Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Compounded bioidentical hormone therapy: identifying use trends and knowledge gaps among US women

Objective:Two surveys (Harris and Rose surveys) were conducted to quantify the use of compounded hormone therapy (CHT; or bioidentical hormone therapy) among perimenopausal and postmenopausal women in the United States, to assess women's knowledge of CHT versus Food and Drug Administration (FDA)–approved hormone therapy, and to gather information on menopausal experience. Methods:The Harris survey was administered to 801 women aged 45 to 60 years who had experienced at least one menopausal symptom. The Rose survey was administered to 2,044 women aged 40 years or older who were ever users of hormone therapy. Women were queried about menopausal symptoms, hormone therapy use, and knowledge of CHT. Findings from the Rose survey were extrapolated using US Census Bureau data and prescription claims for FDA-approved hormone therapy to estimate the prevalence of CHT use. Results:According to extrapolations using Rose data, up to 2.5 million US women aged 40 years or older may use CHT annually, accounting for 28% to 68% of hormone therapy prescriptions. Harris data showed that 86% of women surveyed were unaware that CHT products are not FDA-approved. The Rose survey asked a subset of 1,771 women whether their hormone therapy had been personalized based on hormone levels; 21% (378) answered “yes” whereas 27% (476) did not know. In both surveys, most hormone therapy users stated that their physician had recommended the treatment. Conclusions:We estimate that 1 million to 2.5 million US women aged 40 years or older use CHT. The data suggest that many women are unaware that compounded hormones have not been evaluated or approved by the FDA. Providers have an educational opportunity to ensure that women considering hormone therapy understand the risks and benefits of inadequately regulated CHT.
Restructuring performance prediction with a rebalanced and clustered support vector machine

This paper discusses whether asset restructuring can improve firm performance over decades. Variation in the stock price or the financial ratio is used as the dependent variable of either shortâ€ or longâ€ term effectiveness to evaluate the variance both before and after asset restructuring. The result is varied. It is necessary to develop a foresight approach for the mixed situation. This work pioneers to forecast effectiveness of asset restructuring with a rebalanced and clustered support vector machine (RCS). The profitability variation 1Â year before and after asset restructuring is used as the dependent variable. The current financial indicators of the year of asset restructuring are used as independent variables. Specially treated listed companies are used as research samples, as they frequently adopt asset restructuring. In modeling, the skew distribution of samples achieving and failing to achieve performance improvement with asset restructuring is handled with rebalancing. The similar experienced knowledge of asset restructuring to the current asset restructuring is filtered out with clustering. With the help from rebalancing and clustering, a support vector machine is constructed for prediction, together with other forecasting models of multivariate discriminant analysis, logistic regression, probit regression, and caseâ€ based reasoning. These models' standalone modes are used as benchmarks. The empirical results demonstrate the applicability of the RCS for forecasting effectiveness of asset restructuring.
Design of a D2D Overlay for Next Generation LTE

With the ever-growing popularity of smartphones, new services are emerging where the local and positioning aspects becomes more important. Additionally, new types of traffic, such as vehicle-to-vehicle communications are being developed. In order to address these new trends, release-12 of LTE has started to evaluate, and possibly standardize, solutions for device-to-device (D2D) communication. This provides the foundations for the deployment of a D2D overlay. However, this should be viewed as a first step, and future LTE releases should encompass more advanced D2D communication techniques and architectures. In this paper, after reviewing the standardization progress for LTE in release-12, several possible improvements are examined for future releases both D2D discovery and communication. It is shown that the future D2D architecture should exploit the network when possible in order to provide an improved user experience and satisfy the need for more local services.
Recovery from the Asian Financial Crisis: The Importance of Non‐Monetary Financial Factors

While it is widely accepted that monetary factors play an integral role in macroeconomic outcomes, Bernanke's () seminal paper highlights the significant role that non‐monetary financial factors played in the downturn and recovery (or lack thereof) from the Great Depression of the 1930s in the USA. This paper explores whether Bernanke's findings can be applied to the recovery from the East Asian financial crisis of 1997–98. We show that non‐monetary financial factors played an important role in how quickly East Asian nations recovered in the years following 1998. Unlike the US experience during the Great Depression, East Asian nations generally implemented positive non‐monetary financial reforms that helped speed recovery. We find that factors correlated with a healthy banking system had a significant, positive effect upon economic growth from 1999 to 2006 and that bank system health was particularly important in those East Asian countries that had traditionally weaker banking systems. Our findings suggest that the reform of financial institutions—such as strengthening financial sector supervision and implementing prudent regulations—should be given more attention when policies are devised to help economies recover from financial crises.
Top five medical innovations in China mainland since Xinhai revolution [1911]: results of AME survey-002.

OBJECTIVE This survey aims to scrutinize important medical innovations in Chinese mainland since Xinhai (Hsin-hai) revolution in 1911, which marked the end of Manchurian imperial rule and the beginning of China's republican era. METHODS An online cross-sectional survey was carried out during the period of Dec 29, 2014 to Feb 5, 2015, totaling 37 days. The survey was conducted on the platform provided by DXY (www.dxy.cn), which is the largest medical and paramedical related website in China. An email was sent to all DXY registered users to invite them to participate in a 5-minute survey. The participants were asked to nominate up to four important medical innovations in China mainland since Xinhai revolution. The participant could select 'zero' which means he/she felt there was no important medical innovations, or he/she did not know important medical innovations. It was noted that important medical innovations refer to (I) those with practical and almost immediate significance to improve healthcare; (II) should not only be introducing western technique to China, but those involve major improvement of existing western techniques count; (III) should not be those with important theoretical discovery but did not have almost immediate significance to improve healthcare. RESULTS In total 1,513 DXY users participated in the voting. Totally 489 (32.3%), 441 (29.1%), 342 (22.6%), 150 (9.9%), 91 (6.0%) participants provided 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 nominations respectively. (I) Artemisine (Qinghaosu) for malaria treatment (Project 523 team, 1972); (II) arsenic Trioxide (As2O3) for acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) treatment (ZHANG Ting-Dong and colleagues, 1970s); (III) limb re-plantation (CHEN Zhong-Wei and colleagues, 1963); (IV) all-trans retinoic acid (ATRA) for APL treatment (WANG Zhen-Yi and colleagues, 1988); and (V) Wu's mask for plague prevention (WU Lien-The, 1910), were voted as the top five innovations in China mainland since Xinhai revolution, with 375, 96, 91, 53, and 8 votes respectively. CONCLUSIONS In this voting exercise, five achievements were voted as top innovations in China mainland since Xinhai revolution. However, only ATRA for APL treatment was accomplished after the ending of Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in year 1976 in China.
Early and lethal neurodegeneration with myasthenic and myopathic features

Objective: To describe the presentation and identify the cause of a new clinical phenotype, characterized by early severe neurodegeneration with myopathic and myasthenic features. Methods: This case study of 5 patients from 3 families includes clinical phenotype, serial MRI, electrophysiologic testing, muscle biopsy, and full autopsy. Genetic workup included whole exome sequencing and segregation analysis of the likely causal mutation. Results: All 5 patients showed severe muscular hypotonia, progressive cerebral atrophy, and therapy-refractory epilepsy. Three patients had congenital contractures. All patients died during their first year of life. In 2 of our patients, electrophysiologic testing showed abnormal decrement, but treatment with pyridostigmine led only to temporary improvement. Causative mutations in ALG14 were identified in all patients. The mutation c.220 G>A (p.Asp74Asn) was homozygous in 2 patients and heterozygous in the other 3 patients. Additional heterozygous mutations were c.422T>G (p.Val141Gly) and c.326G>A (p.Arg109Gln). In all cases, parents were found to be heterozygous carriers. None of the identified variants has been described previously. Conclusions: We report a genetic syndrome combining myasthenic features and severe neurodegeneration with therapy-refractory epilepsy. The underlying cause is a glycosylation defect due to mutations in ALG14. These cases broaden the phenotypic spectrum associated with ALG14 congenital disorders of glycosylation as previously only isolated myasthenia has been described.
Evolutionary Dynamics of Immune-Related Genes and Pathways in Disease-Vector Mosquitoes

Mosquitoes are vectors of parasitic and viral diseases of immense importance for public health. The acquisition of the genome sequence of the yellow fever and Dengue vector, Aedes aegypti (Aa), has enabled a comparative phylogenomic analysis of the insect immune repertoire: in Aa, the malaria vector Anopheles gambiae (Ag), and the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster (Dm). Analysis of immune signaling pathways and response modules reveals both conservative and rapidly evolving features associated with different functional gene categories and particular aspects of immune reactions. These dynamics reflect in part continuous readjustment between accommodation and rejection of pathogens and suggest how innate immunity may have evolved.
One third of Japanese patients with rheumatoid arthritis use complementary and alternative medicine

We investigated the prevalence and predictors of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use by patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in Japan. A cross-sectional descriptive study was performed using the database from a large observational cohort of RA patients in the Institute of Rheumatology, Tokyo Women's Medical University. Logistic regression analysis was carried out to reveal predictive factors for CAM use. Among 3815 RA patients, 1321 (34.6%; 174 males, 1147 females) used at least one type of CAM. Health foods, including dietary supplements, were the most commonly used. CAM was more frequently used by female patients (odds ratio: 0.578; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.451–0.740). A multiple logistic regression analysis revealed that sex (odds ratio: 0.489; 95% CI = 0.333–0.718) and degree of satisfaction with disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs) (odds ratio: 0.899; 95% CI = 0.852–0.948) were significant independent predictive factors for CAM use. The serum C-reactive protein level and erythrocyte sedimentation rate showed no significant associations with CAM use. Approximately 35% of RA patients used CAM in Japan. Female patients and patients dissatisfied with DMARDs used CAM more frequently, regardless of their disease activity.
Laser and intense pulsed light hair removal technologies: from professional to home use

Light‐based hair removal (LHR) is one of the fastest growing, nonsurgical aesthetic cosmetic procedures in the United States and Europe. A variety of light sources including lasers, e.g. alexandrite laser (755 nm), pulsed diode lasers (800, 810 nm), Nd:YAG laser (1064 nm) and broad‐spectrum intense pulsed light (IPL, 590–1200 nm), are available and used widely for such procedures in dermatological/clinical settings under proper supervision. Patient selection and appropriate fluence settings are managed by professionals to maximize efficacy while minimizing adverse events. In the past 5 years, LHR devices have been sold directly to consumers for treatment in the home. In this review, we outline the principles underlying laser and IPL technologies and undertake an evidence‐based assessment of the short‐ and long‐term efficacy of the different devices available to the practising dermatologist and discuss the efficacy and human safety implications of home‐use devices.
Colorectal cancer screening knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs among veterans: does literacy make a difference?

PURPOSE To evaluate whether lower literacy is associated with poorer knowledge and more negative attitudes and beliefs toward colorectal cancer screening among veterans without recent colorectal cancer screening. PATIENTS AND METHODS Three hundred seventy-seven male veterans, age 50 years and older, who had not undergone recent colorectal cancer screening, were surveyed about their knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs regarding colorectal cancer screening. Patients' literacy was assessed with the Rapid Estimate of Adult Literacy in Medicine, an individually administered screening test for reading. RESULTS Thirty-six percent of the 377 men had an eighth grade literacy level or higher. Men with lower literacy were 3.5 times as likely not to have heard about colorectal cancer (8.8% v 2.5%; P =.006), 1.5 times as likely not to know about screening tests (58.4% v 40.9%; P =.0001), and were more likely to have negative attitudes about fecal occult blood testing (FOBT), but not about flexible sigmoidoscopy. Specifically, men with lower literacy skills were two times as likely to be worried that FOBT was messy (26.7% v 13.3%; P =.008), 1.5 times as likely to feel that FOBT was inconvenient (28.7% v 18%; P =.05), and four times as likely to state they would not use an FOBT kit even if their physician recommended it (17.9% v 4.0%; P =.02). CONCLUSION Limited literacy may be an overlooked barrier in colorectal cancer screening among veterans.
Oral glibenclamide suppresses glucagon secretion during insulin-induced hypoglycemia in patients with type 2 diabetes.

Intensifying pharmacological therapy in patients with type 2 diabetes increases the risk of hypoglycemia and often requires the simultaneous use of more than one agent. Combining insulin and sulfonylurea is an effective and frequently used therapy in such patients. However, sulfonylurea derivatives have been shown to affect the release of glucagon, indicating a possible effect of such therapy on hormonal counterregulation to hypoglycemia. Thirteen patients receiving combined therapy were studied on two occasions: 1) after a wash-out period of glibenclamide (-GLIB), and 2) after resuming combined treatment for 6 months (+GLIB). We performed nonstep-wise, hyperinsulinemic hypoglycemic clamps using a constant i.v. insulin infusion and clamping blood glucose at 2.7 mmol/L (48 mg/dL) for 60 min. C Peptide levels were significantly higher during + GLIB, but no significant differences were seen in peripheral plasma insulin levels (+GLIB mean +/- SD, 70 +/- 17 mU/L vs. -GLIB, 75 +/- 14; P = 0.26). Epinephrine responses were similar in the two tests, but when glibenclamide was present the glucagon response was smaller, both the peak value (P = 0.016) and the incremental area under the curve (P = 0.011) as well as the total area under the curve (P = 0.016). These results suggest that intraislet insulin secretion is of importance for the alpha-cell responsiveness to hypoglycemia in these patients.
Prevalence, evolution, and features of infection with human papillomavirus: A 15‐year longitudinal study of routine screening of a women population in the north of Spain

Determination of the prevalence of type‐specific human papillomavirus (HPV) is important for the development of new vaccines and to prevent malignancy. The objective of this study was to determine HPV infection in two areas in the north of Spain, and their evolution in the last 15 years. Between 1991 and 2007, 7,930 fresh cervical swabs were obtained from 5,554 women (37.8 ± 11.8 years old). From them, 425 have been followed‐up for an average of 3.7 ± 2.08 years after sampling (range 2–14.6), and 71 for 7.7 ± 2.2 years (range 5–14). Methods based on polymerase chain reaction (PCR) were carried out. Samples from 1,598 (28.8%) women were positive for HPV: 40.9% were under 25 years of age, 34.2% in the 25–35 year age group, 27.2% in the 36–45 year age group, and 19.6% older than 45 years (P < 0.001). HPV was found in 34.4% of the women with cytological alterations versus 23% of women without cervical changes (P < 0.0001). HPV‐16 was present in 25.8% of the women, although the study identified 26 different HPV genotypes. After 3 years of follow‐up, HPV remained or became undetectable in 87% of the cases, and in 5 years 70.3%. The prevalence of HPV is associated with younger women and women with cytological changes in the cervix. Although HPV‐16 is more prevalent, HPV types not included in available vaccines were found the most commonly. The low 3‐year (even 5‐year) cumulative incidence rate of HPV infection suggests that cervical screening every 3 (or even 5) years is safe and effective. J. Med. Virol. 82:597–604, 2010. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Overall Task Effectiveness: a new Lean performance indicator in engineer-to-order environment

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to propose a new Lean metric named Overall Task Effectiveness (OTE), which can help analyst to define target task times and to identify the hidden losses that account for most of the recorded time of manual assembly activities. Design/methodology/approach An alternative classification structure of the losses is developed to divide them in two classes. In the first one the losses that are external to the project order are included, and in the other one those due to inefficiencies directly ascribable to the project order are considered. Starting from this classification structure of the losses, a novel Lean metric, inspired from the well-known Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE), is developed to evaluate the effectiveness of a manual assembly task. A case study, which briefly explains the methodology and illustrates the capability of the corresponding metric, is provided. Findings This tool can be considered a suitable method to achieve simultaneously a dual purpose to establish time standards and to identify the hidden losses that account for most of the recorded time of manual assembly activities, estimating the impacts of potential corrective actions in terms of both efficiency and effectiveness. Practical implications OTE provides practitioners with an operative tool useful to highlight the points where the major inefficiencies take place in industries producing large complex items via manual assembly lines. Its practical application is demonstrated using a case study concerning a manufacturer of train wagons. Originality/value One distinctive, and contemporarily appealing, feature of OTE with respect to other analogous KPIs is that it provides a breakdown structure for process losses that simplifies the task of evaluating the current performances and, at the same time, individuates both the source of losses and the corresponding corrective actions.
How critical can critical be? Contesting security in Indonesia

ABSTRACT This paper examines discourses and practices of security in Indonesia. It does so in order to explore tensions between ethnographically generated accounts of security spaces and the broader security focus of international relations scholars. Looking at securitisation theory in relation to Indonesian security dynamics, it suggests that a model of security contestation better explains the ways in which political communities are constituted through the politicisation of security in Indonesia. The paper argues that there is a need to engage with and understand complex security dynamics on their own terms. It outlines a possible approach to achieving this aim by aggregating the reflexive inclinations of both the practice of ethnography in anthropology and critical security approaches to securitisation in international relations. It then shows how this approach can be utilised to engage critically with processes of contestation implicit to Indonesian security dynamics. In conclusion, it proposes ethnographic engagement as the basis for political critique central to securitisation as an interventionist project.
Motion parallax in electric sensing

Significance Through specific movements, animals can structure the dynamics of sensory inputs to optimize perception. In vision, side-to-side peering can provide distance information from visual parallax. Weakly electric fish exhibit swimming patterns reminiscent of visual peering, but there is no direct evidence that these fish use motion-related cues for electric sensing. Indeed, how a dynamic environment is perceived through an electrosensory lens remains unclear. By combining computational modeling and a behavioral test, we demonstrate that temporal dynamics, along with a dipole electric field geometry, generates a parallax-like cue that weakly electric fish from two independent taxa exploit for distance perception. Studying weakly electric fish will lead to a better understanding of active sensing and the fundamental principles of sensory processing. A crucial step in forming spatial representations of the environment involves the estimation of relative distance. Active sampling through specific movements is considered essential for optimizing the sensory flow that enables the extraction of distance cues. However, in electric sensing, direct evidence for the generation and exploitation of sensory flow is lacking. Weakly electric fish rely on a self-generated electric field to navigate and capture prey in the dark. This electric sense provides a blurred representation of the environment, making the exquisite sensory abilities of electric fish enigmatic. Stereotyped back-and-forth swimming patterns reminiscent of visual peering movements are suggestive of the active generation of sensory flow, but how motion contributes to the disambiguation of the electrosensory world remains unclear. Here, we show that a dipole-like electric field geometry coupled to motion provides the physical basis for a nonvisual parallax. We then show in a behavioral assay that this cue is used for electrosensory distance perception across phylogenetically distant taxa of weakly electric fish. Notably, these species electrically sample the environment in temporally distinct ways (using discrete pulses or quasisinusoidal waves), suggesting a ubiquitous role for parallax in electric sensing. Our results demonstrate that electrosensory information is extracted from sensory flow and used in a behaviorally relevant context. A better understanding of motion-based electric sensing will provide insight into the sensorimotor coordination required for active sensing in general and may lead to improved electric field-based imaging applications in a variety of contexts.