national, and global factors that affect FNS. This paper proposes an analytical framework to identify and analyze the respective roles of key long-term drivers of FNS. We start by identifying what the key variables affecting FNS are at the household and country level, and then we continue by defining what the main exogenous or endogenous drivers affecting these variables are. We discuss the key drivers of both aggregated food supply and demand and therefore their impact on prices. Specifically, for aggregated food demand, we discuss demographic factors, income growth, changes in dietary preferences, aggregated domestic distortions, and overall quality of the food system. With respect to the drivers of aggregated food supply, we discuss land available for food products and the drivers behind land availability, the share of waste/losses generated by the food system, and the normalized average yield. We define yield as the amount of nutrients produced by unit of land. It depends both on the physical yield of the crop or the livestock and on the quality of the food produced. It also can be affected by the changes in production patterns linked to the different dietary patterns of the consumers and by climate change. We emphasize the fact that in many cases, key drivers may have ambiguous effects on the FNS situation of different agents. For instance, more liberal trade policies will affect real income, terms of trade, demand and supply, returns of factors, foreign direct investments, and food prices and thus may lead to the improvement of the global-level FNS, that is, the FNS of the majority of the population. At the same time, more liberal trade policies may bring food insecurity to some households. Therefore, careful quantitative assessment is needed for each policy option. Finally, we propose a typology of variables that will help modelers adapt their models to study the different drivers through both direct and indirect effects.
Acute respiratory symptoms in adults in general practice

Abstract Background. Community studies have shown that ∼30% of patients with acute respiratory tract symptoms have no identifiable infective aetiology. This may not be applicable in general practice. Objective. The purpose of this study was to determine the infective aetiology in patients who presented to primary care doctors with acute respiratory symptoms. Methods. A prospective study was carried out in all nine primary care clinics belonging to the National Healthcare Group Polyclinics (NHGPs) in Singapore. The subjects comprised 594 consecutive patients (318 males, 276 females) aged ≥21 years who presented with complaints of any one of cough, nasal or throat symptoms of <7 days duration. Data collection was through interview using structured questionnaire, physical examination, throat swabs for bacterial culture and nasal swabs for virus identification by immunofluorescence (IF) and polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Additional PCR was performed on a subsample of 100 patients. Patients were followed-up until resolution of symptoms. Results. The aetiological diagnosis by infective agent is as follows: 150 patients (25.2%) had virus infections, of which 90.7% (136/150) were by rhinovirus. Fourteen patients (2.4%) had bacterial infections, of which 10 were due to group G streptococcus. Group A streptococcus was not detected. Nineteen patients with new pathogens were identified by further PCR. These included parainfluenza 4, human coronavirus OC43, adenovirus, enterovirus and Chlamydia pneumoniae. No pathogen could be identified in 49% of patients. There were no differences in clinical presentation and socio-demographic variables between patients who had viral infections and those in whom no pathogen could be identified. Conclusion. In about half of patients who presented at NHGPs, no pathogens could be identified even after PCR. A non-infective aetiology could be considered in these patients.
Molecular and Cellular Pathobiology Rb 1 Haploinsuf fi ciency Promotes Telomere Attrition and Radiation-Induced Genomic Instability

Germline mutations of the retinoblastoma gene (RB1) predispose to both sporadic and radiation-induced osteosarcoma, tumors characterized by high levels of genomic instability, and activation of alternative lengthening of telomeres. Mice with haploinsufficiency of the Rb1 gene in the osteoblastic lineage reiterate the radiation susceptibility to osteosarcoma seen in patients with germline RB1 mutations. We show that the susceptibility is accompanied by an increase in genomic instability, resulting from Rb1-dependent telomere erosion. Radiation exposure did not accelerate the rate of telomere loss but amplified the genomic instability resulting from the dysfunctional telomeres. These findings suggest that telomere maintenance is a noncanonical caretaker function of the retinoblastoma protein, such that its deficiency in cancer may potentiate DNA damageinduced carcinogenesis by promoting formation of chromosomal aberrations, rather than simply by affecting cellcycle control. Cancer Res; 73(14); 1–9. 2013 AACR.
Serum heart-type fatty acid binding protein levels in acromegaly patients

Background: Heart-type fatty acid-binding protein (H-FABP) is a major cytoplasmic low molecular weight protein and released into the circulation when the myocardium is injured. Previous studies have demonstrated that H-FABP is closely associated with acute coronary syndrome, hypertrophic and dilated cardiomyopathy, heart failure, stroke, obstructive sleep apnea syndrome, and pulmonary embolism. The aim of this study was to investigate serum H-FABP value in patients with acromegaly. Methods and results: We measured serum H-FABP levels in 30 consecutive patients with acromegaly, and 55 age-matched control subjects by using a sandwich enzymelinked immunosorbent assay. Serum H-FABP levels were significantly higher in patients with acromegaly than in control subjects (17.40±10.70, and 8.30±7.20, respectively) (p<0.001). A significant positive correlation was found by Spearman’s correlation test between serum H-FABP levels and left ventricular end-systolic diameter (r=0.483, p=0.004). Conclusion: Patients with acromegaly have increased levels of H-FABP. Serum H-FABP levels might be a marker of myocardial performance in patients with acromegaly.
Innate immune responses to Mycobacterium ulcerans via toll‐like receptors and dectin‐1 in human keratinocytes

Mycobacterium ulcerans (MU), an environmental pathogen, causes Buruli ulcer, a severe skin disease. We hypothesized that epidermal keratinocytes might not be a simple barrier, but play a role during MU infection through pattern‐recognition receptors expressed in keratinocytes. We found that keratinocyte Toll‐like receptors (TLRs) 2 and 4 and Dectin‐1 actively participate in the innate immune response to MU, which includes the internalization of bacteria, the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS), and the expression of chemokines and LL‐37. Human keratinocytes constitutively expressed TLRs 2 and 4 and induced Dectin‐1 in response to MU. Exposing keratinocytes to MU resulted in rapid ROS production, which in turn contributed to the mRNA and protein expression of LL‐37. In addition, TLR2, Dectin‐1 and, to an extent, TLR4 are essential for the MU‐mediated expression of CXCL8, CCL2 and LL‐37 in keratinocytes. Furthermore, confocal analysis showed that the Dectin‐1 is necessary for keratinocytes to internalize bacilli. Importantly, blockade of ROS and LL‐37 significantly increased the intracellular MU growth in keratinocytes, suggesting an important role of these mediators for cutaneous innate immune responses. Our results demonstrate that TLR2, TLR4 and Dectin‐1 actively sense, internalize and respond in an innate way to MU in human epidermal keratinocytes.
A New CPU Availability Prediction Model for Time-Shared Systems

The success of different computing models, performance analysis, and load balancing algorithms depends on the processor availability information because there is a strong relationship between a process response time and the processor time available for its execution. Therefore, predicting the processor availability for a new process or task in a computer system is a basic problem that arises in many important contexts. Unfortunately, making such predictions is not easy because of the dynamic nature of current computer systems and their workload, which can vary drastically in a short interval of time. This paper presents two new availability prediction models. The first, called the SPAP (static process assignment prediction) model, is capable of predicting the CPU availability for a new task on a computer system having information about the tasks in its run queue. The second, called the DYPAP (dynamic process assignment prediction) model, is an improvement of the SPAP model and is capable of making these predictions from real-time measurements provided by a monitoring tool, without any kind of information about the tasks in the run queue. Furthermore, the implementation of this monitoring tool for Linux workstations is presented. In addition, the results of an exhaustive set of experiments are reported to validate these two models and to evaluate the accuracy of their predictions.
A rapid, simple spectrophotometric method for simultaneous detection of nitrate and nitrite.

Numerous methods are available for measurement of nitrate (NO(-)(3)). However, these assays can either be time consuming or require specialized equipment (e.g., nitrate reductase, chemiluminescent detector). We have developed a method for simultaneous evaluation of nitrate and nitrite concentrations in a microtiter plate format. The principle of this assay is reduction of nitrate by vanadium(III) combined with detection by the acidic Griess reaction. This assay is sensitive to 0.5 microM NO(-)(3) and is useful in a variety of fluids including cell culture media, serum, and plasma. S-Nitrosothiols and L-arginine derivatives were found to be potential interfering agents. However, these compounds are generally minor constituents of biological fluids relative to the concentration of nitrate/nitrite. This report introduces a new, convenient assay for the stable oxidation products of nitrogen oxide chemistry in biological samples.
Functional verification of intellectual properties (IP): a simulation-based solution for an application-specific instruction-set processor

Scalability and customization properties of IP modules demand for new approaches in functional verification. We present a novel simulation-based solution for an Application-specific Instruction-set Processor (ASIP). Existing assembler code preselected by IP-configurable constraints forms the verification data base (reference stimuli). A behavioral "golden model" of the IP is used to derive expected responses suitable for any possible configuration of the final ASIP (RTL) implementation. Cycle-based verification is performed by stimulating the RTL model with the assembled reference stimuli and by comparing the outputs (actual responses) against the expected responses. Primary input stimulation is accomplished by reading back interface data prior written to a memory (model) under control of the reference stimuli. The synchronization of the configaration-dependent actual responses to the non-cycle-related expected responses is achieved by a mechanism based on "interface-specific activity scheduling", which further more reduces the number of vectors efficiently, resulting in a significant simulation speed-up.
Performance Management, High-Powered Incentives, and Environmental Policies in China

ABSTRACT China has a highly centralized bureaucracy that is no longer strictly monitored by political loyalty but by governance performance (e.g., economic growth), rewarded with promotion and monetary incentives. In the early 2000s, environmental criteria were added to this system. As part of this effort, a high-powered performance management system was introduced in 2006. It held high-level provincial officials, who are part of the nomenklatura, personally responsible for meeting specific emissions targets. Using data from China Statistics Yearbooks and several official news archives, the empirical results indicate that the implementation of the new performance management system reduced emissions only for air pollutants, which are the most publicly visible among the targeted pollutants. Water pollution, which is less visible but also a mandated target, was unaffected. Emissions of soot, an untargeted pollutant, were also unaffected. The findings imply that, even in centrally managed systems like China, compliance with a high-stakes reward for measured performance is not universal.
Genetic Alterations and Their Relationship in the Phosphatidylinositol 3-Kinase/Akt Pathway in Thyroid Cancer

Purpose: To investigate the overall occurrence and relationship of genetic alterations in the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K)/Akt pathway in thyroid tumors and explore the scope of this pathway as a therapeutic target for thyroid cancer. Experimental Design: We examined collectively the major genetic alterations and their relationship in this pathway, including PIK3CA copy number gain and mutation, Ras mutation, and PTEN mutation, in a large series of primary thyroid tumors. Results: Occurrence of any of these genetic alterations was found in 25 of 81 (31%) benign thyroid adenoma (BTA), 47 of 86 (55%) follicular thyroid cancer (FTC), 21 of 86 (24%) papillary thyroid cancer (PTC), and 29 of 50 (58%) anaplastic thyroid cancer (ATC), with FTC and ATC most frequently harboring these genetic alterations. PIK3CA copy gain was associated with increased PIK3CA protein expression. A mutual exclusivity among these genetic alterations was seen in BTA, FTC, and PTC, suggesting an independent role of each of them through the PI3K/Akt pathway in the tumorigenesis of the differentiated thyroid tumors. However, coexistence of these genetic alterations was increasingly seen with progression from differentiated tumor to undifferentiated ATC. Their coexistence with BRAF mutation was also frequent in PTC and ATC. Conclusions: The data provide strong genetic implication that aberrant activation of PI3K/Akt pathway plays an extensive role in thyroid tumorigenesis, particularly in FTC and ATC, and promotes progression of BTA to FTC and to ATC as the genetic alterations of this pathway accumulate. Progression of PTC to ATC may be facilitated by coexistence of PI3K/Akt pathway–related genetic alterations and BRAF mutation. The PI3K/Akt pathway may thus be a major therapeutic target in thyroid cancers.
Mapping Mel sub-band energies using Deep belief network for robust speech recognition

Sub-band speech processing is well-known in robust speech recognition. On the other hand, in recent years, deep neural networks (DNNs) have been widely used in speech recognition for acoustic modeling and also feature extraction and transformation. In this paper, we propose to use deep belief network (DBN) as a post-processing method for de-noising in Mel sub-band level where we enhance logarithm of Mel filter bank energies (LMFBs). In addition, we use DBN for extracting tandem features (posterior probability of phones occurrence) from de-noised LMFBs (obtained from previous stage) to obtain more robust and discriminative features. The final robust feature vector consists of de-noised LMFBs concatenated to mentioned tandem features. Evaluation results on Aurora2 database show that the proposed feature vector performs better than similar and conventional techniques, where it increases recognition accuracy in average by 55.12% in comparison to LMFBs.
Human Microbiota Characterization in the Course of Renal Transplantation

Recent studies demonstrate that the human microbiota, the collection of microorganisms growing on and in individuals, have numerous bidirectional interactions with the host, influencing immunity, resistance to infection, inflammation and metabolism. Little has been done to study the potential associations between microbiota composition and transplant outcome. Here, we investigated the longitudinal changes in the blood, urinary, oral and rectal microbiota of renal allograft recipients before and at 1 and 6 months after transplantation. The results showed major changes in microbiota composition as a result of the transplant episode and associated medications, and these changes persisted over time. The high interindividual variation as well as differences in response to transplantation suggested that it is unlikely that the same specific microbiota members can serve as universal diagnostic markers. Rather, longitudinal changes in each individual's microbiota have the potential to be indicative of health or disease. Use of sensitive nucleic acid–based testing showed that urine, irrespective of disease states, more often harbors a diverse microbiota than appreciated by conventional culture techniques. These results lay the groundwork to construct more comprehensive future investigations to identify microbiota characteristics that can serve as diagnostic markers for transplant health and to guide intervention strategies to improve transplant outcome.
An equivalent dipole-moment method combined with multilevel adaptive cross approximation for PEC targets

A novel hybrid method is proposed for solving electromagnetic scattering problem of three-dimensional perfect electric conducting (PEC) targets with electrically large size. In this work, we use the equivalent dipole-moment method (EDM) to accelerate the near region interactions in the multilevel adaptive cross approximation (MLACA) via solving the surface integral equation (SIE). Compared with the conventional MLACA, the time of near region interactions can be much reduced using Rao-Wilton-Glisson (RWG) basis functions. On the other hand, the proposed method can save memory requirement of the EDM from O(N2) to O(N4/3 log N), where N is the number of unknowns. Numerical results are presented to validate the efficiency and accuracy of this method.
IT certifications, outsourcing and information systems personnel turnover

Purpose – The paper aims to examine the factors that influence the turnover intention of information system (IS) personnel.Design/methodology/approach – Anchored in the theory of human capital and the theory of planned behavior, as well as an extensive review of existing turnover literature, the authors propose a novel set of variables based on the three‐level analysis framework suggested by Joseph et al. to examine IS turnover intention. At the individual level, IT certifications, IT experience, and past external and internal turnover behaviors are considered. At the firm level, industry type (IT versus non‐IT firms) and IT human resource practices regarding raise and promotion are included. Finally, at the environmental level, personal concerns about external changes characterized by IT outsourcing and offshoring are studied. The authors investigate the impact of these variables on turnover intention using a large sample of 10,085 IT professionals working in the USA.Findings – The empirical analysis bas.
Permutation tests for centre effect on survival endpoints with application in an acute myeloid leukaemia multicentre study

When analysing multicentre data, it may be of interest to test whether the distribution of the endpoint varies among centres. In a mixed‐effect model, testing for such a centre effect consists in testing to zero a random centre effect variance component. It has been shown that the usual asymptotic χ2 distribution of the likelihood ratio and score statistics under the null does not necessarily hold. In the case of censored data, mixed‐effects Cox models have been used to account for random effects, but few works have concentrated on testing to zero the variance component of the random effects. We propose a permutation test, using random permutation of the cluster indices, to test for a centre effect in multilevel censored data. Results from a simulation study indicate that the permutation tests have correct type I error rates, contrary to standard likelihood ratio tests, and are more powerful. The proposed tests are illustrated using data of a multicentre clinical trial of induction therapy in acute myeloid leukaemia patients. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Adenovirus vaccination against neu oncogene exerts long‐term protection from tumorigenesis in BALB/neuT transgenic mice

The transforming rat HER2/neu oncogene (neu), when embedded in the genome of transgenic BALB/c (neuT) mice, provokes the development of an invasive carcinoma in each of their 10 mammary glands. We used the neuT mice model system to evaluate the immunization efficiency and the protective effect of intramuscular injection of adenovirus (Ad) and/or of DNA with electrostimulation (DNA+ES), both expressing the rat p185neu protein. A neu cDNA sequence, which exclusively contains codons preferred by highly expressed mammalian genes, was used in this study. This “optimized” cDNA displayed higher expression in cultured cells and greater cell‐mediated response than the original gene when injected as DNA+ES. Ad expressing the optimized sequence (Ad5‐neu.opt) induced a higher immune response, as measured by the frequency of IFN‐γ‐secreting spleen cells and antibody titers. Different Ad/DNA combinations and immunization schedules confirmed the superiority of Ad5‐neu.opt in inducing a strong Th1‐skewed humoral and CD8+ cell‐mediated response. Two Ad5‐neu.opt injections of 109 viral particles at week 10 and 12 were sufficient to induce the highest response, which persisted at detectable levels up to 33 weeks of age. Anti‐Ad5 antibodies elicited by previous injections neutralized the effect of an additional Ad5‐neu.opt immunization at week 19. A group, which received 3 injections of DNA+ES at week 23, 27 and 31, in addition to the 3 Ad injections at week 10, 12 and 19 showed an increased frequency of IFN‐γ+, CD8+ PBMC at week 25, which persisted at detectable levels till week 38. Ad5‐neu.opt administration at 10 and 12 weeks of age had a significant impact on tumor progression. At 44 weeks, 40% of the mice were completely protected from tumors with a mean tumor of 3.8. In contrast, control mice developed 10 tumors and died by week 27. Vaccination blocked the tumor development at the atypical hyperplasia stage present at the time of treatment. Tumors developing at later times express reduced levels of rat p185neu protein. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.